The Paige and The Pendulum

Hello bloggy, my old nemesis. At least we meet again, although this time - we fight to the death! Have at you!

Sorry, just trying to spice things up.

So for the past few months I’ve been pretty dead set on transition and I’d lost most of my male identity. Then over the course of the past couple weeks I’ve been in guy mode more and more. A lot more. My therapist told me last night that my gender “pendulum” is swinging back the other way again, but I already knew that.

In a way I’m disappointed. As I’ve mentioned in the past, when I’m in female mode I can’t imagine that I’d ever want to be a man and I get rather obsessed with the idea of transition. I really thought my gender identity had stabilized enough that I could make a flexible plan in regards to my future, but it seems that’s not going to be the case. I had already decided that I needed to put the brakes on everything and to slow down until I was in a better place mentally before I came to this realization, so it doesn’t effect anything too profoundly which is good. Still I’m a little bummed out.

A little bummed out vs. profoundly depressed, which is what’s happened to me when going into this state of mind in the past. Now that I’ve been through this a few times I think I’m getting a little better at dealing with it. Like riding a wave instead of letting it crash over my head, pulling me underwater. I can’t control my gender changes and I may never be able to. That’s something that I’m going to just have to accept. Maybe down the road something will change, but for the time being I have to learn to accept the fact that my gender may never be static.

Acceptance is the big word here. I need to accept that being bigendered is an intrinsic part of who I am, and I have to accept myself for whom and what I am, regardless of what gender I happen to be. I think I’m taking my first steps towards that, but I have a long way to go. Still, I can tell that this is getting easier over time and that’s a reassuring feeling.

Elsewhere in the news I start DBT this Thursday afternoon. Group therapy quite frankly scares the shit out of me so I’m both looking forward to it and being terrified at the same time. Perhaps if I could combine those two emotions I’d just feel indifferent about the whole thing?  Paige Abendroth - emotional alchemist.  Eh, maybe not.

Someone relatively new to the forums over at Bigender.net had made a post yesterday about how she felt like being bigender and what she's currently going through, and that same post could have been written by me maybe nine months ago.  It's amazing how we as Bigender people share this unique experience, one that the average person could never really understand.  Heck, I don't even completely understand it myself.  It made me a little happy to think about how far I've come and it made me a little sad, to see that someone else is just starting to go through it. 

Yesterday evening I was on the phone with someone and she asked me to describe how I know when I'm a woman vs. when I'm male.  I said something like, "if you took away all of your physical characteristics how would you know you're still female?  It's something that you just KNOW."  Your average cisgendered person never thinks about this stuff because they don't have too.  But if you fall somewhere under the trans-umbrella you become hyper-aware of your gender(s).  (Or of course you can have no gender at all for that matter.)  

I afraid that when I tell people I'm bigendered they're not going to understand and they'll assume I'm a cross-dresser.  (Not that there's anything wrong with being a cross dresser mind you.)  I don't "pretend" I'm a woman for fun, there's nothing sexual about it and I don't dress in frilly pink dresses and prance around the house.  (But again, not like there's anything wrong with doing that if it's your cup of tea.)  I wear the same types of cloths in both modes - a black shirt with a band logo on it and blue jeans.  Whoo-hoo.  They are of course male and female tee-shits and blue-jeans though, and that's just to make myself feel comfortable.  

I guess that part of accepting myself will be accepting that other people don't accept me.  That's something to think about.  I think that's a good spot to end this entry, have fun and take care.

Paige

Today I moved from my house back into my house.

OMG it feels so good to finally be able to sit down and rest. My wife and I spent the entire day moving furniture. Tomorrow I'm going to pay for it. In the mean time, here's a little update.

I woke up this morning in strong girl mode, but when we started moving crap around I flipped over to strong guy mode. This seems to happen when I have to get shit done in a timely manner. I'm typing this now in guy mode, which doesn’t happen very often.

We cleared everything out of the bedroom and then moved my desk into there. I was afraid that it was going to fall apart and it almost did, but then my wife slapped a couple of l-brackets on it and we rocked that shit. Good thing my wife is non-gender stereotype conforming in her own way because I don't know anything about that stuff. (She owns all the power tools.)

We have a twin mattress that we moved into the bedroom for me to sleep on and the queen mattress and frame are in the living room right now until Tuesday when my wife's Dad is bringing down the twin mattress from her parents house. Then they'll take the old bed to the dump.

I got the dresser into the walk in closet and it's very easy to access. My wife is going to move her stuff out of there once I can squeeze my book case in here. Then I can finally throw away the old plastic crap drawers that I've haws since we first moved in together in Japan.

After we moved around just about every piece of furniture to another part of the house we went to Ikea and picked up my loft bed. My wife is paying the utilities now, (electric and internet) which came out to 120 bucks. The loft bed was 119. Sometimes things work. The boxes the thing came in were a lot bigger than I had expected, but I have a Honda Fit and the seats fold down to the floor. I've worked miracles with this car before, and once again I was able to bend reality to my will in defiance of the Gods. So uh, we made it fit. (Is that why the car is called a “Fit”?)

Right now the bed is unboxed in pieces. My project for tomorrow is to put the darn thing together. My wife will be in class so hopefully I'll be able to do it by myself. I put this damn desk together by myself so I think I'll be able to pull it off.

I'm a little worried that the big screen TV wont fit in here. We took some measurements and we were able to move the desk away from wall, but now there's like a three by three foot space that serves no purpose, and I'm trying really hard to use every inch that I can get. If it fits then we will get some seating in here and in the daytime and the early evening it will be the TV room. (More like a – theater; the things huge.)

If it wont then I'll put it up on Craig's List and we'll use the old analog TV in the mean time until we can afford a better one. Personally I don’t give a damn one way or the other. The big TV is fucking cool but it's just more “stuff” that's not essential to my life. (My wife want's to keep it.)

If we go with the little TV everything should fit perfect. Then between the TV and seating I'll have a nice little area for meditation and exercise. I think I will get a little round table for people to put their drinks or food on.

As I type this right now I can feel myself sliding into girl mode. In real time. Just thought I would document that.

So I have my little world set up here now. I have my most favorite show in the know universe, Mystery Science Theater 3000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Science_Theater_3000 playing on the little TV in the background. It's very comforting to me. When I was going to get married to my wife, (the big family wedding and not the quicky wedding in Japan) I had a little portable TV/DVD player and I remember I was watching MST3K. It was once of the Hercules movies, but honestly I can't remember which.

OK, now I'm rambling. I worked my ass of today and I'm completely spent. I'm tired and tomorrow I'm going to be in a lot of pain and I still have so much to do. Eh, oh well. Time for go to bed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KN2JhPc0wM

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

Came out to my boss today. And other crap

I made the decision yesterday to come out to my immediate supervisor who basically functions as my boss, although there are even more people over her who I also have to answer to. Yay government bureaucracy! She is the nicest, sweetest lady I've ever met, and she has known that I've been having a lot of problems over the past year. She's tried to get me to talk about them, but I've always told her that I wanted to, but I couldn’t just yet.

When I had my most recent depressive episode she went out of her way to cover for me and to make sure I was ok. Whenever something goes wrong she's always been there for me. Seriously, the best boss ever. After this latest incident I decided that she deserved to know the truth.

So today we sat down and I filled her in on why I went to the hospital and the fact that my wife and I are getting separated so we can have some space. She was very concerned about my self mutilation and she expressed how worried she was about me.

Anyway, I eventually steered the topic in the direction that I needed it to head in and asked her, “Are you open mined?” She said yes of course, and then I told her I was transgender, and that's the reason that things have been so crazy for me. She was very supportive and made it a point to tell me that it's not a big deal in this day and age. Uh, she also recommended that I go to a church support group, but I figured I wouldn't tell her that I'm also an Atheist as dropping the trans bomb-shell was enough for one day.

When I came out to my wife about being bigender I bombarded her with information as I was desperate for her to accept me. That just made her more confused. So coming out to my boss I only told her that I was transgender, and that was it. If the person want's to know more information they will ask you. (Although you should let them know they can ask you questions, duh.)

She DID ask me the “how far are you going to go with this?” questions which of course means, “are you going to have THE surgery”, and I responded that I'm going to keep going until I can blend in as a female in public, which is the truth. I also assured her that I'm not just going to suddenly show up in a dress one day, which got a laugh. This is going to be a long process especially given my financial situation. Hell, she'll most likely have moved on long before I go full time.

I would have liked to have come out as bigender but again I thought it was best just to tell people what they need to know. When I come out to my family I'm going to do so as bigender and I'll send that spiffy Scientific America article to them. (I'm Science! After all.)

Speaking of which, I have decided that now is NOT a good time to come out to my family considering my rather fragile psychological state. My therapist agreed and reminded me that it hasn’t even been a week since I was in the hospital. I tend to move very fast on things. I haden't given that much thought before, but after my session with my therapist tonight I'm a little worried.

She was asking me about my mood and how it was changing. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but she said that in the 20 minuets that we'd been talking I'd gone though six profound mood swings. I'm not sure what the problem is, if I'm thinking happy thoughts I'm happy and if I think sad thoughts I'm sad, but she made a big deal out of it and it's creeping me the fuck out because she's a smart lady and I don't know what this means. It's spooky! OooooOOOOoooOOO. Just like that.

The only other item of interest that happened today was that when I came home my wife and I got along very well and we were affectionate to each other, which made me supper happy as I still love her to death. Last night when I tucked her into bed she told me, “every time I look at you I get depressed”, which set me off and I cried the rest of the night, up until the point until I got into bed. Then she put her arm around me and I went right to sleep.

Anyway, today I walked into the bedroom to find that she had taken all her decorations down. She had an entire wall plastered with old drawings and art projects from when she was a little kid up until now. I saw that blank, empty wall and again, I couldn't hold back the tears. We are not giving up on this marriage, but holy shit this is painful. Yet here I am, still kicking and screaming.

Paige

I'm Science!

Well, kind of.  Some time ago I volunteered to take part in a study concerning bigendered persons at UCSD. I ended up in Scientific American. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/04/19/ramachandrans-lab-looks-into-whether-you-can-be-a-man-in-the-morning-and-a-woman-at-night/ Well, as a lab rat anyway. I was the person who had a poor vocabulary in guy mode and who couldn’t throw a dart for crap in girl mode. Sorry I broke the tip off your black plastic dart Laura. =P

The attention to this study has surprised me to say the least. My point of contact was Laura Chase, who was/is a student of the famed neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilayanur_S._Ramachandran At the time I had no idea just how famous this guy is; I just wanted to contribute the the understanding of bigenderism.

I was shocked when they said they would pay me money to study me as I was happy to donate my time for free. I know that bigenderism is not an act, or a way-station to transgenderism. It's a very specific gender identity and my hope was that I could add some legitimacy to our cause.

They did multiple tests on me over the next few months, but I'm hesitant to say what they were in the event that this study expands. (And I hope it does.) The problem is that people might learn what the tests are and then look them up on the internet. Then, unintentionally or deliberately, will contaminate the test results. That kind of situation would hurt all of us as we struggle for recognition amongst the scientific community.

I'm very excited to have participated in this study. The implications regarding gender identify vs. personal identity from a neurological standpoint are staggering. If it's capable for a person to switch genders, not just in an psychological sense but neurologically, how will this effect how neurologists study the brain and personal identity in the future? While these investigations are still in their infancy, I look forward to said outcomes.

Identifying as a bigendered person is not science. It's an identity that some of us choose to adopt because we identify that way. No one can ever take your personal identity away from you so long as you refuse to let them. Personal identity is just that – personal. You are who you are, and the only person who can make that decision is yourself.

Paige

Trying to figure out how to come out as Bigender

So I'm about thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to coming out to my family but I'm not quite sure how I want to go about doing it. I am transitioning to a more female body as that's the gender I primarily identify as, but I still flip into guy mode regularly.

On a side note, I've noticed that when I'm taking care of business matters or making important decisions I tend to automatically flip into guy mode. It's weird; like the male part of my brain is an administrator or something.

Ok, back on track. I HATE being in the closet. I believe in being open and honest with everyone, for better or worse. I mean, here I am writing about the most intimate, personnel details of my life on a public blog. For me, being in the closet mean being ashamed of who I am, and I don't want to live my life that way. I'm already shy and self-conscious as it is. I'm never going to be able to fully accept myself if I keep hiding who I truly am from everyone.

Coming out as trans seems like the easiest option. (Well, it won't be easy, don't get me wrong.) I mean, people are clueless and baffled about transgenderism as it is, but NO ONE knows what the hell bigender is. The conundrum there is that yet again I will not be 100% honest as despite transitioning, I primarily identify as being bigendered.

What I think I'll do is call my Mom first and tell her what's going on. Despite how she takes it I'm going to send her a copy of this book. http://www.amazon.com/Transgender-Explained-For-Those-Who/dp/1449029574/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335122705&sr=1-1 Hopefully that might clarify things. Then I'll call my little sisters and then my stepbrother. That takes care of the family members who I feel closest to.

Since several members of my family are on Facebook I'll come out there next. All my old friends from back in the day are there too. Before I come out I'm going to purge my friends list so only the people who need to know will see my message. I believe in the cycle of renewal so I've made a new Facebook profile, and I'll let everyone know that if they aren’t too freaked out they can send a friend invite to that one as I'll be shelving the profile I'm currently using.

My family is, for the most part, very conservative so I'm not expecting much support or acceptance. That's going to hurt. I'm afraid of rejection, but if I let that fear keep me in the closet then I'll be stuck there indefinitely. As for my old friends . . . I have no idea. I think that this will freak them the fuck out, but I have no clue as to how they will respond. I hope they won't be too mean.

Whatever happens I know that a great burden will be lifted off my chest. No more hiding what I look like, my political opinions or anything else for that matter. I'll be able to let my freak-flag fly tall and proud. I have another appointment with my gender therapist tomorrow so I'll bring this up with her before setting a time table.

That's all I got for the moment. Now I have to go and fire my old psychiatrist. Good times.

Paige

The cycle of renewal and the uselessness of “stuff”

I'm in the process right now of going through all my old stuff and getting rid of as much of it as I can to make space for when we get a roommate. Ever since I first moved out of my parents house I've gone through several cycles of getting rid of all my old crap only to build more up again.

I threw away a bunch of silly decorations that looked “cool” but served no purpose and all my collection of old video game stuff. (My old N64, PS2 and a ton of games. I left them by the dumpster and they will hopefully make some kid happy. =) ) Cloths that were taking up space are going to goodwill and we now have a lot more storage space.

It felt good getting rid of all that crap. Some people attach sentimental value to their possessions and to an extent I do it too, but I've had situations in the past where I've had to give up just about everything I owned only to start from scratch so it's easy for me to let go. Stuff does not bring us happiness nor does it make us better people. It just takes up space.

With digital technology now it's even easier to shrink your life down. I still have my DVD collection because I've over 300 monster movies and so there's no way I'm re-buying them digitally, but I keep them in binders instead of their original cases to save space.  All my music is cloud based as are all my video games. Whenever I buy books now I try to get the kindle version.

When you live in a tiny space you are forced to evaluate your life and to take stock as to what's really important to you. My wife’s rule is, “if I haven’t used it in two years then I throw it out”, which I think it a pretty good philosophy.  Living in a small space also forces you to think before making impulse purchases at the store. You are constantly forced to ask yourself, “do I really need this, seeing how I have like no fucking room for it?” This leads to a simpler life less focused on consumerism IMO, which I think is a good thing.

I'm fascinated by people who go to what most of us would consider extremes to simplify their lives. I'm particularly interested in the Tiny House Movement. http://www.thetinylife.com With some good old fashioned ingenuity you can fit everything you need to live comfortably into an extremity small space. Here's some pics of a GREAT example. http://www.thetinylife.com/victorian-tiny-texas-house/

I would rather live there than in a multi million dollar mansion any day.  A lot of those tiny houses are mobile, so it's a easy and inexpensive to move to a new location if you want. So instead of having a huge house with a tiny yard you can have a tiny home with a huge yard, with a nice big garden and happy trees. Sigh. . . some day.  Maybe when I retire. 

At the end of the day it's not stuff that's going to make you happy. It's your peace of mind and the people you choose to call your friends.   As Thoreau said, “. . . simplify, simplify.”