gender dysphoria

[StrixVaria]

I know this may be somewhat misplaced, but it seems to be the best place to air this...
Of those of you out there who understand gender dysphoria, how do you explain it to your significant other? I've tried and have yet to come up with a really clear explanation.
I'm genetically male, but from pre K forward, I have felt strongly that I would have been much better off as a female. While that's all fine and good, at the ripe old age of 42, transition is really not a viable option. I have some trouble explaining the position I'm in, so bear with me.
I actively reinforce my male persona - more for my own benefit than for anyone else - but it is a counterbalance to my desire. My Sig O wants me to be more open with her, she wants to see all of the things inside me that make me work, she wants to understand - but that "letting down of the wall" is something that scares the crap out of me. If I'm completely honest, not only with her, but with myself, what happens to this carefully constructed and maintained facade that allows me to operate in "normal" society?
I really don't want to be a freak of nature. I know that's not PC, but that's how I view it. I also know that my balancing act isn't all that healthy either - self medicating with alcohol, actively pushing the T level, denying the innately softer response... anyone have any wisdom to share?

 

[JessGabriel]

Oh wow, Strix, that's really tough. How long have you been with your significant other? Is this something that she is completely in the dark about? I think you need to open up about it for your own sanity, but at the same time, I don't know what kind of person that she is to be able to anticipate her response. She may be completely understanding and willing to indulge you. She may not. If I were in her shoes, telling me that wouldn't illicit a dramatic reaction, but I know some women who would be the opposite. This might be a situation to talk to a counselor about. I truly wish you the best of luck.

 

[Etoile]

Don't let age be a barrier to transition. A great many people have transitioned at your age and older!

What is your level of commitment to her? Are there other secrets you keep from her? If you're really devoted, I think it's safe to just come out and say it. She won't run from you. And despite your reinforcing your masculinity, she may know already. Alternatively, if there are other secrets you're keeping, maybe telling her one of those will satisfy her desire to know more about you.

It sounds like you want to tell her, though. If you do, then... tell her!

 

[bicuriouscd]

Hello ,
I know this is a very difficult thing to talk about with anyone , but from personal experience I would encourage you to be honest and open with your wife and with yourself !
Life is really too short to worry about what society might think of you or your decision to live your life the way that you feel comfortable with living it.
If your wife loves you and is willing to support you and try to understand all of you , I would say that you have no good reason to not share yourself , all of yourself with her.
Best of luck to you both ,
T
PS , It really never is to late to transition and be yourself !

 

[blade_rocknut]

I believe she needs to know. After digging deep and sharing you may be better prepared to make decisions regarding transition...obviously, keeping it a secret keeps your gender frustrations at the forefront of your awareness. Airing it will let you ( and others) examine your feelings more objectively. I'm 35....age doesn't stop me; but pondering has led me to the decision that I enjoy being male enough that I don't want to go into the unknown. Some of us are much farther up ( or down) the spectrum on this....you likely need another's help to ultimately decide... Best of luck!

 

[Stella_Omega]

Oh man, I feel your pain.

I don't have much time for careful posting today, but i will be back later in the week.

But really quickly, your wife may be the best friend you've ever had if you tell her the truth. Yes, it's difficult to rebuild the facade, but you'll be replacing certain bricks, so to speak, not the whole wall. And those bricks might be far better ones than you've been shoving in there so far-- nobody's wife deserves an alcoholic husband.

 

[blade_rocknut]

Oh man, I feel your pain.

I don't have much time for careful posting today, but i will be back later in the week.

But really quickly, your wife may be the best friend you've ever had if you tell her the truth. Yes, it's difficult to rebuild the facade, but you'll be replacing certain bricks, so to speak, not the whole wall. And those bricks might be far better ones than you've been shoving in there so far-- nobody's wife deserves an alcoholic husband.

Listen to this one right here........

And I didn't think to mention earlier....the other thing that's made my life a bit easier....is having a "safe" place to flaunt what I'd been keeping to myself for decades. Granted, I make light....but that's how *I* roll. Works for me; may not be right for anyone else, nor is it meant to ridicule or make light of anyone else's complexities.

*end ramble*

 

[lustatopia]

The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light

Look, at age 42, I think you have to accept that you're a woman in a man's body.

It's an existential thing. Think of your real self as a light body, you know, as a beam of pure electromagnetic energy. You have "fallen" or been projected into your current physical form. You are NOT your body. Your identity is separate from the flesh that manifests it, yet wholly dependent upon it.

But do NOT imagine that you are unique!

No one is their body. Everyone is a spiritual being that is more or less unsuited to the bag of flesh they were hamstrung with. The paradox is that you wouldn't even exist if not for the baggage of your flesh which makes you a real "object" (or more correctly a dynamic system unfolding as it should) in real time/space.

Everyone feels the same disjunction between soul/body or mind and body that you do, you just feel it much more intensely and specifically than most people.

Once you realize that what you are feeling is actually the true state of ontological reality, you'll realize that you are far from a freak of nature, but simply an "everyman" that has some how reach conscious awareness of the true nature of human existence. This is not to deny the specific details of your existential angst, but an acknowledgment that we are all totally unique in our own ways, yet the condition of physical life we find ourselves trapped within is universal. It's this great paradox that has driven philosophy and religion for thousands of years.

Ultimately, you have no hope of escaping your physical being, at least in this lifetime, so you will have to adapt with creative, rational and intelligent responses to your unique situation. I can't help you innovate your life shape, but maybe by understanding that you are in exactly the same existential bind as every other human being on this planet might lessen your sense panic.

 

[Stella_Omega]

The consolations of philosophy, huh, Lustatopia?

In my book, philosophy comes in a distant second to bodily comfort. I REALLY know how much I am my body, because I am trapped in the wrong one.

Philosophy doesn't always compensate for the sense of off-balance I get because my hips are too wide and my chest has breasts that shouldn't be there. When I wake up in the morning and I grab for the piss-hardon that doesn't exist, it can take me a few hours and several cups of coffee to remember that my real self is a light body. Sure, I'm an "everyman" except-- without the bits that would actually make me a man. And Strix would rather be an 'everywoman, so let's not get insulting in our enthusiasm, okay?

The gender dysphoric can, because we must, come up with a number of imaginative ways to save our sanity. Pretending it doesn't matter because we are light bodies is one of them.

It takes a buttload of emotional energy to keep it up. though. Acting out is more satisfying. And because a great deal of our gender is acted out in roles amongst other people-- acting out with the aid and collusion of a partner can be very satisfying indeed. Strix, I hope that your wife might want to be part of that

 

[Wendy_Summers]

First off, let me say, I am the owner of a yahoo group for crossdresser, transsexuals, transvestites, and anyone who considers themselves to fit into the transgender catagory. The membership there is close to 3000. As well as being highly active in many LGBT organizations, I am also very active socially on a personal level. And I am a pre-op MtF transwoman living fulltime as female.
I communicate and come into contact with thousands of transgenders and have spoken with literally dozens who have 'come out' to their spouses or SOs.
Unless you're willing to risk losing the relationship you're in, keep your feelings to yourself.
Only if you are absolutely sure you want to transition should you reveal you feelings.
Very few wives or girlfriends are able to understand and deal with it.
If you really feel you have no choice but to transition, don't let age hinder your dicision. I began transition at age 50.

 

[lustatopia]

Stella, I love you. Really.

No one is asking you to pretend anything, Stella, or to engage in philosophy.

The simply fact is that you are NOT your body.

If one loses am arm or two in a car accident you still are who you are regardless. You might be uncomfortable without arms, but it's not nearly as catastrophic to your identity as it would be to lose, for instance, your memory cloud...

A good analogy is flying in an airplane. You have a window seat and can watch the clouds, the sun and see the land below. The flat panel on the seat back in front of you gives you even more exact information. You're flying at 34,000 ft at 450km/hr the wind speed is 120 km/hr SSW and the outside temperature is -23c. Furthermore, you can see your exact GPS reading. But you're not directly experiencing any of this reality. Yet, it doesn't mean it's 'relative', should the plane crash, you'll die.

Now imagine you are inside your body riding your bicycle. It's the same thing.

It's a natural illusion that our minds are in direct contact with the outside world. We believe we touch things. We feel like we directly see real things. But the truth is that our minds are totally isolated from direct interaction with the world by the intermediation of our bodies.

For instance, we don't actually see things directly. The biomechanical organ of our eyes gather light and converts it into electrical signals wired back to our brain cells, which our mind then reconstructs into a projected 3-d model of the world in our heads. What we see is an image of the world, not the world itself. Just like a movie isn't really real... The real world reflects and emits electromagnetism in bandwidths far broader than our eyes can see perceive. Much information is unavailable to us.

That the image our minds create with the information provided by our eyes is extremely useful for navigating around our environment is simply a product of our imaging fidelity. It doesn't mean we are any more directly in touch with the physical world beyond the inside of our skull than it does when we look through a telescope at the rings of Saturn. Everything we see, hear, touch, taste, feel or suffer takes place only inside our minds.

Our minds are a complex cloud of electromagnetic (light) cascades occurring solely within our brains, located in no particular location. Our bodies are bio-mechanic shells we inhabit to interface with the environment. The illusion that we ARE our bodies simply shows how well coupled our minds are to our physical shells. But in theory there is no reason our minds can't eventually be decoupled from our bodies and given replacement shells when the old ones wear out or become uncomfortable due to the aging process. I would imagine the transgender community understand the malleability of the human body better than almost anyone outside heart transplant patients.

Now does this in any way deny the reality of human existential suffering, cruelties and physical pain, dysphoria and eventually death? Of course not. Welcome to planet Earth. I hope you'll join the rest of us 6.5 billion sentient beings trapped with our decaying bodies of flesh.

I just thought it might be nice to know you're not alone in your private Idaho. ;-)

 

[Stella_Omega]

heh. I can, in fact, agree with you that it's uncomfortable to exist minus an organ that would be fundamental to my identity if I had it.

The rest of your post is um ... posted very late at night, to assume charity.

 

[lustatopia]

heh. I can, in fact, agree with you that it's uncomfortable to exist minus an organ that would be fundamental to my identity if I had it.

The rest of your post is um ... posted very late at night, to assume charity.

I have been known to rely on the charity of strangers. ;-)

 

[vrosej10]

This is a hard situation and I feel for you. It is clear to me if you have got to the pont of self destructive behaviour to cope with your dilemma that you need to come out safely to someone. It is not easy to tell a spouse something like this. I came out to my spouse last year as bisexual after we'd been together for twenty or so years. It wasn't easy and I was very worried. I had hinted before that but no directly enough. He was pretty stunned but took it well. In the end coming out was the best thing because I can be myself with him totally now. Good luck with it. I admire enormously people who have the guts to follow their personal conviction down this incredibly difficult path.

 

[StrixVaria]

Ok, I've told her. We have lived with the revelation for several months now, and things seem to be going fairly well.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the bulwark that I was holding was a rather important one. Now that the wall is down, everything about my personal identity is in flux. I feel more "right" than I have in a long time - possibly ever, but I'm a little worried about where I may wind up in balance now that the largely male balance point has been surrendered.
She says that she is fine with who I am, with who I am becoming, but what do you do when you've kinda lost the familiar person you were? What do you do when you don't know who you are because you've invested decades in being someone else?
I'm committed to her and to our relationship. I really don't want to screw this up, but it's really rather frightening. How can I commit myself when I don't know who that is?
Arrgh, maddening.

Body of light? Really? I don't think I can spend enough time staring at my navel to pull that one off. If it works for you, great, but I really need to be able to connect with my body and emotions to be able to function in this life.
I know, this is a little disjointed, but it's sort of a stream of consciousness sort of thread, no?
So, in summation, the relationship is going fairly well. I've finally gotten past the regular heavy drinking and the reliance on the "I'm in charge because I have a penis" thing (that one is harder than it sounds). However, the fact that I'm letting go and finding "who I really am" is driving me a bit insane, especially since I've made a career out of denigrating the very thing I'm becoming in order to keep from going there in the first place. It's also a bit annoying that I set off gaydar at fifty paces now. The straight folks are even starting to pick up that something is a bit "off", but so far no one has said or done anything overt.
I'm just letting it happen and I'll try to keep you updated.

 

[blade_rocknut]

Remember that you may have swung a ways past center now that you've released the pendulum. The "new" wore off for me; I find that my gender is seldom on my mind now that I have a touch more freedom with it.

Things will find their equilibrium.....sometime Best of luck!

 

[ifitsfundoit]

I worked closely with a guy in the UK some years ago. He was married with 3 kids and devoted to his wife.

When I visited recently, I saw "him" again for the first time in a few years. He, now legally she, lives full time as a woman and has a new partner. The kids still love her as much as ever and she looks happier than I can ever remember.

From what she told me, the journey was pretty tough, but she wouldn't swap the result for anything.

 

[Guest]

I admire your courage.

 

[jessicaj64]

Ok, I've told her. We have lived with the revelation for several months now, and things seem to be going fairly well.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the bulwark that I was holding was a rather important one. Now that the wall is down, everything about my personal identity is in flux. I feel more "right" than I have in a long time - possibly ever, but I'm a little worried about where I may wind up in balance now that the largely male balance point has been surrendered.
She says that she is fine with who I am, with who I am becoming, but what do you do when you've kinda lost the familiar person you were? What do you do when you don't know who you are because you've invested decades in being someone else?
I'm committed to her and to our relationship. I really don't want to screw this up, but it's really rather frightening. How can I commit myself when I don't know who that is?
Arrgh, maddening.

Body of light? Really? I don't think I can spend enough time staring at my navel to pull that one off. If it works for you, great, but I really need to be able to connect with my body and emotions to be able to function in this life.
I know, this is a little disjointed, but it's sort of a stream of consciousness sort of thread, no?
So, in summation, the relationship is going fairly well. I've finally gotten past the regular heavy drinking and the reliance on the "I'm in charge because I have a penis" thing (that one is harder than it sounds). However, the fact that I'm letting go and finding "who I really am" is driving me a bit insane, especially since I've made a career out of denigrating the very thing I'm becoming in order to keep from going there in the first place. It's also a bit annoying that I set off gaydar at fifty paces now. The straight folks are even starting to pick up that something is a bit "off", but so far no one has said or done anything overt.
I'm just letting it happen and I'll try to keep you updated.

Good luck, Strix. It is a thoroughly liberating, though at times, terrifying, process.

Don't worry too much about the fact that you made a "career out of denigrating the thing that [you] are now becoming." It is quite common for people such as us to over-compensate while in the facade years, to be super-masculine (or feminine, depending on one's direction), and often derisive of the 'opposite' gender, your true gender.
Be grateful that you have a loving partner to support you.
I would STRONGLY recommend starting to see a therapist trained in the field, and, if you know of any, join a support group. Take your wife with you, if possible, so that she gets a better education too.

In the meantime, here is a valuable resource website for TGirls: http://www.annelawrence.com/twr/index.html

Good luck, hon.

 

[StrixVaria]

Thank you for your thoughts and support