I was at my mom’s Sunday night (see the previous post on yumminess) and she said she’d been thinking about mother-daughter things for us to do together. She felt like we’d missed out, and wanted to make up for lost time. She surprised me by saying she’d been thinking about tattoos, since I hadn’t told her about my thoughts. But I guess a friend of hers (my mom’s age) and her daughter (my age) had gotten tattoos together as a bonding exercise, and it had gotten my mom thinking.
She said she’s not really excited about getting a tattoo (although we both joked that, after the amount of hair removal we’ve done, the pain of a tattoo can’t possibly compare). But she did say she had been thinking about getting another piercing on each ear, and that we could do that together (each get a second piercing) as a bonding experience.
Continue reading 'Or maybe another piercing?'»
Why do I continue and continue to beat myself up for not transitioning earlier? For not speaking up louder? For not being more insistent, more forceful? In the past week, I’ve been told by both my doctor and my therapist that I really couldn’t have transitioned much earlier. That, starting hormones at 22, I was pretty close to starting them as young as I possible could have. That very few people start hormones at 18, and that very very few doctors will prescribe hormones younger than that.
That, realistically, there’s a very slim chance I possibly could have transitioned earlier than I did.
And yet, I keep beating myself up about it. Regretting that I don’t live in the fantasy life I constructed for myself, of going to school as a girl, experiencing adolescence as a girl, growing up into a woman. And I realized it has a lot to do with my own sense of agency, or lack thereof.
Continue reading 'Agency'»
I had another doctor’s appointment today, as a followup to the one I had a few weeks ago. He said I should stick with the Lexapro (now on week two) and he opened my chakras again.
We also talked for a while about regret and how to look forward.
I explained to him how I’ve been feeling like I’m wallowing in regret. That I’m consciously aware of how good I do have it, but still can’t get over this fantasy that things would be better had I transitioned earlier or not had to transition at all. (By which I meant ‘had been born female.’ Don’t worry.) I know it’s futile, and I know it’s harmful, but I can’t get out out of it. He responded that I need to find a way to look forward, not backward; regret over what’s passed can consume you. (Tell me something I don’t know…)
On the train ride home, I was rereading some essays from Yes Means Yes and one in particular struck home. From Sex Worth Fighting For:
I remained preoccupied by fears that something “truly” bad would happen, and often imagined gang rape and murder that would finish me off for good. It would probably be committed by boys who didn’t plan to go that far but felt like trying out their power on somebody who seemed like an easy target. This scenario felt so possible to me as to be the likely next step in my life.
Continue reading 'Doctors, self defense'»
This past weekend was pretty busy. I saw a friend’s dance recital, another friend’s show, had my final high school class (finally!) and, of course, went to play laser tag and went to an introductory pole dancing class. (What, you didn’t do laser tag and pole dancing this weekend?) Both were a lot of fun, but both were interesting examples of gendered behavior and – more surprisingly – brought up some unexpected gendered expectations I have for myself.
Laser tag brought up feelings of inadequacy as a man, even though I don’t want to be a man or to think of myself as ‘one of the boys.’
Pole dancing brought up major feelings of inadequacy as a woman, coupled with an unexpected desire to be sexy and eagerness to go along with instructions toward that end.
Continue reading 'Laser Tag and Pole Dancing as gendered behavior'»
I saw my therapist, Laura, last night, and we talked about my feeling stuck; that I’m unable to get past grieving for the life I ’should have’ had if I’d transitioned earlier or not transitioned in the first place. I was also thinking about something from Questioning Transphobia:
In other words, we need to see the woman in the pre-transition photo of a trans woman, the man in the pre-transition photo of a trans man. That, and only that, will help begin to dissipate the painful and fraught relationship so many of us have with photographs.
Queen Emily was specifically talking about photographs, but I think expanding the idea to the rest of my life makes sense, too. That is, from my comment on that post, “It’s much harder to view my history and experiences prior to transitioning as an integral part of who I am now; as a foundation upon which I’ve built up rather than a weight which drags me down.”
Continue reading 'Holding a mourning ceremony'»
I just got back from my therapist, who gave me an analogy for depression that I kind of like.
Depression is a hole.
When you start digging a hole, you can see into the distance. You can see the trees and plants around you, the horizon.
But as you get deeper, you can see less and less. At first, maybe you lose a bit of the horizon. Then, some of the tree-trunks; you can only see the tops of the trees.
The deeper you dig, the more your vision is limited. Until, at last, all you can see is the hole surrounding you, and the sky above you. And you’re not quite sure how to get out.
You might be able to intellectually imagine what is outside of the hole. People can tell you what is outside of the hole. But you can’t actually see it for yourself.
So how do you get out?
Time is often a good help, said my therapist, but antidepressants (like the ones I’m now just over a week into) can help, too. And slowly, the things you weren’t able to see will come back into your field of vision.
Until (hopefully) you’re completely out of the hole.
Something has been bouncing around in my head. From Picture Frames, a post from Cedar’s blog Taking Up Too Much Space, written in response to my show Trans Form :
What I realized, when I heard [in Trans Form] about the photo albums, and the pictures on the walls of her [Rebecca's] parents’ house, was that these were the memorabilia of an occupation, held onto and commemorated by its collaborators (witting or unwitting). Yes they represent a historical “truth,” a “past” one does not want to “deny”–but so do guns and chains and whips and bombs, and you don’t see them in the family photographs. Well, not if you were on the receiving end, anyway.
That concept, viewing photos or keepsakes of my past as “the memorabilia of an occupation,” finally clicked with me today.
This past weekend, my dad and I were talking about my depression. I was saying that I regretted not transitioning earlier, and he was saying he was sorry for not doing something when I was younger. Seeing something, noticing my unhappiness and its cause. And he said that, with the more tangible problems my older siblings had, it was easy to see me – with good grades, friends, a voracious apatite for books, no small skill at playing piano – as the ‘normal’ child. The child who didn’t need ‘fixing.’
And I realized, as Cedar indicated, that where we find ourselves today is not simply a result of the “truth” of history. It’s a result of how that history is viewed.
Continue reading 'Escaping an angry photograph'»
I just got off the phone with my dad. Both of my parents have been calling me pretty much every day, since last Wednesday when I told them how difficult things were for me right now. I’ve been getting a bit tired of having the same conversation over and over:
Mom or dad: How’re you feeling?
Me: The same.
Dad or mom: Are you feeling any better?
Me: No, not really.
(Yes, I know they mean well and they’re asking because they love me.)
I was expecting a repeat of this and, indeed, the conversation did start that way. But then my dad mentioned how a J – a friend of my dad’s and a reporter in Chicago – had been telling my dad about Christina Kahrl. Christina is a trans sports writer in Chicago, and I met her at a Broadway Youth Center event a few months ago. Apparently, J was saying he’d be happy to set up some sort of meeting for me with Christina; my dad was calling to ask me about this and see if I might want to talk with someone who has “been there.”
It seems like a little thing, particularly in contrast to my dad’s continued difficulty of calling me Rebecca, but I was really surprised and touched by the offer.
Continue reading 'Family can surprise you'»
Friday afternoon, I went to my doctor to talk about my hormone levels and the possibility of antidepressants.
I like my doctor, a lot. I didn’t have to jump through hoops to get my hormones (only in retrospect do I realize how rare that is), he has a good sense of humor, and he remembers the important goings-on in my life, even with months separating visits. I will say he is consistently running late, something that drives me up a wall. I operate on ’stage manager time’: early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable. (This is why I show up fifteen minutes early to most places in my life…) The flip-side of his timeliness, though, is that he spends a lot of time with his patients; I don’t like sitting around in his waiting room, but I very much feel taken care of while seeing him.
At my appointment on Friday, I explained how I’d been feeling, i.e. not too hot. We talked about what’s been going on in my life, and what things have been positive or negative. He was very observant in that most actors and artists have some sort of post-show blues, but I described how this felt really different than other post-show blues I’ve experienced; that this was about feeling an utter lack of excitement about anything, not simply being sad a show was done.
He said that made sense, and gave me a 2-week trial of Lexapro. Then he asked if I would be comfortable with having my Chakras opened.
Continue reading 'Antidepressants and Chakras'»
I’m on my second day off, and feeling overwhelmed by the time I have. I’m also trying really hard not to think about this weekend and next week, which would have been filled with tech for my high-schoolers’ show, but now I’m not doing. That still hurts a lot, even if I think it’s the right decision.
Yesterday was nice, even if taking a mental health day felt really weird and indulgent. (I’m not allowed to think it’s indulgent, but that’s a battle in and of itself.) My mom and I went to lunch, and our conversation drifted back and for from mundane things (she and some of her girl friends are having a slumber party tonight, which I find adorable) to more serious topics (how I’m doing, how my brother is doing, and so on). We then walked back from the restaurant to my apartment, window shopping and (inevitably) stopping in the shoe store to ‘look.’
As much as I like Alamo Shoes, one of the employees there always recognizes me and I can’t decide if he’s being flirty or not. I don’t know how to react to flirty, so I get a little uncomfortable. (Particularly when I’m with my mom, and he asks where I got my jeans so he can get a pair.) Maybe I’m being oversensitive – probably am – I just don’t have any socialization patterns stored up for reacting or interacting in that situation…
Continue reading 'Taking time is hard to do'»
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