The F*** Word

[DonnaT]

Fear

Fear is a primal instinct, which may appear irrational to some in some situations, but is an honest emotion.

One has to work at conquering their fears.

My wife is afraid of snakes. She knows most won't bite, and are good for some things, like vermin control. She not only knows that, but even understands it. Doesn't relieve her fear though. And it is actually a healthy fear, because some snakes do bite.

BUT, she's only afraid of snakes when snakes are present. Why worry about them all the time?

So, will the fear one has that the CD will want to go further and possibly transition, or your SO will not accept you’re dressing, ever go away?

It might, the more you learn, the more you talk about it with others, like on this forum, and the more you talk to your partner.

Then again, it might not go away, but hopefully it could ease somewhat.

I've told my wife for the last 29 years that I have no desire to take hormones or transition. But she still asks once in a while.

I have no problem with her asking, and we talk, and her fears ease until next time. But it isn't constantly on her mind.

Hopefully the emotion LOVE will be stronger than the emotion FEAR, so that your fears ease. As long as there is trust and love.

But will the the fear ever go away?

Only time will tell.

[Elizabeth]

Hi Donna,

I really liked what you wrote about fear, and how sometimes it never goes away and we must continually confront it. And that we can look at fear as something we "manage" as opposed to something we must dispense with.

Nice post.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Anita]

Hi Donna--
This is always an important subject--thanks for bringing it up. I've noted before that CDing has really helped me to live more in the here/now, and that's out of necessity. If I try to look too far ahead, I get anxious and upset sometimes. Where is it going? Am I going to suddenly wake up one morning and "know" that I need to transition? (Happened that way to one friend).

And yet, all my life, I've had to go on through fear to get to where I needed to go. Elizabeth is right; you don't dispense with it--no one does that. You learn how to keep moving when fear is present. Hence the title of a book by Susan Jeffers, PhD--Feel the fear and do it anyway!
She argues that successful people don't eliminate fear--they learn how to work with it.

Ten years ago, if you had shown me my life now, it would have been very fearful to me on first glance. I could never have imagined it! Going out as a WOMAN? Friends and family accepting this? People being friendly when I'm out there? My little world view of 1995 did not include any conception of this--it was pre-Internet, and I had no idea that men went out dressed as women every day. I didn't know that I would even have a need for this. Like a least one other gal on here, I had not done much CDing for 30 years.

Maybe transsexuals went out in public, but I was vague about how they did that. It was as foreign as life in an Amazon rain forest; I might have read about it, but it was all intellectual. I felt sorry for transsexuals the way I felt sorry for people in Vietnam in '68--I could see there was suffering there, but it was all very remote from my immediate world. There's only so much feeling you can come up with when you have no direct connection to anyone involved.

So it was a bit of a shock, to put in mildly, when I saw that I was uncovering a TG person that I had a very strong connection to--ME.

A therapist of mine said that whenever I saw a frightening person or thing in a dream, I should walk up to them and say, "What is your gift for me?"
I was able to do this sometimes, and it worked--the fear would either dissolve, or change to something else. It seems like it pays to keep introducing yourself to your fears, whether in dreams or waking life.
Anita certainly had gifts for me, but it took many small steps to be able to see that.

[Raven(SO)]

Hey DonnaT good post, I love snakes....i would have a pet viper if i could.
Raven

[Kyra]

Hey Girls,
Just wanted to add...Fear is the antithesis of courage. It keeps us moored to the pier instead of sailing off into the sunset.

Here's just a sample of what some say of Fear:

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most. - Dostoyevsky

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every expierence in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself. "I lived through this horror. I can take teh next thing that comes along." - Elenor Roosevelt, You Learn By Living. 1960

The only thing we have to fear is fear it'self - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance - Fdr - First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none. - Francis Bacon

I will show you fear in a handful of dust - T.S. Eliot

Fear is only as deep as the mind allows - Japanese Proverb

Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be. - Lactantius


Hugs,
Kyra

P.S. - I thought the F*** word was for ...



FOOD!

[Oregon (SO)]

Donna you posted such a powerful message. I wanted to comment on this because strangely that 'fear' is something I have managed to overcome. WHen I was looking to date and marry a cd, I educated myself as much as possible about the community and talked to alot of couples who had been dealing or having it be a part of their marriage for years. TO me knowledge is power, so I wanted to realy arm myself with everything I would need to know. I got into this willingly and needed to know what are the 'best' and 'worst' case scenarios I could possibly expect. Obviously someone wanting to take those next steps and either live full time or wnat complete surgery for me was just a bit more beyond a comfort level I wanted to be a part of.

That brings me to meeting and getting to know Amanda, my hubby. Of course I asked that same question "what is the liklihod at thsi point in time taht you might decide to take this further steps? Hormones? Full time? SRS? He told me that those all were things he had considered when really getting into the community. He did alot of long hard thinking and for Amanda, he decided that those were just not things that would make him any happier or feel any more complete.

So, we moved our relationship to the next level alot of my girl friends who knew what I was into were really concerned for me. Most of them felt that just casually dating a cd was cool, but to put myself in a situation where it could evolve was to dangerous. Why risk it? Why trust someone if you already know what 'could' possibly happen?

For me the reality is that fear is just not something I want to waste my time worrying about, or fretting over. It would be like getting in your car everyday and thinking 'is today the day I have an accident?" I think if we did that no one would ever drive, becuase the fear of the what if would drive us nuts while driving. I headed into my relationship hoping for the best and deciding not to feed that particular fear. i have starved that fear and it is very very rare that I ever give it much thought.

Although, that said, on ocasion something wil happen to someone I know (a cd who decides to head down that other path) and for a split second I can't help but give in to that fear. But again, I refocus on all teh amazing things that being married to a cd haev done for me and I forget taht old fear.

I know my viewpoint is not that of alot of SO's, but this is how I overcame my fear.

hugs
kathy in canada

Fear

Fear is a primal instinct, which may appear irrational to some in some situations, but is an honest emotion.

One has to work at conquering their fears.

My wife is afraid of snakes. She knows most won't bite, and are good for some things, like vermin control. She not only knows that, but even understands it. Doesn't relieve her fear though. And it is actually a healthy fear, because some snakes do bite.

BUT, she's only afraid of snakes when snakes are present. Why worry about them all the time?

So, will the fear one has that the CD will want to go further and possibly transition, or your SO will not accept you’re dressing, ever go away?

It might, the more you learn, the more you talk about it with others, like on this forum, and the more you talk to your partner.

Then again, it might not go away, but hopefully it could ease somewhat.

I've told my wife for the last 29 years that I have no desire to take hormones or transition. But she still asks once in a while.

I have no problem with her asking, and we talk, and her fears ease until next time. But it isn't constantly on her mind.

Hopefully the emotion LOVE will be stronger than the emotion FEAR, so that your fears ease. As long as there is trust and love.

But will the the fear ever go away?

Only time will tell.

[Beauty]

Aloha,

I have to agree with everyone else. Bravo for this thread!

My wife asks "the question" (are you sure you're not a TS?) because I have pushed the envelope more than many SOs here would have liked or accepted. I do plan on having FFS to accent my femme features (jawline) and I do take testosterone blockers because I hate the effect testosterone has on my body. That's another story though.

My F word came in parts. One was my wife's and one was my own. My wife's were similar to the questions others have been asked, "Are you sure you don't want to go all the way to womanhood?" The answer for me is still no. The blockers don't make me look femme and I really don't want to take any femme hormones. After the FFS I will still look like a male. This is what I wanted, a balance.

My F word of balance for me came because my happiness equalled walking on a very thin line. The perception of me and the reality that I'm not a pre-op TS waiting to turn the corner was a huge fear. I know who I am and I'm not a woman trapped in a man's body. I'm a person who was born in a period of time where I can balance my male and female gender and I'm still someone who wants to be a man in daily life. Sometimes I wish I'd be a TS already, but when I was young the feeling I have about "just be a TS" was similar to my feelings of, "just be gay already". The latter feeling was because I knew I was different.

I felt if I wore women's clothes I had to be gay. Not! There are huge signs you're gay and huge signs you're a TS. The two that define things for me are, if you're gay you are attracted to men, which I'm not. For being a TS you need to feel you were born the wrong sex, which I don't feel I was.

I can't believe how long it took me to realize this, but I was naive about sexual things and gender talk. I forget exactly how it happened, but someone who's gay either told me or I read from a gay person that when they were young and saw men they were attracted to they got aroused down there. I pondered for a brief moment and then a light bulb went off for me, "No that doesn't ever happen to me!!!" It was not a win for not being gay. It was a huge YAY! for I didn't have to be something I didn't think I was. Until that moment I associated wearing femme clothes with being gay. Oh the naivety.

The F word was more difficult with "is i is or is i ain't" regarding being a TS though, until I did more exploration on the web and found out that I didn't feel I was born in the wrong body. I felt sometimes like I wanted to morph into a woman, but I knew eventually I'd want to go back to being a male. However I knew that the F word here was more paramount. If I wanted to be me I would be alienated from the TS side of the world who would label me as CD'r and the CD world who would label me as a TS. Over the last half a decade I've found out who I am, but no moment was more paramount than when CJ posted the link about transgenderists and that TOTALLY brought to light that I wasn't a TS. It was similar to the epiphany I had when someone told me when you're gay you are attracted or aroused by the same sex, which I wasn't. So the riddle was resolved, I wasn't a TS, but the F word, in a way, is still with me, for acceptance of two communities reasons.

So I accept me for me, but before I found my wife it was hard to do that. She believe's me more than ever that I have no interest in transitioning. I feel I've done enough introspective thought, gone through enough counseling, and experienced life enough to make this very important decision. I've dealt with my fears and I'm glad I did. I know who I am today and that's a huge step. It took at least a decade of dedicated work for me to know who I was and I thank God everyday.

Thanks again Donna for this great thread. I apologize for the long post and for all to SOs I grossed out.

Beauty

[Absaroka]

F.E.A.R.

False Evidence Appearing Real

If we can accept that the Creator is in charge, not us, and that in the end things will be as they should be and that evn death is just a part of life..........

Still working on it and not nearly there. But I have come to accept who I am and that was a big step.

My aren't we philosophical today. But this kind of thinking has in fact been a big help to me.



Andrea

[Kay(SO)]

Someone once said to me, "where there is fear there is no room for faith" and it kinda stuck with me. Whenever I'm feeling scared or fearful about something this comes into my head and it makes it easier to walk through my fear to get to the other side, knowing that faith will make it all okay.



Kay(SO)