I had the oddest experience tonight. Many of you may be familiar with Dan Savage of the Savage Love column and podcast. I was listening to an old podcast tonight. Dan is often funny, frequently quite vulgar, and pretty astute (and blunt) about the physical and emotional issues of relationships. The podcast is a good source for laughs, and for keeping my own problems in perspective.
In this podcast, he was talking with a young gay man about coming out to his parents. Dan reminisced about coming out to his mother many years ago. He talked about pacing outside her room, completely speechless, trying to force himself to enter the room and just say it.
And I was blindsided. I didn't see it coming. The tears just hit me in a wave. I don't cry easily, something I've lamented frequently here. I just related so strongly to the inabilty to speak your heart and mind with a loved one. The fear of rejection overriding the need to share your innermost thoughts. I've been there way too often. How can someone, with so many good words at her disposal, freeze up completely? I call it verbal constipation, and that should tell you how I feel about it. A big bowl of brain flakes will loosen things right up.
When I shared my crossdressing secret twenty-some years ago, just forming the words was agonizing. I shared with my counselor first, and sat pretty much speechless for the session, having only said that I had a secret. At the very end, as time pressures were mounting, I just blurted it out. Too late to do much except watch her jaw drop. When I shared with my wife a few weeks later, it took even longer, because I wasn't on the clock.
So Dan Savage brought up some long-buried feelings that I suppose I've never really processed. I'll have to call him up and thank him one day.
Coincidentally, I was talking with my current therapist earlier in the day. I told her that I've been pretty comfortable with my maleness of late. Predictably, eight hours later, I'm crying and having my first serious bout of dysphoria in a couple months. Naturally, I'm three weeks away from getting my head shrunk again. Exquisite timing, as always. It's a pity that's not a marketable talent.
A wood and two roads
11 hours ago
I know what you mean, telling someone can cause even the most poetic among us to suddenly become mute.
ReplyDeleteI've been looking for an opportunity to tell my sister about my being transgendered, and showing her some pictures of what I look like as a woman, for the last two months now, but the right moment never seems to happen. I only see her once a week on Monday evening at my mothers, where we all gather for supper. I usually only have a few minutes to talk to her, before other family members arrive, and then I'm lucky to get a word in edgewise. This week I'm planning on wearing a pair of shorts and short sleeve shirt. Hopefully she will notice that my arms and legs are bear and will ask me about it. My mother has known that I am TG for decades, but she has never seen me as Melissa, and certainly doesn't know I live as Melissa 100% of the time I'm at home. I want so much for them to meet the sister and daughter they have never known. I've hated keeping this a secret all my life.
ReplyDeleteHere's to openness!:)
Melissa
Yes, I know the "blindside" well, my friend. Several times now, something just triggers it and down I go.
ReplyDeleteCalie xxx
I know those feelings well. We all prolly do. But do people really want the truth? Do they really want to know how we feel? Would they opt for the lie if it made them feel better? Truth, lies, does it matter? People believe what makes them feel best about themselves. Any declaration that challenges one's comfort zone isn't always well received. People always say "How are you today?" They really don't want to know. They just want you to say "fine" so they can get back to their own lives. However, there are a few who do care...and they are few, very few.
ReplyDeletePeace
Tina: Very bitter, girl! Once bitten, twice shy?
ReplyDeleteMelissa: Be careful. You'll be showing bare arms and legs to the whole family, not just your sister. Do you ever see her outside the family gatherings? But yes, openness rocks, selectively!
Bitter? Yeah, prolly so.
ReplyDeleteBut like the New Year...."out with the old and in with the new!"
Beginning a new life in a new place...and everyone will no my name...my real name. My eternal optimism will get me thru. Doing a much better job of finding friends and I'm glad I found a good friend in you. :)
Peace
Well, my opportunity to tell my sister came and went in a flash. Turns out she brought her daughter along with her, and it was her daughter who first noticed my legs were bare, so I told her that I epilate. My sister was sitting right there with us, but as is often the case at my mother's house, there were two conversations going on at once, and at that very moment she was distracted by something my mother said, so she didn't even hear my answer to her daughter. Her daughter just said, "Oh", and never asked any follow up questions. The next thing you know, it was time for dinner. There was never a good time to bring it up again without it appearing forced and I don't want to do that. I want to bring it up in the normal course of conversation. Preferably in response to an observation on their part. I did have about ten minutes alone with my sister before I left, but she was playing solitaire on mom's computer and I didn't just want to blurt it out and sound desperate.
ReplyDeleteI used to read his column in a locally published "Underground newspaper' here in Chicago and had no idea he had a something going online..Gawd am I out of touch.
ReplyDeleteAnyway.I told my siblings and parents when I was in my twenties and struggling with a host of things, most of them where okay with it and thougt it was a phase I was going through. I eventually married a wonderful women who doesn't quite get it, but allows me to be me.