On moving to Tumblr and how things have changed this year

Late last night I migrated my old blog to Tumblr.

This is my new blog! 

If you are reading this on blogger; this is the last time I will post here. If you are reading this on Tumblr – Hi! I'm Paige, a nerdy pansexual transbigenderqueer girl at your service! When I first came to the realization that I was bigender I began searching the internet for bigender blogs and the few I could find had very little content. Sooo I decided to start my own and here I am, 28 days away from this journals one year anniversary.

There were some formatting problems with the import, so earlier today I went through all my old posts and tried to clean them up as best I could. Working my way backwards through the old entries, I was amazed to see just how much things have changed for me over the course of the past year. I had this surreal feeling like I didn’t write those posts, even though I know I remember doing so.

I began this bigender journey as a boy that was sometimes a girl, emotionally devastated by the gender dysphoria that would come and go seemingly at random and terrified that this was going to destroy my marriage and the wonderful future my wife and I had been dreaming of. Today I know that I'm a girl that is sometimes a boy, I am transitioning so that my body will one day hopefully always look female and I'm in the process of getting divorced. A year ago I never could have imagined where my life would take me, but what I think would have surprised my past self the most is the fact that despite all the fear, pain, self loathing, emotional devastation and heart break that I've gone through – I survived.

And I'm getting stronger.

I feel like I'm nearing the half way point of some wonderful evolution of both my mind and body. I don't know where I'll end up or what the future has in store for me, but I finally feel like things are going to be OK in the long run. I'm not saying that I'm not terrified as I am. Transition has been the most intense and challenging thing I've ever had to do and I have a LONG way yet to go. Still, I'm hopeful, which is a far cry from where I was at a year ago.

If you are bigender, confused about your gender identity and you've just stumbled upon this journal I want you to know that you should be hopeful too. Because one day you'll know who you are and what you have to do to be happy and be at peace with your body. One of the reasons that I'm still sucking air is because of the awesome support I received at http://www.bigender.net/forum/index.php?sid=873fb4d43dc19804f924275fa9dac51e If you are bigender and you haven’t taken advantage of this resource yet I strongly encourage you to do so. You are not alone.

So that's enough for now. Sleep sweetly my friends.

Paige

It's starting to get better

More and more frequently when I look into the mirror I see a woman looking back at me, and she’s always a welcome sight. Sometimes I still look hopelessly male and I curse my reflection, but most of the time now I see the woman who I was always meant to be taking the place of the male body I so loathed, and I’m filled with overwhelming joy. There are some major male identifiers that won’t change without surgical intervention and I can accept that now. If things keep going the way they have been it will be just fine.

Ever since puberty I’ve had a major body image problem. Most of it had to do with my acne, but when I looked at the faces of other men I never saw myself in them. I always thought something was off and I could never put a finger on it before. When I first came out to myself the body dysphoria I experienced was soul crushing and it nearly overwhelmed me. After what I’ve been through up to this point, it’s hard for me to describe how wonderful I feel now. Even with still having a long way to go things are significantly better that they were before, and the sensation of dysphoria which once seemed to be so pervasive every waking moment of my life has greatly diminished to the point where a bad attack of it is rare.

It’s not just about my physical appearance though. My behaviors, likes, dislikes, the way I filter information and the way I perceive the world around me has changed as well. I think a lot of it had to do with moving out of the condo. There was a part of my brain that was clinging onto my masculinity for my Ex I think, and once I was in the new apartment the female side of me took over for the most part. My roommate says that the changes in my behavior have been profound, but I never really noticed until he pointed it out to me. (Apparently I’m a typical shy girl or something like that.) I just act normal and go with whatever feels right.

When I flip into guy mode now it’s just as disarming as it used to be when I flipped into girl mode. In guy mode I’m not dysphoric about my body; I’m dysphoric with my brain, which probably sounds crazy. It’s like something is off with my mind and my way of thinking. I’m kind of repulsed by my male brain and I wish it would just go away.

I don’t always notice the switching. I was watching something on TV with my roommate maybe a week ago and he made an innocent, jokingly suggestive comment and I burst out laughing. He told me that he could tell I was in guy mode because in girl mode I would have blushed. (I’m very bashful.) I suddenly felt almost ashamed, like if someone was to have told me that I was acting like a girl back when I primarily identified as a male. Am I that different in guy mode vs. girl mode? And how can one person be so different and still be the same person? Being bigender is confusing.

But still, even with the flipping I’m more convinced now than ever that transitioning is the right thing for me. I used to be afraid of the male part of my brain getting body dysphoria the more female I appear, but that hasn’t been the case at all. In fact, I can’t wait till I get to the point when I can’t pass as male anymore. I already did 31 years are a male and I didn’t like it much. I think female will suit me better, and I make a better looking than I ever did a man anyway.  Heck, I might even be pretty someday.

Paige

Overdue entry

This is the longest I've ever gone without posting and I apologize. I think this entry will just mostly be a general update on my current status to bring things up to speed so that we can get that out of the way for any future entries. After this I plan on getting back to my frequent posting schedule. This journal has been very therapeutic for me and it's one of those things that I need to doing for myself.

I'm currently living in Normal Heights, ranting out a small two bedroom apartment with my best friend.. Money is extremely tight right now but I'm managing to keep my head above water. Once my wife rents out my old room at the condo things should get a lot better. The apartment I'm living in is small but I have my own room and it's nice and quiet. The area is full of cool stores and shops and I can quickly get to anywhere in San Diego from here as we're centrally located now, so that's neat I guess.

As far as my transition is concerned, it's going OK but there's considerable room for improvement. My Dr. bumped up my estrogen to 40mg from 20mg which made me very happy, but now it's down again because my stupid prolactin levels were too high. After I moved out it was like the hormones started effecting me better or something because I recently started looking more feminine than I had before, which is awesome and I'm very happy about that. My breasts just had (or are still having) a little growth spurt and this weekend I'm going bra shopping. I'm both terrified and excited at the same time. =P

Today I flipped into guy mode harder than I have in a long time and I found it to be very uncomfortable. When I'm in guy mode now it's kind of like when I used flip to girl mode when I first started down this path, but without the body dysphoria thank the goddess. I'm still in guy mode right now, typing these words while I cook dinner. *Checks on curry really quick.* I have regular minor flips occasionally but most of the time I'm in female mode now and I'd prefer to stay there. I hope that over time this just stops and I wont be bigender anymore, just trans, but after today I'm a little less optimistic.

I'm still not going out in girl mode yet and it's a huge problem for me. My social-anxiety seems to be getting worse and I'm worried that the therapy is not helping. My depression has been very bad as of late also. I'm so lonely. I need to meet new people, make new friends that are like me but I'm having trouble going out in guy mode as it is. I don't know what to do to fix this. I'm scared that something is wrong with me and that I'll never be able to connect with anyone again now that my wife is gone.

I'm trying my best to hold it together. I'm going to have to do something soon though. I need to go out and start living my life as Paige. To experience the world as a female and to discover just what sort of woman I am. Something is going to break soon and I hope it's not my mind.

Well, I suppose I should count my blessings all things considered. I'm moderately healthy, I have a good friend close by, my kitty still loves me, I have a stable job, I've been blessed with an androgynous body and my family supports me. Also, I'm going through transition and a divorce, two of the most stressful events that a person could go through, at the same time and I'm still here looking forward to tomorrow.

If I can make it through this I'll be fucking invincible.

Well, that the short version of where I'm at. I promise to write more frequently!

Paige

P.S. - OMFG Chocolate.

On emotions between Testosterone vs. Estrogen

Hellooooo.

It’s been a while so before I delve into today’s topic I just wanted to bring you up to speed on what’s been going on in my life.  At the moment my friend has moved into the condo temporarily and it looks like we will probably get an apartment together out in town.  My wife/ex wants’ me out of her life so the sooner the better.  Over the course of this weekend I need figure out how to go about renting out the room I’m currently staying in and I also need to do some preliminary apartment hunting.

My dysphoria has been bad lately.  I know that there’s only so much I can do regarding my physical appearance, but in my eyes I don’t look nearly feminine enough to ever blend in.  Sometimes I really just feel like a tall awkward guy in drag and it sucks.  I kind of bounce back and forth from being really happy with the changes that have occurred to my body, to feeling like I’ll never be accepted as female no matter what I do.  I have a male mind also and while in guy mode I’m perfectly happy with the feminization of my body (as I realize it’s the only way I’ll be happy) I also balk at the idea of going all uber fem.  I’m just a very non-conforming person and it’s complicating my transition, which is already a complicated process as it is.  Yay transbigenderqueer.

What I really wanted to write about today are the changes in my emotions that I’m going through on HRT.  It’s been five months since I got my first shot and while I’ve undergone some major physical changes I’ve also been experiencing various changes mentally as well.  One of the most profound changes is how I experience and express my emotions.

I’ve been a sensitive and emotional person all my life.  However, on testosterone I never really wanted to express those emotions to anyone in a significant way.  Men are typically taught that non-aggressive emotional expressions are a sign of weakness, probably because said non-aggressive emotions are often times associated with femininity.  By that logic, society teaches that women are inherently weaker than men, which goes to show you how deeply ingrained misogyny is in our culture.  But I digress.

In addition to being taught not to express my emotions as a male, there’s also a hormonal factor that plays into it which most people aren’t aware of.  Since I’ve been on estrogen I’ve noticed a huge increase on how powerful my emotions are.  It’s like as a male my emotions were present, but they were dull and fuzzy like the image on an old CRT television set and now as a female I’ve switched to a big screen plasma HD television and all my emotions are bright, shard and vivid. 

Now I find myself wanting to talk about my emotions with other people and wanting them to empathize with me.  Also I want other people share their emotions with me as well and now I user stand why many women have such a hard time communicating with men, and why they sometimes complain that their boyfriend/husband is emotionally distant.  Men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus; they just have different hormones plus cultural conditioning.  It’s actually pretty cool to have experienced it from both sides and now I have a much better understanding of how those gender differences play out in interpersonal relationships because of it.

All my emotions have been turned up to 11 now.  Before estrogen when I’d see a kitten I’d think, “Awww, that’s cute.”  Now it’s more like, “OMG IT’S SOOOO CUTE!!! SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!”  As a man I would cry sometimes, but typically not for more than 10 minutes at the very most.  Now I can literally cry for hours sometimes and I can’t stop the tears until I’m “done”.   I’m also experiencing a strange desire to hug people.  I don’t know if that’s an emotional thing or what.  It’s weird but it all feels natural.

 If I could travel into the past and tell myself about how my emotions were going to change I bet it would have freaked me the hell out.  Now however I wouldn’t trade this for the world.  I feel so much more alive now, like this is how I was always supposed to have experienced the world.  I always used to feel so detached from reality where now I feel as though I’m a part of everything.

Hormones – they’re neat!

Paige

I'm Not Dead Yet!

Note – this post was written earlier in the day time.

Hi again blog.

My mood has stabilized significantly since yesterday. The tears are still close to the surface but for now at least I don’t have to make a concentrated effort to hold them back. Tonight I’ll let myself be as emotional as I need to be and I’m going to do it in a healthy, nondestructive way. (That’s my plan anyway.) 

The two people I feel closest to in San Diego, (the only two people I actually feel close to) are going away and I’m going to be here by myself.  I plan on getting my ass out and making new friends in the trans community, but what if I don’t forage any close relationships with anyone? If that’s the case all that will be keeping me here is my job.

Once the dust settles from my divorce I’ll be starting all over again and I have to say that the idea of moving to a new city and rebooting my life is rather appealing to me right now. After everything is squared away between me and my wife I’m going to get an apartment in Hillcrest with a six month lease. That will give me time to get settled, to meet new people and to save money. What I do after the six months is up in the air.

If I’m happy where I’m at I’ll just stay here. San Diego is a pretty nice place to live and I have a steady job. If I’m unhappy then I’m going to move away IF I can make sure that I’ll have a job lined up for me. Also, I’m already half way towards retirement with the organization I’m currently employed by and it would be foolish for me to throw that away. (So I’ll be able to retire when I’m 41 if I want to, although I’ll most likely keep working as I’d get a lot more retirement money if I do 30 years vs. 20.) 

If I feel like it’s time to move on there are a few different places that I’m thinking about going. I don’t like to plan really far in the future so this is just for fun. Still, I’m used to moving around all over the place thanks to the Navy and after all that I’ve been through here it might really be a good idea to get a fresh start. Anyway, here’s what I’m thinking.

Florida – I haven’t said this since I was a little kid, but right now I really want my mommy. =(  I want to be close to my family and I could really use their support right now. I know also that there’s a great gender therapist over in Sarasota, which looks like it’s a really nice place to live. I’d be able to dive out on the weekends to visit my family and vice versa. The cost of living out there is super cheep and I could afford a nice apartment with just my VA check. Both Sarasota and South Tampa look to have thriving LGBT communities as well.

The problem with moving to Florida is that uh, it’s Florida. It’s kind of the deep fucking south which is not the friendliest place for gender variant people such as I, and of course I need to be able to work so that I can support myself somehow. Also, fuck fire ants. Seriously.

Chicago – I was born and raised in Chicago, so I have roots there and I still feel a strong connection to it. I also have family and old friends there and I know my way around. Chicago has a bustling LGBT community and I’m sure that I’d be able to find plenty of support there. Oh, and the food! Best food in the world. I fucking love Chicago.

However I hate the weather. In the summer time people die from the heat and in the winter they freeze to death. Also, while there are people I know there, I’m worried that it might be a bit awkward for some of them that I’m going to be so, uh, different than I used to be. One of the points of moving away from San Diego would be to have a fresh start and going back to Chicago might be defeating the purpose. There used to be a strong Navy presence there but they’ve moved most of the various schools to Texas so it would be hard for me to find a job.

Oh, and all the Portillo’s will make me fat. I’m so hungry right now.

San Francisco – The Gay Capital of America. This one is a no brainer. In San Francisco I might actually not be queer enough to be noticed by anyone. =P It would be the safest place in the country for me and it’s a beautiful, diverse and wonderfully weird place to live. Hell, even if I was heteronormative I’d love to live there.

If I could afford to. The cost of living in San Francisco is crazy and I’d have to be very financially secure to move out there. That’s the only problem I can think of. If I could afford it I’d fucking go now.

Seattle – I’ve never been there but I’ve always wanted to go. Washington is a beautiful State with a diverse ecosystem which is important to me because I love nature and I don’t like living in the desert like I am now. Seattle appears to be a very liberal city with a lot of culture. The LGBT community is huge and I keep hearing that it’s an awesome place to live if you’re trans. I just feel drawn to Seattle like it’s somewhere I’m supposed to be. I can’t really explain it.

I need to learn take a little vacation up to Seattle to check it out. There are a lot of Naval facilities at Bremerton which is really close to Seattle. (Hour long ferry ride.) If I can get a job lined up I’d really like to move there. It feels right.

That’s enough typing for now. I’ll blabber on about more pointless nonsense later!

Paige

On controlling the bigender “flip” and what it's like when everyone you care about goes away.

Hay there blog. Yesterday was a fucking catastrophe and today sucks too. My best friend who is also bigender is moving away. So now basically my whole support network is gone and I'm going to be alone here in San Diego. It seemed like one minute things had leveled out and now everything is falling apart before my eyes and there's really nothing I can do about it.

I've been in guy mode since I woke up this morning and I've been forcing myself to stay in guy mode all day. Uh, I didn’t know I could do that before now. When I'm in guy mode vs. female mode I have a lot more control over my emotions. As a guy it's easier for me to control and shut them down when I have to. In female mode I have to cry until I'm done and that's that. I need to make it through another day of work tomorrow so yeah. I need to be in guy mode right now.

So for any bigender person who “flips” between genders like I do, here's what I'm doing. (This is from a MAAB perspective, switch the genders as you see fit.)

1. No female clothing, make up, or any of that shit. I can only speak for myself, but my presentation has a HUGE influence over my gender state. If I look in the mirror and I see a female face, (or a close proximity at least =P) looking back at me then it's a guarantee that I'll flip.

2. Maintain a masculine posture. Most people don't think about this shit consciously, but when you're trans you have to learn how to not only look like the gender you identify as, but you also have to learn all the nuances that go along with said genders presentation. As a simple example, when women sit they tend to take up as little space as possible while men tend to sprawl out and claim as much space as they can. You have to learn about posture, speech patterns, how men squint and look down to the ground and how women usually have there eyes wide open and fixed on the horizon line, stuff like that. Focusing on only using the standard gender ques of the gender I wish to be in grants me another level of control over the fabled “flip”.

3. Mindfulness. This is crucial. (For me anyway.) Don't let your thoughts run away with you. Don't allow your mind to day dream or drift over to thoughts/emotions that your other gender might feed off of. Focus on your breathing, or the different things you see. Notice every detail. Listen to music and hear and feel every tiny note. Basically, focus on the exterior world rather than what's going on inside your head. I've been training my mind to do this for a while to help combat my depression and anxiety so I'm starting to get good at it. It takes practice but it can be done.

So I've learned/I'm learning to wield some control over the flip, but I also know that all I'm really doing right now is suppressing my female side and I'll have to let her out soon. My plan for tomorrow is to make it through the day, take care of all my errands and then I'll go into girl mode and confront all the feelings I'm keeping bottled up inside me right now.

The reality of my situation is that I'm completely devastated right now. My wife doesn’t want me anywhere near her and my one and only friend who also happens to be bigender and whom I regard as a kindred spirit is going away. My friend is my anchor and he makes me feel brave to be myself. I was a complete shut in until I met him. I'm still super shy, but I feel like I'm just starting to come out of my shell and his support has played a huge part in that.

I sort of assumed that he'd always be around. That we'd be friends, transition together, support one another when we needed it, have crazy gender-queer adventures together and we'd do all the stuff that best friends do. (Uh, when they're queer.) My marriage ending is killing me, and then to learn that I'm losing the only other person who I really care about in San Diego. . . fuck.

I'm really fucking weird. No one understands me and I have a hard time making friends. He was my bigender idol when I first joined the bigender.net forums and he was the one who recommended me to my gender therapist, who has literally saved my life more than once now.

Meeting someone like my wife and falling in love with her, (and having my love reciprocated) was a one in a million shot. I don't know if that will ever happen again. (I'm afraid that it won't.) The fact that my friend and I are both bigender, we're both weird, we both work in healthcare, we're both reasonably intelligent, (although he's way smarter than I am) we both seem to be going through the same shit together even though we're not really involved in one another lives, and we both think alike. . . It's like we were supposed to be friends and now that he's going away I feel like I'm being cheated; like this wasn’t supposed to happen.

I feel like we were supposed to have adventures together. He was going to take me to get my first bra fitted. I thought that we could go to San Diego Pride together to represent the bigender community. I was going to take him to get his first suit. His presence in my life has had an extreamly positive influence on me and I'm a stronger person for having known him. He made me excited to be bigender.

So when the smoke settles from my divorce what do I have left? Nothing really. I'll still hopefully have a job, but I need more than that to keep me going. I'm going to have to make some new friends and build up a support network quick or else I'm not going to make it. I can't do this alone.

I just want to go home, but nowhere is home to me anymore.

Paige

On My Marriage Ending

I haven’t posted for a while as I’ve been dealing with a lot of personal stuff, and I knew that the next time I wrote it would have to be about this subject and I’ve been trying to avoid it. Since I realized that I was bigender my greatest fear has been that this would end my marriage. Now I can say that it has.

My wife and I have been separated for a while now. I’ve been living in the bed room which I’ve converted into a tiny flat and my wife living in the front room which she converted into a larger flat. We have been sharing the kitchen and bathroom of course. This arrangement worked for me and having my own bit of personal space has been very liberating and stress relieving.

A few weeks back I heard my wife crying in the bathroom. I asked her if she was ok and she said no. Long story short, we had a long talk and between sobbing, we both decided that we had no future together as a married couple and that it was over. It was something that I kind of knew was coming, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. We agreed that we had something special between us and that we would always be the closest of friends and that we would always be there for each other.

Now let’s fast forward to a couple days ago.

I was in my room on the computer like the good nerd that I am when my wife came in. She started to cry, and then she told me that she needs to get over me and that she wants me to move out of the house. I was shocked. We had gone through a bunch of drama before about who was going to live where and I thought that we were both happy with the current living arrangements. I like the little nest I’ve made for myself and I feel safe and comfortable where I’m at.

When she told me that she can’t stand to be around me because it hurts her so much I felt all the feelings of guilt and shame that I thought I was finally getting over come back stronger than ever before. It’s not my fault that I’m trans/bigender, but the fact that I am I’m hurting her just by being near her makes me feel like shit. I love her and the last thing I’d ever want to do would be to hurt her. If she can’t stand for me to be a part of her life then I have no other choice but to move.

But that’s not going to be so easy.

First of all, it’s my fucking house too. I pay the mortgage and up until recently I’ve paid all the bills as well. I want her to be safe and secure when she gets out of school so I’m going to sign over the condo to her when she is financially able to afford to pay the mortgage. I’m giving her everything I have to give. Until then we’re both on the lease and I have every right to live here. 

Next, it’s really easy to tell me to move out when I’m the one who has to find a new source of income to afford a new place and she doesn’t have to change anything, while I keep paying the mortgage on the condo that I can’t live in anymore. Am I the only one who thinks that’s kind of messed up? I’m starting to feel like I’m somehow being placed in the roll of the bad guy and now I’m supposed to atone for my sins by making enormous sacrifices for her. Again, I DIDENT WANT TO BE BIGENDER. I didn’t fucking ask to be like this. It happened, I changed as a person and I had no control over it.

I didn’t do anything wrong so why do I feel like I’m being punished in some way?

She told me that I should rent my room out so that I can pay to get a place with a roommate which was an old plan we had before, and that she would accept any roommate that I thought would be good. I didn’t realize it at first, but she’s kicking me out and she expects me to find her a roommate so I can make this happen?

Not only that, but it’s not like finding a place for me to stay is going to be easy. I’m transitioning and I’d need to find someone very tolerant and in the safe parts of San Diego where I won’t have to worry about walking down the street and being accosted. Maybe she doesn’t realize just how difficult this is going to be for me.

I’m going to have a long talk with my wife when I get some and then I’ll finish this post. To be continued

_______________________________________________________________________________

I can't stop crying. I can hardly see the monitor through my tears. It's really over. And by that I mean that the most important person to me in the entire world want's me completely out of her life. And out of her house. I don't know how to live like this. We've been together the past 11 ½ years. Every thing was so perfect. I'd never been so happy. Now it's all gone and I can't imagine ever being happy again. Ever being loved again.

For this past year she's always been there for me and she's done everything she could to help me to be happy. That's what she told me just now and she's right. I DIDENT WANT TO CHANGE. I hate myself but I don't know what else I could do? What should I have done? I never wanted to hurt her. Not in a million years but I broke her heart because of what I am. I hurt her so bad.

I feel like a fucking monster. A creature that came in and devoured her husband and took over his life. We had so many plans for the future. I wasted her life. I just want it to stop hurting. I want to stop hurting her.

And so now the life that I've built up for her and I is gone and I have nothing. There's nothing left for me here.

I did everything for her. I woke up in the morning for her and I'd lie down beside her when going to bed I'd think about how incredibly lucky I was that I met the perfect woman for me. God I don't want to go to work tomorrow. I just don’t want to be here anymore. She wants me out of her life and I live for her.

I never knew anything could hurt this bad. I tried to explain to her that this is hard for me too and she got angry at me and yelled at me. She told me that any sane woman would have kicked me out six months ago. I CANT FUCKING HELP IT. I cant stop being trans. I wanted it to go away so bad. I used to be so happy and now just when I think I'm starting to accept myself. . . this. If something was wrong I could always make it better for her and this time I just couldn't. I cant fucking fix this.

My life is over. Ever since I first saw her back at Naval Hospital Yokosuka I knew that she was special and I wanted to make her happy. I've fucking failed. I just wanted to make her happy and instead I wasted her youth and ruined her life.

I got responsible. I got a good work ethic, I became good with managing money. She made me want to be a better man for her. I built up this whole new self and I grew up so I could take care of her. I tried to be a good husband. I thought that I was.

I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. I never thought that I would be alone again. I thought everything was going to be OK and that there was nothing that we couldn’t work through because of how much we loved each other. I feel like I wasn’t alive before I met her. I don't remember who I was. Now that she's gone I'm completely lost. I've lost everything and I have nothing left.

I don’t know why I do the things I do. Why I'm even bothering to write this down. I know I need to go exercise and I need to eat. I don't have any reason to any more. I don't want to hurt myself because then I'd hurt my friends and my family but it's so fucking hard.

This is the worst day of my life. I don't know what to do. Everything I've loved and cherished for the past 10 years, it's gone and there's nothing left for me except unbearable pain. It hurts too much.