Written on November 21st:
Take it from me - if I was chasing an image of what a woman should
look like then I would never leave the house except dressed as a man
because quite frankly that's how my brain tells me I look. I'd be too
scared to go out if I thought I had to "pass" as some ideal or even
less-than-ideal picture of what a woman should be. Because my brain
looks at my face and tells me that I fail.
Somehow I
decided not to care about that - which isn't easy and some days I've
gone out terrified, physically shaking in fear. It has got easier. So
wandering round Wallsend and Newcastle today in the same skirt I wore
yesterday wasn't worrying in the slightest - neither was wandering round
Matalan and Tesco tonight in a rather shorter skirt.
I
was expecting hell for becoming Clare publicly - rejection from friends
and family, constant abuse and even violence in the streets. I'd read
stories and it's easier to absorb the stories of horror and suffering.
Fear could have stopped me doing anything, even with support at home.
But
the one thing worse than the worst of my fears - which haven't come to
pass - was not to transition. To remain as him knowing that I am me
would have led metaphorically, or possibly literally, to my death.
I
can't speak for anyone else, or advise anyone else, and understand the
massive range of ways of going about things that aren't any more right
or wrong then the others.
I can only speak for myself,
that coming out and starting to live as myself was about the scariest
thing I'd ever done but it turned out that most of the fear was
self-created and about imaginary phantoms. Some bad things did happen
and more may still happen - but if I'd left it 10 years most of them
would probably have still happened and I'd probably have been even more
terrified by the whole thing. It's been very difficult to jump in and
do this almost in no time from the point of coming out to myself with
the truth. But - in my case, not necessarily in anyone else's case - I
am very glad I did it. It would also have been very difficult for me
not to do it because of the agonising pain every day that I felt I
couldn't be myself. I'd go from weeping for joy at being me to weeping
in great anguish at not being able to be me - I pretty much cried myself
to sleep every night. It didn't take long to know that I had no choice
but to transition quickly and be very public because even if it had all
gone wrong then living as yourself is better than living as someone
else. Which didn't make telling anyone easy, the adrenalin mixed in
with the fear of rejection felt horrible. Every time. My mother
inadvertantly helped by accidentally leaking it on facebook to a number
of people at which point I thought "oh bugger it all" and went from
telling someone every 2-3 days to telling pretty much everyone in the
following week.
That's just me though - having lived
with crappy mental health for most of my life (long history of problems -
shrinks, 9 antidepressants, other meds, day hospitals and so on up
until 2009 but that year is another story of hell and learning) I could
see how much better, for me, this would be and how much of a joy it is
to be me in comparison with the despair of being him.
I'll
be working through the unforeseen consequences for a good long while.
So much has changed and is changing. The next year may be lead to some
unexpected places. Just as this year has led to unexpected places.
Seeds are being sown and I wonder which will grow and bear fruit.
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