The sad and the real with a little humor

It is a sad time that I post this night,my stepdaughter has taken her life by suicide,she struggled for many years from depression and alcohol addiction

 

I am devastated by these developments tonight ,but thankful for my daughter Vicki Eastwood who survives by the grace of God, for her the pain must seem insurmountable,at this moment. For her I give my most precious love and warm comfort.

 

 

In other news: I came upon my 3rd Mammogram held by the women’s clinic @ St. Elizabeth women’s clinic.

 

This being my 3rd, mammogram I thought of it as simply routine,much to my surprise however it was less than ordinary.

 

As was the norm she had a battery of questions, before we began the procedure

firstly she ask how many pregnancies I had to which I answered none ,nextly she ask when I had my first period, to which I replied  I’m still waiting for that too. She gave gave me an odd look but didn’t skip a beat and continued right along with the questions.

The really good news is that no evidence of breast cancer was found,with the caveat that I have very dense breast tissue which makes reading the scans difficult.

Next day I had my bi-annual visit with my Oncologist who always gives me a thorough breast exam as well. She was pleased to note also that I had since April lost 23 pounds. The reason being that my general practitioner had prescribed a statin drug for my cholesterol . After extensive research I made an informed decision to not take this drug which multiple studies have proven to show that these drugs are dangerous and truly a scam which now includes 1 in every 4 Americans , I also have friends who have suffered the side effects,of these big pharma drugs, 1 who has developed alzheimer’s and 2 who got diabetes,as a direct result from going on statin drugs.That being said knowing my numbers were outside the the guide lines I made radical changes to my diet and got my numbers back in the normal range within 60 days. Mostly this has been a blessing in disguise for me as my being on HRT has come with some weight gain that I didn’t exactly want anyway. I had tried all the fad diets with no success,but this time I made a long term commitment to really take control of my diet it has paid many dividends some being more energy and the weight loss is a blessing as well.At first I missed some things but over time I lost my desire for them and really find my new way of eating to be most desirable .

Well not to harp on that issue too much ,I will move on to other subjects.

 

Also in my personal news I have two successive visits with my ” mental health person” ala the VA in an attempt to get my papers signed so I can change the gender marker on my ID they have let me know that when I see my GP on the 17th they will indeed sign the paper work. This leaves me with now going back to court to now change my marker on my birth certificate which could have been done when I went for my name change but no  one let me know that so now it will cost me close to another $200 to return to court for just this one thing that could have been done the first time.Can you say FRUSTRATING !!

 

All this being said my transition has been for the most part just lots of effort,and graced by the love of a very accepting and supportive family. To them I can’t begin to express my gratitude and thanks for their love in this difficult but very necessary part of my life.

See you all soon with more news

 

Butterfly

Falling Leaves and Family Love.

Well here we are deep in  the month of October out here on the prairie of the southern great lakes. 

The Gods paint their last picture as we near the winter  solstice, soon the tree’s will be bare as will all the fields that produced the plenty of another harvest in the life of this rare girl who continues to recollect the love of family and the security it brings to my reality.

On Yesterday I had the occasion to attend a remembrance service for my fathers wife of over 50 years.

 Mrs. Juanita {Bailiff] Iles

I will try in some short words to define how I thought of this grand lady,as I grew up in the home of my mother ,God Bless her she was always very bitter of my father and Juanita’s relationship and  I get a women scorned is not likely to forget the ones who wronged her. the circumstances were as I can collect not very pretty. I was very young at the time ,but the consequences did and do have an effect on my life. But this isn’t about me or my circumstances,it’s rather about my fathers wife and my extended experience of  motherhood.

This was a Lady of the finest degree,who came from very humble beginnings,on a poor farm in Western Indiana ,who grew up with a not so very great childhood ,and moved to my home town at the age of 16, I was not privy to any of this at the time of it’s happening as I was very young,she met my father and for reasons I may never know caused the eventual end to the marriage of my Mother and Father. Learning to love them in separate family circumstances was a bit confusing as I began to come of the age understanding, because I was beginning to understand by no means meant I had an adult understanding of  the situation,it only meant that I had to make decisions about my reality of the experience

Facts are facts I was as a teenager dealing with the hard reality of knowing  that something was very ascue in my own life.I had know Idea of how profound this was to my life back then as I only knew something was seriously not right with my mind and body.

Not sure if it really was the reason for being very rebellious ,or if it just came along with the lives of all teens,

I was about as confused in life as a butterfly that couldn’t escape my cocoon,at around that time in my life,my Mother and Stepfather confronted me about being adopted and losing the what I considered was my last and only ties to my birth father,who for all intents and purposes had been only a memory that came from brief encounters of visitation on  birthdays and whatever other times were suitable between the feuding parties.

All I can say is teen years are a collective fog that rarely lifts until you are in your late twenties,or later. which leads me to my first encounters,with my fathers wife, rebellion was my middle name around that time of life and rebell I did, I left my mother’s home to experience first hand my father’s life,truth is I was about the last thing my stepmother needed in her life about then and I was about the last thing I needed in my life too just then, that being said she welcomed me and my stupidity into her life without question,I saw almost immediately a woman that was as selfless as any I had ever met,in order to help raise the Children my father and she produced she gave very much of herself,taking on babysitting of other people’s children while they worked, to doing laundry and ironing for others, she never had a complaint,and always put my father and his children all of us first before herself, never a day you would ever go hungry around this lady no matter who you were .

She remains a lady of my highest regards and will live as a good memory to me,as she gave my father over 50 years of never ending  Love and Happiness To this I salute her a true soldier of life.

Along the way She and Father gave me a generous group of brothers and sisters ,they are all of great quality,with kind and generous hearts,on this occasion of the remembrance of their mother’s life is the first time any of them or their Mother’s family had ever met the lady I have become in recent history,not a single one treated me any different than ever ever and none failed to embrace me as the human being they grew up with.

I think for most girls(Ladies) of my age group and circumstance the fear of losing family and loved ones is our greatest source of anxiety in life,I have been so very fortunate to have the love of ALL my family still with me. I am truly Blessed,and grateful.

With a Happy Heart ,

I wish all Love and Happiness

Butterfly

Septembers saturday night post

Well as I have spent sometime today finally updating my windows seven device to windows 10, I began to reflect on a time when I had no concept of the internet or the working’s of a PC.

I harkened back to when my Son first encouraged me to purchase a computer in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s,at the time it was a frightening and very strange thing to me, a foreign concept that I only feared because of my ignorance of something I had absolutely no knowledge of.

We assessed  what we thought my needs were at the time and he ordered and had sent to me a marvelous new thing that I   only looked at for a few days and then began assembling it per the instructions,once hooked up again I just looked at this electric monster afraid that if I turned it on I would somehow destroy it instantly.

Via phone conversations with my son I was finally convinced that I could in fact turn this behemoth on and not destroy it with my ignorance.

So forge ahead I did only to open up a grand new world of information that would eventually ,render knowledge that I wasn’t crazy and that there was an explanation to my condition.

I wasn’t nut’s or going out of my mind,I was gaining the knowledge I needed to heal a life long struggle I had no way of learning about it until this point.

And learn I did I must have and still do seek out understanding of my life ,the pain and the part’s I seemed to understand but not fully.

It eventually led me to seek the treatment I desperately needed to end my, in and out desires to end my life out of the total confusion my condition seemed to leave me in,at many junctures of life.It opened doors I would have never gone through without out this fabulous tool,I had now discovered.

And so with this and my very Happy new life I say to you all who have been beside in my journey ,God bless you all and many thanks for your undying love.

Back soon Butterfly

Still here

Lot’s to tell,finally but reluctantly our long winter begins to release it’s icy grip on this part of the world.The grip began early and we have had temps running 30 to 40 degrees below normal since mid October for a  lady like me who can’t afford the luxury an auto it has been most burdensome,the combination of being trapped inside for what seems a lifetime now,and the effects of my hormones have added some unwanted pounds to my physic,it doesn’t help that I love to cook and comfort food abounds in Shelle’s abode in the winter months (I should mention I’m a good eater too and I often eat more than I should when I’m stressed) well enough said about that I obviously have some work to do when spring allows me to get out work off the winter pounds.

On Other fronts I have still been on my quest for my someone,things in that department  have moved slowly up till recently,when a couple of events have caused some serious changes in my life,I have a male friend now for about two years who has always just been a platonic friend with no kind of intimate attachment,just friends,we are very close but just not close enough to be in a relationship,so I thought. But recently I had the occasion to go out with a guy and that sent him over the edge it seems, he said he couldn’t stand the fact that I might become attached to someone else and then not have the time for him anymore,Does it sound like he is more attached to me than he lets on or is it just me? Yea me too! Well he has always kept me away from his family I guess he was ashamed to have them know who and what I am even though I’m just me everyday,all that has changed rather suddenly,and I’m now fully welcome in his life,even still he says he wants no committed relationship,well me being me I had to insist that I not be held hostage by his feelings and still be free to pursue my someone,he agrees with words but not actions he is visually upset at the prospect.

In recent days I had an answer to my Craigslist ad, first one in months at least the first that seemed real enough to warrant a good look,I  engaged and we began a dialog that soon left me scratching my head,he said to me please don’t let race become an issue for us,to which I quickly responded how could you ever seek out someone like me and even bring up that issue I have probably experienced more discrimination in my life than you ever did in yours.I was never raised to see color I deal with all on the”content of their character not the color of their skin” Hope something good comes of this but I have learned to be cautious with these persons.

Updates forthcoming,

Butterfly 

Confused Shelle

This change to the way we used to be diagnosed really only make things more blurry for me;

DSM-V To Rename Gender Identity Disorder ‘Gender Dysphoria’

The newest edition of the psychiatric diagnostic manual will do away with labeling transgender people as “disordered.”

 

The newest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, will replace the diagnostic term “Gender Identity Disorder” with the term “Gender Dysphoria,” according to the Associated Press.

For years advocates have lobbied the American Psychiatric Association to change or remove categories labeling transgender people in a psychiatric manual, arguing that terms like “Gender Identity Disorder” characterize all trans people as mentally ill. Based on the standards to be set by the DSM-V, individuals will be diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria for displaying “a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/expressed gender and assigned gender.”

“All psychiatric diagnoses occur within a cultural context,” said Jack Drescher, a member of the APA subcommittee working on the revision. “We know there is a whole community of people out there who are not seeking medical attention and live between the two binary categories. We wanted to send the message that the therapist’s job isn’t to pathologize.”

Homosexuality was diagnosed in the DSM as an illness until 1973, and conditions pertaining to homosexuality were not entirely removed until 1987. According to Dana Beyer, who helped the Washington Psychiatric Society make recommendations on matters of gender and sexuality, the new term implies a temporary mental state rather than an all-encompassing disorder, a change that helps remove the stigma transgender people face by being labeled “disordered.”

“A right-winger can’t go out and say all trans people are mentally ill because if you are not dysphoric, that can’t be diagnosed from afar,” Beyer told the AP. “It no longer matters what your body looks like, what you want to do to it, all of that is irrelevant as far as the APA goes.”

From a legal perspective, the classification of Gender Identity Disorder is extremely harmful to some trans people, but surprisingly beneficial to others.

In one legal case, says San Francisco psychiatrist Dan Karasic, a trans woman from Utah risks losing the children she fathered before her transition. Because she is trans, a lawyer has argued that her GID is a “severe, chronic mental illness that might be harmful to the child.”

But in other cases, a GID diagnosis justifies insurance coverage for gender reassignment surgery and other medical procedures that sometimes accompany a transition. Having a diagnosis is the difference between a necessary medical procedure and something that can be perceived as cosmetic surgery that insurance won’t cover, Drescher says.

Others argue that GID should stay in the DSM in some form because it provides a solid legal defense for transgender people who have experienced discrimination based on their gender identity.

“Having a diagnosis is extremely useful in legal advocacy,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “We rely on it even in employment discrimination cases to explain to courts that a person is not just making some superficial choice … that this is a very deep-seated condition recognized by the medical community.”

Mental health professionals who work with trans clients are also pushing for a revised list of symptoms, so that a diagnosis will not apply to people whose distress comes from external prejudice, adults who have transitioned, or children who simply do not meet gender stereotypes.

I understand that there are legal issues that brought this to a change but it has further confused what has always been a very black and white issue in my life. A recent conversation with the person who runs the local transgender program at our pride office here left me further confused. This was the description of transgender offered by this person.

Well, for example, for me, I do not identify as male or female. I identify completely outside of the spectrum of male or female and the way I think about my gender changes a lot from day to day. I am not confused about how i identify, it just changes frequently. I consider myself trans* masculine and genderfluid because I typically identify and present myself more masculinely, but I do not identify as “male”. I never want to go on hormone therapy or get genital altering surgeries, but I would like to get top surgery and have a flat chest.

This description of being transgender really has me confused more than I thought I could be on the subject. but we have fallen under the umbrella of more and more different forms of transgenderism,now to include people who Identify as genderqueer and genderfuck,and on and on it seems who ever is outside the LGB spectrum is now included as transgender.I thought my issues were confusing enough as they were but now my once black and white issues is more confused than ever.

On the negative side, the proposed diagnostic criteria for Gender Dysphoria still contradict social and medical transition and describe transition itself as symptomatic of mental illness. The criteria for children are particularly troubling, retaining much of the archaic sexist language of the DSM-IV that pathologizes gender nonconformity rather than distress of gender dysphoria Moreover, children who have socially transitioned continue to be disrespected by misgendering language in the diagnostic criteria and dimensional assessment questions. There is very plainly no exit from the diagnosis for those who have completed transition and are happy with their bodies and lives. In other words, the only way to exit the GD label, once diagnosed, is to follow the course of gender conversion/reparative therapies, designed to shame trans people into the closets of assigned birth roles. While supportive care providers will continue to make the diagnosis work for their clients, intolerant clinicians will exploit contradictory language in the diagnostic criteria to deny transition care access and promote unethical gender conversion treatments.

This person ask me to describe what I thought being transgendered was  I referred to the diagnosis given me by my therapist,apparently the professionals don’t keep up with what the people in the LGBT community describes as transgender And I’m not what I thought I was at all I’m mixed up now more than ever,I thought I and the professionals  treating me had a handle on my identity but now I’m not sure any more.

Living somewhere in la la land  a confused Butterfly

The Invisible Man

While I have made no secret that it is my desire to enter into a life relationship with a man,I’m reminded by my dear friend Cyrsti that I have embarked on what will likely be a long difficult and maybe impossible journey.I’m sure you all remember my disastrous last  experience with Craigslist not knowing much about  posting a personal there I got a very good education into the way most men perceive girls like me,I know that  the image they in general see comes from viewing porn sites and dreaming of what could be. Few I wager have ever given any thought to what a true transgender is all about they rely on their very skewed image that comes from not the  greatest of sources on the subject. I learned early on that transgender dating sites are no place to look as I always end up with the same type I last encountered  with my first Craigslist debacle. When I ask that they send a picture I had no idea that I would end up viewing so many mens private parts. It was easy to know which head these fellows were thinking with, not saying I didn’t find it somewhat flattering that so many found me attractive enough to have those desires but it just isn’t me to seek out sexual encounters with  every Tom ,Dick and Harry, I’m looking for something more , a cerebral connection  that makes a connection with their heart, not just with what their heart makes throb if you know what I mean. I do want intimacy I’d be remiss to say otherwise but  I have the patience to wait for someone very special  to make an entrance to my life.I thought armed with some experience now with Craigslist I would try again with a much refined list of desires, I may find myself lonely for a great while if the past couple of weeks are any indication,I have however made a connection with a nice fellow interested in being friends and having honest conversations with me It’s a start and I at least have found someone I’m able to honestly share with if nothing else it renews my faith that there are men of decency in this world with the patience to listen. I may indeed end up some old spinster but not for lack of trying I assure you. I know it’s asking a great deal  of the world to have my path cross with a soul mate but I just can’t bring myself to think it is completely out of the realm of possibility. In all my years I never gave up on myself so I’m not giving up on humanity either,I feel in my heart that I have been preparing for this all my life and that it WILL come to me. Meanwhile I’m seeking the invisible man or least one of the rarest of men on the planet.

Butterfly

Soap box Shelle

Often I get inspired to speak out about issues that touch my life differently than others this is one of those times. Before I get real wound up I first want to say that no matter who we are what gender ,race, ethnicity or any other difference we all know that “THEY” and we all know who “THEY” are but never tell, have really screwed things up for “US”.

Firstly I wish to go on about an issue I have touched on before that being, LGBT  while the LGB persons have made great strides this past year toward equal rights and have gained the right to marry in many more states,the advances for “T” not so much. I know I’ll get grief for this but I don’t really like being grouped in with the LGB persons because our civil rights issues are vastly different from theirs. First off their group is very easy to join all you have to do is profess that you are one of them and bingo you are automatically embraced by the whole group.They are militant in nature but have permeated nearly every corner of our society these days and so their agenda is moving quickly into the mainstream of society hardly a soul  anymore blinks an eye at being any one of the LGB community.Joining my group the “T’s” is a much different matter however,first off you get grouped in with,Transvestite’s.Transexual’s,Crossdresser’s,Shemales and on and on you know the umbrella I myself belong only to one under this grouping Transgender.I have great disdain for some under my “Umbrella” and feel that a lot of them are an anchor stopping my civil rights from moving forward at a faster pace because some of them bring shame and degradation to who I am and further promote a bad image of my circumstance in life.First to officially join my group you must submit yourself to a therapist and be diagnosed and so marked by society rule before you can actually be “TREATED” for your disorder why isn’t my professing who I am enough just like the LGB people? And then the other differences begin to surface I can be jailed for using the bathroom of the gender I express,and God forbid if you go to jail you get to go in with the opposite gender that you express,I think you can see the problems we face that will never come up for  people in the LGB group this group however doesn’t have a disorder like me, how does all this promote any safety or happiness in my life I submit it doesn’t it just tramples further on my right to be human and live as who I am.

And then there are the sexuality issues something even I hadn’t really come to grips with before coming out and beginning HRT,It was one of the first questions my son ask me when I came out to him and at the time I had no answer I didn’t know I was too engulfed in transition to even give it any thought.I feel like Pre-Shelle used relationships with women to avoid having to deal with issues about my sexuality and it gave me a free pass to fit in without being detected as who I was.I think looking back I was very wrong and caused damage to a couple of very fine ladies in my life by attempting to hide my true self from them out of fear,I will likely beat myself up for this weakness of character for a long time.At any rate as time and Hormone therapy began it’s major changes in my noggin I began contemplating just what was my sexual orientation? I concluded that since I 100% identify as a women at least between the ears where true gender exists and that my deepest wish was to live as close to a normal cisgendered woman’s life as I could and that I really wanted a man in my life. I think to my son that meant I was gay,I disagree I think I just seek what seems to be the natural order of life for me I have little to no experience with men so I can’t make a full judgement as yet but I am on a quest to have one of my own someday. There in lays new issues that are far different than that of the LGB clan and the cisgendered people it takes a very special type of man to overlook what I am and have a normal relationship with me I have scoured the land seeking this in my new life but to little avail thus far it’s akin to having lighting strike you three times in the same spot in ten minutes time,sure there are willing participants for sex but this is not the only thing I seek I want a connection of the heart to go with the carnal pleasure.Well wish me luck peeps. Stepping down from the box for now.

Butterfly

Facing Reality and Moving On

Well here we are a brand new year a clean slate to begin a new piece of life art,in that spirit I have to take a long hard look back and then turn back around and see if I’m not seeing things in my future which surely should be left in my past.Truth is I see things that I mistakenly let myself indulge in that just don’t have any foundation in reality I fooled myself into believing that I had somehow eclipsed some precipice and could just go forward thinking I had somehow left behind the reality of what I am and live a normal life as a woman the bare bones truth is I can’t while in my everyday life and dealings with most people I interact with it works like that,but certain of my relationships will never let that be anything near the truth I just have to face the fact that I am what I am and it will never change.I can never enter into a relationship with anyone man or woman ever in my life without this truth being  the focal point of the picture so I must learn to live with the fact that there will always be an asterisk beside the person I am and learn to move on from there and find the positive things that come from  my special God-given character.So I must realize that as I am a woman I’m a very unique kind of woman not one offered that gift by birth but one who took an inner strength that I was born with and turned it into a remarkable gift I can share with the world.Here in front of all of you is where I belong sharing with you my special life and my  failures and successes as I navigate this complicated journey that is  real and all me and all those like me instead of setting my sites on things that will never be I need to celebrate what is my reality and know that it is a gift to some and to me that goes far beyond my here and now understanding something that’s growing and continues to bloom in the springs of life.I’m obviously horrible at finding a relationship that bears the fruit of my life experiences but maybe that’s because I haven’t yet learned to present it in way that is palatable to the right person I’ll work on that,I was born full of passion and passion can be a great tool there are many kinds of it the kind that drives us to better and loftier things and a kind we can share in a very intimate way with someone or many others,all this is the real me and I will learn going forward to share it in the spirit God intended.

Butterfly

Years end Subjects and Life Updates

Guess I’ll start with a painful story I’ve been putting off,because I’m humiliated and depressed about it,My recent plans to be married have vaporized as I was completely duped by someone perpetrating a scam on vulnerable persons like myself.I mostly have myself and my strong desire to share my life in a committed way with someone of like interest to blame.

That being said we have to realize that indicating our true identity as transgendered persons puts a strain on finding people who see us as just a normal person seeking a normal life ambition,as soon as we tell the truth about ourselves the parameters change and we are seen in a different light by many (not all I’m happy say). A second problem is also that the vast majority of men think with the head between their legs rather than the one on their shoulders,so finding one who is in the least cerebral is a crapshoot at best. While I myself would like to just forget the fact I’m a trans-person and live my life as just another woman it doesn’t seem likely that that that will ever happen when put into the context of a relationship because honesty is a basic premise to all successful relationships I feel it’s important to be upfront about my gender uniqueness from the very start of things,this however puts me in a more difficult spot than most cisgendered persons.

Going forward I have be ever mindful of my strengths and weaknesses in the area of the heart and know myself better that others will know me too,and know that these complications exist for me whether I want them or not. A new year is nearly upon us and a newer and improved Shelle will spring forth with it,we learn as we live but to not take chances means we just weren’t trying at all. Some famous sports guy once said you miss 100% of the shots you never take. I took one and missed horribly but I’m still in the game and still honing my skills.

Butterfly

On another subject that has been in the forefront of my thoughts and procrastinated for far too long now is dealing with the unfinished family outing of myself.I come from a huge midwestern farm family and while most are scattered across the country over time,I have not completed my coming out to all of them  I have too many but as with most of my life dealing with this subject is frightening at best but still I think important to my sanity.I have Aunts and uncles and cousins that have played significant roles in my life that  I have become estranged with over the course of time partly because I lived far away from the center of their lives for  many years and of course for personal reasons didn’t stay in contact with.In the summers we have family reunions out here in the heartland where as many of us are left and able get together over some good Hoosier  foods and fellowship and catch up with each other,this past summer I refrained from going not because I didn’t want to but because not everyone is aware of my choice to live as someone they have never met yet,and I felt like to just show up at their event would be very disruptive to their happy times I didn’t think being the focus of the event and having to explain  all day would be proper.There is also the looming issue of God forbid  funerals for many of the persons who are far up in years,being a no-show at these events seems very disrespectful to their families, but still certainly not a place to just show up as the new me,and create a scene. So In the coming new year I will set a task for myself to reach out to all I can in hopes of removing any missteps in my future dealings with any of them and possibly offering me a chance to once again be a participating member of my extended family circle.Certainly this is not a task I’m looking forward to but at the same time I feel like to continue to avoid getting it done shows a great character weakness in me that I don’t feel comfortable going forward with unchecked. Wish me luck as this will be undoubtedly a daunting pursuit,I realize much of it will likely have unpleasant results but I have never deluded myself into believing that keeping my sanity in life wouldn’t come without some alienation.     

Butterfly

Well the new year is almost upon us all and I want to say Thank You from the bottom of my Heart for all your kind words and supportive comments this year to all HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Why?

I am repeatedly ask by people why did you wait so long to transition,I have ask myself the same question a thousand times,I can only guess that like most people like me I thought that if I practiced “immersion therapy” I could cure what seemed to be wrong in my life.I like most trans women of my age group thought that by immersing myself in in the hyper-masculine world I  would be somehow magically cured that it would rub off on my psyche and cure the fact that in reality I was a woman,But with little support and few coping skills the whole sharad only proved to be a complete failure and things just continually got worse all my life not better or less confusing but more and more the focus of my everyday thoughts.It wasn’t until around 17 years ago when I met my last wife and shared from the beginning who I was with her and she in turn was not only supportive but with her love and everyday help I began to feel emboldened and the fog I lived under began to clear I saw a more clear path to  the person I needed to become to finally have some sense of peace in my life and really begin to grow again.

This question of why is not easily answered even with my limited knowledge of who I really am I’m a work in progress and likely will be for the rest of my life,I think that is really true for all people not just those of us with gender Identity issues.Even still though the disconnect between one’s spirit and body leaves you feeling isolated,depressed and alone at best  but as you traverse this vast uncharted area that lays before you you do pick up new skills and learn as you go, that the journey to join your spirit and body is worth whatever hardships befall you.

I’m sure that for many who have never had to struggle with  identity issues  it is hard to understand WHY indeed we do this late in life, I guess my best answer is to free a soul incarcerated for years in a tomb of confusion.

Still finding your own freedom in life comes with very painful decisions about the lives you affect with your choice,only the very bravest of us ever escape the fear of hurting people we love with our quest to be whole people.

The WHY becomes more clear when you engage with us on an ongoing basis can I give a short answer that clears the air immediately no but I can live among you and answer with my life.

Butterfly