Sorry for mis-reading the situation. I hope that i don’t sound like I’m being preachy with you, I guess I was just hearing in your story, something that seemed resonant to me, but i was off-base. I really wish you the best off luck.
I still think you sound like a great mom.
You sound like a wonderful mother, you remind me of my mother honestly. She always puts my needs before her own needs.
I want to share just one little thing from my relationship with her: I once came home from school to find her on her own in her bedroom crying her eyes out. She had never let me see that sort of strength of feeling from her before so it was clear to me this was really serious.
She explained to me then that she was really really unhappy in the relationship with my step-father and she had been for years, but she didn’t want to disrupt my life and she didn’t want to seperate me from him because I was so close with him.
She had basically prevented herself from being okay and happy because her highest priority was not disrupting my life, but really I couldn’t have cared less about that dude, or the house I was in, or whether we moved away, I just wanted her to be happy, because I could tell she wasn’t. She was sad and it was obvious that she was even though she was doing her best to hide it from me. Living with that sadness was worse than whatever disruption came after.
I wish I could have told her years before that I would support her and she didn’t need to sacrifice her happiness for me, especially because she was assuming that leaving my stepdad would be really really disruptive for me, and it just wasnt.
Kids are really fucking resilient. I know that you will always put them first, but I hope you can get your oxygen mask on too if you get what I’m saying.
Get well soon <3
And apparently I am now dating a polycule. Never saw that coming.
Nowe they’re all gonna see you coming. Sorry, I’ll see myself out.
Oof it sounds like you really suffer with those, i’m sorry hun
Many of us are on the same journey, we’ll all get there together. Thanks for all the sharing you do.
Look after yourselves. Sick family crates such complicated emotions. Hope you have someone to talk to about it.
Congratulations Brooke! You are already so brave and strong. You’ve got this girl!
The aura in the picture is of the charts!
I have always wanted to visit Portland (apologies if you’re somwhere else in Oregon). One of my dearest friends in the world lives there and it seems to have such a vital, radical community. I think my city in the UK has similar vibes but it’s always been the place in the US I’d most like to visit.
Sending love. I hope you get some safe time soon.
I haven’t started training yet but i do get a lot of voice dysphoria. I think i would learn better with a teacher and your teacher sounds lovely! I appreciate you talking about the good parts because it is scary and hearing you talk about it maybe takes some of that fear away.
I’m so sorry about your situation, I’m really lucky to have supportive friends and family. Thanks for being here!
Also, 38 years for me. Welcome sister.
Do you want to talk about why those other spaces make you feel like you can’t be yourself?
There’s a long answer that I will probably have to figure out in therapy. The really short version is that there are some people in my life who I don’t want to have the conversation with, who’s reaction I can’t trust and who don’t deserve my emotional energy to walk them through it. But I’m somewhat tied up with them professionally so I can’t just not have contact with them.
That being said, I did just end up dressing femme (even went on stage at a big industry event!) and it was fine. So a lot of it was in my head. I didn’t have to come out to my colleagues, I just showed up looking cute and let them think whatever it was that they thought. Nobody addressed it to me. I did get deadnamed a lot but I can’t blame anyone because I didn’t make my name change known to anyone.
Alo Johnston likes to say that imposter syndrome is so common in trans folks that it might as well be listed as a “symptom” of gender dysphoria. Wishing you the best too. <3
Congrats on getting all the big coming outs done! I hope they’ve been good and you’ve been supported and loved.
Oh yeah, w i d e awake.
I cried a bit reading this. My heart hurts to hear about the transphobia you have to navigate around, but hearing about you and your spouse figuring yourselves out together is so beautiful. Never apologise for sharing here!
You deserve it.