Nightmare

I've just awoken from a horrible nightmare.

In it I was younger and still living with my parents, sisters and step-brother back home in Chicago.  Apparently I was out to them and I dressed up at home.  (I believe that I was starting on HRT, but the details are pretty fuzzy.)  It was my birthday and we were going out to a  restaurant that I liked for dinner.

I guess that I was presenting as a female more and more when I went out, and that plan was that I would be female at the restaurant.  With my girl cloths in my back pack  I rode to the restaurant on my mountain bike so I could get there early to get dressed up in the bathroom.  I felt happy and confident in my presentation, and I remember chatting with the waitresses and cracking jokes with them while I waited for my family.

Then my immediate family showed up.  As well as some of my other relatives.  I was not out to them and my feeling of happiness and contentment abruptly turned to shame and anger.  My Grandparents, whom I love(d) dearly and who had a huge roll in my upbringing walked in, saw me, and then turned around and walked out without saying a word.

I asked my Mom, "What were you thinking?  How could you do this to me?" but she didn't seem to care how I felt.  My parents insisted that I didn't leave as it was my "party" and other gusts would be arriving (which was news to me) so I couldn't leave.  I quickly changed back into my guy cloths and sat in a corner while everyone ignored me and had a lot of fun.

Quick background on my Grandparents; they were the most wonderful people I ever knew, but especially my Grandfather.  My Dad was MIA for most of my childhood and for many years my Mom, little sisters and I lived with my grandparents.  My Grandpa was the sweetest, kindest man I've ever known and as one of my cousins said to me during his funeral, "he was the only positive male role-model I've ever had".

They, like most of my family on my Mom's side, were devout Roman Catholics.  I feel confidant that their response in my dream to seeing me dressed up like a girl would have been the same if it were real life.  No matter how much they loved me up to that point and I loved them, it would have changed the way they felt about me forever.  I don't think they would have hated me, but I'm sure they would have been disappointed in what they would have assumed was a "choice" and our relationship would have been poisoned. 

I was taking a nap and my wife woke me up while I was at a point in the dream where I was heading back home alone, sobbing to myself.  While the nightmare is over, it's opened my eyes to a new kind of terror that I'm going to have to face in my real life.

I've always been a big supporter of GLBT rights since I was in high school.  I hate it when ANYONE is being treated unfairly.  I've always been enraged when reading about the discrimination that GLBT people face and the violence that is inflicted upon so many of them just because they are being who they are.  (Same goes for skin color, religion, ect.)

I've been out to myself for a few months or so now, but about half and hour ago a nightmare made me realize that I have a lot more to be afraid of then the prospect of my wife leaving me, which has been my greatest concern up to this point.  I have to be afraid of other people who will hate me just for being myself, people who could be moved to actual physical violence against me for nothing I've done to them.

Now I realize that each time I come out to someone who I've known in the past or present they might suddenly hate me, just because I'm different.  I've always hated discrimination, but I was a white hetro male who grew up in a nice part of town so it was as an outsider looking in.  Now I find myself on the other side, and I'm suddenly feeling scared and alone.