Been a while since I’ve posted anything. Not that I haven’t been meaning to. Lots of things to write about really, but just haven’t had much time.

So, lets start with some recaps from last year:

Surgery

The main thing about last year is that the final hoop for my gender affirming surgery was jumped through. And recently I got my scheduled date. May 14th. The same day that a dear friend is also getting her surgery. The chances of that were pretty astronomical, and I’m very very happy that I got this date. It makes the waiting very worth it.

Relationship

The other main thing is my relationship with Melissa is still going strong. I visited her in October for a long weekend, and while short, it was a very good and memorable visit. She is an amazing woman, and I am so happy to have found her.

Work / Validation

The other other main thing is work. School finished at the end of June, and I started work in the middle of July. As a complete surprise to me, work has become an actual place of validation. Going in to a heavily male dominated field, I expected to get misgendered a LOT. Turns out, the opposite is true.

The amount of daily validation I get at work is mind boggling to me. I understand that I am a very lucky woman to have this. I have coworkers that constantly gender me correctly when dealing with clients (the amount of misgendering has pretty much disappeared). I have clients that gender me correctly, use validating speech (eg. “Oh look, the angel has come to fix my network.”), and other women (or femme identified people) treat me as any other woman.

Work has actually become a safe space for me. I can be less guarded, and less stressed because of that. There’s still a few clients I have not interacted with yet, but even if there are a few bad apples, the rest more than makes up for that. And my boss has even said if I’m not comfortable with a certain client he can send someone else.

Work has also been validating in the sense that I am in the right field. There’s been a huge learning curve (and I’m still in that curve) but I’m getting to do things that most people right of school dream about. I’m working on live production servers, datacenter networks/routers/firewalls, internal network design and implementation, script writing and more. Plus, I still wind up doing help desk stuff (because we’re a small company). So, I’m doing almost every aspect of IT.

I’m a happy girl at work.

Living

2017 has seen a change in where I live as well. I’m further away from the big city. Which is good and bad. It’s a long commute when I go in to work (over an hour one-way) and a lot of friends are further away. Yet, the area I’m living in is nice, lots of places are easily within walking distance. I’ve been working on getting my bedroom finished – just have the closet to do. And I still don’t have my cat. *pout*

Car Accident

December 29, 2017 I was in my first ever car accident. I was driving Teresa’s car because mine had a flat tire. Conditions were bad that night, and I was in the right lane of 3. The middle lane had stopped ahead, and I slowed down expecting people to lane jump. I did not expect people to actually hit each other, and get pushed in front of me (no one was in front of me for miles). I hit the breaks, and the anti-lock kicked in (I hate anti-lock breaks) and while they slowed me down, they did not stop me in time for the left front of the car to hit the rear passenger quarter panel on the car that was all of a sudden in front of me.

Teresa’s car has been written off, and she bought a newer car that she loves.

Changes

Gaming

Another surprising source of womanly validation has come from my D&D gaming group. I’m playing with 4 cis males. 3 of which I went to school with last year, and the 4th, the DM, I’ve never met. In the last 4 months of playing, not once have I been misgendered. Which is amazing to me given we use voice chat. One of the guys is playing a female character, and when she gets misgendered, I take perverse pleasure in seeing a cis male deal with it.

Friendship

The whole experience of school and my practicum feels surreal. In fact, most of this year feels surreal. I did well at school. Though in some of the courses I should have done better. Even still, I had top marks in all the classes except one. Overall, I’m happy enough with how I did.

The practicum was a different story. I loved it. Even if my anxiety got to me a couple days. I was able to work on several different projects, and work in an environment that I was unfamiliar with and become comfortable in.

In technical terms these are some of the things I was able to work on:

1. Remote storage software
2. Building virtual machine from those storage backups
3. File Sync from a Mac to a Linux virtual machine over the internet
4. Deploy a Domain Nameserver  (DNS) on a Mac Server (yes, I worked with Apple products!)
5. Buy a domain name and configure it on the DNS I set up
6. Change the primary domain nameserver to be hidden
7. Work with Docker (a container system)
8. Work with Meteor-Up (Deploys Meteor Apps to a docker server)
9. configure NAT on a Cisco 5506 ASA router
10. configure hairpinning on the same router
11. configure NAT for the Mac server for both DNS and remote desktop
12. find a solution to remote desktop to the Mac from a PC

School asked me to do a promotional video for them. Still waiting to see how horrible that turned out.

Some of my time away from work will be used to write my certifications. Which will eventually net me more salary, and hopefully bring in more business for my employer. Other time away is for electrolysis. And yet even more time away will be for visiting Melissa in October.

It seemed to be triggered with some kind of emotional cycle I have now. I’ve had a cycle before, in my teens, it was a couple manic days every 28 days. This does not seem to have a mania. And the period (scientific term, not menstrual) is different this time – 21 days.

Every 21 days I seem to crash emotionally. At least since I started tracking, and it’s pretty exact. One was 22 days. but 4 in a row now. Usually it’s just being really emotional (for me this is saying something), and a bit depressed. It lasts a couple days, and I get better.

That didn’t happen this time.

On day 21, I woke up feeling crappy because I didn’t sleep well. That is normal enough for this cycle. I showered, and got dressed. Felt a bit better. I think we went and looked at an apartment open house, and went for coffee. That evening Teresa had wanted to get dressed up nice and go for dinner down by the ocean. I thought this would be a great way to get me to cheer up, I always like getting dolled up.

So, we headed home, got changed, and I put my hair up, put a flower hair clip in, did my makeup and that’s when things went south. I took a couple selfies because I thought I looked good, but none of the pics were looking flattering. I went to the kitchen for different lighting, and tried again. I sent one to Melissa who said I looked great. Teresa said I looked great. The more I looked at the photos, and then back to the mirror, the less great I thought I looked.

I began to hate how I looked. I eventually took the flower out, and let my hair down, which helped enough to get me out the door. The damage was done, a spiral had started. I was quiet on the drive, but was trying really hard to snap out of it. After all, I know I look somewhat attractive. People keep telling me this. I had been telling me this for the last 7 months or so. All that disappeared in a cloud of self doubt and even some self hate.

At one point I went to the bathroom in the restaurant and cried. After dinner we went and sat by the pier for close to an hour. Hundreds of people much have walked by, with no looks of disdain, or scorn, or hate. Just a few smiles, and mostly just people glancing over me, not singling me out for anything (even with purple hair).

It didn’t help how I felt at all. When we got home, I took my makeup off, and that actually eased the dysphoria a lot. I don’t know why. I had done it the way I usually do when I put a lot of effort in. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but it felt like it just accentuated all my masculine facial features.

The next day wasn’t much better. I put less makeup on, and that helped, but I was still only seeing ‘boy’. Talking with Melissa later, I figured it might have been from me being dehydrated a bit combined with non-uniform swelling from electrolysis. Subtle changes in skin can really affect how you look.

It took 5 more days until I finally saw me in the mirror again.

The makeup thing is still there though, I think. I feel way better about how my face looks with just mascara and lipstick and a touch of blush. If I start going overboard with eyeliner, or foundation, my brain is rejecting it. This is fine, but I’d like to know why or what changed.

On the flip side of this, is an amazing ability to go days without shaving, and not having dysphoria about that. My face, essentially, does not need shaving anymore. I don’t think I would be doing as well with it, if the stubble was on my face. But it isn’t on my face, it’s on my neck. And 99.5% white hair.

I’m a little worried about it in bright sunlight (white hairs tend to be fairly reflective), but so far, my feelings about it are pretty good. I’m ok with the stubble because it means less shaving (the act itself is dysphoria inducing) and it means the hairs are much easier to deal with at electrolysis.

So, just a wordy update that I wanted to get out there. Thanks, as always, for reading.

Hugs.

PS – I was able to hold off from any self harm even though the desire was super high.

Sorry it’s been a while. I’ll do an update post soon, but this is going to be a pretty specific post.

I went to see my therapist last week, as mostly a catch up session; it’d been almost a year since we’d last spoken, and I’d gone through a relationship breakup, losing friends, blood clots, surgery approval, a new relationship, changes in self image, etc…

At the end of the session, I made another appointment, and told her a few things I wanted to discuss. One was about mourning the life I never had – much in the same way I’ve mourned the child I’ll never have. This is turning into a more complicated issue.

In a discussion with my girlfriend, or actually one of her alters, I found some startling similarities with how my mind worked in that regard as well. While I don’t believe I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (I lack a few diagnostic criteria), the mechanism that my brain used is quite relatable.

I essentially created James. He (as I’ve mentioned previously, James was as close to male as I could make him) wasn’t created over night. He evolved from a need, or desire, to conform to my world. In an act of protectionism, I created this persona to present to the outside world.

That persona allowed me to:

avoid being bullied
avoid being alienated
feel less abnormal
hide and/or fit in
disguise myself
have a life

Of course it wasn’t perfect. In situations like this it never is. I was drawing on those around me to base this persona on, because as I’ve found out, it certainly was not me.

So anyway, I was chatting with her alter, and recalled that my therapist had me try and manifest James and myself in a session, to see what they might say to each other. It was more meta than actually thinking I had 2 distinct personalities (and the reason I don’t think I have D.I.D. is that they are not separate identities).

When that happened, I had a rather profound moment of James apologizing to me. I’ve written about this in the past. But we didn’t really explore more beyond that. I got really emotional, and that kind of ended the moment. Now I’m exploring that a bit deeper.

The apology was, essentially, for keeping me locked up deep down, underneath all the shit that he couldn’t deal with (which included me – he didn’t really know how to deal with me). He tried letting me out in controlled environments. But I was still caged, and I don’t just mean by location. He would not give up control, he’d just enlarge the prison a bit. This is what my ‘crossdressing’ was, and why I always had trouble moving or expressing naturally until I got rid of the James part.

In my talk with Melissa the next day, I was saying that i didn’t really forgive James for what he had done to me, even though I know he was trying to protect me (that was why I built him). She then asked if things would have been better if I had been out 10, 15, 20 years ago. No. I would have been in a lot more pain, a lot more depression, WAY more acute dysphoria, and very likely suicidal.

So, James actually did save me. I can admit that. So, I can, and do, forgive him. The real issue is that I don’t forgive myself yet. I didn’t even try to unbury myself. I never tried to wrest control from him. The one time cracks did form in his protective bubble, I tried to kill myself. I needed him for sure – he kept me alive. But where was I? The real me? I can’t blame James for me not trying to exist.

In fact, it likely was me helping keep the self denial in full effect. I whispered that I was fine with existing in private situations. Why was I okay with this for so long? Why, when I did sense freedom, did I just want to end everything? (yes, there were other circumstances in play, but still).

Early in transition, I just attributed this to being so deep under everything, that I wasn’t able to exert in any way. I don’t think that’s true. I think it was fear. I was afraid of all the things I built James to protect me from. I never faced ANY of those fears though. They MAY have been true, real fears, but not once (to my recollection anyway) had I ever been threatened with any of that.

I had been able to live without any real gendered oppression early in life. I played with wigs and skirts and stuffed animals and cars and action figures. When I saw dozens more children, eventually, in kindergarten (or maybe it even started before that, and just accelerated in K) I decided to emulate those I looked like. I know I got asked often if I was a boy or a girl. Maybe someone said something about my long hair? I don’t know.

I’m rambling. The issue is why didn’t I at least try and face my fears. Why was I so content to go the route I went. I was a fairly extroverted kid until about age 5. I distinctly remember switching from outgoing to shy. That was the point James took over. What was I hiding from so early? It’s infuriating that I don’t have a ton of memories from this stage in my life. I have vivid memories from before this. Then things are muddy for a few years. Around age 8 I start remembering things again.

So, what do I need to do to forgive myself? I can’t change the past. It’d be nice if I could remember more of my mental state back then. By the time I start remembering again I’m in full self denial. There must have been a transition stage for that. Maybe I’m putting too much responsibility on a very young mind.

Hmm, maybe that’s the problem. Ok, this kind of makes sense. Because I, buried under everything, was not always super present, maybe it took me a while to grow up. Everything was coming in under a heavily processed filter. This could explain a few other things too (such as my inner child). I shouldn’t expect that I was as hyper self aware as I am now. Of course I wasn’t. I was just a kid. We don’t know why some children self assimilate, they just do. It could even be instinctual.

I know I’m not weak. I consider myself to be very strong. I feel I’ve been thinking about this all wrong. I’ve always been driven by frustration. Every major change or decision in my life is driven by frustration. For good or bad. Maybe this was true of myself even back then. Something about how life was going at that time was frustrating me. Something I didn’t know how to even process – maybe it was, in all likelihood, dysphoria. Seems like a good enough scapegoat.

Maybe THAT was what scared me, or frustrated me at least, to bring about ‘James’. If it was something that was rational like that, I can’t even blame myself. I survived as best I could. And I DID survive. Ultimately, that’s the most important part. I am finally out from my prison. James has been integrated and no longer exists as a semi-separate entity. I’ll go into that in another post.

I’m going to process this some more, but I think I’m on a good track. It’s something that makes sense. It may not be accurate, but I don’t think I’ll ever know exactly.

*******

A brief exposition on my personalities. I have a few. Most of us do. The extent of their separation varies from person to person. People who put on their ‘game face’, or inner child, or the salesman, the teacher, the domme etc…

My personalities have a bit more separation and distinction between them.

James – The protector. The outward male persona that developed over 30+ years of hiding myself. Also the athlete and the gamer. The one that did not like eating mushrooms, raw fish, squash, food on the bone. An introvert by necessity. The filter. James doesn’t really exist as a separate persona anymore. He’s been integrated. He’s part of why I ultimately identify as non-binary. I’ve tossed aside his ridiculous parts – the filter, the strange eating rituals, the introvert. But I’ve kept the protector, the athlete, the gamer, and a bit of the masculinity (which used to worry me, but I’m cool with it now).

Jessica – me. The totality of me. Including ALL my personalities. I grew up without really having a name except maybe Jamie when I was young, but then James co-opted that. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I got a new name. Part of me was allowed to express in total secrecy (Starting at age 8), and then my prison got larger as friends were allowed to see some of me. They were never getting all of me though, because James (as the filter) was still there. I am VERY strong. Extroverted. Talkative. Loving. Emotional as hell.

Lyrren – my inner child. I have claimed this name for this part of me. I express my inner child at times for many different reasons. I never want to lose my ability to play, and be silly. But also this part of me is ULTRA vulnerable. Lyrren isn’t seen directly by many, except a close knit group of friends. She’s the one that does Lego, does jig-saw puzzles even after saying I don’t like puzzles, and demands I get certain stuffies. Lyrren also serves as a way for me to recapture something that was lost to me. MY childhood. I grew up fairly fast, and from age 5 up, it was more James’ childhood than mine.

There are other nameless personalities too, more like what everyone else has.

I’ve even made progress with how I feel about my breasts. They’ve been growing ever so slowly, and yesterday I was able to go without a bra for the first time since June. Maybe I let my guard down because things were going so well.

Today started off well enough, but then after my shower I had to shave. And that’s when things went sideways. For some reason the hair on my upper lip and my chin were very problematic today. I wound up bleeding and splotchy right in the most prominent area of my face.

Then I was seeing masculine features again in my face. At this point I’m not sure if that was psychological or real. It doesn’t matter, my brain saw it. I broke down. Then after about 10 minutes of waterworks, I pulled myself together and covered the scabs and redness with foundation.

The rest of the afternoon/evening I was feeling normal again, until I got home from school. Then it hit me again. So, I cried a bunch more, and decided to write this post.

My coping mechanisms are working and I did not resort to self harm. Crying is still my best defence. I also played some video games to release more stress. And my support network also came through (I only needed a couple people to talk to and it helped). I’m hoping tomorrow will be a better day, and that today was just a one-off because of school stress, and a buildup of emotional fatigue. It feels like that is what it was.

It still takes effort to go out, no matter how confident I am. That effort builds up over time, and eventually I need to reset. I’m going to leave my homework for tomorrow and try and sleep this off.

Thanks for reading,
Jessica

Many of you already know, but I think most do not. Teresa and I are no longer a romantic/sexual couple.

There are a myriad of reasons for this, and I’m not going to go into the details publicly at this point (if ever).

It is not because I’m a woman. I’m the one who has lost the romantic spark, not Teresa. Teresa did everything right (for the most part) to keep us together during my transition. Transition did play a role, but not in the way most relationships fail during transition.

This actually happened many many months ago, and I/we tried to work on it.

We still love each other, and support each other. We’ve both committed to helping the other change careers. Our dynamic is different now though. More like sisters or best friends. We don’t fight nearly as much, and we don’t hurt each other as much either. This is a good thing.

We sleep in our separate rooms more often than not lately. We’re not against sleeping together, but with my school schedule, it makes sleeping in the same room difficult. Our finances are separate now as well for the most part. It’s like having a roommate again.

I have a fair amount of guilt over this. Logically, I don’t believe either of us are to blame. It’s something that happened, and not on purpose. But, as I’m the one that was not able to rekindle certain feelings, emotionally, I feel to blame.

The guilt is lessened by the fact Teresa is in a great relationship with someone. I would feel a lot worse if she were feeling alone during this. I still have that protector mentality, and when I hurt someone, it shakes me to my core because it’s the antithesis of what I’m about.

That is sometimes, why I make the mistake of not being honest with someone when I need to. Because I don’t want to hurt them, I try too hard not to, and then it all blows up in my face. I’m getting better at this, but I still fuck it up from time to time. Quite recently in fact.

So, anyway, we don’t know exactly what the future holds for us. For now, we’re still married and not legally separated or anything. It’s likely that will change, especially as our own personal relationships change, though we will always be in each others lives.

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My blood clot treatment is over. It was over August 7th. I could have gone back on estrogen at that time. Instead I decided to get a tattoo and some more piercings. Things that I wanted for me. Things that I can’t really do while on blood thinners (the piercings maybe, but I wanted to be safe).

I’m very glad I got the tattoo and the piercings. They have helped my mood immensely. I look down at my tattoo (even in its healing phase) and am filled with senses of determination, strength, and joy. It will always be a beacon to me, keeping me going.

There’s a lot of symbolism in the image. The overall image is that of a dragon – an intelligent, beautiful and strong creature. Things I aspire to be. The design is abstract, with both the colours and the line art of the dragon itself. This was important to me for this piece, as it signifies the ways in which I think. The lines are graceful, something else I try to be.

The semi-colon has become a significant symbol for suicide survivors. In literary terms it allows an author to continue a sentence, when he could have ended it. As you readers know, I attempted suicide some 22 years ago, and I survive 3 people in my life (including my best friend) succumbing to suicide. The beautiful tail of the dragon points to the spot where I held my box cutter, just barely breaking my skin, for half an hour, as I cried kneeling on the floor.

The piercings don’t have as much meaning to me. I just have wanted them for a long time. And I love the earrings I got…

I thought I was doing well. In many ways I am. In many ways I’m not.

A few bad/sad things have happened over the last couple weeks, and I’ve not been handling them well at all. I’ve been hurting quite a bit. Crying still comes really easy, but it’s not helping like it did. I’m not able to resolve anything, and I just circle around the feelings. My frustration builds really fast again, and I wound up punching Sunday night.

This is something I’m not supposed to do on blood thinners. I bruised 2 knuckles pretty bad. One of the hardest punches I’ve ever thrown at a lamppost. I couldn’t close my hand for a bit after. I’ve been trying not to beat myself up over doing this. It happened. I’m not proud of it, but I shouldn’t be ashamed of it either.

My emotional landscape is completely foreign to me right now. I’m not how I was before hormones, and definitely not like how I was on hormones. It’s some twisted set of both paradigms clashing together. And I really don’t know how to cope with anything. The thing that’s worked best is a particular friend that’s really come through for me twice with a walk along the water and conversation.

Other friends have been helpful too, very helpful. But this friend has a way of slowly changing the conversation and before I know it I’m smiling and laughing. But not so fast, that I don’t have time to talk out my problems. It works very well. It’s not a fix, but it’s a good stop gap that I will take any time I can get it.

The plus side of all this is that I’m not spiraling. I circle, but I’m not piling shit on myself trying to make myself worse. So, that’s good. I just want to go back to feeling like ‘me’. I want the comfort of emotions that I’m used to, and that were finally working properly.

I have about another 2-3 weeks without my lovely estrogen. This is now entirely my doing though. I could be back on hormones right now. I am getting my tattoo and my extra ear piercings before going back on blood thinners (and thusly, estrogen).

I will also be talking to my endocrinologist about alternate androgen blockers. What I’m taking now is not suppressing testosterone at all. Either I get something different, or I get an orchiectomy before my surgery.

This period of time off of hormones has definitely prepared me for my surgery where I’ll be off them for 3 weeks. That will be a walk in the park compared to what I’ve experienced with my blood clots. I look forward to the pain of healing, the nausea I’ll feel from the extent of the surgery. It will be nothing compared to these last 3 months.

– Jessica

These are photos of me since I stopped trying to look cisgender. My everyday look more or less.

Enjoy.

Please read with an open mind. This is about changing relationship models, and ever changing relationships within those new models.

As in my coming out messages to everyone – I’m just going to rip that bandaid off. Teresa and I opened our marriage in April, 2015, and became polyamorous (or poly for short).

For most of you, that term won’t have any real meaning yet. So, allow me a definition.

Polyamory: Polyamory (from Greek πολύ poly, “many, several”, and Latin amor, “love“) is the practice, desire, or acceptance of intimate relationships that are not exclusive with respect to other sexual or intimate relationships, with knowledge and consent of everyone involved. It has been described as “consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy“,[2] and may or may not include polysexuality (attraction towards multiple genders or sexes). 

There are other definitions, but this one, from Wikipedia, will suffice for now. It should be very much emphasized that this is not polygamy. A practice largely associated with Mormon church, and almost always misogynistic.

Part of our move away from monogamy was precipitated by my change in sexual orientation. Part of it was from marriage troubles that have been ongoing. Part of it was because we both fell in love with another person (the same person). Part of it was because of my transition. And there were probably a dozen other factors that influenced the decision.

At first, it was something that was joked about or talked about very lightly. Things like, “Now that you like guys, I suppose you’ll want a boyfriend.” Or, “I’d really like to just have that guy experience once in my life.” Or, “It’s just puberty, you want everything that moves.” Or even Teresa saying from the very beginning of our relationship, that if I ever wanted to be with someone else, I just had to be up front about it.

It became more than a joke one night in April. We had mutually fallen for a particular friend, that we wound up having over for a long weekend. She was supposed to stay in the spare bedroom. We cleaned it, put all sorts of comfy, fluffy pillows out, but it never got used. She wound up sleeping with us instead.

And life was grand. Everyone was in love with everyone else. We had no idea how to ‘poly’ properly. We were flying by the seat of our pants, and it turns out, doing so many things wrong.

This triad (as we called it) didn’t last long, as the feelings weren’t all mutual. Yes, we all loved each other, but it wasn’t the same kind of love all around. I was the odd one out. She did not have that romantic spark for me. I had a bad reaction to this, but that’s another story. Eventually things got kind of smoothed out as 2 couples: Teresa and I, and Teresa and her girlfriend.

I discovered a couple things during this time. 1, I don’t really have jealousy issues in the classical sense. 2, I don’t do well when I’m alone, most times.

I had no problem seeing Teresa with her girlfriend. Had no problem being the third wheel at times (I was used to this from other friends). But, when left alone, I was suffering pretty bad depression. In hindsight, a lot of my issues were very likely hormone related – either caused by, or accentuated by. My estrogen levels were very low early on, combined with very very low testosterone levels, combined with elevated progesterone levels. That’s not a good mix, for anyone.

We made a lot of mistakes with this set up. We had no knowledge of what we were doing, thinking that we’d just figure out as we went, and it would work because: love. But that didn’t work out. We had not set up any boundaries, any rules, and especially did not have the required levels of communication that are essential to poly working. (of note, communication is JUST as essential for monogamy to work well).

Eventually Teresa and her girlfriend ended with hurt all around. None of us were in good head spaces for this. Depression, envy, neglect, more depression. It kind of imploded. Out of it, we kind of stayed friends, more or less. As time went on, my friendship with her strengthened. Teresa’s faltered for a bit, but is still there.

On the day that Teresa’s relationship ended, I wound up with my girlfriend.

Getting a girlfriend wasn’t supposed to happen. I was trying to find a boyfriend, at the behest of Teresa and her partner, I had an online dating profile and everything. The search wasn’t (and still isn’t) going that well, but that’s, yet again, another story.

Our version of polyamory is working for us. We communicate extremely well now and openly about our needs, wants, and desires. We work very hard to respect everyone involved (and seem to be very good at that now – I had some hiccups early on. Sorry Teresa.)

Teresa and I are working at rebuilding what we had. It’s tough. I think currently I’m the biggest problem with that. Or rather my feelings are the biggest problem. I’ve been experiencing something I’m calling ‘relationship induced dysphoria’. When we get too close, it starts to come up. All my memories are of trying to be a man with/for her. When we would get close, more and more often, these memories would come to the surface and make me feel incredibly dysphoric. To the point where I would push Teresa away and say, ‘no.’

Then Teresa would feel rejected, because that’s of course what it was. Not because of her, but how I felt, yet it was still rejection. Then she’d get depressed. Eventually we decided to become non-sexual to stop the hurt all around. For my part, this has helped immensely. I no longer feel pressured, or have this dysphoria, and I can slowly let my mind rework itself.

The other issue we have is miscommunication. We do both try very hard to communicate. There is often a disconnect between us though. This is something we are both working on. I’ve been working on not saying anything while I’m reacting to what’s been said. Teresa is working on not taking my reaction as a part of the conversation. Making sure we understand what the other meant is another part of it. Sometimes we think we’re saying one thing, but that’s not how it’s being received.

Having other people in our lives, is allowing us the space to work on ourselves and rebuild. We don’t feel resentment towards each other for the things we aren’t able to provide.

Many of you will ask why I felt the need to post such information about our private lives.

The simple answer for me is, I develop feelings of shame and guilt very quickly from having to hide aspects of my life. It’s a carry over from years of self denial and the shame and guilt I felt from being myself, and not being able to be out. I *am* proud of who I am. It was still a hard decision because other people are implicated. Especially Teresa, but also our partners are at a slightly increased risk of being outed.