Obligatory Initial Post….

I’d planned on “re-writing” my old blog posts at some point. So, back to the beginning….
====================================
I was born in 1958. In the 1970’s, I was teenager…. people like me “didn’t exist” – some Fundamentalists and other low-information people still think that.

Fast forward to the turn of the millenium.

I started to experience what I’d learn was Major Clinical Depression – my first therapist thought I’d been dealing with it since the onset of puberty. It was “my normal”. Depression’s onset when puberty hits is a symptom of being Transgender.

I had NO idea what was happening, I was just rarely happy, and often angry. 10 years later, just a few years ago NOW, I’d figured out this was my natural reaction to be exposed to Testosterone (the “male” sex hormone). I apparently can’t run very well on it.

I’m a typical (in many ways) Transsexual.

“Transgender” is a political assignation – I use the 2 terms more or less interchangeably, unless it’s important for understanding.

In September 2010, I’d started to get what could best be described as ‘episodes’ where I’d get very emotional and start crying so much I had to pull over to the side of the road. I was in very bad shape, emotionally. The generic antidepressants my general practitioner (a Dr Domagas, who was very good, but has since passed) gave me helped SOME but had side effects I couldn’t deal with for long.

I started being interested in things that I’d been warned “weren’t proper” (my phrase, not my mom’s) for a male. Turns out I’m Bisexual, tending towards Pansexual – but in the last 2-3 years, I’ve become aware I’m more interested in men than in women.

Guys make my heart race – women are simply nice looking.

I was told later – by my first therapist – that it was very likely I was a “High Functioning Autistic”. Since my mother was a Southern Baptist, her beliefs about “proper behavior” were force-fed me for as long as I can remember. She basically tried to force who I actually was into the closet. That worked as long as my Testosterone levels were high.

With Andropause, that started to implode on me. I honestly thought I was straight for decades.

Turns out Testosterone makes Autism worse. One aspect of being Autistic is that you can be disconnected from – or have trouble with – emotions. To the point that communication is difficult.

In March 2012, after two years of chasing after answers on the internet, spirally deeper into major depression. I got an answer… I was transgender, in many was a ‘typical late bloomer’.

That – to put it mildly – caused a mind-bending shift in my worldview. To say I went a little insane for the better part of a month is an understatement. I’d been raised a fundamentalist Baptist, at one time a deacon in a church from another protestant denomination, and I voted mostly Republican.

I’d never hurt anyone on purpose, but kept ‘queers’ at arm’s length.  I now think that was a subconscious reaction on my part. I can only assume I’d been in denial about certain emotions that – now in hindsight – I’d likely had all my life, but suppressed or was unable to process.

Because of one concerned soul, I’m still here. I hate to admit to myself how close I was to killing myself, I was that miserable. I got talked to by someone that knew what – to some extent – what was going on. I saw a psychiatrist, I took a better antidepressant (which I later dropped) – I still had episodes, but not as bad.

I have episodes of what I now see as Dysphoric.

I don’t think one ever gets completely past them, especially someone with my history of emotional abuse.

I saw a counselor (initially helpful, but not really a specialist for gender issues), and then another to approve me for hormones. I began hormones – IIRC – on October 16th, 2016.

I have issues – MANY issues – that probably still need attention. My mom’s behavior and the theocratic nonsense I’d been force-fed as child broke things inside me.

But I’m certain who I am now, but still muddy on some of the details.

Maybe, just maybe, I can help someone else that has the same issues.