Hi there,

What I'm reading tells me that there's a good chance you're experiences parallel my own.

I too have been a 'loner' all my days. It's a very hard thing to put into words. There was always a sort of disconnect, a sense of wrongness, that seemed to infiltrate every relationship except those of a few very good friends. For myself, it was identifying as a gay man, which wasn't the case so I felt inauthentic.

I was trying to live up to what I thought were the expectations of the people around me, and it grew into a burden I couldn't carry any more.

If you can relate to this, then just let the nay-sayers go and be yourself. Trying to live up to the imagined expectations of those around us, based on fragments of opinions expressed is downright foolish. Or so I've recently found out.

Take Queen and Freddie's advice from 'Innuendo' -

"You can be anything you want to be

Just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be

Be free with your tempo, be free, be free

Surrender your ego, be free, be free to yourself"

You can hear the song here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j440-D5JhjI&t=1421s

starting at 23:41

The only shortcoming you have is there are no little sprogs in it.

Billy.

BillyBlogs (imported) wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 3:42 am Take Queen and Freddie's advice from 'Innuendo' -

"You can be anything you want to be

Just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be

Be free with your tempo, be free, be free

Surrender your ego, be free, be free to yourself"

ok what you say does makes sense but i literally feel as if i’m blind or not looking (don’t know which and it makes no difference) and i’ve hit a wall. i realize i need to take some kind of action in order to keep going, but i just don’t. i don’t think of what to do and make decisions. i’m filled with fear even though i realize that whatever there was to fear has become only a memory from the distant distant past. i am swayed by society’s opinion of me - real or perceived - and or how they think i should conduct myself. all around i see people being judgmental and condemning. i’ve had ridiculous courage to self harm for most of my life, but to self help there is no courage at all.

there is one thing going on - and funny, i can’t seem to stop it - it is a machine inside that i have no control over. the self harm turned to self help and it moves on impetus that i don’t have knowledge of. it is just a thing inside me taking steps as much or as little as it can when it can. for example, i knew for quite some time i’d be having an orchiectomy “sooner or later” with or without everyone/anyone knowing. i told who i could and whether or not they felt any particular way, i just rationalized it into being their ok to proceed. i don’t feel as if i’m deciding, i’m just doing. it is as if someone else is running the ship.

Firstly, I know that sense of fear. It's dreadful. Immobilising sometimes. I wish I could give you some magic formula or something to use to make it go away, but I can't. What worked for me, and I really mean worked, was saying what I want out loud to another human. The words "I want to stop having to be a man and living a lie" out loud changed everything for me. Maybe it'll work for you too. It seems ridiculously simple, but for once those gawd awful bumper stickers were right. Magic does happen.

I *think* there's some part of you that's had enough waiting and is moving on into the future, dragging your conscious self along too. But, I'm not any sort of psychologist. I do sense that you're starting to feel a bit like you've been chewed up and spat out twice emotionally, though. I'd really suggest you find someone to help you through this phase in your adventure. It will make the greatest difference, believe you me.

Losing those 'landmarks' on our voyage through life can be very scary indeed. Being autistic, I need rules for just about everything. If there are not, I'll make some up. I spent my life living

BillyBlogs (imported) wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 3:42 am up to what I thought were the expectations of the people around me.

Then I moved away and lived alone. All the expectations were gone, and who I am was no longer clearly defined. And this is what I found hardest. This fluid, shifting sense of self. Having good counsel has been the greatest thing.

As I say, I'm not any expert at all. I will say this though. When our inner selves get fed up, they can drive us to do some things. Sometimes weird, sometimes harmful, all manner of stuff. Seeing you have a history of self harm, you know all about depression. I think you should go see someone to make a basic assessment of your mood, and perhaps recommend someone if you need some help. Your general practitioner should be able to make this test.

Another question. Are you on HRT? your mood is very strongly tied to your testosterone/estrogen level, and if that drops dramatically you'll indeed hit a wall. If you are, of course you can ignore this question, but if not, go see your doctor soon.

I would like to be able to offer you more, but this conversation is heading well out of my depth. Try to channel whatever energy you can into finding yourself some professional help.

Billy.

BillyBlogs (imported) wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 4:52 am Firstly, I know that sense of fear. It's dreadful. Immobilising sometimes. I wish I could give you some magic formula or something to use to make it go away, but I can't. What worked for me, and I really mean worked, was saying what I want out loud to another human. The words "I want to stop having to be a man and living a lie" out loud changed everything for me. Maybe it'll work for you too. It seems ridiculously simple, but for once those gawd awful bumper stickers were right. Magic does happen.

I *think* there's some part of you that's had enough waiting and is moving on into the future, dragging your conscious self along too. But, I'm not any sort of psychologist. I do sense that you're starting to feel a bit like you've been chewed up and spat out twice emotionally, though. I'd really suggest you find someone to help you through this phase in your adventure. It will make the greatest difference, believe you me.

Losing those 'landmarks' on our voyage through life can be very scary indeed. Being autistic, I need rules for just about everything. If there are not, I'll make some up. I spent my life living

BillyBlogs (imported) wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 3:42 am up to what I though

BillyBlogs (imported) wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 4:52 am t were the expectations of the people around me.

Then I moved away and lived alone. All the expectations were gone, and who I am was no longer clearly defined. And this is what I found hardest. This fluid, shifting sense of self. Having good counsel has been the greatest thing.

As I say, I'm not any expert at all. I will say this though. When our inner selves get fed up, they can drive us to do some things. Sometimes weird, sometimes harmful, all manner of stuff. Seeing you have a history of self harm, you know all about depression. I think you should go see someone to make a basic assessment of your mood, and perhaps recommend someone if you need some help. Your general practitioner should be able to make this test.

Another question. Are you on HRT? your mood is very strongly tied to your testosterone/estrogen level, and if that drops dramatically you'll indeed hit a wall. If you are, of course you can ignore this question, but if not, go see your doctor soon.

I would like to be able to offer you more, but this conversation is heading well out of my depth. Try to channel whatever energy you

can into finding yourself some professional help.

Billy.

hey Billy, you are actually being very helpful. Thanks Much!!! There are some things you are suggesting that I’m already doing but it by no means hurts to hear it some more. I actually have been staying in touch with a trans friend and she has been saying a lot of similar things. Hearing it again from someone else is confirming and i do need that.

The HRT question is the most important i think. I have been planning on starting low dose estrogen. As far as I’m concerned, T is pure mental poison for me. I’ll never go near that stuff again. My fear with E is the danger of blood clots which my endocrinologist says can be guarded against. Still at my age and knee and hip problems lately I am concerned that since I tend to get sick and tired of the pain in my legs and just sit or lie down for extended periods, in my mind this increases the danger of the blood clots.

But my endocrinologist is ready to get me started with estrogen as soon as i say lets go ahead. And meantime, I’ve been struggling to find a new therapist who is well experienced in transgender issues, childhood sexual abuse issues and dissociation. These are areas I need to be working on now. Seems the only ones around do not take insurance and that so far is making getting professional help quite difficult.

I struggled to get the orchi, I just need to struggle some more to get these other things accomplished also. It is great to find people who are supportive. It is not important that you are not a PCP/Psychologist/Endocrinologist. I’m not looking for the letters. You have knowledge and or experience with things i’m going through and it is great to hear about it from your perspective. Thanks again.

Oh here’s an edit… i forgot what my last reply was and that it was to you. my getting frozen in my tracks is specifically pertaining to me being open about the surgery i’ve already had, the surgery I still intend to get and just letting everyone I know realize that I’ve lived a life I hated simply because it was so uncomfortable and self harming. (yet at the same time I’m grateful to have been able to have kids). I keep saying things that might make people think I regret my successes family-wise, but that is not the case. it is just tying all these things together and not sounding like I don’t know what i want, which I’ve already been accused of, that adds extra fear to “coming out”. I’m really dependent on acknowledgement from the people i know in my life. I need that but at the same time its reluctance and terror as if i’m ashamed. yet I can’t understand why i feel shame if it just makes my life more difficult and not better.

Hi,

Indeed, the sense of shame you feel is not unique to you. I think it stems from us being primates, with a very strong sense of societal bonds. However, in our evolutionary path, we've become just barely smart enough to realise others of our kind can think badly of us. (We might be good a tools, but we're crap at relationships.)

Couple this with a strong desire to reduce everything to simple yes/no - black/white propositions and you have far too many monkeys with far too many opinions on matters they don't have any knowledge about. A lot of these are, I've found, meat-heads who demand the 'right' to express their opinions. Well, they can't have it. They can have the right to hold whatever opinions they want, but they don't have the right to piss in my ear about them to me, thank you very much. Nor constrain me on that basis either.

It's damn hard to escape the constraints we put on ourselves because we think others think of us more than they do, and their judgements are often imagined to be much harsher than is so. You might be pushing into areas where those around you have never entered in their wildest dreams, and here you are "swimming in it", so as to speak. You could be just freaking out the neighbours (a lot), depending on how conservative they are. It could be they who need the patience and understanding.

Oops, sorry, I was getting a bit cranky there.

One thing to keep in mind is you don't have time. That sense of every year being shorter than the last never relents. Become the true you while you can. We suffer from spotlight syndrome too. No one thinks about us anywhere as much as we imagine. I mean, just how truly startled can you be as you walk down the street these days? Few look closely, and even fewer give two hoots.

It's important for humans to get a sense of approval from their peers, but it's much more important to give ourselves approval first. Then we will fall in with those who fit us best.

Another perspective I find invaluable is that we're little biological entities on a weeny little planet in the middle of nowhere, who will last a vanishingly short amount of time. There's nobody 'out there' who could give two knobs of goat shit for what we do. The opinions of the locals are just that, opinions. They're all equally valid, that is, sum to zero.

Do what you want, you're the only person it's going to make a big difference to. Everybody else is just grandstanding on the matter.

Billy.

thanks. this is a work in progress. tbc tbd etc. thanks again.