My gender story (Part 4 - My coming out disaster)

My gender story (con't)

Unlike my my last entry that covered a fairly long period of time in my life (around 10 years), this section here is more around an intense short time period where my gender perspective changed or was corrected depending on how you look at it.    During the busy time after my marriage where I settled into some stability, and then through the first several years of my daughter's life, I was able to compartmentalize my gender confusion and ignore for most of the time without issues.  That putting away of thoughts didn't seem to last and eventually the noise of this started preoccupying my thoughts to the point of exploring them.   A new world online had opened up and this seemed to feed my desire which seemed to build rather quickly.   I became more emboldened in my actions based on these feelings and started to become obsessed with a world that I did not understand.  I needed help and reached out with what I thought was the correct thing to do.  In hindsight, I was setting myself up for a huge disaster.

In was early 2013 by this time and I had started seeing a gender therapist to try just to understand why I was doing the things I was.  She did a good job explaining what transgender meant and turning me on to a very good book that I thought described me in the gender dysphoria section fairly accurately.   I started making it an outing to go to see her dressed as Jaclyn, taking more and more care in my outfit and makeup.  As I was working harder on this process, it was getting more difficult to hide and sneak everything back and forth, find some isolated parking garage to change and apply makeup and then reverse everything and sneak back into the house.  My mental state was getting worse and worse and I felt that soon my wife would catch on or something would implode.

I decided then that I needed to come clean and try and confess to my wife despite the worry of her throwing me out of the house.  Her and my eight-year old daughter were everything in the world to me, and imagining life without them was impossible.  But I also felt like it was going to be impossible to keep going at the pace I was without being caught or completely losing my shit.   So I started talking with my therapist on a path to come out to my wife.

I remember working through this coming out story and my therapist's advice that I wasn't ready.  I probably should have waited but I also felt so stressed out at the time and needed to get things out so I was torn. I worked and wrote and rewrote out the words several times to try and organize my thoughts.

I reflect now and wonder what possible desired outcome for these actions I was hoping for.  I think I had read so many stories where these sort of proclamations was showered with support and love and believed in the fairy tale ending.  I dunno, but got stuck on doing this.

When the week arrived prior to when I was going to come out, I sat my wife down and tried to ask her to come with me to see my therapist.   From there, my plan went completely sideways and not towards a positive outcome.  The news of going to see a therapist in a few days to talk about something I didn't want to go into at the moment started a major panic attack on her part.

I didn't think of her perspective (or enough of it at least) and looking back I can see why she got hysterical.  However, at the moment her panic and hysteria feed into my anxiety and fears and this combination was like dumping more gasoline onto a bonfire.  We were both not in a very good state when I tried to sit her down and read to her my letter and come clean to her about my gender confusion.

I have repressed most of her reaction because it was too painful to me, but suffice it to state that it involved her crying alot, screaming at me about being some sexual deviant and pedophile, and clearly telling me that she could not be married to a non-heterosexual male in all aspects.

How do you communicate to the love of your life that all you want to be is with her when she only wants to be with you if your physical appearance and actions are what you hate.  In my case, you don't but only accept that my love for my wife and family was more important than anything else.  I told her this and it was still a very painful retraction from my original words.

We did keep the appointment with the therapist a few days later, which was another painful rehashing of what I thought was my truth.  Afterwards, we sat outside of her office and my wife convinced me of all the ways the therapist was putting these thoughts in my head and how unqualified and dangerous she was.  My wife probably sounds demonic in this retelling, but honestly I agreed with her and I am still unsure to this day what my truth really is.

The next few months were very difficult times in our household, I tried to go back from what I said and my wife needed constant reassurance just for us to stay together.  I purged most of my clothes and makeup, keeping my wig and a few sentimental items that were too hard to get rid of.   I tried a new therapist (a man therapist picked out to help me develop my sense of being a man), but that didn't last long as I found him phony and couldn't find agreement with him.  

Looking back now, I second guess alot of things but also don't know if it the similar mindset how I would have done things differently.  I know that this experience validated most of my feelings of shame and guilt still today and I still relive it from time to time.  My wife has apologized for her reactions being over the top and hurtful, and I am still working on accepting this apology and also apologizing to her for the pain I caused her as well.

During our reconciliation period later while not knowing anything of the reason for our stress my father-in-law gave me the advice that somethings we should just keep to ourselves.  In the wake of the disaster that was in mind supposed to release and not cause stress, I am really not sure how to take this advice.  

My gender story (Part 5- Out of control)

 My gender story (con't)

This next section recalls my behaviors and actions following the trauma which was my coming out attempt.  While I vowed to forget my mistake that was my thought I was transgender, I often had troubles in leaving this behind me.  I am not proud of alot of my actions during this period, and I still keep most of it guarded because of the guilt and shame involved.   I will attempt to be candid to the best of my ability but will probably only allude to some of my actions that I am most ashamed of.

After attempting to come out to my wife and then attempting to retract everything, I did retreat back into myself and my shame and self-hate were at a all time high.   I purged most of my clothes, my makeup and accessories and worked on trying to bring peace and reconciliation back into our household.

I have rationalized that I must not really be 100% trans since I was able to admit everything I was thinking and doing was wrong and I was able to remove and literally trash that part of my life.  This repeated pattern of thoughts and actions by me continue to cause me to question who I am still today.

I really, really tried so hard to forgive my wife and move on with us.  Some of the words and statements she made were the most hurtful anyone has ever said to me, and even after the weekend of my coming out she continued to repeat how wrong I was for even having these thoughts.

I tried a coupe of therapists and those all seemed to end in disaster as I felt defensive and most of our sessions felt more argumentative than anything else.  My inability to be open to therapy was another argument at home which resulted in me pretending to go to sessions for several months before admitting I had quit.

Most of the next year was a struggle as I would sometimes relapse and go back to some of the stories and blogs, and then follow it up with a lengthy session of shame, guilt and self-hate.  I wanted it all to go away and be done with this part of my life.

I just couldn't give things up.

Eventually, the feminine desires within me were too much.  I am so ashamed but I just needed to give in.  I started repurchasing a wardrobe and going back to hiding/lying about the feelings I had.  I justified things to myself in that it would be fine with "a don't ask don't tell" understanding. Once I had made that justification in my mid, the floodgates opened up with an unstoppable force.

Slowly I started dressing again in secret but this hiding away was not enough for me.  I needed to go out and have more.   When the family was home, I would think about the logistics of going out when I could; and when they were away I put these plans in motion.   I mingled with some of the local transgender social events when they happened to fall in a time when I was home alone.  I played hooky from work on some days and did shopping trips to the mall or outlets by myself or with others I had contacted with.   During work trips and conferences, I would sneak a suitcase of female clothes with me and then spend the evenings after the day's events enfemme out in bars, clubs and around town.

I also engaged in other activities that I am very ashamed about.  Wanting the attention and company, I also found men online that were looking to date and hook up with transgender women. I know that I wanted the attention and to be appreciated, but I also felt obligated to perform sexual acts on them.  I think I felt like I needed to please them to keep men interested in me, but it also questions in me my own sexual orientation as I cannot deny that I instigated this sometimes.

Often after these outings, I would go back into a cycle of depression and shame, which sometimes involved me throwing away clothes and always hating myself further for these feelings.  

But while I endured this torturous cycle in hiding, it keep getting more intense instead of being able to stop and walk away.  Dressing and feeling feminine on occasion wasn't enough, and my self hate for my body was so overwhelming that I started hitting and cutting myself in disgust.  I started removing more body hair even in places not as hidden, and started during facial electrolysis to help reduce the gross beard that would come back every day.  I waxed my chest and legs when I knew I didn't need to expose them to others during colder seasons, and snuck clear coat polish on my toe and fingernails.

My body was causing me so much pain every moment I was awake and I spent hours imagining FFS or other surgeries to fix it.  I made an appointment at a city clinic that provided self-consent HRT and started in secret taking estrogen and testosterone blocking medication.

Taking female hormones was the most wonderful and most terrible months of my life.  The feelings inside when taking my daily dosage were some incredibly calming, like if it blocked the consistent noise of self-hate I would hear.  It became the only thing I could think about and I couldn't calm down for the day until I had that pleasant melting feeling of the pills under my tongue dissolving.

I can't say I noticed major physical changes in the six months that I was on HRT, but I do recall the enjoyment of losing my male libido as that always felt uncomfortable to me.  I think it was around when that was happening that I started to panic about what I was doing and the guilt and shame of this was building.  How could I do this to my family made me feel so selfish and I knew I needed to stop.

I forced myself to quit and instead of feeling good about this, the self-hate and shame were all I could think about.  My cutting and bruising was now almost everyday, as I wanted so much to go back on medication and also so much wanted to not go back.  I felt depressed, isolated, a failure to my family and a failure to myself.

I wanted to kill myself.  So much, I started to replace the constant thoughts about being a woman with constant thoughts of suicide.  I came up with several plans, wrote notes and tore them up, and then wrote new ones again.  I was out of control and in the middle of the night when this was too much I went to a suicide preventation site and confessed that I was going to end my life.

If it was a disaster to my wife to have to hear how her husband thought he was transgender, imagine how horrible it must have been to have emergency people knocking down your door in the middle of the night asking for your husband who wanted to kill himself.  I don't know how she has the capacity and the ability to forgive me for so much, but I owe her so much for putting her through these episodes.

What followed next was difficult for me.  I had to endure a forced hospitalization where I worried what my wife, daughter and family thought of me (besides my wife, we kept the details secret from my daughter and family), followed by a lengthy time of daily therapy sessions.  I tried to manage my thoughts, feelings and shame through this and again put things behind me.  My wife again stuck with me through this and I was fortunate that my work was understanding to allow me to return to my past state even after everything that happened.

I have never really talked much about this with my daughter about these times and still feel shitty about that fact.  I feel like I have made so many mistakes that I am not sure where to even start to make up to everyone in my life.  I think that is part of my depression that I carry with me every single day thinking of the disappointment I am to them if they only knew some of this story.

My gender story (Part 6 - Struggle to make any sense)

My gender story (con't)

In my previous postings, I tried to recap alot of my internal thoughts and feeling associated with the events that seemed to bring me forward and backward when dealing with my appearance and gender.  I first grew up struggling with confusion and dislike with my body while living in a conservative environment and developed hostile shame and guilt feelings towards myself for having these thoughts.  My perverted sense of self had me avoiding relationships and repressing things for a long time until afterwards.  When I had these confusing feelings towards my gender and body to the point that I needed to research, I found that the world had changed and so much more information and opportunities were now available.  This brought on an obsessive period of self-exploration and self-determination that in the end proved destructive and may not be completely correct.  After recovering from that disaster, I was drawn again into exploration and actions that I feel guilty and ashamed of.  Combining my prior self-hate, low esteem, shame and guilt brought me to the edge of depression and where suicide seemed like the only answer from there.  Picking up from my recovery of a forced hospitalization and intensive ordered therapy would be the next stage in my saga.

It was not an easy time post my suicidal low point for me.  While I didn't have any idea why I couldn't stop my racing thoughts about my gender expression and body hate, I looked at the different sessions and medications as a possible answer for questions I didn't know how to ask.  I went through several therapists and several different anti-depressants during this time without anything providing any relief.  I stopped dressing and going out for a bit as I tried to control myself from going around the destructive cycle that always seemed to end up with bad results.  I tend to be a dweller on things, and more that I dwelled the more the self hate grew inside me.

I got rid of majority of clothes many times but never was able to get rid of everything.  I feel like this is like not really putting out a forest fire but leaving hot ashes that may smolder and eventually flare up again and again.  

I would sometimes go out but I started to feel the shame and guilt come on before even getting out the front door now.   I tried self questioning with therapists and even dressing and presenting as Jaclyn with them but the moment I removed the clothes, the shame and guilt stomped on me.  I felt more and more like a total fraud with my family and with myself, and the self-image disgust got me feeling physically ill when looking at myself in a mirror.

Covid-19 came and that pretty much destroyed most social chances and stopped my dressing as was never alone at home anymore.  I started cutting and self-abuse rather rapidly and the hopelessness and depression felt so heavy on top of me.   This led to another forced intensive hospitalization as self-harm and depression felt like the only answers.   

Again, I think this was mostly a stop gap as I feel like it was treating symptoms and not the disease.  I know that my negativity is to blame, but it left me with more unanswered questions than feeling like I had a path forward.

This pretty much is the point where I am currently struggling with.  I have pretty much stopped going outside dressed as Jaclyn at this time.  I continue to struggle with my body image and self-hate, and feel disgusted with myself even thinking about it while I write here.  Hidden locked away from anyone, I will occasionally give in and get out my clothes and makeup and pretend, but the shame and guilt is suffocating anymore.  

I've started trying to write and explore what I am since I don't feel like any label can really capture me and my actions.  I feel so lonely and hopeless on most days, and the depression and suicidal ideation is my constant companion always.  I'm trying to open up to therapists and others, but I feel so defensive and unable to really trust anyone to give that any chance of success.

I don't have any positive outlook on my future trajectory as I feel like there is no hope of turning around anymore.  I feel foolish, pathetic, sick, disgusting and without really any positive traits in my introverted world I have created.   My life does not have any fairy tale endings, and I struggle just to appreciate how fortunate I have things and my family that has been stayed by me through all the crap I have offered up.

I don't know what the next chapter will be, as I continue to struggle to make sense of this and all the prior ones.  For now, I am going to sign off, but will continue to be here processing and hurting in silence.

Until I have another chapter to write,

Jaclyn