As She stood on the back seat looking out the back window of the car, watching her home burn to the ground, little Gwen felt really sad, and missed the days in her old home somewhere else. As she grew, she’d find out that her old home had been in San Diego, California, where she was born. She missed the warm sunny days, and the soft, pretty dresses that Mommy used to dress her in until the mean man came into her life.
After that, he angrily cut her pretty hair, took away her lovely dresses, called her a boy, and beat her if she cried. What was happening lay outside the understanding of a 5 year old.
Life after that was joyless and sober. One thing was for certain. Almost every night as he drove up the ½ mile long driveway, she knew that a beating was coming. Stepfather was raised in an Amish family, and was so severely beaten by his father, that one night he ran away to his grandfather’s home. From comments she heard from him from him in subsequent years revealed that his grandfather was nearly as bad as his father.
Stepfather was born in 1913. In WWII he served as the driver of an amphibious landing craft in the South Pacific. Somehow, he did not go into the Navy until near the end of WWII.
I was born in March of 1947 and met him some time in the late fall of 1949. That is when he cut my hair and took my nice clothing. He wanted to make me a man, and in actuality it never worked very well. I remained very small through my High School Years, not weighing over 100lbs and quite short until I was in my Senior Year. He tried to make me a Man, but it just was not there.
With the constant beatings and berating by my stepfather, I simply gave up in school; knowing that if I made D’s and a couple of C’s, I could squeeze by. There was no concentrating on homework with all the tension and the oppressive atmosphere. I graduated 3rd from the bottom of my class with a 1.95 GPA. You could say I was shat out by the American educational system; ignored, without value, to be gotten out of the way. I would not understand until years later, that this injustice would fill me with sufficient rage to help me to succeed in spite of them. For the rest of my life, it would always be a subtle fight against “them”.
Around 1961 I was having a lot of burning in my eyes and begged my Mom to take me to the Doctor. I simply did not understand the financial pressure she was under and argued with her. She threw a beer bottle at me, hitting me in the right eye. We were both out of control emotionally, and I ran out the door to leave home. My memory of the incident is foggy, and somehow she ran over my bike to keep me from leaving. Head strong, I left anyhow and went down to a friend’s house to spend the night.
The next day, I appealed to the school counselor for help and he called the police and child welfare people, who placed me in a temporary juvenile detention home. The girls were housed in the upper floor of an old house, and the boys were in a long low structure that had been a chicken barn. It did not smell of chickens but the coarse screens were still over the windows, and glass had been placed inside.
I don’t remember a lot of detail about the days I spent there. At night, I learned that there are things that are more painful and degrading than being beaten half to death. I only remember the pain and blood next morning. The rest is concealed behind a veil of horror.
When the time came for the counselors and my mother to meet, she was so angry that she completely cowed them. I was given an ultimatum to get in the car, and since the counselors were silent, I did it. For the next two years, I was grounded and allowed to only go to school, come home and be in my room, only coming out for meals. There were no friends, phone calls or outside activities. I learned that the only way to survive was to be absolutely compliant, no matter what I thought. The time spent reading and day dreaming was isolating but not painful. I developed Passive Aggressive personality traits that I fight to this day.
In looking back, I must have “forgotten” about wanting to be a girl in the active sense very soon after that beating in the family room. I must have been around 5 or 6. Oh, when I secretly played games and daydreamed, “Gwen” was very much there deeply hidden in my heart. I have often wondered what it would have been like with a family where the siblings did not hate each other, where Father loved me and where Mother was not distant.
In looking back, Mother suffered unspeakable abuse by her Father. Her abuse was made worse because he was a lay pastor at church, but would go out and get drunk on Friday night. I do not know the exact nature of her abuse, but from hearing her occasional comments, one can only imagine. My stepfather did also at the hands of a stern Amish family near Lancaster, PA. Years after he grew up, he tried to have an Amish farm with us. He did not attend church, and was violent, especially toward me. So, much of what he taught lacked any credibility with me or them. My 6 siblings and I all tried to understand why he singled me out.
He beat and abused me nearly every night from the time I was 4 until around 15 when he came after me, and I picked up the hatchet to defend myself. He of course knowing how to fight took it from me and got ready to beat me. “You will have to sleep sometime”, I told him. It was the first time I ever stood up to him and that seemed to shock him. He did not beat me that night nor after.
"Brown"
This is a true story, but does not include violence and trauma
So, by the time I was in my late adolescence, I had somehow submerged Gwen the girl, just to survive and think that I completely forgot about her for the next 20 or so years.
I finally did graduate High School in 1965, and was promptly thrown out of my parents’ home. It was fortunate that I was also a volunteer fire fighter, and was allowed to live at the Fire Department until I had to go into the Army during Vietnam. (66-69). In the meantime, I met a girl who I soon found out was being verbally abused by her Father, physically abused by her Mother and molested by her two step brothers. She was very nice and we hit it off, often commiserating about our experiences growing up. By March of 66, I knew I was going into the Army because of the draft, and could not face leaving her in the hell she was in, so with special permission of a Judge we married.
After the 16 weeks of training, I was assigned to Ft Wainwright, Alaska, just outside Fairbanks, and was able to bring her there to live with me. She had by that time turned 16 and was able to work in the Ski Shop while I did my assignment as Military Police (Mostly in the office, since it was deemed that I was too small to be a proper Policeman.). After a year and a half in Alaska, I was then assigned to Ft Sill, Oklahoma, where I served out my last 11 months. Our son, Scott was born in September 1967 and we drove from Fairbanks, to Portland in February of 1968. The trip, while it seemed a great adventure to us, was uneventful save for one service station attendant trying to put Diesel in our car. We were fortunate because in Fairbanks we’d had a couple of weeks of -40 F, but the morning we left, it warmed up to -25. According to locals, that was nearly the ideal winter temperature because it was not excessively cold, but it was cold enough that the ice was not very slick. The day before a snow storm had come through, so we basically drove the roads right after the plow cleared them with no ruts.
After discharge from the Army, I got a job working as a Pesticide Sprayer and tree pruner, while I attended College. I hated that job but it helped support the family. By then we had a son, Scott (Sept 6, 1967) and a Daughter (March 3, 1969).
In 1974(?), I was able to secure a job at a local saw chain manufacturing plant and remained there 20 years. It provided a steady income and I learned a lot. During that time, in the early 80’s I could not shake my depression. At the time, I did not even remember what would cause that depression. I wound up in a group called “Survivors of childhood sexual abuse”. It was then that memories of my childhood started to surface. There has been discussion about patients picking up false memories in these situations, and if someone wants to discuss that, please leave me out of it.
Along about that time, Kaiser put me on Haldol 200 mg/day. In looking at present day dosages of the drug, 200 mg seems very high, and records from Kaiser can be secured to confirm that. The Drug definitely levelled things out but I realized after I took it for 2 years, life was still very messed up, so I stopped taking it.
My first experience at being diagnosed as transgendered (GID) happened around 1984. The woman first said I was co-dependent with my wife. Later she said she thought I had multiple personality disorder. Later she said I was transgendered and needed to start living as a woman. 30 years later, I realize I just hated men and being one of the enemy.
The diagnosis was so shocking, that when my wife and I talked later, we re-iterated our love for each other, and then she said that though she loved me, she could not live with me if I were a woman. This whole transgender business was completely new to us and was quite shocking. As we talked, we felt that what I had was daemon persecution and we agreed to pray that away. (I was not then and never have had a homosexual experience) I was never unfaithful to my wife and have never had penetrative intercourse with anyone but her.
So, after that, we worked very hard to stay married, and be loving and faithful to one another for another 20 years. Along the way I encountered many types of counsellors, most of whom wanted me on medications of some sort, and I mostly refused to take anything, believing that it would be better to squarely face my problems and solve them. I worked very hard to ignore my issues, choosing to bury myself in service, and recreation instead.
I left the manufacturing plant in 1992, and worked for various Electrical Contractors as an Electrician until being hired at Hillsboro, Oregon as the City Electrician in 1996 (?). In 1998 Hurricane Mitch struck Honduras, and my wife went down there twice as an RN to work in disaster relief soon after. I went down there in 1999 and 2000 to work in damage abatement for a total of 5 weeks. Then in rapid succession she went to Bosnia and Mozambique with NW Medical Teams. In April of 2001, we both went to Kenya as temporary missionaries (3 weeks) and then on to Israel for 10 days.
Bosnia was very hard for both of us because in Scoder, where they were staying, the hotel across the street had a bomb go off. She was really shook up, and I perhaps was not taking it any better than her.
I came home from Kenya absolutely shattered and did not know it. Conditions for the people living around Nyeri and Nanuki were so much worse than for those living in Honduras. ¾ of the people in that area were dead from AIDS. It was completely heart breaking. We vowed to send money to the people in Kenya but I have to say that it is nearly impossible without paying so many fees that the people who do it get only a fraction of what we sent. We eventually gave up.
We got home in April and in September came the 9/11 attack. In just a month after, the situation at work went from a relaxed, cooperative atmosphere to a tense 4th Reich feeling nightmare. In my work as the City Electrician, I had business contact with City, County, State, and Federal employees. Suddenly, the atmosphere was full of mistrust, illegal government activities, and security clearances. I once left the FBI sitting in the cold late at night because the furnace was in a room that I no longer had authorization to enter. And, the situation only got worse. One city man involved in the illegal wire taps was eventually fired.
Eventually, I simply had a nervous breakdown (colloquial term)., characterized by disassociation, depression, and lack of sleep. It was during that time that they put me on Celexa, Welbutrin and Trazidone in what are today considered massive doses. The effect of this medication was to actually exacerbate the depression and to completely dis-inhibit my mind from dealing with lifelong issues any longer.
In those days, GID was a legal diagnosis that carried the stigma of being disabling, but in 2014 it is no longer seen that way. By now, it had been 10 or more years since I had been told I had GID, and who was I not to believe the Doctors?
I mistakenly interpreted my hatred of men and my being one as actually having Gender Identity Disorder, and in my clouded mental state, due to the psych meds, began to move toward changing genders. And, there are just lots of people, supposedly professionals, around that saw me as being transgendered. There were no gate keepers. This situation had been slowly developing since the mid 80’s and now in 2014, I have no idea if any of what I was being told is correct.
By 1990, secretly nursing my feminine feelings, I was no longer wearing any male clothing, having secured androgynous looking female clothing for use at work and this situation slowly progressed as my mind became less and less effective at dealing with what I now know to be past trauma.
I continued to “impersonate” a male through the 90’s and later, though felt that I was female and seem to have unconsciously slowly started adopting female mannerisms and deportment, and felt very conflicted. I was in effect living two lives; a very male one as an Electrician, with the family, and in the larger community. When alone, I was female. Much to my utter dismay, this increasingly led to female masturbatory fantasies that produced so much guilt and revulsion that I began to plot personal castration though working it all out would take years. I had seen videos of self-castrations on YouTube and felt I could do the task albeit being a bit dangerous. In those days I was in a great deal of pain, so had copious amounts of Vicodin and Motrin around.
As I think I said before but an not going to go back and look it up, post 9/11 after my wall banging nervous breakdown, I was put on one drug after another Starting with Welbutrin, then Celexa, and finally Trazidone in such doses as I was legally intoxicated as the present laws of Oregon now reflect.
During October of 2004, it all began to work out, but new to my situation, due to the drugs I was increasingly suicidal. By happenstance, in late November I found a Urologist that would castrate me for $1000 and I planned to do it in April. At this point in my life, the purpose of the castration would have been to stop the sin of masturbation, not to begin to live as a woman. No matter my personal feelings of being a woman, I had three children and a wife whom at the time I thought was faithful, though later I would find that in error. Fate was to intervene and change my plans as “No Plan Survives Contact with the Enemy”.
I had gotten sufficiently suicidal that I called a Kaiser help line, and the woman almost immediately called the Police and the officers that showed up at the door were friends of mine. Gah !! What followed was a week in the psych ward involuntarily, and they gave me a shot in the Butt that made me spill my guts about everything. This was pre-Hippa, so they ran out and told the whole family and the Milk man.
I had been attending a Fundamentalist church and they trashed me faster than the speed of light.
I am feeling crazy now so will publish this and begin to work on the final chapter when I feel able.