Taking the 1st real step towards self acceptance.

[Elizabeth]

Geeze Penny,

I don't know what to say. Your love and compassion along with mature understanding just leave me in total awe. I know you are also enduring incredible pain, which you have mostly kept to yourself. I wish I could give you a big hug and tell you everything is going to be ok, but I don't know that to be true. In fact, everything may not be ok. But you have given it every chance possible. I admire your strength and wisdom and wish to extend to you my warm thoughts and virtual hugs of support I feel for you.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Anita]

SO I AM WAKING UP AND SMELLING THE ROSES......it amounts to who has the right to be happy and loved, who has the right to expect it! who needs it!
answer simple, my family!!!!!!

It is good to take responsibility for your actions, Marie. I trust that the above statement doesn't mean that you're going to try to willpower your own needs out of existence.

The battle ahead consists of myself comming to terms with my decision, giving up a part of myself.

I would hope your decision would not involve giving up a part of yourself that matters to you. Almost every TG woman that I've ever talked to did not look at it her transition as "giving up a part" of herself. They usually saw it as leaving behind a part [i.e. male dress and behavior] that no longer served a purpose for them. I personally have said that I would grieve if I had to do that, but that seems to be a minority viewpoint.

That doesn't mean that you will automatically make the decision to transition. But I've not heard any success stories from those who have tried to completely give up the new self. It may happen, but they don't come back to tell the community about it if they do. Meanwhile, I have heard the stories of the ones who tried to "bury" the femme self, and could not do it for very long. Again, I would hope that that is not part of your plan, whatever it may turn out to be.

.... Penny has asked why can't the two sides coexist.... answer simple again, there aren't two lives!! there are two lies, so the search is for a truth, one to which one can hold onto and feel it is the correct path to follow.

I think you've tried to live two lives at once, and it hasn't worked. So, yeah, you probably do have to figure out how to create one life that you can accept as true for you.

Penni, only you and Marie can figure out how much compromise you can each handle, and there's no shortcuts to finding out. I wish both of you strength in the weeks ahead.

[Elizabeth]

Hi Marie,

I am so glad you joined us. There are many here like me, who have been through what you are going through. It is so hard to come to terms with. I even tried to kill myself when it became apparent that I could hold this back no more. I was worried about the shame and anxiety it would put on my kids.

I feared for the discrimination they would suffer because of me. However, I never asked for this. It was not my choice any more than it was my choice to get fibromyalgia, which has had extremely negative consequences for my family.

A few of the things that I have learned along the way is that first, my kids have not suffered discrimination. More importantly, how desperately my children need me, even as a transsexual. Two of my children chose to stay with me after the divorce. Both boys, ages 17 and 13. Being a man has little to do with what is between ones legs and I beleive all of my sons will become fine men.

You were not clear about what you were leaving behind, but certainly you must know by now that your feelings of gender dysphoria are not going away. There is no cure, except acceptance. To become ok with ones gender.

I certainly hope you are not considering taking your own life or abandoning your family to save them from pain. The pain of your loss would be more detrimental to your family than anything anyone could ever say to them about you.

I am glad you are here. It was an important step for me. To come here and meet people that had the same feelings I had. People that not only did not comdemn me, but held my hand and encouraged me at the worst time in my life.

I love this place and the people here, they saved my life. I am not saying that they can save your life or even that your life needs saving. I am just saying that you won't find a more loving and caring group of people and that they are here to help.

I hope for you what happened to me. That coming here and finding out that you are not alone in this world. You are not a freak. You are a normal transgendered person. Where you fit in that spectrum, only you can know, but our members can help you find out and how to move forward.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[DonnaT]

SO I AM WAKING UP AND SMELLING THE ROSES......it amounts to who has the right to be happy and loved, who has the right to expect it! who needs it!
answer simple, my family!!!!!!
.....

I hope you are including yourself in the phrase "my family", Marie.

Everyone in your family has a right to choose for themselves how they will handle your next steps, and as long as you don't push them away they will retain that right.

We can't predict the future, thus we won't know who will be happy or who won't. Someone may be unhappy now, but find later on that what has happened was right, and then no longer be unhappy.

All the best to you and your family.