This was quite a week.
I got an appointment for treatment at a clinic in the local big city that does informed consent!!! I'm so, so excited! I am counting down the days until April 8th. I'm excited. I'm nervous. But I also feel like my dysphoria is getting worse by the day. Today, I felt horrible all day at work. I was just wallowing in shame about being trans and thinking about some very toxic TERF stuff that I read last night (note to self: stop reading TERF stuff). The shame is very hard to deal with. Now, I believe that the best way to deal with shame that is unjustified (like shame about being transgender) is to engage in the behavior that sets off the shame OVER AND OVER AND OVER in public. So, I must come out to more people. I must come out. I must come out. This is scary.
Two days ago, I came out to my parents. It went...OK. I kind of wish I didn't...like, maybe I wasn't ready for it. My mom said, "Ugh!...well, I can't say I'm surprised. You are always talking about this stuff." My dad seemed supportive and asked a bunch of decent questions. But, at the same time, he keeps calling me "buddy" and they both refer to me with male pronouns when they are talking about me. I downloaded The Gender Book and told them to read it (because they asked for more resources).
Part of me is feeling a lot of anger: I think about moving out and getting on with my life. But...I have no money. Plus, I have a mental illness (BPD) and they are paying for the treatment which I really NEED and am benefiting from. I don't think I'd be where I am with regards to accepting myself and coming out if it wasn't for the therapy (DBT) that I'm undergoing. It is literally changing my life. But it is EXPENSIVE and my parents are paying for it because they want me to stay alive and not kill myself. So...moving out isn't really a solution, I don't think.
I've also started coming out on social media (read: dating sites). This was pretty cool at first--it felt validating and all the attention was really nice at first (and I had some REALLY positive messages that were not problematic at all in my view), but now it just feels gross. I'm sure this isn't news to anyone on here, but people can be pretty awful.
Well, on the plus side, I ran 40 miles this week, despite all the snow. So, at least I got that going for me.
Oh, also! more positives: I came out to my DBT skills group and the reaction was REALLY positive. I also had dinner with my ex-boyfriend and I came out to him and we talked about it. This was 95% positive. He has a few backwards ideas about trans people but he's not a bad guy at all. He accepted what I said and basically said that I should explore this as much as possible and that he thinks my desire to start HRT is totally acceptable.
So. Yeah. Big week.