Losing My Grip

It's getting worse.

No, that isn't right. The freak outs and breakdowns aren't getting worse. I'm losing my ability to deal with it. I'm already over the cliff's edge. I'm hanging on by my finger tips, and my fingers are worn out. I look down.. and can't seem to see the bottom.

It's wearing me out. The ups and downs. Even the ultra happy highs are wearing on me because the rush of uncontrollable energy will inevitably leave me wasted just in time to do something constructive. Then there is the fact that the ultra highs come with the ultra lows. The bizarre freak outs and breakdowns. When they actually come, there is nothing I can do. It has to run it's course. Nothing anyone has done has ever changed this. That is just the way my life is. Either irritatingly happy and full of energy.. nothing able to keep me down.. or an inconsolable wreck of a human being.

This time it was bad. After a brief flash of blinding anger.. I lost it. With nothing to take out my rage on I broke down. My mind tore itself apart as I paced about. Then I was an unmoving heap on the floor.

I don't know. I don't know. This was my chant. I had no idea what I was doing anymore. What I should do. What I should think.

Logically.. I knew I could move.. but I was unable to summon the willpower to do more than twitch a little. I'm not sure how long I stayed like that, but I eventually lifted myself into bed(luckily I "chose" to shut down right there) and curled in a ball. I cleared my head and batted away any thought before it was finished forming.. trying to save myself from my own mind.

Nothing.. nothing.. just think about nothing. That is how I saved myself. I imagine myself in a little bubble all curled up. Nothing in it but me. Just me. Nothing else. No thought. No sound. Just me.

It's the first time I took such strange steps to keep myself under control. I've had episodes before, but that was the first time I ever felt like my mind was just.. unraveling. I think the roller coaster has just worn me out. What I wouldn't give to be calm. Not happy.. not sad.. just calm. Mellow. Not a zombie, mind you. Just.. calm.

Just a normal calm girl. What wouldn't I give? Nothing. I'd do damn near anything for it.

Fashion Sense.. or lack thereof.

I have a bit of a confession to make..

Despite how utterly awesome I may appear to be, I am not hip. I am not with it. I'm not a cool cat. I'm not the paragon of.. uh..

Damn, I ran out of phrases.

I know! Seems impossible right? I am utterly perfect in every way.. how can it be true? Calm down, loyal subjects, for I will tell you what is going on. As you should all know by now, I started to transition in middle school. We've also established I wasn't aloud to just show up as a girl one day. That was asking for trouble. I (unhappily) agreed with my mother on that point.

I guess you could say I just got used to it. Initially, my choice in clothing was influenced by pure necessity. At first it was no big deal. Aside from wearing anything that screamed, "only girls wear this!" I was OK. In what seemed like no time at all, I was having to be careful about what I wore. I couldn't wear this shirt or that shirt unless I wanted to be known as the boy with breasts(and the figure to match). Loose tops.. or tops too big for me. Pants and shorts were less of an issue.. at least in what I could get away with wearing. I had to be more careful about what I bought to make sure I got something that would go over my fat butt. So tops that didn't fit and pants that did.

Probably.. yeah.. probably a bit of an 80s look going on.

I got used to it. By the time I could go full on I ended up not changing it. I added more items I wasn't aloud(skirts, hose, so on), but I stuck to the overall look. I developed a fondness for it. I used to want so badly to dress in the typical outfits for girls my age. By the time I was aloud I didn't think of switching. Sure I changed it up now and then, but I liked the look I had accidentally developed.

THE SHAME.

Though I hear the 80's look is coming back...

Though perhaps my efforts were for naught. It was pretty damn obvious by the end of middle school. My face, in particular, probably gave me away all too easily. Aside from normal effects of hormones, I have naturally full lips. My cheeks are pretty muscular.. making them fuller(I found out I wasn't normal in that regard when a dentist remarked how hard it was to work on me because of my cheek muscle). Overall I have a young face. I got comments on it plenty of times. Also..

"..Are you a girl..?"

That got asked plenty before I was done with middle school. The first time this got asked I stared at the person for a long moment(I must have looked absolutely startled).. then answered, "What do you think?" People around me would confirm my boy name and friends would confirm the identity.

Though perhaps it wasn't pointless. At least that way there was enough confusion over what was going on for me to be left unmolested.

At least I can pull the look off. I'm damn cute..

New Scouts For A New Age

I was in boys scouts since the 1st grade. If I recall correctly, you are called a Tiger Scout then. Only a wee cub scout. It was a good source of companionship for me. I think that is the only reason my mother kept me in it for as long as she did. It was fun at first.. but it turned creepy new age after a while. Not to mention a bunch of administrative BS sucked out all the life from it.

It was useful while it lasted though. Some of my only friends came from there. As scouts we were all on the same team. None of the typical childhood crap where kids single people out for random stupid things. If I had to do it all again.. I would enroll in scouts again for this simple fact. All things said and done, I had friends if nothing else. It was a necessary lifeline.. even if I never did learn anything useful(seriously.. the whole thing is a bit of a joke).

Things became particularly difficult when I started to transition. At first I didn't say anything. I knew it wouldn't be a wise idea sooner or later, and I didn't particularly like scouts. None of the activities appealed to me. At the time, scouts was nothing more than an annoyance I had to put up with from time to time. Something I was forced to waste my valuable free time on. As much as I disliked playing baseball.. I would have preferred to start doing that again than be in scouts.

What would I rather have done? Martial arts lessons. I wanted to do that for as long as I could remember, but the answer was always no. I'd have loved to start gymnastics again. I liked it a lot, and I was SO jealous of the leotards of the girls. I wanted so badly to wear one during classes. I was even good at gymnastics.

The last trip was absolutely awful. Camping.. for the better part of a week. It was near the end of my time in middle school. By then I was developing noticeably. A uniform too big for me took care of most of it, but you could still tell(especially since I hadn't grown into a big strapping lad like everyone else..). The ultimate test for passing is being able to go out in a sack and still passing. Blessing and a curse at that point in my life. Not like I had a choice. For some reason my mother wouldn't take me out of scouts.

Bad. Any kid not in my troop treated me like shit. The scout leaders.. anyone in a position of authority.. and kids not in my troop. This is very bad because... who do you turn to? No one in charge did anything to stop shit from happening. Worse. I got pushed relentlessly. No pity. If I fell behind? I got left behind(the only person this happened for..). The only thing that made this bearable was this one really cool guy there. Very tall, and he would sometimes stop and wait for me to catch up. He'd chat for a bit.. then speed on ahead. He was the most physically capable of anyone there, but he didn't care about staying ahead or impressing anyone. He was the only one I didn't already know that was nice to me. He was cute too.

*Dreamy sigh*

..Uh.. anyway.. Worst. Showers each night were.. open. There were stalls, but no doors. You had to take a shower. No choice. Everyone showered at the same time. I got around this by going to the bathroom with my stuff.. then hiding in the woods for a long time. Lots of deodorant. I didn't get caught either.. thank goodness. That would have been a disaster of epic proportions. I thought about huddling as far in the stall as I could and never facing the other way even a moment.. but. that idea was cast out the moment I stared at the array of weenies. I got out of there FAST.

I didn't have a single fun moment. There was even a ceremony for those going to the next level. Guess what? An "administrative error" that my leader outright refused to correct lead to me being a badge short of it. I got to sit in the dirt next to the bleachers the audience(parents) were in.

Goody goody gumdrops!

It was freezing that night too, but I am kind of glad I wasn't in it. The ceremony was.. utterly creepy and new age. The experiences on this trip were the last straw. Only one person in my whole group of friends continued scouts. Apparently we had all been treated like garbage. We didn't stay the whole time even. We left half way through. Everyone agreed.. NEVER AGAIN.

Honestly, I think they picked it up.. even if they didn't fully understand what was going on. I had overstayed my welcome by a long shot. I don't think the boy scouts approved of their scouts having long hair and tits.

Do Re Mi

I was such a big girl. Had it all figured out. No more confusion for me!

Right.

I do miss one thing from Middle School. Choir. I was good at it. Very good. Of course the teacher was amazing as well. She single handedly revived the school's boy's choir and got us awards.

Yeah, boys choir.

It was fun.. lots of work.. but I honestly had fun. I was good at it, but I couldn't solo for crap because of confidence issues. We had to work on a song in our own time for a big test. I think it was a midterm.. I forget. Well, on the day, staring at the camera and the teacher, I froze. My mouth opened and a little squeak came out. I promptly walked out of the room we were recording in and went back to my place. I could see the disappointment on her face. She knew I was good. I knew I was good. I just couldn't.. I panicked.

That one regret aside, I had fun. I was horribly shy about every performance, but I still enjoyed every moment somewhere deeeep inside. It was actually a blessing in disguise that I was in boys choir. The girl's was JAM PACKED. We barely had enough kids for a choir for the boys, but the girls had many more kids than one teacher is normally aloud. We got lots of individual attention. I could go on and on. Some of my more favorite performances. Just how AWESOME of a teacher we had(and a well known one at that), but I guess it is time to get to the point. I had to stand next to these other guys day after day. All of us slowly growing. Perfect chance to constantly compare myself to the others. They all changed so.. fast. It was irritating!

Yeah, I was jealous. For some odd reason I was jealous.

I felt like I was stuck in slow mo. Then there came the time that we(or rather, everyone else) was growing up enough to warrant splitting us into tenors and baritones. After lots of voice cracking (to the great frustration of our teacher) she got a voice range on us. Now, she had done this before when we first started to get an idea of what we were capable of, but it had to be done again. One by one we sung a simple song and got put on one side or the other. Then it came to me.

Tenor.

It was a strange feeling of disappointment. Like I didn't live up to some expectation of every boy. My voice was girly! Then I had a strange revelation. This was a good thing. I was on hormones. I didn't WANT my voice to get deeper. I should have been proud to be a tenor. The duality continued to kick my butt for a while though. I didn't want a deep voice, but all the guys around me got bigger.. got deeper voices. It was intimidating. At first it was only three on the baritone side. Then four. Then the tenor side was almost gone. At least we had much more people the next year.. so both sides had enough.

I do have one interesting story I got out of this. Eventually we participated in a performance where we had to sing with the girls at the same time. Same song. We prepared and prepared. This is how it would be if we went on to high school. Our teacher wanted us used to performing with the girls. I was having.. trouble. With only a few more practice sessions left, I was instructed to do something I'd never have expected. My teacher took me aside and told me I wasn't hitting the lower notes in the tenor range. I'd have to sing the girl parts(which were the same as the tenors except for a few parts where tenors went low). So yeah.. that was fun. I liked that. I couldn't make it as a baritone.. much less a tenor. Even THAT was too low for me. I was dragged aside.. probably because she didn't want to embarrass me in front of the guys. It WAS my last year in middle school though.. so maybe she caught on. By then it was.. how shall I say.. painfully obvious?

Either way.. fun stuff.

We interupt this broadcast...

Before I bring you more story on Monday(I have the next two already written... thinking of mon through fri and taking weekends off), I thought I'd share some random stories of trauma.

Still middle school for all these.

I have no clue what was going through my head at the time. My thoughts were just wandering through home room one day. Sitting at my desk.. staring nothing in particular. Suddenly.. tears. A flood of them. No reason at all. Suddenly everyone in the ENTIRE class was staring at me. The weird kid was crying again.. and this time no one even did anything. The teacher asked what was wrong.. did I want to go to the nurse? In my haste I grabbed onto the most recent(but still years old) big tragedy in my life. My grandfather died. Yeah, I had already processed and gotten over it, but who was I to not take advantage of my quick thinking and devious mind(I'm a better liar and fiend than I'd like to be.. much better)?

Sigh.. humiliating. I got called a crybaby enough before my transition. I cried at the drop of a hat. I didn't need that.

Then there was the time I got a bloody nose for sticking up for myself. I got routinely shoved around as if I wasn't present. I didn't matter.. I wasn't there. Well, one time I decided I had enough and said something. Rather, I shoved the jerk back then said something. POP.. bloody nose.

At least it stopped after busting some heads(ok.. so I lost it.. can you blame me?).. though most noticeably after chasing some squirt(smaller than ME.. seriously!) down the entire length of the school.. screaming for his head. The main hall was longer than a football field too.

I should have totally tried out for track..

In the Beginning

There was naught but darkness. Then God put up a disco ball and had a wild drunken party.

So here is where we start to slow down. We leave childhood behind. I'm officially a teenager. One with veins pumped full of estrogen no less. The estrogen was quite a good feeling at that. Calming.. like it belonged. Delicious, delicious estrogen. I'm not sure I would be sane without it. Ok, so I'm not sane, but I would be even less sane.

Of course it wasn't just happily ever after. There was a whole mountain of things I hadn't considered. I was very anxious to dive head first.. damn the torpedoes. I could have easily passed as an underdeveloped girl with my hair grown out. Luckily my mom had her head on her shoulders. She wouldn't buy me anything unless more time had passed. When I was ready to go full on girl. I'd be going gender neutral as much as possible.. wither I liked it or not.

I was heart broken. So close yet so far. To come all that way only to face setback. I knew just showing up at school as a girl was a bad idea, but I was still upset. Only a matter of time though. Only a matter of time. Still, it wasn't all bad. I was aloud to start growing my hair out, and I was never going to have to suffer a regular male puberty.

Still, it was only delaying the inevitable. D-day would come no matter what I did. I'd reach the point where I couldn't hide behind anything clothing choice. Questions would be asked, and the immaturity of the average middle schooler would kick in. I could only fly under the radar for so long. Though the further away that was the better. Eventually I came to terms with this. As much as I wanted it.. I didn't need to put myself in front of the firing squad. School wasn't going to last my whole life. The longer I could hold out the less I had to suffer.

I didn't have to go totally without though. I was able to get away with not getting a haircut. My hair grew like a WEED too. It always has. In no time I was deflecting questions about my hair. I was letting it grow? Why? No one teased me over it, thankfully. I simply said it was something I wanted to try. No one pushed me more than that. Though, I was getting a little annoyed after the millionth time of asking. No one teased me, but EVERYONE asked sooner or later. The few compliments I got were nice though. I don't think they realized how good that felt either. People liked my hair long. It looked good.. it suited me.

Stimpy> JOOOOOY!
Ren> *Whap* Quiet you fool!

At times I could tell myself I already looked like a girl.. or could pass for one easily if everyone didn't already know me as a boy. That helped me a lot, and I fantasized just that all the time. I was already there.. I just wasn't the type of girl to go super girly. I did enjoy the simple act of pretending I was just another girl in class. One would be amazed at how much expectation goes into the perception of how you look. It's easier to fool people into thinking you are another gender if no one knows better. They'll take it at face value. They'll unknowingly overlook the proof staring them in the face. It's actually kind of strange how much overlap their can be in the genders in this respect. I notice it all the time(I unknowingly trained myself in this while obsessing over my own looks.. if you look up Vanity my picture should be right there). Real men with less than manly features that no one notices. Beautiful women that, if you focus on the right features, could be men in drag!

What you expect alters what you see. I probably could have pulled it off, but it would have been a nightmare. The reactions. The paperwork. The paperwork. Did I mention the paperwork?

Coming out..

Angst angst angst.

Yeah, we are skipping ahead a lot for now, but again there isn't much to say. I did a lot of worrying about coming out. I was on the verge of telling my mom so many times. I mean I could feel the words forming in my mouth, but I could never do it under my own power. I knew how my parents would feel. My mother's feelings came out on the subject because of a day time talk show. Yeah, my teen is a transsexual or something like that. She.. didn't approve.. to put it mildly.

So how did it happen? I'm only 22 now, and I am already as feminine as I'm getting.

Well, somehow or another I landed in the one place I needed to be for this. My regular doctor made me take a survey, and I showed some clear signs of depression. So off to the crazy person's doctor to get my head checked. It was your ordinary first appointment. Just go in and give a basic rundown of what was happening and how I thought. The guy had probably done it a million times. He just had to ask that question though.

"Have you ever contemplated suicide?"

It broke my brain. Up until that moment I was calmly, if very timidly, giving my answers. I became absolutely hysterical. The tears wouldn't stop. I said yes, I had, as coherently as I could manage while bawling my eyes out. I didn't stop there. I told him everything.

Everything.

My mouth was running itself. I couldn't stop. My mom had been sitting in(me not even being a teenager yet.. I was nervous about seeing him alone). Imagine her shock when it all came out. I not only hated being a boy as intensely as I was capable of, it contributed to an attempt to take my own life that she had never been aware of. I don't really remember what she was doing. I wasn't able to pay attention to much that was around me. I imagine she was absolutely terrified. I'm my parent's only child.. and a miracle of science at that. They shouldn't have had me, and they could have lost me without ever knowing something was wrong. Sure, I was naturally a shy little thing, but that? I can say now I am genuinely sorry I did that to her. I'm starting to cry just thinking about putting her through that kind of thing.

So, yeah, I was an absolute mess. I had to be brought in again for more evaluation. They had to be doubly sure what this was. Most people came out when they are already living alone. A child that knew this about them self.. and one that was that mature and self-aware.. was unusual. It was more than slightly nerve wracking. I had no idea what I would do if the hammer came down and they said no.. I didn't really want to be a girl. That I could never have my dream.

My parents handled it marvelously. I'd guess the prospect of losing your only child was scary. I know parents of trans children feel like they are losing a child and gaining another, but my parents faced the possibility I could kill myself. They weren't losing a child. They were saving one. My mother felt like that at least. My father I don't know quite so well, but I imagine mother put her foot down with him while I wasn't around(yeah, who wore the pants in the family?). I just know they never rejected my decision in the open. Now that the rush is over.. I have the strong desire to ask them what was going through their minds. I know they love and accept me. I don't need to know that. I just want to know what went unsaid. I know they must have bit their tongues hard.. for my sake.

Now, it wasn't quite that easy. I did have to do a lot of hoop jumping before I got any sort of treatment(namely visit after visit to talk about stuff), and even then they didn't just hand me a bottle of estrogen. I was still fairly young. However, I did manage to get a medication to hold back the puberty beast. I'd prevent me from feeling any effects from testosterone should it decide to go to town on my body. It gave me more time to be sure of what I was doing.. and let me get into a more safe range for beginning treatment.

I was going to make this my next post, but it would have been too short for me to be satisfied with. I didn't have to wait long to start more. Every day waiting felt like an eternity at the time, but in retrospect I was on the real deal pretty quickly. I was always worried they'd say no.. or I suddenly wouldn't be aloud. Any thing that I could think of to come between me and being a girl.

By now I was in Junior High.. or Middle school. The name got changed from Junior to Middle in 8th grade. I was overjoyed when I finally got to start. I was giddy with excitement from the moment I got the ok. Containing myself in school was a chore. I was doing it.. I was going to be a girl! It was very odd because it was near my birthday. It was like a birthday present. I went in a child.. and came out a teenage girl... well almost. It was a very good birthday gift at any rate.

Now, obviously I am a standout case in many respects. I got help very early, but it doesn't end there. I hit the genetic jackpot. I'm naturally short and shrimpy. I think 5'3'' is even short for a girl these days. I'm not sure it stops there though. Kids here bloom early.. boys and girls(something's in the water! AHH!). Certain.. uh.. goings on downstairs make me think I was already being clawed at by puberty. I was getting signs before I was ten, actually(though barely before then). I probably should have been further along than I was. Girls were already looking like girls and boys like boys pretty quick. I was behind.. maybe even a little girly already.

Now.. I could have been a late bloomer.. but the specifics make me suspicious of a condition I have heard of recently. A friend of mine actually has it. It's an insensitivity to male hormones and an overproduction of female ones. I honestly wouldn't be surprised. I'm already a pile of various medical conditions.. mental and physical. What is one more? At least that one helped me. Not that it matters anymore, but I do have a natural curiosity.

It's all pretty unbelievable. Even to me. Not to mention downright unfair. It's like the perfect storm... or something. No one should have to put up with two puberties.