In response to Khadija's question about the moment that pushed each of us into coming out I typed up a nice response, took a good look at it, and decided that it was a bit too long

for a comment, but great for a post in a blog I should write in more anyway. So, here 'tis. ^^;

I've known, more-or-less since my mid-teens, when I was able to first access a wider world via the public student computer labs at the local university, that there were options, that there were surgical options, but I was always afraid to fully admit to myself that they were options for >me<. I went through many cycles of almost accepting, and then deep, deep denial of what I was feeling. I would periodically create a new identity online, and pretend to be a genetic woman, but after a while the stress of outright lying would leave me so depressed that I'd abandon sites that I greatly enjoyed, and friends I'd made, just because I couldn't stand lying to them, but couldn't even tell myself the truth of what I >knew< I was.

I was born to a family with several brothers, and no sisters, and we didn't disturb our parents' room or their things. It just wasn't worth the trouble we'd catch. I never cross-dressed as a child. Clothes, still, are clothes, and while they might look good, I've never had much of a compulsion to wear my mother's things. Honestly, except for a very few nice things, neither of my parents were very big on having lots of clothing, and what they have is mainly serviceable and durable work clothing. Even had that been an issue, though, I doubt I would have done anything, I was so deeply in denial.

The ongoing depression impaired my ability to work. I was only able to hold a job for anyone outside my family for a couple of months at the most, and sometimes only for a few weeks. I dropped out of college once, and then went back several years later on hardship grants and loans, finally managing to complete one degree, before the depression killed my ability to study again. I did some religious work for the church I belong to, but I wasn't very successful, and my depression followed me there and made that even harder.

I came close, oh-so-very close to committing suicide so many times over those years. I knew I wasn't what my parents, my teachers, or the ministers of my church expected. I don't know if some of them would have accepted this or not, as I never allowed myself to even think of whether >I< would accept it.

Last summer, a conflict with a fellow new hire three weeks into a new job left me on the verge of suicide yet again, and this time I mentioned it to my supervisor at work. I found myself, the victim in the confrontation with the other employee, and just a day before my first appointment with a company-provided counselor, fired from the company as they felt it was "in [my] best interests." I tried for months to find new work, but a combination of depression, and of a swiftly collapsing market left me without options, and my few savings dried up paying for rent. Eventually I was forced to rely on the charity of my parents, and moved back into their home.

This winter proved especially bad, as the combination of no work, no money, piling debt, the stress of living with my father (with whom I've never really gotten along very well, though he's not a bad sort), and the knowledge that I was >wrong< in such a fundamental way kept me just on the edge of walking away and finding some way of just >ending<.

I discovered Ellen Hayes' Tuck in mid-February, and through it found my way eventually to Top Shelf about the beginning of March. I started talking to people, in comments, and then in IM, and I was faced with an option. I could try to lie again, pretending to be something that I'm not quite exactly, or I could take one little step, and start to accept myself, and be honest about who and what I am in a community like this that would actually accept me. It was terrifying, but it was >right<.

I thought about it some more, and started looking at family and friends, trying to see them in a new light, and trying to decide whether or not they would, whether they >could< accept me now, at the stage I'm at, still looking and sounding male, but starting to do the little things I can do to start myself moving >forward< in a way I haven't really ever before. I knew that one friend in particular would never do any thing to hurt me unless she thought it would >help< me, and I knew she'd be >able< to support my decision because of people we both knew. At a convention, when we could sit down and talk privately (in what was really the only "perfect" moment I've ever seen), I broke down and told her, and I cried, and she comforted me and told me that she'd suspected something for as long as she'd known me, and then pretty much ordered me to talk to a mutual friend of ours who is more than a decade past going full time (and I did more than kick myself mentally when it occurred to me that I hadn't even thought of talking to her >.< Way to go, genius-me...).

I talked with our friend, who was understanding, and admitted that she, too, thought that I had some sort of issue for a long time, though she said she always expected it to be me coming out as gay. I later told one of my brothers, who has been accepting, though he's a more than a little confused, and my best friend, who took it in stride.

I'm looking carefully now for resources around me to help me move forward. I'm trying to get the money that I need to talk with doctors and psych's and such. I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the processes and procedures involved in transitioning and the medicines and surgeries involved. I'm doing a >lot< of soul searching, trying to figure out what I believe, and of what I need to let go. I'm not going to tell a lot of people for a while, until I can wean myself from dependency on them again, or can assure myself that they won't threaten my situation until I'm ready.

And I'm going to be ready someday soon. I've stopped hiding from myself. I have good days, when I see the way I >need< to go as clearly as if it were painted and lit with daylight in the middle of the night. I have bad days, when I sit in a corner and hug myself and think that something, even just myself, is going to stop me and leave me stranded part-way, or that I can't wait, and have to do something drastic >NOW< before I can remind myself to not run faster than I can go.

But I'm moving. It's more than I've ever done before.

And it's wonderful.

-Liz