In My Life - Thoughts and Dreams and Hopes "Crying is all right in its own way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do." - C.S. Lewis a blog by Andrea DiMaggio   The Family Girl Blogs (aka "The New Working Girl Blogs") Blog #28: Lessons From the Heart - A Blog by Aunty Andrea and her niece, Bobbie C. To see all of Bobbie's Family Girl Blogs, click on this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/28818/family-girl-blogs

Lessons From the Heart -
A Blog by Aunty Andrea and her niece, Bobbie C.

 
Andrea and Her Days

It's amazing how blessed I am. Today I spent the better part of an hour in therapy weeping - beginning the hour with tears of bitter anger and sadness until in the midst of it all I realized just how great things have become. What could have turned into self-pity has been transformed by the knowledge that I have so much to be thankful for.

I suffer from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, and yet I think I am fortunate because I have the good fortune to be under the care of the foremost immunologist in the field, in the NY/Metropolitan area.

I also have a tremor disorder but, through a series of missed connections, I ended up contacting a practice in Manhattan for help with my problem instead of the one I was supposed to contact, which turns out to be the number one treatment practice in the world for tremor and epileptic disorders.

And I deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as well. In looking for a therapist, I happened to have called the wrong phone number last February. Instead of the therapist I had been referred to, I ended up connecting with my present therapist (who is highly recommended by Psychology Today as an expert in Traumatology, by the way).

You might be in good hands with Allstate, but I am wrapped in a cocoon of care that no one could have foreseen two years ago.

Today was a hallmark day as well, because I finally gave myself permission to be angry for all the hurt I endured as a child. Not to stay angry, but to get rid of the anger. And I've discovered that many of the symptoms that gave me great concern about more serious conditions have turned out to be just the logical outcomes of the stress and strain my whole being has gone through. I am also no longer dealing with out-of-control diabetes, and my health - both emotional and mental - is improving.

But the best part? A relative who had been hostile to me since very early on has become so kind and accepting and affirming. Things between us have improved so much that she smiles when we greet, and she actually cries when we part. How blessed am I?

My signature has changed quite a few times over the years, and the current one reflects how I feel: "Crying is all right in its own way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do." (C.S. Lewis)

I've found that crying has been alright in its own way, and while I don't imagine this old girl is going to stop crying altogether any time soon, I've decided on what I'm going to do. There's a song that says, "I'm wasting no more time looking back over my shoulder." So... maybe volunteer work now that my health is finally improving? And exploring the possibility of publishing my work in venues other than solely the internet? The possibilities are many, bringing as many challenges as solutions, but I'm moving forward!

 
Bobbie and Her Metamorphosis

Though I cannot claim to have gone through as much as Andrea has (whom I have considered an aunt for quite a while now, in spirit even if not by blood), I also think I am also blessed.

My tale of woe was perhaps not as trying as was hers, but I guess it has also taught me things, too.

My early days are familiar to most TGs, I'm sure, and though they may differ in the details, the broad strokes are probably the same: A child feeling something wrong at an early age, identifying with the wrong gender, wanting to play the wrong games, dressing in the wrong clothes, preferring the wrong things. And like many who thought like that child, hid it from the family, playing a masquerade of being "normal," keeping family and siblings clueless.

But other children can be perceptive in many ways that grownups aren't, and they can see through such a subterfuge, and can be cruel to that child as only children can be.

I have gone through this kind of cruelty and, though stories like mine have become trite, overused and clichéd in today's coming-of-age stories, no one really knows how it really is and how it can affect you unless you go through it yourself. I grew up with a lifeless, lonely and humiliation-filled childhood. Ridicule and, many times, physical persecution were common things in my young life, though to be fair, I did have a few good times as well (though I wish there were more of those times).

In growing older, this did not diminish but rather it increased. But as my ideas of myself and the world coalesced, I was finally able to put two and two together. And with the things I have read, and the things I have seen on TV and in the news, I discovered that there was a way out. I was glad for what I found. But with my sexual awakening, it made me more frantic and desperate for this way out.

I was fortunate that I found a kindred spirit (or so I thought), and together we went through our young adulthood, both of us leaning on, and relying on, each other - me more than her.

And, with her encouragement, I took the plunge. I complied with the SOC requirements, got myself under psychoanalysis, began HRT (but not before depositing some "samples" at the "bank") and started to go out into the world "dressed." I liquidated all that I could liquidate, borrowed the rest of what I needed, and took the plunge. Like a well planned military campaign that she and I outlined, I methodically went through what else I needed to go through - SRS, cosmetic surgery (mostly FFS procedures), et cetera. But when all was done, my kindred spirit turned out not to be. To my (and her's as well) surprise and dismay, it turned out she couldn't stand the new me and decided to deprive me of what sustained me through those years of hope and transition: herself. What I thought was the answer to my prayers to be free and be myself - well this wasn't it. And there was no way back now.

Because of what I had done to myself, I could not go to my family, or even the few friends I had. I was truly alone now. Truly and completely alone with literally no way back. Only the timely intervention of my therapist-turned-friend rescued me from suicide, and thus began my long trek back to the world of the living, bereft of my rudder and my life compass, of everything but what I had left of myself.

I began my journey back by considering practical matters first. Taking what job I could to survive and stave off destitution, I squeaked narrowly past the line between poverty and survival by being a waitress-slash-cashier for a time, earning less than minimum wage (which, needless to say, was insufficient to hold back my ever-growing debts) but surviving. And after a while, I was eventually able to find a job similar to the one I had prior to HRT. I was able to improve my financial situation but not my emotional one - contrary to my hope that with what I had done to myself, I would be closer to the true me, and everything would be fine, sadly, it was not a magic switch - seems despite what mask I wore, the ugly side of people still reigned.

Although to strangers, I was who I outwardly seemed to be, but to co-workers and ex-friends, and the people that mattered, I did not. But I refused to believe my dream a lie: that all I had done was just an exercise in failure. So I pushed on. Rebelling against the persecution I felt at work, I left my shitty job and my prejudiced, intolerant and mercenary coworkers, and got a new one.

I was under no illusions when I started my new job, but I was determined to make a good showing of it. The plan was fairly simple - do not volunteer my history and try and behave as the new me without the baggage that was my past, face whatever came with confidence and forthrightness even if I didn't really feel the confidence and forthrightness. And for a time, it seemed to work. For a time, I was free to be. I even dared to think that I might already have found my real kindred spirit and partner-in-life.

But something happened which seemed to have brought my charmed new existence crashing down. But, in the end, it didn't - all that that "incident" did was to steel my resolve, and paradoxically, it sort of crystallized things for me: It seemed that my new resolve was strengthened all the more. Ex-friends were friends again (more or less) and new friends are waiting in the wings (perhaps just waiting for me to let them in), and my family is now back in my life. My new partner-in-life stayed with me, unlike the one before, and good things are still happening. And, maybe this time I can be free for real. And if it doesn't last, I will at least savor every moment.

Like Aunt Andrea, I feel blessed as well. Blessings come in many forms, that's true. And another thing that I found true was that blessings don't come to you. You must look for them, make them happen even. Blessings, I think, aren't gifts without strings attached. They are rewards for your hard work, for denying the darkness and the lonely days, for fighting through to the light, never giving up and daring to reconnect with others - going to them instead of waiting for them to come to you (because they won't ever do, unless you make the first move). Scream it into the face of loneliness, gimme your best, bitch! You're nothing! I deny you! I refuse! I deny you.

 
Bobbie, Reaping the Whirlwind

In BCTS, I often find myself in lecture-mode, and I guess it's because I want to communicate to people what I had learned. But words are a paltry, threadbare way of communicating things - like when one is unable to communicate feelings and emotions on the internet and resort to smileys. Except that there is no smiley that will help me to properly say what I want to say.

It's easy to say, "I attempted suicide." But in this current world, those are mere words, worse they are clichéd words. But has anyone paused to think what that meant for the person? What dark depths of despair her soul must have plumbed for her to actually want to end it all? And what must she have discovered or felt to actually get her to claw her way back, even if the world was indifferent to her return?

Those who fling around words of sadness and despair with such unconcern like a teen goth-girl or emo-girl indulging in manufactured feelings of loneliness, feeling herself full of profundity and, in that way, feeling fulfilled - they only play-act in a grotesque vicarious way what the failed suicidee felt.

What they do not know is that they are playing with fire. Woe to them when the words they mouth off so casually become real instead of just the literary bricks that they use in creating their blogs and stories. And when they tell them often enough, they will indeed become real. As any politician knows, tell something often enough and people will start to believe.

I have tried to impart this to people, but writing about depression is too easy, too effortless, while writing about good things is so very hard to do. After all, you have to look for them (unlike the dark words which are just lying readily around just waiting to be picked up), and good words are actually hard to use because, if you don't feel them - to actually hear them, much more speak them yourself... well, imagine seeing someone smiling and happy while you are trapped in a spiral of frustration, anger, depression (that you created for yourself)... betcha you'd like to pop the supercilious little altruist a big one in the face.

But the thing is, if what you want is to be happy, isn't it sort of the wrong thing to be talking about the opposite thing?

Isn't it worth everything to put the extra bit of effort, if the payback in the end is something good?

I have tried to remain true to this point of view, to walk the walk and talk the talk, and have tried to make most of my posts positive and life-affirming. I just wish my words were clear enough that I could tell this more understandably...

 
Andrea and the Fellowship

One of my favorite movie scenes comes from the movie, The Fellowship of the Ring, where Frodo says to Gandalf that he wishes the ring had never come to him. Like me, he wishes that none of 'this' had happened. The hard, painful, and even grievous things in my life, you know. But Gandalf is encouraging, saying that all of us feel that way, but it's not for us to decide what happens, but rather to decide what to do with the time we have. A choice to respond to stop feeling sorry for myself and forge ahead and take whatever adventure comes my way. Like Bobbie says, fighting through to the light.

So, every day, many of the things that come to me are more than just challenging. Some things have gotten better and some haven't. I could just look at things and say that it's okay to feel sorry after all, you know? But I choose instead not to surrender - to never give up! I expect that each of us deals with challenges that would daunt even the bravest of heroes, but I hope that my friends here (at BCTS) would choose to face those challenges, since the payoff is growth and change and success. And maybe even happiness. Choose to dare, aye?

 
Andrea & Bobbie

We’ve both had our ups and downs in life, as you have read, and while our paths have been decidedly different, our destinations are very much the same, at least in one regard: we’re doing our darndest to become the persons we believe we were meant to be. And that has only happened by moving forward. As Bobbie reminds me all the time, and as Aunt Andrea has shown me through her example, if we're moving forward, even if slowly, and with small steps only, we're making progress. And in many ways, if we stop in our tracks, perhaps to maybe take inventory of how bad things are, we'd be moving backwards as if we’ve stopped walking on a moving treadmill. But even the slightest movement forward is a gain.

The both of us wish for you the same kind of resolve, the same kind of outlook. Our lives have shown us the path to follow. Perhaps you'd care to walk the path with us?
 
 
 

Andrea DiMaggio    To see all of Andrea's blogs - http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/andrea-lena-dimaggio To see Andrea's stories - http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/drea-dimaggio

click here to read my old Working Girl Blogs, click here to read all of my blogs, click here to read my stories in BCTS, and click here to see my profile & know more about me.