Hi there everyone. I’ve posted this intro before on another site, but I’m thinking I could get serious about using this site to post my life now. So here goes…
I find this rather interesting. As I sit here to type a blog my mind is completely blank! Yet I have no issues doing an unscripted Vlog for up to 10 minutes without any issues at all! Strange how these things work out.
I guess I’ll start with a bit about me. I’m a 33 year old MTF transsexual from Winnipeg, Canada. I started on the road of transition in September 2007 with a goal of living as my true self by the middle of August, 2008. Its taken a lot to get here, but here’s a brief account of my gender adventure to date.
I knew at the age of 4 that I was different. That somehow, something just wasn’t right and that I simply didn’t feel like a boy. I enjoyed playing with dolls, looking at pretty things and playing with girls. I always had a difficult time relating to other boys and never engaged in their rough-and-tumble activities. I much preferred playing house with the neighborhood girls even if I had to play the man of the house.
Things didn’t change much at first when school started, but I vividly remember how upset I used to get at special events or photo days where the girls all showed up in their pretty dresses looking so beautiful. I was terribly envious that I wasn’t one of them, but was far to frightened to ever say anything to anyone.
I did get picked on in school quite a lot. Everyone knew I was different somehow, but nobody ever could quite put their finger on it. So they simply did what kids do to other kids who are different; they called me names, threw mud at me, you name it and they did it. I used to miss a lot of school pretending to be sick so that I wouldn’t get picked on, but also because I was so uncomfortable with who I was.
It was around the age of 8 when I started creating my false male exterior. I guess it must have worked fairly well because the bullying began to slow down and I stared making more friends. This continued on fairly well until the 6th grade (age 12) when my transgendered feelings really began to come to the surface. By this time I knew that I was truly a girl on the inside and wanted desperately to become one on the outside too. Just entering adolescence at this time, watching the girls develop into young women and my body not following was so terribly painful. I used to cry myself to sleep wishing for my body to change. I felt so alone in my pain, like I was the only person in the world like this. How little I really knew…
Things at this time were bad all over. I had always been a pretty good student even with the issues I was having, but in the 7th grade everything fell apart. My grades went into the basement, I became extremely moody, and was very depressed. Certainly one of the worst times of my life. It was also at this time that I began crossdressing at home when my parents weren’t around. It didn’t solve any of my problems, but it was a form of release and it allowed me to feel at least a little bit better for a few hours a week.
When grade 8 came around I knew I no longer wanted to feel as miserable as I had the previous year, so I set out to become a positive person, to do better in school, and to be a little more social. I was pretty successful in this and the trend continued all the way through school.
I continued to struggle with my gender issues through school and afterwards, always trying to find a balance, and always trying to figure out what all this confusion meant. And then I found the internet…
It was the early 90’s, when the internet was nothing but text and all you could really do was telnet, FTP, IRC and read newsgroups. One evening I was bored and browsing through a list of newsgroups when the word “transgendered” jumped out at me. I had not heard this word before, but I had an idea of what it meant. I jumped in and started reading…for HOURS. I could not believe that there were others out there like me! That I wasn’t alone in my feelings! What an amazing relief it was!
So I then figured that there had to be local people like me as well, and I set off to find them! Well, it took a few years (till 1997 actually) but I finally did find others locally like myself and together we started a local support group (which continues to this day). Reading about others like me was one thing, actually meeting other and sharing our experiences was a totally different thing! It was like an anvil coming off my chest!
Things seemed to be going well at this time, I belonged to a great TG group, had many TG friends, and found some measure of happiness in being a part-time girl. But when I turned 26 (2001), being a part-time girl wasn’t cutting it anymore. I knew exactly what it meant and where that road led. It scared me so much that I forcefully put my female self away and focused on my career and other things, and it worked! The feelings were completely gone! I really felt I had beaten this once and for all…but there was still a void in my life though. I never understood what it was at the time… and I tried filling it with everything I could think of. Material things, food, career advancement, EVERYTHING. The more things I added, the less happy I became.
As so many TG people know, you can’t hide your feelings forever. They started coming back in the early summer…like a quiet knock on the door. They seemed quiet and innocent enough…nothing like they had been before. So I let them back in and began dressing again. It felt good to be a girl again, even if for a short while… But the quiet thoughts were not to last…
In September ‘07 I hit that emotional wall that I had always heard others talking about. Quite literally like hitting a brick wall in speeding vehicle. Was sitting on my couch talking with a friend when every thought, feeling, and memory of who I am and being TG all hit me at the same time. The feelings would hit me in waves and I couldn’t make them stop. Needless to say I was a wreck after this for a number of days. But it made me realize that I couldn’t deny who I truly was anymore, and that the path which had scared me so much previously was now I path I had to walk to survive.
So I put a plan together, as much to get transition started as to ensure I wasn’t going crazy!
First was to join a TS specific support group. Second was to see a doctor and make sure I was healthy. Third was to see a therapist to make sure it wasn’t all smoke and mirrors in my head!
As things turn out, the group is amazing, I’m in near perfect health and I’ve been diagnosed with GID. I started facial hair removal right at the very beginning of this journey, and began HRT on March 26, 2008.
It’s going to be an amazing year!
More to come…
You can watch my progress on my YouTube vlog entitled When Darkness Turns to Light
~Breanna
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