Introduction to me

Well... what to say first.

I guess I'll start with 🏳️‍⚧️

I am MtF transgender. It's been a really fucking difficult time. I lost my family, some friends, and my fiance. I also now experience the beautiful 💀 mixure of transphobia and mysogony, both which are new to me.

In many ways I grew up very privilaged. We lived in a nice house, in a safe (gated) neighborhood, in a good school district, near all my parents church friends. I was homeschooled along with my my sister so my mom stayed at home, giving up her career. In my earliest memories I was happy.

I was happy a lot. I got called smily by my scout troop leaders. Yes I was in cubscouts. In fact I am an ✨Eagle Scout✨

When I was very little I was always the entertainment. I loved and craved the attention I could get. It was really hard to get my parents and siblings attention. One day I broke my wrist while playing by myself in the backyard. I was running around with a hammer. I fell and all I remember is my wrist hurting and crying. My next memories are all out of body. I see myself crying on the floor and my mom is just there calmly trying to get me to stop crying. I later learned that it took them four hours before they took me to the hospital. I was 4.

My parents were part of what I can only describe as a cult. All of my friends went to that church. All except for one... who's house was just down the street. R's family wasn't religious like mine. They didn't believe in all the restrictions of what you can do or say. Their version was less about maintaining the appearance of a good christian (where you prove to the other congregants that you are "bearing fruit"). They lived their lives and just... didn't obsess over it. I was always jealous of R. Unfortunately we floated apart as he went to public school and made friends there.

I was stuck with those at my church.

I was always a little different. I was always a little more emotional. I was always a little more sensitive. I was always a little more... well... girly.

I used to have a little "joke" where I acted silly and free and open. I was "making fun of gay people" but I was really just being myself. It stopped being funny as I got a little older. I learned that I needed to start hiding. The rides home after a good church sermon about how the gays are going to hell and shouldn't be "enabled" in their sin told me everything.

Brains are awesome and terrifying things. Mine was no exception. When you learn a truth about yourself that is unsafe to accept, your brain protects you. When I was maybe 9-12 my emotions stopped. I learned how to dissociate and so I did. For years. All I remember from those years is snapshots. Mostly of traumatic experiences like when my mom would hit me with "the spanking instrument" (a rubber ruler shaped device designed to maximize pain without leaving a bruise). She would often cry while doing this and "explaining" why she had to do it. After it was my unspoken responsibility to console her. I remember her sluring her words and acting funny when she got low blood sugar.

She never managed her diabetes well. She was a type 1 diabetic and had been since she was 5. She had a traumatic and scary childhood because of this. She managed to get pregnant with me and my sister. She was told that she might never have kids. She always talked about how she probably wouldn't live all that long. But she did everything she could to make sure she did. She was a fighter. She was a survivor.

I was quickly enlisted in the fight. I was a little helper. I learned how to take care of her if she got low. I learned how to identify the signs and what to do. I would need to.

She rode her blood suger low because it was closer to "normal" ranges. This made it so she easily got low. And when she did, in her drunken stupor, she would refuse to eat or drink anything, especially because I was just a kid. She would threaten and one time even punished me for my efforts. I always got her back though. Sometimes I had to call dad or threaten to go get a neighbor. I didn't deactivate till she was normal again.

She always appologiezed after. She always felt bad. She always cried. She always asked and then waited for my forgiveness. It was all about making her feel better agian. I was always the one who had to make her feel better.

She punished me a lot. I was a bad kid. I now know that I have ADHD which likely contributed to her diagnosis. I loved it when I got to leave the house and be myself.

I turned out okay. I'm not a bad person. It wasn't my fault that she treated me that way. I was just a kid. I just had to survive.

I have learned something new recently though. I learned how to hate.

It was impossible for me to hate anyone because no one has been worse to me that my mother who I loved. If I couldn't hate her than how could I hate anyone else.

As I have accepted myself as a woman, gotten treatment for my ADHD, depression, and anxiety, and made good friends. I realized that their love and acceptance was so much more than the love I have ever gotten from my mother. I got a horrible letter from her recently. It ignores my identity, excuses her abuse, and blames me for being unreasonable and making her hurt for no reason but "my beliefs".

I learned how to hate the day I read it but it took me a few days to say out loud. But for real. FUCK HER! I hate her.