the big after surgery test with family

[dee2essohkay (imported)]

anyway, I already had shared that maybe I would do the surgery before I posted this thread. I did not have the benefit of your collective points of view at the time. all I was doing here was speculating on them reacting once they finally get to see me and try to figure out if I actually did go and get it done. and one of them probably will bring it up. do you think I should be coy? honest? or just deny it. I might just feel pushed and confirm it all. we'll see.

[Valery_V (imported)]

Those around us, as a rule, are not very interested in our inner experiences.

They have a lot of their own worries and affairs ...

It seems to me that you don’t even need to impose your preferences and tastes on your loved ones ...

Maybe only in those cases when they want to talk about it with you.

I was asked only here and especially on the EA P.

[dee2essohkay (imported)]

Maybe only in those cases when they want to talk about it with you.

see, that is exactly the terms my sister and I do talk. we share a childhood experience of abuse and we both felt good about talking about our past. my take on it is that the mutual support was a healing thing. so when I was considering castration I saw that as a way of ending my lifelong self harm and felt safe sharing my feelings about it with an ally.

I was not boasting or sensationalizing. she just happened to feel somewhat uncomfortable with the idea that I'd really do something like that. to her, it did not come across that it might be a good thing, but she just withdrew and we haven't spoken more about it.

I hadn't made my decision yet then and she stopped being someone I could talk with about it. she does not now know one way or the other what I did but I do believe she suspects I did do it and fears the usual misconceptions about it, and probably worries that I'll have big boobs, loss of facial hair and have a high voice and she probably dreads seeing me because of her fears. that is the problem. not that I'm suddenly imposing a secret about myself. and I do generally look like I always have. possibly if clean shaven, I look a little younger. so her mind could have been eased through talk as I thought were the terms we were already on.

[WheelyCurious]

I may want to shock them or passively aggress upon them. maybe somehow I hold them responsible. well it's this if not quite the opposite. that I may actually liberate them and make them feel like they can touch a bit of happiness finally. we all do come from the same place my siblings and me.

Trying to shock or aggress on the family doesn't seem like the best way to maintain good family relations, and most people are probably not going to see castration as a way to find happiness, even if they are from a similar background... You have mentioned that you are seeing a therapist, perhaps you could explore your motivations there? It seems to me like you really need to get a handle on why you want

to tell the family before you decide if you are going to.

anyway, I already had shared that maybe I would do the surgery before I posted this thread. I did not have the benefit of your collective points of view at the time. all I was doing here was speculating on them reacting once they finally get to see me and try to figure out if I actually did go and get it done. and one of them probably will bring it up. do you think I should be coy? honest? or just deny

it. I might just feel pushed and confirm it all. we'll see.

IF (and only if) the question is asked, then I'd answer honestly and briefly, and only in the circumstances it was asked - i.e. if asked privately, answer privately, not in front of everyone....

You said your sister was uncomfortable talking about it before, possibly because of her misconceptions. It seems to me like the best thing is to let her see you without forcing the subject, and let her decide when / how to ask. She may well be happier pretending it didn't happen, whether or not she thinks it did. Why risk damaging the other parts of your relationship that sound like they are OK?

WheelyCurious

[dee2essohkay (imported)]

Trying to shock or aggress on the family doesn't seem like the best way to maintain good family relations, and most people are probably not going to see castration as a way to find happiness, even if they are from a similar background... You have mentioned that you are seeing a therapist, perhaps you could explore your motivations there? It seems to me like you really need to get a handle on why you want

to tell the family before you decide if you are going to.

IF (and only if) the question is asked, then I'd answer honestly and briefly, and only in the circumstances it was asked - i.e. if asked privately, answer privately, not in front of everyone....

You said your sister was uncomfortable talking about it before, possibly because of her misconceptions. It seems to me like the best thing is to let her see you without forcing the subject, and let her decide when / how to ask. She may well be happier pretending it didn't happen, whether or not she thinks it did. Why risk damaging the other parts of your relationship that sound like they are OK?

WheelyCurious

I really do understand your points but I don't agree. I also think you are misinterpreting the meaning of things I've said. this most likely would be that I did not explain enough and or well. let me try to explain the situation now, as I see it.

I don't believe that knowledge of surgery like this would drive a wedge into my relationships with any of my siblings. I could be wrong but I doubt it. I am only speculating right now but I really could be right that my sister already suspects I had the surgery. if that is the case, she most likely will eventually ask in private. I will answer in private and she will then tell my brothers or even just one. after that I will happily discuss it all. they will understand my motives but still may disagree with my decision.

as for shocking them, I'd only be driven to it through intense anger. I believe that won't happen. to me, it makes a great fantasy, but I wouldn't just go and do it. I doubt that anything would make me angry enough.

I have been seeing a therapist for years but am now in the process of seeking one with specialization in transgender, dissociation disorder, childhood sexual abuse, and self harm issues. it took me 8 months last time around just to find a therapist - my present one. I've been searching for three weeks so far this time around and it could be 8 months again. therapy does need to be covered by my insurance. there are many reasons why no one will work with me.

as for a handle on why I want to tell, I think I've explained this. but let me take it a little further. I feel it crucial to explain the extent I need to go to overcome the damage I have from childhood that awareness of only started surfacing several years ago. I believe my siblings to be co-victims. there is a chance that they hold more important information that is not coming to me presently. and vice versa.

I want you to know that I am healing. it's incredibly difficult and slow, but it is happening. castration has bad connotations, but that is a failing of society, not me. I know this surgery was the correct and best thing to do. no regrets whatsoever. I will feel comfortable telling my story and will seek to help the listeners whomever they be, feel comfortable too.

none of my desired conversation with my siblings is hostility driven. everything is happening according to the best I can do sometimes with and sometimes without professional help depending on what what I am able to find. all good? not by a long shot, but open discussion to me is a positive that will help with healing.

[WheelyCurious]

Sorry for any misinterpretation on my part, I try to understand, but it isn't always easy...

I am glad that you feel you are healing, however slowly it's going, and never meant anything negative about castration, but that you are comfortable talking about it doesn't mean that others are...

In the end it's your choice about how much to say and when to say it, but I don't think that discussing it is necessarily a requirement for talking with your family about what you and they know about the stuff that happened in the past and is giving you issues today...

I only know you through this board, and don't know the rest of your family at all, so you are in a lot better situation to judge the matter than I am... But I worry that saying to much about the operation might create barriers to communication about other, possibly more important stuff. Remember it's a one-way path - you can decide when to go down it, but once you say something, you can't UN-say it...

WheelyCurious

[dee2essohkay (imported)]

Sorry for any misinterpretation on my part, I try to understand, but it isn't always easy...

I am glad that you feel you are healing, however slowly it's going, and never meant anything negative about castration, but that you are comfortable talking about it doesn't mean that others are...

In the end it's your choice about how much to say and when to say it, but I don't think that discussing it is necessarily a requirement for talking with your family about what you and they know about the stuff that happened in the past and is giving you issues today...

I only know you through this board, and don't know the rest of your family at all, so you are in a lot better situation to judge the matter than I am... But I worry that saying to much about the operation might create barriers to communication about other, possibly more important stuff. Remember it's a one-way path - you can decide when to go down it, but once you say something, you can't UN-say it...

WheelyCurious

thanks. I will be taking everything into consideration. if I ever feel talk could end up as a negative thing I won't do it. I feel as I've indicated before that talk about it for my family's situation would be beneficial. but I see this from my point of view that for an intense experience there is an intense response. I guess I have to make the call, should it be the intense response of denial, or the intense response of awakening. all I can say is that I hope I'll make the right choice. I hope my siblings are able to process what I do decide. and I hope that if this surgery is presently on my sister's mind, she mentions it before my cousin and her family arrive. so that we can have a meaningful conversation about it sooner than later. thanks again for all your thoughts.

[BillyBlogs (imported)]

Hya,

My own take on this is to feel your way, and tread gently. Everyone is an individual, even your brothers and sisters. I'm going through exactly the same sorts of issues myself. However, one thing I realise is that my elder brother and I, even though we lived through very similar experiences, have reacted to them in just about opposite ways.

We were mostly subjected to severe physical abuse, but there was always the background of impending mind games. Anyway, as I say, we responded in very different ways. I shut down and closed off to almost everything. I vowed to myself to never be like this.

My brother, it seems, decided that if you can't beat them, join them. That, and to simply not see. In order to demonstrate his 'loyalty', he imitated his father and beat me up too. We both were little kids looking for a way to survive the same abuse.

Just because we shared a common experience does not mean we are brothers in arms. It breaks my heart to this day, but he remains his father's lickspittle, and it still galls me.

It's all too easy too see things as being how we want rather than how they are, especially when we're dealing with the inner workings of others minds.

Tread carefully, and softly.

[dee2essohkay (imported)]

Hya,

My own take on this is to feel your way, and tread gently. Everyone is an individual, even your brothers and sisters. I'm going through exactly the same sorts of issues myself. However, one thing I realise is that my elder brother and I, even though we lived through very similar experiences, have reacted to them in just about opposite ways.

We were mostly subjected to severe physical abuse, but there was always the background of impending mind games. Anyway, as I say, we responded in very different ways. I shut down and closed off to almost everything. I vowed to myself to never be like this.

My brother, it seems, decided that if you can't beat them, join them. That, and to simply not see. In order to demonstrate his 'loyalty', he imitated his father and beat me up too. We both were little kids looking for a way to survive the same abuse.

Just because we shared a common experience does not mean we are brothers in arms. It breaks my heart to this day, but he remains his father's lickspittle, and it still galls me.

It's all too easy too see things as being how we want rather than how they are, especially when we're dealing with the inner workings of others minds.

Tread carefully, and softly.

thanks much Billy. i do dread the possibility of what you are suggesting and it does make a lot of sense. i may tend to talk bigger than i really am. idk. maybe i speak my wishes rather than my real self. again idk. i’m presently so stressed out by all this in general, a good friend with an entirely different set of issues i feel a need to be there to give him support and the fact that the world is so effed up presently that anyone’s worried may simply be irrelevant. so exasperating! but btw, i tend to think my siblings are all just severely in denial maybe even more than i am, but somehow it was my self harm that woke me up. again, maybe stupidly, i feel a need to try to help them. they each must have some degree of suffering. i don’t know why i got stuck with so much. anyway, thanks again. see you around later

[dee2essohkay (imported)]

THE BIG UPDATE:

today i spoke with my sister on the phone for an extended period of time. it seemed to be a fairly normal conversation (of the variety where we don’t get into the torments of the past).

She asked nothing about my interest in and possible castration and i offered nothing. we concluded the conversation with normal good byes. that doesn’t mean anything, but i just thought it worth mentioning since maybe some people thought I’d be telling for the sake of telling and that is not the case. it could still be that she’s wondering, but maybe that will be a conversation some time in the future.