or
Why I can't take Forced Fem Stories
Just over 2 years ago I had a decision to make. I was very close to ending my life or I was going to have to accept that I was a transgendered person and actually deal with it. Since I had decided suicide wasn't an option due to my kids it wasn't really a choice. I took the harder path, in many ways I still feel it was the harder path. I transitioned.
Funny thing, even after accepting I was transgendered I was still in denial about transitioning. That did not last long as I saw my gender therapist about my depression, it became obvious there was only one way I could truly deal with this thing I had.
I think too much. I still have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that whatever weird psych involved it was worth killing myself over. I know if I had to be a man again I would spiral down the same path. I also know a lot of folks with this disphoria never seem to hit the extreme I did.
When I hit 50 I thought to look on the internet to see what was what. Up to this point I thought I was something nasty, a real pervert. Blame being a US Air Force brat whose dad was a Master Sargent for that one. They never did know about the other me. Funny, while my family was alive (brother included) I was able to put my transgenderism to the back burner, it bothered me but it didn't dominate like it did after they died. I never knew the strength I got from my family until they were gone.
So I found comic sites, which I glommed onto. I'm not really into comics though, so I found Fiction Mania, then this site (which has become my internet home). In some ways the stories helped cause the clinical depression to spiral even faster out of control. I've always read Sci-Fi and Fantasy in mass quantities. Now I was reading a lot of the (to me) new genre. But reading this seemed to bring me down. Part of it was fantasizing about something I could not see myself ever having. The other was forced fem stuff. I think it was because I was in Hell on Earth. Being a gender that you could not / did not identify with is something I could not wish on anyone. Dying seems kinder to me.
I thought about ending myself every day for over 8 months while I went from 240 pounds to 185 pounds, when I allowed myself to start HRT. That is where my life turned around. Unfortunately I was a real ass to several really good authors on this site, which I deeply regret. I have some belated apologies to send.
I like to think I've grown a lot since them, mostly in the form of keeping my mouth shut if a story bothers me. I love good writing, and if I get hooked on a story I will finish it even if I feel it is having a negative effect on me.
However, I have had my SRS, botched though it was. I suffer from incontinence, but feminine pads seem to be able to handle it. Even though I am jobless, wonder if I'll ever get another job in my chosen profession, am without insurance, and going through the other stuff I've mentioned I'm much better mentally than I was. I get very depressed occasionally, but the two mems that had dominated my life, “I hate my life.” and “I wish I were dead.” have been replaced with “I'm a girl now.” and “I love being a girl.”. It helps.
When I first started accepting myself I worked on loosing weight. I went from 240 to 158 (for one glorious day). I'm back up to 190, and trying to get back in the grove for weight loss. The occasional depression doesn't help, and the recovery from the two botched surgeries got me out of the habit of walking, which I'm trying to resume. I volunteer, trying to pay the kindness I was shown forward. I am trying to write fiction again. I never did stop my technical writing, fun for people is relative I suspect.
What got me on this rant (such that it is) is I am still sensitive to forced fem stories. I will not take it out on the writers or their stories ever again, but it will explain why I don't always comment. If I finish a story I will give a kudo. You made me look after all. :)
I still feel being forced to live in the wrong gender is Hell. It bothers me to think anyone has to live this way. I wonder how many other people have this feeling?
This rant has been brewing in the back of my mind for over 6 months, much like some of my stories have. I wanted to take the time to put it into words without offending anyone. I hope I succeeded.
Comments
I totally get where you're coming from, hon
sometimes, if I read a forced story I will suffer along with the character, causing me to go into PTSD mode. So I try to be careful to read warning tags, and in my writing I have tried to move away from forced fem stories except to showcase how horrible such a fate would be in real life.
I'm glad you're still with us, hon. Big huggles.
I understand your delema
If you have not seen my "Kill Children" it outlines my feelings. After almost 10 years the family still does not talk to me and my son harasses me every chance he gets.
Still, all that aside, I am the happiest I have ever been, although almost every religion hates me and at this point I almost say FUCK THEM.
Gwen
I hope this is not "blasphemy" ;-)
...but as to your response to the sanctimonious, all I can say is...
"Amen!" :-D
So what if it was ?
For folks like me, there cannot be such a thing as "blasphemy", since for there to be there would have to have been a god, and we see no evidence for the existence of such a being.
But this thread set me off thinking about "Reality", and I have come to the conclusion that there is actually no such thing as Reality, in any absolute sense. You see, what each of us perceives as "reality" is our considered individual opinion of what we each see, hear, smell and taste in and around us. Consider how a person with colour blindness sees their world - there will be shades of a colour for them that people who are NOT colourblind can see as two totally different colours. A few humans actually see everything in monochrome. Some folks, |I am one of them), see infrared as a colour - as a child I never tried to pick up a hot object because I could see it was hot, and I had huge difficulty understanding that most other children could not see hot objects the way I could. Consider how a totally blind person perceives their reality. Or a deaf person. The nights are full of the twittering of bats, for children with "normal" hearing, but most adults lose the ability to hear such high pitch sounds as they grow up. Not all however. Then there are folks who have synasthesia or parasthesia - for them, different colours have different tastes and smells too. One of my daughters, an Artist who exhibits paintings in various galleries in Scotland, experiences her "Reality" like that.
And fishes, they receive signals about their environment through their lateral lines, signals about the changing electical potential in the sea they swim in, telling them where various other fish species are and where others of their own kind are, so that they can try to avoid those that see them as food and can swim closer to potential mates or friends... For most creatures living in the depths where it is dark, their world is filled with a range of strange sounds that tell them what their "Reality" is like. Various species also generate lights via Bioluminescence, and so their "Reality" is filled with strange flashing signals as well as with sounds...
Whales use sounds for echolocation, navigation, and in hunting prey. They also use songs to hold groups of their kind together, and have developed love songs to attract mates, that change with time like pop-songs do among humans !
Then there are all the electromagnetic wavelengths we cannot see, but other species can see some of them. There probably are other sentient species in other parts of the Cosmos, who see totally different wavelengths than we do, so their "reality" would be far different from ours.
There cannot be such a thing as an Absolute Reality - it is all Relative, like Einstein first showed us !
Briar
I love having tags so I know what to avoid
I really hate forced-fem stories also...almost any story along those lines really. It's like I'm seeing someone die before my eyes and it just hurts to much to read them.
You aren't alone with the “I hate my life” and “I wish I were dead” thoughts. Glad to see you have gotten past them.
And, bravo on the weight loss :)
To those who apologize,
Don't apologize. Writing is a form of therapy as well as an act of creation. It is never something to apologize for. The problem is mine, I just have to learn to deal with it like an adult.
I was writing someone back who had PMed me and I had a minor epiphiny. If your whole body is actually transformed then that would include your brain too. Since being transgender is fundimentally in the brain then the result would likely not be a transgendered person.