The Nearest Thing- Day 168 (June 17th, 2021)

How are people who have never experienced gender dysphoria supposed to understand it? Like everything else in life, they will compare it to the nearest thing. Nevermind the fact that the nearest thing is usually miles away from even being in the same category. 

So you tell somebody about deciding to transition because of crippling, life threatening dysphoria, and in their mind they are only seeing what they can compare it to. "Well, I'm not always confident as myself either. I've had sad days. Life in general isn't easy. But we all soldier on."

Okay. Yes. Your problems are generalized and vague and, though I'm sure can be a struggle, are not even close to how gender dysphoria feels.

It's not entirely something I know how to put into words. It's an alien being born in human skin, a distinct and inescapable reality that you aren't the way you should be. You can avoid it and at times fit in the skin you are in, but it never lasts. Everyday in a thousand different little ways you are reminded of it. And what's most detrimental to your mental fortitude is the reminders are rarely from the same place, so you can't just avoid certain triggers because anything at anytime can be a trigger.

I can't tell you how insulting and infuriating simple anecdotes are to me. Always offered by people who haven't the first clue and clearly have no interest in possibly understanding the minutiae of the situation, their suggestions reek of ignorance. "Pray." Oh I have. I have prayed to my beautiful Savior daily, asking to be set free, to be given relief, to finally step into the role of man that is expected of me. "You need to just do more manly things, maybe get a strong male mentor in your life." First of all, in my life, male mentors are as rare as winning the lottery. I have tried to cultivate male relationships, and though I enjoy many male-centric activities, there is still a great divide between me and normal men that becomes all the more apparent when I'm hanging out with them. "Just keep fighting. God never gives us more than we can handle." That may have been true for the first 29 years of my life. But it stopped being true a few months before I turned 30. My tank is empty as Nathan, plain and simple. And I could tell I was approaching suicide if I kept going the way I was.

This is part of my story. If you look at the trajectory of my life, it's always been heading that way-- either here or to an early grave.

I don't approach this new journey looking back but instead looking ahead. Finally defining the woman I've denied and finally getting to see the more fundamental me take center stage. Few will understand it. But very few people understood me as Nathan. So really the change isn't as drastic as it is for those who transition that were better liked in their previous lives.