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

Why I take the time to present as female when no one ever sees me.

So it's Friday night. I just got paid and I took the past hour painstakingly applying my makeup and generally making myself look as feminine as I can. I have a long way to go but I clean up pretty good.

Now I'm ready! Uh, to stay home.

It seems like a pointless endeavor and yet it's a ritual that I repeat almost nightly. I'm not getting dressed up to impress anyone and my wife sure as hell doesn’t care. The reason I do this is because I'm doing the only thing I can to reign in my gender dysphoria.

When I'm in female mode and I look in the mirror while presenting as a man I feel disgusted with my appearance. When I'm in guy mode I don't mind so much that I look a little feminine now, so that's not the problem. The only thing I can do to make myself comfortable in my body is to present as female.

As I'm getting ready there comes a point when I look at myself in the mirror and I can see my true face behind the one I've been stuck with, and when that happens it's like a heavy burden is lifted from my shoulders, the stars align and I can finally be comfortable in my body again. Just seeing myself as a female, despite all the major stuff that gives me away as a bio male, is an incredible relief and it's enough to get me through another day.

So some people dress as the opposite gender for fun. I do it to maintain my sanity.

What hurts is that I want to always look like a woman. I have an overwhelming need to go out and live my life as a female, but my social anxiety is a mother fucker and it prevents me from doing so. I think that if I could “pass” as female the male part of my mind would be OK with me living part time as a woman, but I have such a long way to go before I can blend in without being clocked.

I get dressed up every night and I want to live the life that's been denied to me for the past 31 years. When I'm in male mode, I feel like it's my obligation to make sure that I give myself room to grow as a woman, and when I'm in female mode I just feel lost and scared. I have to catch up on decades of knowledge and habits in a short amount of time, plus I'm just starting puberty so YEAAAAH. It's complicated.

Someday I won't be afraid any more. I’ll be able to go out, have fun, buy cloths, get my hair done en femme and I'll wont worry about what other people are thinking about me. Until then, yeah. All dressed up an no where to go. Story of my life.

Paige

Estrogen and Emotions (Anger/Sadness)

Today I thought I'd write a little about some of the ways that HRT has effected my emotions thus far. I've only on estrogen for four months, so maybe things will change down the road and of course your experience on HRT might be totally different than mine.

The biggest change has been how I process anger and sadness. Before estrogen when I'd get upset about something I'd get pissed off. Now instead of getting pissed off I cry. I mean, I fucking cry rivers. Uh, at least every other day in fact. I mean, this is a very difficult time in my life and I have some good things to cry about I think, but wow.

My gender therapist told me that I was going to be crying a lot and holy shit was she right. The weird thing is that going from T to E, crying instead of getting angry now just seems like the natural thing for me to do, depending on what gender I am at the moment. Here's a good example that happened today -

I got out of work and I had to head strait to my therapists office to attend a DBT group. Instead of getting on the freeway I needed to, I went into auto pilot and started driving to my house! When I realized what the hell I was doing I was already at a point where the only thing I could do was to head towards home and then take the route that I normally take to her office if I'm leaving from my house.

I HATE being late. (The Navy beat that into me pretty well.) So I arrived just a few minuets late, yet my stress levels were climbing. So far I have hated my DBT classes and today was no exception. I sit on my ass for eight hours at work and then I have go to the meetings where I have to sit on my ass for another two and a half hours. About 30 minuets into these things my butt starts to hurt and I want to fucking get up and do something constructive.

It takes forever to go over a simple concept and we move at a snails pace through the lesson plan. I just want to get the fuck up and leave. I have shit to do and I feel like I'm wasting my time there. Every thing we go over I already know for the most part and the skills we are learning are ones I already know.

Anyway, the fact that this is not working for me makes me really sad as I had high hopes for DBT. So I sit there for two and a half hours, feeling miserable. There was a bunch of talk about the term, “Man up” for some reason, (act like a man) which bothered me because it enforces the gender binary. Oh, and I spoke up for myself and asked for the facilitator to call me Paige for now on, which was good, but she replied, “yes ma’am” which fucked me up because I was in male mode at the time. Yes, bigender is complicated.

All these things were making me feel worse and worse about myself and my situation. I toughed it out until the end and then I went and sat in my car for an hour and a half. Why? Because during our session on Monday my therapist told me that she wouldn't be in next week and that she wanted to see me one more time before then, so we scheduled an appointment at 1830. I sat in my car and ate my crappy fast food sandwich until it was time to be seen.

I went back inside, waited half and hour past my appointment time and then I texted her asking what the hell was up. She called and told me that we were scheduled for NEXT Thursday, not today. I swear that she told me it was going to be for today, but quite frankly, ever since I started E I've been even more scatterbrained than I normally am, so she's most likely correct.

She tried to say some nice stuff to me but I had to hang up on her because I had started to cry again. I bolted out of the building and hid in my car for bit while I pulled myself together.

Wow, that was a long tirade but here's the thing – When I was on testosterone all of these little things would have compounded until I'd have gotten extremity pissed off and I would have brooded about them for a while. Then when I was tired of being pissed I would just stop and forget about it. However, every now and then that memory might have resurfaced and I would have gotten angry again and felt the same level of anger I had previously experienced when it actually happened to me.

On estrogen, I get sad instead. It's confusing to me when I'm in guy mode but in female mode it feels perfectly natural. By the time I was leaving my therapists office I had flipped back into female mode and I was chocking back tears. I started driving away, and all of the sudden, (I had no control over this) I shouted, “this is fucking bullshit!” at the top of my lungs and I punched the steering wheel. Urges to cry – gone. I was pissed and I had flipped back to male mode.

So regarding my experience with estrogen as a bigender MAAB person, hormones have had a huge impact on my emotions, but what gender I am seems to have a significant effect as well. Ha, I was originally going to go over some other emotional stuff but this entry is long enough and quite frankly I'm sleepy.

So goodnight! May you dream the dreams that you dare not share.

Paige

Dreams part 2

I can't take it any more.

Today sucked. It sucked really bad. I can hardly formulate a sentence right now.

I may be bigender, but I'm incapable of being happy or comfortable in my male body any longer. I keep going back and forth, over and over again. When I'm in male mode I'm never happy.

One trend that's been obvious to me is that when I present as female everything changes for me. I don't look in the mirror and hate the way I look, I'm happy with my body, my cloths are comfortable and damn if I don't clean up nice with some makeup.  

I still hate the male secondary traits, but I've never hated the female ones that have developed so far. The more female I look the happier I am.

When I'm in female mode AND presenting as female I feel like I can relax and be myself. I like to laugh, make jokes and dance. I'm actually comfortable in my body, while presenting as male I feel like I'm about to squirm out of my skin.

You can probably see where this is going.

For a while I thought I was going to transition but then I decided against it as I keep flipping back to male mode. However, I'm not fucking happy with my male body. The notion of continuing on this way for the rest of my life is unacceptable and it's driving me into a depression that threatens to overwhelm me. It almost has a few times already and I don't want to go back to the hospital again.

So I have revised my plans.

I'm going to start electrolysis next paycheck. I get paid in two days. My gender therapist gave me a card for someone that some of her patients were really happy with. I will call them after work to schedule an appointment.

As soon as possible I'm going to try and move out to Hillcrest, the gay district of San Diego. If I can get a roommate to share the costs, I can rent out the room I sleep in now and use it to pay my part of the rent. I've talked with my wife about this plan and she thinks it's a good idea. If we can't rent out the room then I can still pull it off, but I wont be able to save much money at all and I really NEED to be saving my money at this time.

If the getting a roommate plan doesn’t work out, then I can just stay where I am now for the time being. Once my wife has steady work I will sign the mortgage over to her and get my own apartment out in Hillcrest. While I wait for that to happen I can at least still get electro.

I want to live in Hillcrest because as soon as I can get a bit more confidant in myself, I want to start living part time as a female. Hillcrest will be the most forgiving neighborhood for this, and it's where I'll be harassed the least. (Hopefully.)

The money I'll be saving by living frugally will pay for the electrolysis, and some will also go into a second fund. My goal is to have round two of laser resurfacing no latter than 6 months from this date. Then there will be a recovery period for at lest 3 months before I make any further decisions.

I will join a trans support group of some sort. I was worried about doing so before because I'm bigender but fuck it. I desperately need to meet more people like me. 

By this time I shall have my voice, walk and female gestures down. Then I will take a good hard look at myself and reassess.

If I'm still not happy with my complexion I will have to save up for one more round of resurfacing. I don't this this will be the case, but you never know.

If I am, then I will ask myself if I'm really ready to go full time, and if this is how I want to live the rest of my life. If so, the next thing I will do is FFS, the first procedure being forehead re-contouring, hair line decent and eye brow lift plus trachea shave.

After surgery there will be a huge change in my appearance and I will start to live full time. Then I can save up for the nose-job/jaw FFS. Once I'm happy with my face I'll take care of my boobs if necessary. As for SRS, I'm fine for now. That may change at some point, so I'm keeping that in mind.

The good thing about this plan is that I really don't have to make any major commitment until my first FFS. That's not going to be for a while and it gives me plenty of time to work things out. However, now I at least have a plan. 

Of course, this is very much like my old plan when I thought I was going to fully transition and then I decided against it. I no longer have any choice. I am Bigender. However, while I may flip back and forth between male and female I'm now 100% confident that I will never be happy until I can present and blend in as a woman. 

So there you have it, back to Transbigenderqueer or whatever I am. At least I'll die in the right body.

Paige Abendroth.

Just another status update

Hi blog. I'm supper fucking exhausted right now so hopefully this post isn’t too incoherent. Seriously, I fell like I got hit by a truck. Not much to report since the last post. When I went to work on Thursday there was a card in a sealed envelope waiting for me. I opened it up and it was from my boss, saying to take care of myself and wishing me luck on my transition. My day couldn’t have started any better. I've said it before, but my boss really is the sweetest lady ever.

My wife and I are getting along good. She was at her parents house the last few days and I had it all to myself. We will be moving into our separate parts of the house in the next few days now which is going to be a bit of work. My upper body strength is NOT what it used to be so I'm wondering how moving all this furniture around is going to go.

We had a friend over today to look at the condo and to see if he wants to move in. Looks like he probably will which is awesome as quite frankly he's the only person who we'd let in here. That will allow me to save money, which is something I really need to do.  (And my wife and I both think it will be kind of fun.)

As he left he mentioned that he was worried about me. I'm worried about me too and I think I'm trying to go way to fast in regards to my transition. It's something my therapist has brought up a couple times as well. I really need to give myself time to get comfortable with myself and to work shit out. Also as I mentioned in my last post, I'm starting to worry about not being able to pass as male in guy mode. I have a long way to go in regards to that, but as I begin to look more androgynous and my chest growth becomes more prominent (seriously, those little things are perky) this is bothering me a lot.

Is there a middle ground? I'm really not sure and this is just one of the reasons I need to slow the fuck down before I make a decision that I'll regret later. It must be nice to wake up in the morning and not have to think about what gender you are. Anyway, before I make any kind of permanent alterations to my body outside of the effects of HRT I'm really going to have to learn to accept myself as a bigenderd person.

I think the new game plan will consist of doing electrolysis over the next several months and then after I've saved up another 4 grand I'll do another round of laser resurfacing. I figure this will give me over a year to mull things over and to get well mentally with therapy and all that. (Well, I'll probably always be in therapy but I mean that I'll hopefully be in a better place.)

That's about it for the moment. Now I'm going to go play stupid video games until I feel like going to bed.  Weeeeeee.

Oh, NPR might want to interview me. Another day in the life.

Paige

Episode IV - Puberty Strikes Back

I'm 32 years old and I'm going through puberty.

Well, it's the second time I've done this now and I'm more prepared but it's still hard. Going through puberty as a male was hell and testosterone wrecked havoc on my face, mental health and my body. Estrogen however, is treating me fairly kindly. As a teenager there are all kinds of neural pathways that are being finalized during puberty also which makes things even more confusing, but I'm all old and stuff now so I get to skip that part. I think.

The thing is that there is a very limited amount of research regarding transgender people and the effect that HRT has on them at a biochemical and/or neurological level. (At least to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge.) MTF folks have reported changes in mood, sexuality, levels of empathy, feeling more forgetful then they were before, as well and liking different activities and abandoning other behavioral patterns that they used to enjoy partaking in before HRT.

I have immersed myself in trans literature since I accepted my true nature, and almost everything I've read thus far regarding Transition is based upon anecdotal evidence. Being scientifically minded this bugs the shit out of me. Hormones are extremely powerful and they can have profound effects upon a persons mind and body. It would seem to me that MTF and FTM persons who are in transition would be excellent subjects for studies regarding left/right brained gender based neurological studies. But hay, I was in the behavior disorder class from seventh grade till I graduated high school, so what do I know. (At least they let me out for all my art and literature classes. =P )

So yeah, I'm a 12 year old girl right now. Except I'm also a 32 year old bio-male. It's complicated.

My dysphoiria is soul crushing. Almost everything about my body is still wrong. I basically identify primarily as female, but when I look in the mirror I just see and ugly dude looking back at me and it hurts like hell. My appearance has become MUCH more feminine, but still I don't look female enough that I could ever pass as one, and I am stuck playing this game at work and in public where I have to conform to my assigned gender lest I be ridiculed for being myself, or worse.

It's gotten so bad recently. Last night I made a pretty positive post. Afterwords I started having some bad (but practical IMO) thoughts and the next thing I knew I was in the shower with the water blasting as hot as I could get it, curled up into a ball on the floor and sobbing uncontrollably. I cried for two hours and I couldn’t stop. I eventually got so emotionally drained that I had to go to sleep. I had nothing left in me.

This happens a lot.

Who am I? WTF am I? How do I explain this to the people I love and respect? When I do, how do I accept the fact that they no longer want anything to do with me at best? I work in a machismo cultured work environment where I am afraid that I will no longer be taken seriously if I present as female. Not to mention that I'm so socially fucking awkward as it is that I can hardly communicate with people I know no matter how much I want to. I just stutter and make a fool of myself. Now I have to contend with being judged by everyone that I come in contact with.

I am terrified of conflict and I just want to make everyone happy so they like me or at least ignore me. I am about to draw a whole bunch of attention to myself and I don't know if I can handle it. I have never felt so alone before in my life.

Trying to end this post on a positive note – my awesome gender therapist has recommended to me that I start going to the “Coming Out Group” at The Center and I think it's a great idea. I will probably meet a lot of people who are in similar situations as me and this is a good gateway to the San Diego LGBT community, which I really want to get involved with. After I get my face burned off and I heal I'm going. I'm desperate to make new friends and to find my place in the community.

Anyway, I know that no one reads my obscure little blog but in the event that you are also Bigender and looking for reassurance in regard to your gender identity please note that most male-assigned-at birth folk seem to take well to hormones. They feel less dysphoria and they report a sense of resonance between their female and male half. So please note that my gender identity issues are not the norm.

I'm different, but I always have been so whatever. Let's see where life takes me. I try so hard to be optimistic, but when looking toward the future all I see is heartbreak, personal wreckage, pain and eternal loneliness. Then again, I believe that we forge our own destiny. Despite all the crap that I've been through up to this point I'm still kicking and screaming. Hell, I thought that I would be dead by 26 and here I am today all responsible and in excellent health.

I can still forge a life for myself no matter what happens. Fates be damned - I make my own luck.

Page J. Abendroth

P.S. - I AM the personification of the “Socially Awkward Penguin” meme. http://www.quickmeme.com/Socially-Awkward-Penguin/

Disappearing

I'm in 100% girl mode for the third strait day now. This afternoon we had a going away luncheon for one of our staff members at work.  My dysphoria was already bad, but when we all met up at the restaurant I damn near had a panic attack.  My body and mind are completely out of sync.  While I know that while no one looking at me and could possibly know what was going through my head, my brain kept(s) screaming, "I'm a girl" over and over again and I became convinced that my coworkers were going to look at me see how I felt.  (That sounds odd but it's the best way I could describe it.)

I was able to come home early only to find my wife distraught, as while we spend all our time together I'm really 100 miles away in my mind, desperately trying to come to grips with whatever the hell I am and am becoming.  

She told me, "It's like you're disappearing". I sort of feel like that, but it's more like the masculine part of me is disappearing and in it's place, well, I don't know. I don't want to lose my wife, and I don't want her to lose the person she fell in love with and married.

Good weekend, good news

I had a lovely time this weekend up in Big Bear with my wife attending the little horror film festival they had up there.  My wife used to live there and I love it up there too, so it's always fun to visit no matter what's going on.  (And I love me some monster movies!)  We saw some really great independent films, ate delicious food and stayed at a shit hotel, but hay; no weekend is perfect. 

The BIG news is that Saturday night my psychiatrist finally called me back and on Monday morning I'm faxing him the info for the gender therapist I want to see and he's going to submit the funding request right away.

YAY!!!11!!eleventyOne~!!

I was so happy when I got off the phone that I wanted to grab my toes and spin around in my chair like a little kid.  This therapist has gotten referrals from the VA before so it shouldn't be a problem.A very special thank you to MoralAnimal from the Bigender.net http://www.bigender.net/forum/index.php forums for recommending said therapist.   You're my hero!

So things are looking up.  I'm still super tempted to start hormones by myself but I just need to be patient for what will hopefully by just a little while longer.  Speaking of hormones, a couple years or so ago my body almost completely stopped producing testosterone and now I have to give myself an injection once every two weeks.  (I had the T level of an 80 year old man!)  The endocrinologist still can't figure out why.  Anyway, the reason that I bring this up is that I decided not to take it this week.  I'll start again if/when I begin to get run down like I was beffore, but I'm going to only take as much as nessesary untill I can get on estrogen.

Now I thought it would be fun to write out my current goals in regards to my feminisation.  Later I'll be able to check up on them and see how far I've progressed.  I'm not transsexual or transgender, I'm bigender so I don't want to go full female transition. I do however identify with my female side a bit more than my male so I really want to do everything I can to feminize myself short of not being able to pass a as a male.  Soooo, in order of most urgent to least -

1. Start on hormone replacement therapy.  I cannot stress how critical this is to me right now.

2. Continue to lose weight.  The day I figured out that I was bigender I weighed 215 pounds and I'm 6'1.  Now I weigh 199 and I'm starting to see a major difference.  My goal is to get to 165 and then reassess.  Woman come in all shapes and sizes and there's nothing wrong with not being skinny as long as you're still healthy.  I feel very strongly that I need to be as slender as I can while still getting all the proper nutrients of course.  They say that on hormones you should expect to gain 10 pounds, so maybe I'll have to lose more.  Then again, if those 10 pounds go to my ass and breasts that would be ok!

3. Laser facial resurfacing or dermabrasion.  I had terrible acne in the past and it left my face pretty scared up.  As a guy I don't like it but I can live with it.  As a woman though I can't stand it.  This should give me a much more feminine complexion and reduce my dysphoria plus bringing me closer to my ultimate goal as passing as female when I go out.  (When I'm in female mode that is.)

That's all for now, I'm sure I have more to add to that list but it's getting late and I'll have to get washed up soon.  One of the problems of being female that I never thought about as a male is that women need time to wash off all their damn makeup before going to sleep.

"This wasn't part of the deeeeeeeeeeeal!"

Ok, I'm better now.  Good night!