Something You'd Never Know Part Two

So yesterday I spent a while on a thread on GR speaking about coming to terms with being transgender.  Now I know that the people questioning me were not attacking me, but I didn't realize this at first, it took me venting and shaking and crying to a friend of mine before I realized that these people were probably just trying to understand me.

See unless you email me you'd never know how I agonized over coming out.  You'd never know the conversations I had with Sidney and Thorny and K Ray and Luci and Kate.  You wouldn't have read the emails where I tried to rationalize how I felt, tried to explain it away, tried to ignore it, laugh it off, the way I had a panic attack when I realized the truth about who I really am.

It's not something I shared here on my blog.

And maybe that was wrong.  I mean I have always prided myself on being open with you all, but I don't share everything, some things are just for me.  Just as you're entitled to your privacy, I am entitled to mine.  So I didn't share that.

I didn't share that I tried to commit suicide about two months ago.  That I picked up a knife and tried to slice my wrists because I was so freaked out about everything, that it took my friend Keesha and an email from Thorny to save my life.

It's not something I wanted to share.

I also didn't share that when I was growing up I never wanted to wear skirts or dresses.  I hated the stupid purses my mother used to always buy me and that every Easter when my mother and aunt would go out and buy our Easter clothes I always pitched a fit because I wanted to wear a suit and not a "stupid dress with lace and flowers."  I didn't mention that when I was 10 and I had that tantrum that my mother pulled out this thin leather belt and whipped me in the dressing room and then told me that if I cried too loudly she was going to get my father to deal with me when we got home.  That was the last time I tried to fight about wearing a suit.

It's not something I wanted to share.

I didn't tell you all about the day that I realized that I didn't actually love my tits and being a woman, but I loved my family and I knew that if I didn't have those things, if I didn't live as a woman, wearing heels, wearing makeup, wearing flattering outfits that I wouldn't have my family anymore.  And it may be wrong, but I loved my family enough to be the woman who merely wanted a dick and prostate that could be hidden from plain sight in order to keep my family.

It's not something I thought I had to share.

Many of you read the post when I talked about my mother finding the pamphlets and brochures about reassignment surgery.  Many of you read the post where I talked about the exorcism I endured.  You all saw the way I stopped talking about my desire to be both and my need to be what I'd been fighting my whole life, being a man.

It's not something I thought I had to share.

There are times when I still think of myself as "bi-gender" or what others are calling gender queer, is it because that's a more accurate description of who I am?  No.  It's because at this point I'm still filled with glass sticking out from skin, still so emotionally fragile and hurt and sensitive that I am still fighting my need to dress up in women's clothes (what to me would be considered "drag") and go to my parents's house and beg them to let me come back, to turn my back on everything and just continue living as I have been.  Hiding my books, ignoring my need, my desires, my dreams, my wants, my truth, in order to have my family, in order to not be homeless in order to know who I am, even if who I am is a lie.  This whole feeling like a man but seeing a woman is horrific for me.  I avoid the mirrors.  I don't brush my hair or my teeth in front of the mirror, because I don't like seeing a woman looking back at me.  That's not something I've ever told you.

It's not something I wanted to share.

But reading the comments and the questions on this thread I had to ask myself if I was remiss in not doing so. Can I let you in 75% and then hide 25% from you?  But is it fair to offer up all of me to people who are offering me nothing?  Not necessarily you all, but people on the thread.

My life is, for the most part, an open book.  I don't mind answering questions for those who are trying to get a general understanding of my life and the process I am undertaking, the transition I am going through.  I want people to understand, but at the same time I want them to understand that on here, in this blog on GR, on twitter and tumblr, I'm not going to give you 100% of me.  It's not fair to ask that of me and especially if you're not going to give me the same thing in return.  Realize that of the millions of thoughts that run through my head, the emotions I've dealt with, the memories I have, the interactions I've experienced, the childhood I grew up with, I may only share with you 2 of them and that's fine.  Don't ask me for something that you're not going to give and don't instantly go on the defensive if I feel as if you're attacking me because of you asking me something that most people already know.

There are different facets to me.  There are parts of me that I'm realizing are just reflections of my parents, my family.  There are echoes in my brain and my heart that aren't my voice, but their voices of condemnation and judgement.  There are things that I will share and things that you will never, ever know.  If there's ever a time when you want to ask me a question, however: "Vic you said this five months ago and now you're saying this, what gives?"  Realize that I'll answer, but also understand that I'm like Julia Roberts in "The Runaway Bride" after she met Richard Gere, except Richard Gere was my true self and in order to be "with" my true self I have to figure out how I really think about some things, what I really like and what I really don't, who I really am and how I really feel about that.  I'm growing and learning and living my truth and even though I've pretty much invited you all to go on this journey with me by having this blog, there are still some things that you will never know.

You can accept it or hit the unfollow button, it's that simple.  Not saying that I won't miss seeing your comments, but at this stage in my life I've had about all I can handle of people only supporting me if I fit into their idea of how I should live, of people who say: this is who you are and you can never change, or people who say: everyone who says they are like you have felt like this, you don't so you're not one of them.  Realize that b/c I didn't share it doesn't mean that I didn't feel it or think it.  It's just something that I didn't share with you.

And that's perfectly fine.

{HUGZ AND SQUEEZES AND FIST BUMPS}
-Vic

Revelation

I was ten the first time I can remember reacting negatively.

My parents had pissed me off.  We'd been visiting friends of theirs and I hadn't wanted to go with them.  I'd wanted to stay in the hotel and watch some movie that was about to come on.  They'd made me go with them.  When we got there, I was looking for a way to show them exactly how mad I was.  I thought about breaking something.  I thought about being rude to their friends.  By the time they sent all of the kids to the back room I'd still not found a way to show my parents how mad I was.  Their friends had a son, he was 17, muscled, gorgeous and he kept smiling at me.  I bet you guys know where this story is going don't you?

You'd be wrong.

We played house.  Me and him, our younger siblings.  All of us packed in that room, the lights off and it was getting dark and he, we'll call him S, suggested that everyone go to bed.  Since he was the "daddy" and I was the "mommy" we laid next to each other away from everyone else.  He leaned over at one point and asked me if he could "do something" to my butt with his fingers.

What the hell?

I had laughed and said "That's how we got our kids."  Because at the age of 10, I wasn't a virgin (that's another story and one I'm not sure I'll ever share on here), so I knew what he meant when he said "do something."  He laughed and said "No, I'm serious.  Can I do something to your butt?"

Here was my opportunity.  I was going to get back at my parents.  I was going to let this older boy finger my ass and then I was going to tell my parents that I had LET him do it.  So I nodded and said yes.

I don't know what he used.  His saliva, Vaseline, hair grease (it's some that black people use for their hair just in case you didn't know)...all I know is that first he had one finger in my ass, then that one finger became two. I was in pain but I knew that pain was a part of sex, so I didn't say anything.  When his hand covered my mouth and those two fingers became three I became afraid.  What was he about to do?  When his fingers left my ass and he pulled my pants down even further and lifted my top leg, I knew then that he was planning to fuck me in my ass.

I changed my mind at that moment.  I started to try and push him away but his hand was held over my mouth and I was more concerned about the fact that my younger siblings were in the room.  So I stopped fighting and let him fuck me.

I had someone tell me that that was rape.  I think it would have been had I not agreed to it initially.  There's still some debate.  I saw S two years later and he apologized for raping me...right before he asked to have sex with me again.  By this time, I was drinking and had begun doing drugs.  More bad reactions to more bad things that happened to me.

So why am I writing this blog?

I learned a few years ago that it's natural for a person to react.  It's instinctual.  Someone does something nice for us, we react and say thank you.  It's someone's birthday that we care about and we react and say happy birthday or get them a gift.  If someone does something bad to us we react.  We want to retaliate.  We want to lash out.  We want revenge.  We cry.  We get mad, we cuss, we do things that we may regret later but our humanity is proven in the fact that we REACT.

I think sometimes that people forget that people react.  That we were all young once.  That when someone feels pressured or ignored or offended or trapped that they will lash out.  Sometimes the wrong person is hit and when that happens then the person who reacted needs to apologize, but once the apology is accepted then the incident needs to be forgotten.

We've forgotten how to forgive and forget.  When you forgive someone, TRULY forgive someone for something that they did, especially when it wasn't malicious or spiteful, then you forget that it ever occurred.  That's what true forgiveness actually is.

Yes, it hurts when we've been wronged, but an apology doesn't ease the emotional pain.  An apology CAN'T ease the emotional pain.  An apology shows that the person who did wrong is taking responsibility for their actions.  The healing of that emotional wound?  Well that's on the part of the wronged party.

I had to learn that the hard way.  I'm still learning it to some degree.  But when I think about all the times that I've been hurt, been suspected of being "selfish" or "self-centered" or "neglectful" or for even "being too private", when I think about the people who have wronged me, to a very serious degree...when I think of the malicious attacks on my person, I get angry all over, I hurt all over, I want to cry all over again...but then I remember how I REACTED the first time those things happened and the consequences of my REACTIONS.  Then I remember coming home to my mother with tears in my eyes, sobbing, begging for her to let me move back in.  I remember crying, begging for Christopher to forgive me for cheating on him...AGAIN.  I remember begging my best friend to help me kick my habit one more time because I wanted to go to seminary school and make my daddy proud.  I remember standing before a group of people and asking them to forgive me for turning my back on them at a time when they needed me the most.

Each time I remember those people forgiving me, giving me another chance and forgetting what had occurred.  I remember them welcoming back with open arms.  Most of all I remember them saying some version of, "Your actions hurt, but your reaction was understandable."

We have GOT to learn to display compassion to others.  To be quick to love and slow to judge.  To be slow to anger.  To observe the situation from the other person's point of view before we take offense and allow ourselves to be hurt, because no one has the power to hurt you unless you give it to them.  Most of all, we have to remember our own negative reactions to things so that we never sit in judgment when someone else reacts negatively, unless that reaction caused physical pain, financial ruin, or something equally destructive.

The biggest thing is this, as we mature we learn to think about our reactions, before we do them.  We feel the instinct but we've learned to hesitate and think before we do it.  When you're younger you haven't learned that yet, unless  you've been through a lot.  So when my baby cousin, at 9 years old, pushes someone who insulted me, I don't fly off the handle and berate him as I would someone who was 49 or even 19, because he is still a baby, I gently tell him that what he did was wrong and he reacted in a negative way.  Then I discipline him, tell him I still love him and then I forget about it.

Again (and I've said this in earlier posts), this is how mature adults handle things.  Yes, we still hurt, we still get angry, but we've learned to be quick to love, quick to forgive and slow to anger and hurt.  Slow to react.

That's my revelation.