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She gets in my head.
It's been over 48 hours since I've messaged or talked to my mother, and we had an okay conversation. Still, somehow, I hear her disapproving voice in my head and it makes me crumple into a tiny little nothing. It makes me convinced that my transition is a horrible mistake, even though this is the third time the guy in me has tried to surface in my life. (I thought it was only this time and one other previously, but last night I recalled a third.) I feel a distinct lack of male genitalia. Allowing masculine aspects of my personality to shine through gives me an adrenaline rush. This did not start last week. I have a mountain of personal psychological evidence that transitioning is the right thing to do. I have the support of my parents-in-law, as long as I do what's best for me and take my time for the benefit of my physical and mental health. Then there's her.
As my wife puts it, she "pours poison in my ear." I can't help but listen to her because she is my mother, and I can't help but crave her approval, especially without any other living blood relatives I can talk to. Yet, she seems to have the same hold on me now as she did when I was a teenager and I did something she did not approve of. Why can't I just let go? I jam the door open, sending her information about being transgender, even trying to find support groups for her so she doesn't feel alone, but it's so draining.
She says,"What will my friends think? I have no one I can talk to about this, not even my boyfriend." I know, intellectually, that she made her own decision to surround herself only with extremely conservative people. Most of her friends are old Catholic ladies, probably because she's trying to replace her mother and grandmother, but that's not my damage. Not. My. Damage.
I feel traumatized, like I'm going to "get in trouble" like a teenager gets in trouble with their parents if they do something wrong, like it's only a matter of time before she finds some way to intervene, like she did every time she ever even thought I was doing something "wrong." Instead of being a 41-year-old married guy 800 miles away, I feel like a 15-year-old hiding at his friend's house.
The doubt comes almost exclusively from her. "What if I'm making a terrible mistake?" "What if I ruin my body?" "What if this is just a response to gaining weight and not feeling 'pretty'?" These questions aren't entirely without merit. If I choose top surgery and hormones (I can say no to either or both), I have to be 110% sure this is what I want. Coming from her, though, they are loaded questions, dripping with guilt. It's all about her. "I prayed and prayed that you would be a girl," she said. "I wanted a girl so bad." "What, do you think God made a mistake?"
As to whether God made a mistake, though I do not share her faith, I think the powers that be gave me this journey quite deliberately. It is my journey to take, my wisdom to take from it. As I said in an earlier entry, I grew up with my female self. She was a good person. Nothing wrong with her. She's just not who I am now, she may not ever have been who I was, and it is some idealized, porcelain-doll version of her who is a stranger to me that my mother is mourning, not someone I ever was.
But I want my mama. I can't help it.
As my wife puts it, she "pours poison in my ear." I can't help but listen to her because she is my mother, and I can't help but crave her approval, especially without any other living blood relatives I can talk to. Yet, she seems to have the same hold on me now as she did when I was a teenager and I did something she did not approve of. Why can't I just let go? I jam the door open, sending her information about being transgender, even trying to find support groups for her so she doesn't feel alone, but it's so draining.
She says,"What will my friends think? I have no one I can talk to about this, not even my boyfriend." I know, intellectually, that she made her own decision to surround herself only with extremely conservative people. Most of her friends are old Catholic ladies, probably because she's trying to replace her mother and grandmother, but that's not my damage. Not. My. Damage.
I feel traumatized, like I'm going to "get in trouble" like a teenager gets in trouble with their parents if they do something wrong, like it's only a matter of time before she finds some way to intervene, like she did every time she ever even thought I was doing something "wrong." Instead of being a 41-year-old married guy 800 miles away, I feel like a 15-year-old hiding at his friend's house.
The doubt comes almost exclusively from her. "What if I'm making a terrible mistake?" "What if I ruin my body?" "What if this is just a response to gaining weight and not feeling 'pretty'?" These questions aren't entirely without merit. If I choose top surgery and hormones (I can say no to either or both), I have to be 110% sure this is what I want. Coming from her, though, they are loaded questions, dripping with guilt. It's all about her. "I prayed and prayed that you would be a girl," she said. "I wanted a girl so bad." "What, do you think God made a mistake?"
As to whether God made a mistake, though I do not share her faith, I think the powers that be gave me this journey quite deliberately. It is my journey to take, my wisdom to take from it. As I said in an earlier entry, I grew up with my female self. She was a good person. Nothing wrong with her. She's just not who I am now, she may not ever have been who I was, and it is some idealized, porcelain-doll version of her who is a stranger to me that my mother is mourning, not someone I ever was.
But I want my mama. I can't help it.
