I have been avoiding talking about this for quite some time. I guess hoping that I would just not really ever talk it. But as my journey continues I realize that it is important that I share this with you. What about anger? I am sure I don't seem that angry to most of you. Perhaps frustrated at times, but not really an agry person.
And that is true, now. But this has not always been true. I will preface this by saying that coming to terms with my desires to be female, and to crossdress have pretty much ended my anger, along with my desire for pornography, and my desire to have to be right about everything. Yes I still get angry sometimes, but it is appropriate anger. And I get over it, and move on.
About six years ago I thought that I was a pretty happy go lucky guy. I was running my own business, I had a nice house, a nice car, a nice wife, four wonderful children, I coached little league football, I played in a band, I knew lot of people and I was the friendly wave at everyone type. I certainly did not consider myself to be an angry person.
But I got into a fight with my wife and to my surprise she said that I was angry all the time, that all I did was yell. That she wanted back the nice man she married. I knew I yelled at the kids because they were spoiled and would never clean their rooms, and if I did not yell at them they would not take me serious, but this was far from being an angry person, in my mind.
But the fight did not start resolving itself, instead it intensified. So we agreed that we would call my brother whom we both trusted to mediate, because he would be fair. Well, we had briefly discussed my crossdressing, because I was wearing girls underwear full time with my wife's knowledge, but reluctant acceptance. But this was still a secret as was my addiction to pornography, which she also knew about, and dispised, but I disregarded her concerns.
So my brother came over and we told him about our fight but not about the crossdressing or pornography, although from private discussions my brother knew I looked at pornography with regularity, although I never openly called it an addiction. And during our discussion we talked about anger and out of the blue, at least to me, he asked her "are you afraid of him" I almost laughed, because I am a very non violent person, and certainly non threatening. But to my utter astonishment, she said "yes". I could not believe it. He then asked her if the kids were afraid of me, and again she said "yes". At this point I had to interject and say this was completely ridiculous. I was a very loving father and there was no way my kids were afraid of me, I had great relationships with all of them.
Well, we got the fight calmed down and we settled a few issues, but not really the core issues. Being the president of the company, and supplying most of the income, I had a lot of clout. No one really wanted to try to take me down. But this thing about my kids bothered me. I knew it was not true. So I got them one at a time, and asked them in a very non threatening way if they were afraid of me. And to my utter shock, they all said "yes".
This hit me like a ton of bricks, and made me examine my behavior, and when I did, and was really honest, I was a very angry man. Something that I had been in such complete denial about, I truely hid it from myself. So I started researching about anger and how to deal with it. I believed that I probably had borderline personality disorder. I knew I had depression because I had suicidal thoughts for almost ten years at that point, but I kept that a secret that I planned on taking to the grave with me. I did not want to appear to be a weak person who was depressed. Depression carries too much of a stigma, and in the electrical business, where peoples lives are at stake, that scares people.
So I learned all about anger and how to cope with it, and manage it. I almost over night became an unangry person. I learned not to yell, and to ask people to do things instead of order them to. To expect a 6 year old to act like a 6 year old. And surprisingly, it worked. On the outside. I mean I was the master of pretending to be something I was not. This was just another thing to pretend. So I pretended I was not angry. And life went on.
Things got better between my wife and me, as well as my kids and me. My employees noticed and it improved my relationship with them. I was a hero, I conquered anger. But the economy started getting bad, and the business phone stopped ringing. Regular customers who used to just call for us to come and do thier work, suddenly wanted the lowest bidder. And before I knew it, I was out of money and had to fold my business.
Did this make me angry? NO, of course not, because I had conquered my anger. I moved my family, got a new job and worked my way to the top in a fairly short period of time, banrupted my company, and in no time things were good again. My illness was making it really hard for me to continue to work at the high level I had in the past, I was working away from home a lot. And before I knew it, the anger had returned. And it was worse than ever. And it was accompanied by emotional outbursts that were completely irrational. I truely felt like I was losing my mind.
I tried to use the same tactics I had before to control my anger, but I could not control it any more. My illness was getting worse. So now I had a new secret. I knew that it was a matter of time before my body gave out, but who was going to provide for my family? My wife did not even work. So I told her that I was having a lot of problems, and I thought I would only be able to work a few more years, that I needed to work my way into a desk job. But I would not make it anywhere close to a few more years.
I was now going to work, and lying down on the couch as soon as I got home, taking ibupropen like candy, not realizing that it would not help until bedtime. My depression was worsening, and so was my pain, and my anger. No one could do anything right. I worked, and laid on the couch barking out orders.
I started having anxiety attacks which I thought might be my heart. So I went to the doctor under the pretense of getting a check up. But my doctor said I had low cholesterol, and and ekg turned up a normal heart. Meaning I was not having heart problems. I got up my courage and told him about my depression. And about all this unexplained pain, and fatigue. He started me on anti-depressants, and got me an appointment with a rhuemtologist.
The anti-depressants really helped, my anxiety went away, and my anger subsided. But the pain did not. Nor did my persistant thoughts of suicide. I seen the rhuematologist and was finally diagnosed with fibromyalgia. So I started taking more anti depressants to help me sleep, muscle relaxers, and pain medication, because ibuprophen, tylonal, asperin, and other such drugs do not work on the pain of fibromyalgia. But the drugs had a hangover effect so I could not take them often because of my job.
My pain was increasing, my sleep was getting less and less, now only 2-3 hours a night. And I was working doing very physical work as an electrician, in the heat of the Mohave Desert. I was starting to have really serious memory problems. I was making errors at work, serious errors. I could not remember when asked by my boss, what I had accomplished and what was left to do. My hands were cramping so bad, I could not put wirenuts on anymore. A small connector you twist on to make wire connections. Finally while at work, I could not move my right arm. It felt like it was broken. I had actually worked until I could not work anymore. But after a 20 minute rest, it felt fine again. I could barly function at work, this would be my last week of work.
It was November of 2002. My wife had just started a new part time job. I had got her to work under the pretense that if she made $20k a year part time, we would have a sweet retirement nest egg. But I knew the truth. I knew that it was coming to an end. There was nothing I could do. From $90k a year to $35k a year with me on disability, and my wife now having to work full time. And if this were not bad enough, just weeks after going on disability, and weeks before Christmas, I was given a 30 day notice to move out of the house I was renting, because the owner decided to sell, while the market was peaking. They offered it to me, but now not working, I could not qualitfy for a loan. Now just weeks before Christmas, we had to start thinking about moving. We needed move in money. My disability finally just started coming in, but it was just a fraction of what I had made, and we still had bills of a person who made $90k.
From this point on, our house was nothing but anger. I had a huge loss of self esteem from not being able to work, as well as the fact that i had damaged my body so bad, that I could hardly get off the couch most of the day. My wife and I had complete role reversal, now she worked and I stayed home. However because of my illness, I could not do all the things that she did when she was at home and I worked.
With this loss of self esteem, loss of purpose, my anger returned. Again no one could do anything right. I was in denial about what was happening to me. I still believed it would only be temporary. I would return to work. But I did not improve, and as I learned more about my illness it became evident that I would never be able to return to this job that I really had loved so much. My anger worsened, and so did my depression, and my symptoms. My wife and I fought nonstop.
And then one day she said she could not take anymore, she wanted a divorce. It was different than before. I knew she meant it. She said that I was not the nice man she married, that I was this angry person that she did not even recognize. That I had given up. I was in a lot of denial about this. But as I looked at myself, it was not that I had given up, it was that I had not accepted what happened to me. I had not made a plan to survive it. I was still in denial.
It was at this point that I realized that I was not only going to have to face my illness, but I was going to have to face my crossdressing. I started wearing my girls underwear to bed when I knew we were going to be intimate. Something I knew my wife hated and turned her off. It was the start of the confrontation. I was forcing it, yet blaming her for not accepting it. I was hoping that if I forced it, that we might get counseling, or I could get her to read about it, that in some way I could get her to accept who I really was, because I was not going to be able to be happy unless I could express this part of me.
But instead it just drove the wedge deeper between us. We stopped being intimate because forcing my crossdressing on her, disgusted her. But I had waited 14 years, I knew that it was time to get this over with. And as we grew apart, I knew that I would finally have to do what I had always thought I would someday, which was to admit that I loved to wear women's clothes, and that I had spent a great deal of time wishing I was a woman. I got into therapy, but did not tell my therapist right away about my feelings. Then after another huge fight with my wife, she went to talk to my brother, because as I mentioned earlier, she trusted him to be fair and impartial, and outted me.
I knew this would most likely end my relationship with my brother. It was at this point that I made the decision to come completely out of the closet, and admit I was a crossdresser.
Full post is at:Elizabeth wrote May 4, 2004:
But now, all the the consequences that I have so worried about over the years. Being alone, having my chileren resent, and perhaps even hate me for what they may percieve as my selfishness in this matter. I am worried that I won't find anyone to love me, or for me to love. I feel like I am going off a cliff, but I also feel as if it is better than not going. But i am really scared about the future.
http://crossdressers-forum.com/forums/v ... ght=#18689
That was when I came here. And while many of you have seen my trials and tribulations, since this admission. Since coming out of the closet. My anger diminished, until now, I am hardly ever angry. My desire for pornography pretty much vanished. For I while I still looked occaisionally, but now I have not looked at any for a couple of months. I just don't have the urge to.
I now beleive that my anger, and hypersexuality, depression(which I am still fighting to some degree, although not as severe) Were mostly symptoms of the repression of my true identity. And even though I am in a major flair up right now of my symptoms, and I am noticably more cranky because of being in pain a lot, I don't have the anger. I feel calm. My blood pressure remains in the safe zone. So I have concluded that my anger was my expression of my own displeasure with myself. I truely hated myself for not having the courage to be who I have known for many years, was the real me.
No, I am not a girl, but I am Elizabeth.
Love always,
Elizabeth
