Searching for love & acceptance

**warning note - In this post I reflect back on my suicidal ideals and attempts and would advise avoiding if these words are triggering to you.

Dear blog,

My trapped thoughts have been leading to recently write and think about my path forward which has led to my default emotion of fear.  Today, I am going to try to set that fear aside at least for a little while and reflect on my current state.

I have tried so hard to learn all the terms and constantly shifting definitions on what it means to be transgender, and honestly I throw up a white flag and give up trying to put myself in a box. I also have a persistent habit of putting myself down and low self-esteem and I am going to try my best today to take the opposite perspective and be loving towards myself.

I guess what I am searching for is what everyone is looking for - love and acceptance of themselves and connection with others. 

Loving and accepting myself has been and still is a hard struggle for me. I have never liked the physicality of my body and feel uncomfortable around my looks and features. I was also raised male in an environment with strict predefined gender roles which only served to accumulate a mountain of guilt for the feelings I hid inside of me.  

I eventually went on that discovery on what it would be like to release my feminine expression and found those feelings overwhelming as for the first time I could smile at myself and feel beautiful.  Not just on the outward expression, but inside my mind I found peace and happiness which I never had known.

I probably rushed my wanting to share this new discovered essence of me with my partner and wanted them to love me and unconditionally accept and embrace this hidden inside of me. I did not consider their point of view, our situation and the loss associated with leaving my male side behind even if was for brief moments in the world. Instead of acceptance, I found fear that I spread to my partner about how this would affect our family which lead to guilt and shame on my part and feelings of selfishness. 

I began a very deep downward spiral from that point, questioning myself daily and feeling daggers of shame whenever I thought about my female side. My body dysmorphia spiked to all-time highs and cutting and bruising my body was commonplace and brought little relief.

Really dark feelings from the shame of my childhood returned during these times, and I started trying to find the ultimate exit from this noise. Too many times to recount, I found myself with an entire bottle of pills in my hand, looking down from high locations and imagining taking a header, or just staring into oncoming traffic and imagining the release of my body being crumpled by a passing car.

I am ashamed of these thoughts and actions and how it impacted my family, especially when it required involuntary monitoring and follow-up care. Again, a new level of shame and guilt felt like it was deposited on myself.

Time has passed and other events have happened, but I still feel that yearning inside to express my female side.  I do not know how deep this will lead me if I do accept it, but I do know that after the brief intermissions I allow myself, the hardest time for me is to hide everything away and put my feelings back into a tidy compartment.

My partner and I have started discussions on how we have acted in the past and regrets and things we wish we could go back and change. She is my life partner and the only person I want to share this world with, yet I know that revealing things may cause a rift between us that we cannot bridge.

This is why I have been writing so much lately about my fallback emotion of fear.  I know that I am a scared individual of what everything means and scared when I think of the future and all the possible consequences of being vulnerable and truthful.  I am trying ever so slowly to navigate these waters and need to give myself grace when I stumble in my attempts here. 

I am writing this entry today trying to find the clarity of what I am really looking for and cannot honestly state that I have found it yet. I feel like I have been searching for some ideal fantasy solutions and need to let go of these thoughts and let things naturally occur and accept them.

I feel like I am searching for the strength to accept love and understanding of who I am with my life partner and at the same time the strength to accept and love and be true to myself.

Every day is a struggle.

Feeling on exhibit

 With all my personal struggles, I have often thought what self acceptance may feel like.  While it may not be accurate, my idea is that I will experience this when I can be out in public and feel "natural".  That is, I will feel like I blend in with cis and non-cis individuals and not spend time thinking to myself that I am obviously a trans person or worrying that I am a peculiarity that others may notice (either directly or the indirect side eye glances).

I've been thinking about this idea of being on exhibit based on recent conversations with my life partner and them trying to understand and accept my gender questioning.  We have talked about starting with small steps of me sharing a top or two that I wear to try and facilitate further discussion.

I seem to be the hang up at this point, and I have been pondering about my hestitation to take this small step. 

Firstly, I thought of fear of their reaction, their impression and thoughts of me when looking at my clothes choices.  Since I am not very self confident either, this seemed like a logical thought.

But lately I have been thinking it is all coming back to me feeling on exhibit with this request.  Sort of like every thing I do is on display and my spouse and others are going to be their critiquing and commenting on that "trans individual".

I know this is irrational and a reflection of my lack of self acceptance, but damnit it is hard to have my brain tell this to my heart.  I want to continue these small steps but also so frightened about going past that proverbial point of no return here.

I wonder if again this is normal and tell myself there is no such thing as normal.  So I will keep stumbling ahead and see where it leads.

Until then

~Jaclyn