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This is my first attempt to put into words what I really need to get out. I appreciate any comments you may have.
I tried to tell you that my anxiety was off the scale. That I was having a more than difficult time coping because I just can't balance everything that is happening to me, and now that I am ill, I am extra vulnerable.
I don't know how to show when I am having to make an effort to deal with life around me. In the car, when you cut across two lanes, you could not hear me screaming. My fear is not the fight or flight type. Instead, I freeze. Or when I lost you in the supermarket and could not reach you on your cell. It took so much effort to not just sit down and wait until you found me. Still that stupid voice in my head keeps telling me it is not adult behavior to collapse and give up.
When we got home and were unpacking the groceries, I asked you to hand me a can of soup. You held onto it though. Do you know how strong and tall you are? You are a foot taller than me. So when you did not let go, all my memories of being bullied came forth. I knew you were just teasing, and I do love the way we joke about, yet it was too much though. So I fell back on my old fears and melted down.
I am so much happier since beginning my transition. Only, it is not because all my problems went away. Oh, they're still here and in full force. Instead, I am emotionally learning to deal with them better. Just I am starting out as a little girl. Yes, I have all the knowledge (and pain) from having lived through so much, however, seeing the world through new emotions changes everything.
And what is so sad for the both of us, is that I know you are hurting too. It is a well learned reaction to take the blame for my imperfections hurting others. “If I was just good enough, then everything would be okay.” Of course I forgive you, and I hope, maybe, you can forgive me too.
Now you know why I am afraid to go to the Pride Parade tomorrow. When I feel like this, I cannot control those past feelings. I don't dare be in a place where I cannot run and hide if another meltdown occurs. It really has nothing to do with you or anyone else in the present. I am just trying to take care of myself, and this little girl now has permission to.
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Comments
Meltdown
A poignant look into the inner mind that shows everything in detail. There is both love and fear mixed together that makes me want to protect the author.
May Your Light Forever Shine
Hi Stanman
Your writings and comments to others here have already helped to protect me and give me the courage to try writing. Thanks so much.../Cassie Ellen
Reads to me like a letter for the S.O. left on the printer or
the S.O.'s laptop for them to find while the writer has gone to their bedroom and crawled into one of the few places that might be safe while going through one of her bad moments.
It's a really good, short piece and leaves lots for us to picture and imagine and even more this has a way that a lot of people can empathize with.
Great Start:)
*Big Hugs*
And welcome to the site.
Bailey.
Bailey Summers
Thanks for the comments.
I made it as close to life as possible. It is so difficult for me to say that kind of thing without falling into fear of finding myself a victim where by being me I feel am responsible for having hurt the person I have written to. I so hope I got the point that although I have compassion, I have to be strong for me.
/Cassie Ellen
Sweet and real.
Panic attacks and melt downs are a real problem when they just happen. It is so hard to understand the reason for them but as the roots are discovered the truth will set you on the path of healing. I am walking that path now, and I love your story.
Misha
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
I agree with the earlier
I agree with the earlier comment about it feeling like a letter left for an SO to find. Short but very emotive.
Welcome to BC!
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Good point
.... we all have these fears and this brings what we go through into sharp fouces which is something that we should realize .. Yes this does sound like it is going out to a S.O. which is a real good way to put it...
Dawn
My therapist once asked me when was I going to stop killing myself for everyone around me and start living for myself. I think it was what set me on the path to who I finally have become.....Me.
You are quite right.
The story was a response to a real event. I like to write out what I need to say so I have the words when I face the person I need to talk to. But in general, I have needed to do and say these things so many times in the past and was afraid to. This little girl is finally growing up. ~s~
/Cassie Ellen
giving yourself permission to take care of you
" I am just trying to take care of myself, and this little girl now has permission to."
Darn right she does. Hugs.
Autobiographical
I noticed you class your story as 'autobiographical', so I wonder if it is really a fictional story (as most are on this site) or more likely a true story? Whichever it is, in a very short piece of writing you have us all in sympathy with you and the difficulties encounter in the massive life-changing experience of transitioning. I'm sure we all wish you well, and thank you for being brave enough to share your feelings.
Categorization???
I pondered how to categorize the story for a while and came out with autobiographical to mean that it is based on an actual event. But only half of the event was written, so the story was also me writing the other half that was yet to be.
If there is a better way to categorize, or place to put stories like this, please let me know.
Thanks for your comments.../Cassie Ellen
Thank you...
...It's a hard road to walk down all by itself; add gender issues and all the other emotional things that have beset us, and it gets downright painful. In the midst of all that, so many of us (I don't claim to have a corner on this market) believe with most of our hearts too much of the time that if we're good enough, everything will be okay. We're all good enough; we were created that way.
And as hard as it gets, there is no one but we ourselves and whatever faith we have that can protect us from the hurts of the past. We can, however, find others just like us who are walking down that same road; some next to us, some on parallel paths, but many who know exactly how it feels since they've been there before...just a little bit ahead of us. It never gets easy, but it does get better.
It took 'this little girl' fifty plus years to figure out what you just said; that we have permission to protect and care for ourselves and, most importantly, be the person we know we are. Your story touches my heart, since I like to find others who understand, as you do.
It's not easy to lift the curtain on your life and allow folks like me to take a peak. It takes courage and character to be vulnerable. Thank you for allowing me the privilege to see you.
Love, Andrea Lena
Hugs
Thank you for sharing
Know that there are people out there that love you and support you even though you have never met them.
Love and Hugs
Hanna
Love And Hugs Hanna
((((((((♥)))))))((((((((♥)))))))((((((((♥)))))))((((((((♥)))))))((((((((♥)))))))
Blessed Be
Thanks and Hugs to all!
I have tried to answer most of the comments here, and in my first blog post. If I have not answered everything, I am just so overwhelmed from the response I received.
Please do not take this glibly.
I do not see my sharing as much as being brave as letting out the person inside me. I need to put things into words, and I am always being told by friends that I need to share what I write. So writing is both an act of self healing and expressing love to those who are willing to accept it.
I wish I could say that better, but it will have to do for now.
Bright Blessings!
/Cassie Ellen
This very brief bio tells me quite a lot.
My prepubescent years were filled with love and acceptance. My teenage years were an undescribeable horror. My mother had abandoned and disowned me in 1961 when I was 12½ years old by having me sent to a residential treatment center to be "cured" of my dressing as and wanting to be, a girl. She didn't know there is no such thing as a "cure" for being who we are. I have hidden and melted down plenty of times between when I was finally set free at age 18 and 1981 when I was 33. But no matter what had happened to me beyond my control, I never stopped or let anyone else, including the state, stop me from being me. All of my abusers are gone by either dying or in prison. They have done their worst, but I am still me and will never stop being me.
This short bio tells me that your fears are deep in your soul, and seemingly cannot be completely forgotten. But you are learning how to deal with the emotions that those memories bring. It is not easy dealing with emotions of abuse, abandonment and bigotry.
I wish that you will be fine, and that the little girl in you sees that these problems are actually what most people go through, transgender or not. The only difference between us and the mainstream is, we feel we have been cheated at birth. Well, dear, cheated at birth or not, you are becoming a strong woman who can take charge of her life. It doesn't come easy or even overnight, but it does come. One day you will wake up to find yourself not only shrugging off these emotional memories, but you will never let them bother you again. Instead, you will stand proud of yourself and will have a wonderful sense of self. Until then, though, just keep coping like you are doing, and you will be fine. Thank you for sharing.
"With confidence and forbearance, we will have the strength to move forward."
Love & hugs,
Barbara
"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."
My life was confused
I still do not know how to reply to what you have said. My childhood was rifled between being loved and a constant source of disappointment. My mother, doctors, psychologists, teachers all wanted me to be someone that I was unable to. As a child, I viewed the disapproval as me being bad. I tried so hard to be good so I would be accepted, but it was never to be.
Now, I can look back and see that those first assumptions as a child were wrong. I was not bad, just very misunderstood.
Then puberty brought on two changes that left me totally lost. The first was the surge of hormones that made my mind feel like I was constantly grating my gears. I know I was not a boy as a child, but I really did not want to be a man. The other was when my abstract reasoning went beyond what my mother could understand and accept. She denied me what I could see and do, especially about myself, and I felt abandoned. She said she loved me, but she could not listen to me.
And that set the stage for trying so hard to be someone I would never be.
Now, I know that my little girl inside is growing up well, and eventually I will be whole. The memories of my childhood will never go away, but it does not matter. I will not allow them to control who I am.
Cassie saved my life and now I am making sure that she lives hers.
Recognisable melt
Cassie Ellen, twice I have frozen on the edge of meltdown both times in very public places n both times just held it together long enough for the moment to subside n be tucked back behind the facade of control so much of what you write is recognisable we shouldn't need permission to take care of ourselves but still feel the need sometimes I'm hanging on by the fingertips of one hand but must keep hanging on so hang on girl hang on x k-jo
I was lying down minding my own business when life came by and drove right over me