As a child, you have an accident and cut off your legs. Your whole life you know you should be walking. You should be like everyone else. You grow up and put on the best happy face you can. You tell everyone on the football field that you’re fine sitting on the sideline watching. You’re fine not being able to climb the steps to the bleachers. You’re fine not being able to drive. You're fine not able to go to the bathroom alone, you’re fine not doing any of the things you know you should be able to do. Then, when your 45 and everybody is going out, but you can't, (You have a sore on your ass from sitting in the wheel chair, or your just so fucking depressed from a lifetime of lies and hatred, that you decide that you would be better off dead. You have thought about it a million times, you may have even tried once or twice or 3 times but you never did it.) that tomorrow is your day. You're either going tell the world you need legs, or you’re going kill yourself.
You know that getting legs will change everything. Your friends won't like you. Your spouse, if you have one, will leave. They will fire you because you are no longer disabled. When you walk, everyone will point at you and laugh at you. Oh sure, you've put those legs on in the privacy of your own home and dreamed of walking out the front door, but you know, everything will be thrown away, everything. Family, friends, spouse, money, everything, but it doesn’t matter, you have to walk.
It's all encompassing. Everything you do, every thought is about the legs. You see a person walking and you HATE them because they can walk.
Then you do it. You tell one person. "I wanna walk." They accept to your face. They tell you they will stand beside you, that they love you. All the while they are thinking, “what a freak. He can't walk. He's gonna look so stupid. Jerk” They stay there, for now, but they are looking for a way out. You tell someone else and they say “You’re a freak, you can't walk. You just think you want to walk. Why would you wanna walk after all these years? You're just fucked up in the head.” You tell your father and he walks out of the restaurant. You're left sitting there, all alone. You wanna cry, but you know this is your CHOICE. You never talk to him again, even though you think about him every day. It hurts, but you continue because you know you need to walk.
You go to the doctors and they say they can help. But first you need years of therapy. They can't just give you legs without probing every thought you have ever had. They need to make sure you really want to walk. So you go. You tell them. Embarrassing as it is, you tell them. You spend all your money on them and they probe your deepest darkest secrets. Then, after what seems like forever, you get your letter. The letter says to the medical doctor that you really do want to walk. So it starts all over. The telling strangers you want to walk. The talk you hear behind the counters, the finger pointing. He wants to walk... HAHAHAHAHA. But you continue.
They give you drugs to prepare you. The drugs have terrible, life threatening side effects. Right about now, you lose your spouse, you lose your job and you have maybe one friend in all the world, and it's a dog. You're isolated, scared and broke, but you NEED to walk. So you take the drugs. They give you horrible cramps. They change the way things taste and smell. They give you blotches on your skin and make you extremely depressed and happy.
You take the pills, small doses at first and you can see little things happening to your legs. Are they getting stronger? Longer? Something? You have good days, and bad days. You feel like something is happening, but every night you go home to an empty house. You have no money and you have one friend, the dog. You long for the touch of another. The house, it’s so quiet. Wouldn't it be great to talk to someone, anyone? But who, you have no-one. You’re alone with your choice. You turn on the TV and they show a football game and all the people running. You start crying, you want to be them. You don't want to be with them, you want to BE them. You want your legs. You try to stop crying, but the drugs make it harder and harder every day. It would be great to call someone, but you don't have any friends, you gave them all up to get legs.
So you climb into bed and a few days latter you come out, nothing has changed. You don't have legs, and you don't have friends, or money, or a job, or ANYTHING. You're alone.
Today you have to see a new doctor. You’re getting closer, but you have to tell someone else. Great! They see you, they tell you to continue... Nothing changes!
This is where it gets complicated. You have prosthesis. You can walk, but not for long distances and you look terrible. You can sometimes pass as a walking person, but mostly you look like you have fake legs. People move away from you when you go places. Little kids point and say mean things. Some people are just rude. But you can get OUT. You haven't had any surgery yet. Your legs are growing, getting longer, but the legs are still useless without the prosthesis.
Another day, another bout of depression. Who the fuck are you, thinking you can walk? What kind of freak chooses to walk when they had it all? Everything was great, but you had to walk! You had to throw it all away so you could walk, so you could feel complete, real. All you had to do was continue to be miserable and everything would have been great, for everyone else.
Things are changing though. Now instead of getting out once in a while, you go out more. You have a support group you go to. Other wannabewalkers. We'll call them WW's. You get some WWs phone numbers and you actually go out with a few. They have a parade, and you go. You go not to be proud WW, but to be with others like you. You have good days, you have bad days.
Now you have been on the drugs for a little while, let’s say a 6mths. You see subtle changes in your appearance. Your back seems stronger and you see small buds on your legs. They hurt all the time. The pain is encouraging, but scary. Is something wrong? Should it hurt this bad?
Time is passing and you getting out as much as possible. A quick trip to the store. a group meeting or a walk alone. You know what you need to do to go to the next step, but the thought is unimaginable. RLT. (Real life test) You have to go out and live as walker. You have to put on those prosthetic legs and go out, every day, every moment, as a WW. No more wishes. This is what you chose. But how? Anything you gained while in this small bit of transition will surely be lost when everybody sees you walking..
THIS IS WHERE I AM NOW. GETTING READY FOR RLT. ALL THE REST IS PURE SPECULATION AND DREAMS FOR ME.
You know that everyday will be full of ridicule, full of laughs, but you also know that it will get better. You will soon feel more confident, you will feel more in control. More important, you will be walking. You may be labeled and be just on the other side of normal, but it doesn't matter, you will be walking. You have hopes of someday running, or walking on the sand or taking a shower, or working out. All these things that you have dreamed about for all these years, all your life you KNEW you should be walking. You have given up everything. You have been poked and humiliated. You have taken drugs that make you sick and could kill you, but you are going to walk. You will be WW!!!
I can't go any further. First off I have been crying for most of the writing of this and I'm trying to work. Second, I haven't been to the next step. I don't know what it will hold. I do know that some transgender never have surgery. To live as a girl with the same male parts is enough. Some choose to have orchiectomy. Some choose to have the complete sexual reassignment surgery. It's not the removal of the parts that makes us complete, it’s identifying as the opposite gender. In my case, male to female. I am hoping to have my SRS within 3 years. The cost is >20k and I will have to already lived as a female for a year before I can even get on the list. I will start my RLT by the summer of 2012. I have already lost my family, all my friends and I know I will lose my job as soon as I tell them, but it's the next step and my only other choice it suicide. I have the pills put away in a little jar I keep by my bed. Before I go to sleep I touch it and whisper to it, "not tonight, tonight I choose life"
This is not something I have decided to do just because I felt a little different, or one day woke up and said, wow, it would be neat to be a girl. It's something I could no longer live with. Sure you will continue to say I made a choice to do this, but my choice was made at 5, when I identified as a girl. The rest of my life I chose to lie and deceive everyone else in my life, including myself. My only choice was change, or die. I chose life.
You know that getting legs will change everything. Your friends won't like you. Your spouse, if you have one, will leave. They will fire you because you are no longer disabled. When you walk, everyone will point at you and laugh at you. Oh sure, you've put those legs on in the privacy of your own home and dreamed of walking out the front door, but you know, everything will be thrown away, everything. Family, friends, spouse, money, everything, but it doesn’t matter, you have to walk.
It's all encompassing. Everything you do, every thought is about the legs. You see a person walking and you HATE them because they can walk.
Then you do it. You tell one person. "I wanna walk." They accept to your face. They tell you they will stand beside you, that they love you. All the while they are thinking, “what a freak. He can't walk. He's gonna look so stupid. Jerk” They stay there, for now, but they are looking for a way out. You tell someone else and they say “You’re a freak, you can't walk. You just think you want to walk. Why would you wanna walk after all these years? You're just fucked up in the head.” You tell your father and he walks out of the restaurant. You're left sitting there, all alone. You wanna cry, but you know this is your CHOICE. You never talk to him again, even though you think about him every day. It hurts, but you continue because you know you need to walk.
You go to the doctors and they say they can help. But first you need years of therapy. They can't just give you legs without probing every thought you have ever had. They need to make sure you really want to walk. So you go. You tell them. Embarrassing as it is, you tell them. You spend all your money on them and they probe your deepest darkest secrets. Then, after what seems like forever, you get your letter. The letter says to the medical doctor that you really do want to walk. So it starts all over. The telling strangers you want to walk. The talk you hear behind the counters, the finger pointing. He wants to walk... HAHAHAHAHA. But you continue.
They give you drugs to prepare you. The drugs have terrible, life threatening side effects. Right about now, you lose your spouse, you lose your job and you have maybe one friend in all the world, and it's a dog. You're isolated, scared and broke, but you NEED to walk. So you take the drugs. They give you horrible cramps. They change the way things taste and smell. They give you blotches on your skin and make you extremely depressed and happy.
You take the pills, small doses at first and you can see little things happening to your legs. Are they getting stronger? Longer? Something? You have good days, and bad days. You feel like something is happening, but every night you go home to an empty house. You have no money and you have one friend, the dog. You long for the touch of another. The house, it’s so quiet. Wouldn't it be great to talk to someone, anyone? But who, you have no-one. You’re alone with your choice. You turn on the TV and they show a football game and all the people running. You start crying, you want to be them. You don't want to be with them, you want to BE them. You want your legs. You try to stop crying, but the drugs make it harder and harder every day. It would be great to call someone, but you don't have any friends, you gave them all up to get legs.
So you climb into bed and a few days latter you come out, nothing has changed. You don't have legs, and you don't have friends, or money, or a job, or ANYTHING. You're alone.
Today you have to see a new doctor. You’re getting closer, but you have to tell someone else. Great! They see you, they tell you to continue... Nothing changes!
This is where it gets complicated. You have prosthesis. You can walk, but not for long distances and you look terrible. You can sometimes pass as a walking person, but mostly you look like you have fake legs. People move away from you when you go places. Little kids point and say mean things. Some people are just rude. But you can get OUT. You haven't had any surgery yet. Your legs are growing, getting longer, but the legs are still useless without the prosthesis.
Another day, another bout of depression. Who the fuck are you, thinking you can walk? What kind of freak chooses to walk when they had it all? Everything was great, but you had to walk! You had to throw it all away so you could walk, so you could feel complete, real. All you had to do was continue to be miserable and everything would have been great, for everyone else.
Things are changing though. Now instead of getting out once in a while, you go out more. You have a support group you go to. Other wannabewalkers. We'll call them WW's. You get some WWs phone numbers and you actually go out with a few. They have a parade, and you go. You go not to be proud WW, but to be with others like you. You have good days, you have bad days.
Now you have been on the drugs for a little while, let’s say a 6mths. You see subtle changes in your appearance. Your back seems stronger and you see small buds on your legs. They hurt all the time. The pain is encouraging, but scary. Is something wrong? Should it hurt this bad?
Time is passing and you getting out as much as possible. A quick trip to the store. a group meeting or a walk alone. You know what you need to do to go to the next step, but the thought is unimaginable. RLT. (Real life test) You have to go out and live as walker. You have to put on those prosthetic legs and go out, every day, every moment, as a WW. No more wishes. This is what you chose. But how? Anything you gained while in this small bit of transition will surely be lost when everybody sees you walking..
THIS IS WHERE I AM NOW. GETTING READY FOR RLT. ALL THE REST IS PURE SPECULATION AND DREAMS FOR ME.
You know that everyday will be full of ridicule, full of laughs, but you also know that it will get better. You will soon feel more confident, you will feel more in control. More important, you will be walking. You may be labeled and be just on the other side of normal, but it doesn't matter, you will be walking. You have hopes of someday running, or walking on the sand or taking a shower, or working out. All these things that you have dreamed about for all these years, all your life you KNEW you should be walking. You have given up everything. You have been poked and humiliated. You have taken drugs that make you sick and could kill you, but you are going to walk. You will be WW!!!
I can't go any further. First off I have been crying for most of the writing of this and I'm trying to work. Second, I haven't been to the next step. I don't know what it will hold. I do know that some transgender never have surgery. To live as a girl with the same male parts is enough. Some choose to have orchiectomy. Some choose to have the complete sexual reassignment surgery. It's not the removal of the parts that makes us complete, it’s identifying as the opposite gender. In my case, male to female. I am hoping to have my SRS within 3 years. The cost is >20k and I will have to already lived as a female for a year before I can even get on the list. I will start my RLT by the summer of 2012. I have already lost my family, all my friends and I know I will lose my job as soon as I tell them, but it's the next step and my only other choice it suicide. I have the pills put away in a little jar I keep by my bed. Before I go to sleep I touch it and whisper to it, "not tonight, tonight I choose life"
This is not something I have decided to do just because I felt a little different, or one day woke up and said, wow, it would be neat to be a girl. It's something I could no longer live with. Sure you will continue to say I made a choice to do this, but my choice was made at 5, when I identified as a girl. The rest of my life I chose to lie and deceive everyone else in my life, including myself. My only choice was change, or die. I chose life.
I think it's a great analogy. I'm glad you keep choosing life.
ReplyDeleteI love this analogy. It is a realistic look at what life is. I have to say that I cried through some of it but saw the strength you have found within you to continue being a "WW".
ReplyDeleteYours truely (another WW)
Michelle