Truth, Proof, and Having Faith Anyway

On Proof and 'The Truth'

My father never lost an argument. Like any skilled artisan, significant credit goes to his tools. And, by far, his most powerful one was The Truth.

Not just any 'truth' of course. The way he saw the world was The Way, and all other ways were lies, malice and/or idiocy. His trick, though, was that he didn't outright make things up. Instead, he used something everyone had to agree had actually happened. And then he'd use what had happened to hammer his perspective home.

For instance:

When I was 3 years old, I used to sleep in the same bed as him. I was always afraid to get up to go to the bathroom, because it might wake him up and then he'd get very upset with me. So I told my mother that I was afraid to go to the bathroom. When she talked to him about this, he yelled "What am I, some kind of ogre that won't even let my own child use the bathroom?" And he used me bringing up the concern as evidence that my mother and I did not love him and thought he was a terrible person. Which led to "If I'm such a terrible person and you are all so miserable here, I will call the divorce lawyer and end this right now." So we'd plead for him to stay and try to convince him that we did love him. But he would have none of it. "NO, NO, NO. You said that you were afraid to go to the bathroom. Didn't you? Didn't you?" When you admitted that yes, he was right, you had said that, he would then (armed with that evidence and your agreement) use it to prove that you did not, in fact, love him. And since you'd already begged him to stay and agreed it was your fault, he would win. He was the victim, we were his tormentors. And he had all the evidence he needed to prove it.

What do you do with that? Well, you try to do everything perfectly [i.e. the way he wants], all the time. To show him, to prove that you really do love him. But you're a stupid kid who is cognitively incapable of doing that. So you do or say something he doesn't like, and he's right back to "YOU DID THIS BECAUSE YOU DON'T LOVE ME." And while it's clearly a logical leap, if you can't objectively prove your love, his way wins. Your father, The Adult, tells you, a child, that although you think you love him you actually don't or you wouldn't do these things. Even though you know you love him, it's obviously not a good enough love to prove it to him. You don't have any proof that makes him believe. And he has plenty of evidence that you don't love him. So not only do you inconvenience and torment him all the time, you don't even love him well enough to be able to convince him of it. That pretty much makes you a monster.

My favorite example of The Truth is how, during one fight, he badgered my mother into signing a piece of paper that actually said "I no longer love John." His sophisticated persuasive tactic to accomplish this was probably the twentieth episode of the following routine:
 "If you loved me, you wouldn't do <thing that displeased him #463>. But since you did it, you clearly don't love me. You did it, right?"
"John, I--"
"No, Mary, You. Did. It. Am I right?"
"John, that's--"
"MARY, DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT DO IT?"
<resignedly> "Yes, John. I did."
"Then it's true you don't love me. Admit it."
"John, that's not-"
"No Mary, you already admitted you did this. And since you did it, you can't possibly love me."
"John, that's not true."
"Yes, Mary. Yes it is. You already admitted that you did it."
<just to get him to stop> "Fine. Ok, John, yes. I don't love you. You win. Will you stop now?"
"No, I want it in writing."

So after more of the same for a few minutes, she signed it.

And from that point forward, every single time my father needed to prove that he was the victim in a loveless marriage to a cruel, hateful wife, he would say "No, I know you don't love me. You haven't loved me for years. I have it on paper."

That was always what arguing with my father was like. Yes, my mother did literally do something which my father was displeased with. Yes, he got her to say that she did not love him. Yes, she even signed a piece of paper that said this. The facts that he berated her until she did or that there may have been motivations other than hating him or hurting him for the initial thing that displeased him are completely ignored. If you tried to argue with him, he used what you had said like a cudgel and beat you with it. He always had proof.

When you're in an environment where your abuser is Always Right (and won't allow any other outcome), where he will threaten to leave until you take the blame and beg him to stay, where he will always yell until you acquiesce, where he always has a litany of 'concrete evidence' to justify his claims, it's almost impossible to believe that he's wrong. *Especially* when you're a child. His Truth always trumps yours.

Having Faith Anyway

Why did he do this? Well, fundamentally, what I think my father wanted even if he didn't realize it is undeniable, everlasting proof that he was loved. Like many of us, he was hurt badly in his past (as a child) by the people who were supposed to love and protect him (his parents). Ever since, he has been so scared of being hurt again that he wants Absolute Proof of Love before taking the risk of trusting it.

In many respects, his fear is well founded. Love is trust. Love is risk. When I tell you "I love you," you can't really know how I feel or what that means. You can gather a bunch of evidence one way or another. But you can't really know. You just have to trust me. Yet when you've trusted in love in the past (especially as a child), and that love has not protected you, you are acutely aware of how risky it is to believe someone else saying "I love you." My father said "I love you" all the time. And every time, because I felt like such a terrible person since I did all these things to hurt him and convince him I didn't love him, I felt terribly guilty when he said it. Is it any wonder that I find "I love you" such a hard thing to believe myself?

It's a risk. You can gather evidence to help make it a safer risk. Still, on some level, you just have to trust the other person. You have to hold onto the belief without Absolute Proof. You have to have faith.

My father was too scared to take the risk of believing I loved him. So I thought my love wasn't good enough. That I wasn't good enough. So I have been too scared to believe I can be good enough for others, because I know so acutely well how much it hurt to try so hard and still not be good enough for my father.

And now, in my adulthood, I have internalized his voice, asking for Absolute Proof of my love. Of my worth. Of the validity of my feelings.  I am constantly demanding, constantly dissatisfied. Some evidence of my worth may temporarily quiet the voice, but it always comes back. It always wants Absolute, Eternal Proof that I Will Be Good Enough.

More and more, though, I have come to accept that there is no Absolute, Eternal Proof. I can never prove to my father that I love him. I can never prove to myself that others love me. I can never prove that everyone isn't lying to me when they say I matter to them. I can never prove that even if I've been valuable to people in the past, that I will continue to be valuable to them in the future. I can get evidence that supports these conclusions. But there's always a chance I could be wrong. Always a chance.

For most of my life, I've let this lack of proof rule me. Because there is no Absolute Proof, I've been too afraid to take the risk. I've been too afraid to have faith.

Too afraid to have faith in others, but also too afraid to have faith in myself. What if I believe and I'm wrong? What if I trust someone and they can't help me when I need them? What if I trust myself and I'm not enough? And they're hurt? And they leave? Again?

Possibilities, all. But I don't want to live my life like my father. I don't want to deny myself love, deny myself worth because I am afraid of what will happen if it goes away. I don't want to always, incessantly demand a proof neither I nor anyone else can ever give me. I have to take the risk of trusting others. Of trusting myself. I have to have faith.

Not a foolhardy faith, not a faith built upon what I want to be true. But a faith informed by my experience, by what I think I know, by what I feel. I know there are things about myself from which I can build a sense of worth. I know I have people in my life who, imperfect as they are, truly care about me and will advocate for me and won't easily let me go. I may fail. They may fail me. But I am at the point in my life where I am convinced that the pain of that failure is less than my constant fear and the loss I would feel at spending my entire life never believing in myself and those who love me. Like my father, I will never have Proof that I am and always will be loved. But unlike my father, I don't have to let an absence of Proof deny me the chance of having love at all.

Struggling with Acceptance

It's not just feeling bad that's hard. Self-recrimination, doubt, failure, these things seem like natural responses to the inevitable times when we bump up against our limitations. What makes it stick, though, what snares me like a fishhook and keeps tearing tearing tearing is this sense that this is forever. That there was some window, long ago, when I "could have been good." But that window has long since closed, leaving me to forever flounder, futilely trying to 'make good' even as I'm destined to fail.

That's where the belief goes from painful to insidious. "Forever." It's tempting, sometimes, to feel like I can 'atone' for what I've done. If I'm good enough, if I push myself enough, if I'm perfect then maybe, just maybe I can atone. And, in that atonement, I can finally be rid of this agonizing guilt. It's tempting. But invariably, my humanity raises its ugly head and, yet again, I fall back to forever.

And it's in these moments where the strongest feelings are not sadness or guilt or shame. Those are there, of course. But what really aches are the desire and the loss. The throbbing, unquenchable desire to find something that will soothe this pain and this persistent feeling that once there was a time when I could have found that cure, could have been that cure. But now I never will.

*Wanting.* I feel so wanting. It's the perfect word. Filled with a savage hunger. Lacking. Empty. And devastated by the so real fear that I will never, never be whole.

Fuck it, let's go with how I feel as plainly as possible: I just feel bad. I feel like a failure. I feel like I can't do anything right. I feel like that won't ever change. I feel hopeless. I feel unlovable. I feel like I'm wasting my life. I want more. I want so much more. And I am terrified I won't get it. I wish I was better. I wish I was so much better. I wish I knew more, worked harder, was more persistent, was more patient. I wish I didn't make so many stupid fucking mistakes. Hell, I'm not even making mistakes a lot of the time: I just honestly don't know what I'm doing and I'm desperately making it up as I go along. And I want to make up for what I've failed at. I so desperately want to go back in time and undo all the bad things I've done. I want to erase myself from the past-present-future. I want want want.

And it is so hard to accept that I just can't. That I have done so many things imperfectly. That I am so flawed. And that I will always be flawed. That I will have good days and bad days. That I am learning and growing but that I will never be Learned and Grown. That there are things I have done in the past which cannot be undone. That I may be alone for the rest of my life. That I may not get everything I want. And that that might all be fucking ok. It's hard to even type that. It's hard to type that maybe all of that is ok. That it is what it is. And all I can do is live and love and keep learning and growing. And that I will keep being imperfect, keep flailing. But that even as I do that, I can do good. I can be valuable. I can be loved. It is so fucking hard to accept that. That I can be imperfect and fuck up time and time again and still be loved. I don't want to accept it.

But it's true. It is true.

"Sir"

I'm fairly certain a cashier just called me "sir."

I don't think this should feel as painful and devastating as it does. I don't know if it was intentional or not; I was wearing glasses and a t-shirt. I'm not entirely certain it's what he said, but I'm pretty sure. And it's not like he said anything else that was mean or cruel.

But this, combined with going into "boy mode" when I went to see my grandmother earlier this week, is just so fucking hard for me. And I think what makes it so hard is that it illustrates how tenuous my passing is. If all it takes is glasses and a t-shirt...

It just feels incredibly discouraging. I know it shouldn't invalidate me; the validity of my identity should not be subject to the perceptions of ideas of others. And, practically speaking, it's only something to truly fear if it leads to harassment or danger. I know I pass most of the time, or at least more people don't tell me otherwise.

But it contributes to my constant anxiety about being around others, because I never know (or trust) what they see me as. Again, I know it shouldn't be so integrally important that others see me as female, but... it does. And I think a lot of that is internalized transphobia. I know how the vast majority of the world believes trans women are repulsive and sickening. I know that even people who are intellectually ok with trans women still have a difficult time emotionally accepting us as women. I know that there are *so* many people, even people who desperately wish it were not true for them, that just find us viscerally uncomfortable. Especially when it comes to attraction.

That's really what this is about. It is almost impossible for me to imagine myself as desirable. I just can't imagine anyone ever wanting me. That's already really difficult for me to do without considering my transness, but when I include it... how *could* anyone want me? Like, authentically, holistically want me? It just defies belief. And the further I am from the "cis ideal," the more I feel that my fundamental sense of deficiency is confirmed.

Intellectually, I can argue with this. If I was listening to someone else, I would never believe it and probably actively dispute it. But for myself, emotionally... it's just so omnipresent and encompassing. And it's destroying me.

Fighting the Battle of Myself

I'm in a good place, right now, in this moment. In the past week (after too many things happened in quick succession to list), I've been able to own "I matter." I play with it, I savor it, I say it to myself and I hold it to my breast like a small, warm animal I must keep safe, experiencing a nascent joy as it pulses through me.

But I have to fight to keep it. I can sit with in for a few moments, and then grim armies at my gates will start their bombardments again. And they start to overwhelm me, and they close in and the sky starts to get so dark, and I have to struggle so fervently to pull this small warm thing back to me.

Did you know that I matter? I don't think I did. Not really. And then I started crying and people started listening. And then I started witnessing other people who believed they mattered. Who were so open and honest about how much pain they experienced from so many people in so many places who, in unremitting savage chants, pound like wardrums in the assault on our souls. And they were so open about that hurt, and still they held onto the belief that they mattered. I was in awe, that one could do that. And I thought "I want to do that. I want to own my hurt and my worth. I want to own myself." And I started trying.

Did you know that I get to decide? "Decide what?" I asked my therapist. "That's it. You get to decide." This, I did not know. I did not know that I get to decide who can make me feel worthless. I did not know that I get to decide what my expectations are and whether I'm reaching them. I did not know that I get to decide these things, and then I get to decide when to listen to others about change. That I don't have to be my father, who always decides everything, but I also don't have to be the scared little child who has to let him. And as I confront change and the child whispers "You can't, you don't know how, they always win they always leave they always win they always leave," I can hold that small warmth and say "I don't know how. But I learn to decide what "winning" is. I can learn to decide whether I'm succeeding. And I can learn to decide who I can trust not to leave." And I've started trying.

It is hard. It is hard to own my hurt, to realize how deep my self-hatred goes, fueled by a million things big and small each day that say with unthinking conviction "You are abomination. A repugnant punchline whose very existence is as much a testament of your deep wrongness as it is a threat to the wellbeing of Good, Normal people everywhere." It is hard to confront the abyss it fuels within myself and how that darkness warps me and my views of those around me. It is hard to break down in front of others and to let them see the immensity of the pain and terror and sadness as my words falter and then fall out clumsy and dull. And it is hard to rematerialize anew and not calcify or dissolve again.

It is hard. But I am trying. Trying to hold onto "I matter." And "I get to decide." And "I matter, and you do too. I get to decide, and you get to too." I am trying to remember that, in order to let you decide and matter, I don't have to erase myself. And it is so, so hard.

In this moment, I think I can do it: I think I can win this battle of myself. But it's going to be a hell of a fight.

Yet Again.

I feel like every post I write is the same. And it's been like this for ever.

Yet, every time, it seems new as I the first.

It's always been this. My hatred of myself, my desperate need for someone else to love me. I've been journaling for seven years, and it's always been this.

At church today, someone I was sitting with at lunch mentioned how one of his friends had been stabbed 16 times in "The Fort" (the mostly student housing area where I live, adjacent to some lower SES areas). I've known friends to be shot at, raped, mugged, and so on just walking through it back to their homes.

So I went home this evening and I thought about it. Because, see, I walk home alone in the middle of the night in The Fort. It's one of the self-harms I allow myself, the risk without actually having to hurt myself. I've fantasized about being attacked a fair amount. But today was something new. I wondered "What would make me finally feel like I've atoned?" A scare definitely wouldn't do it. Sexual assault would probably just make me hate myself worse. I settled on paralysis below the waist; above it I'd probably just prefer to die anyway. My mind drifted to being deaf, blind, mute. And I think I could do one, but if I was deaf and blind I think I'd feel as if I trapped in some kind of tomb. It would be terrifying. And I sat with that a few moments, idly wondering if perhaps I'd be in the process of being mugged when somehow I'd manage to either run into or get pushed into an oncoming car.

These fantasies mostly make me feel better (although the blind/deaf/mute combination just left me terrified). I either want to die or be significantly damaged while not being a burden on others. Because I need to keep working, keep trying to make my existence worthwhile to *someone*.

This, of course, is nothing new. What is new, though, is how increasingly I seem to have it together externally. I'm a smooth-motherfucker when I want to be. There's an elegance, an empathy, a light joy and positive regard to me that just seems *good*. I'm the person that people with trust issues talk to. I'm the person who listens not in a "passively absorb what 'other' says" but "actively engage in communicating self."

And I could be this person constantly if I had a consistent source of validation. But I am fucking hard to reach. You have to make a conscious effort to burrow, to fling yourself at my walls and keep trying til you make it in (you will make it in, though). But, of course, that's rare. I've met two people who can do it consistently and a handful more who can do it if they try.

And that makes everything really lonely. Fuck, I just want to talk to someone who cares about me. Like, reaches out for me to get to the place where things actually hurt. I don't need my problems solved; I know how to do that. I want *love*.

But because I hate myself, I can't get it. I'm stuck as an ancillary companion, a third, a fifth wheel. And, increasingly, I'm realizing that until the hate changes, the lack of love won't either.

On Fear and Need

I, fortunately, have never been traumatized enough to have triggers. I have an irrational skepticism and distrust of parents (particularly fathers), and I still quiver when people yell at/near me, but nothing akin to flashbacks and emotional turmoil.

But last night, I got a taste of it. Just a taste, mind you; I don't mean to equate it with PTSD or something serious. But it was the first time something has happened that has taken me back to an emotional state and given me irrepressible images of my past.

Essentially, I was sleeping last night and some drunk guy started pounding in quick bursts on one of my neighbor's doors. And I immediately woke up and my mind went straight to my father banging the same way on my door, as he had for decades, about to barrel his way in and rage at me for who knows what. It was like I was a little girl, terrified and helpless. Fortunately, someone else went out and asked the drunk guy, essentially, whatthefuck, and the guy made it clear his friend was sleeping and he was just trying to wake him up. [With ten minutes. Of pounding.]

But I was really scared. And I kept on seeing my father's hand on the door. I held my invisiblegirlfriend/pillow, and, per usual, pretended someone was there with me trying to comfort me. And the guy essentially left. And I, eventually, fell back asleep.

***

The event was noteworthy for the pseudo-flashback, certainly. But it had more relevance later when, listening to a brief meditation on fear (ok, you caught me, from Robert California on The Office), I thought back to what I had listed as my greatest fear the day before on a personality test [I took a battery of them as part of getting my goddamned letter for SRS]. Greatest fear: "Never fully living and loving." Greatest worry: "Spending my life alone." Etcetera. I was, of course, cognizant of this theme, to the point that I made a sardonic note at the bottom of the test saying "There are ~12 answers, out of 40, that somehow involve my current sense of loneliness and lack of romantic fulfillment, in case you've lost count." I'm not afraid of death. I'm not afraid of living a meaningless life. I'm not [unreasonably] afraid of being hated, reviled, or a failure. But I am acutely afraid of dying before I find and thrive in, for some substantial time, a secure, giving, reciprocal romantic relationship.

But thinking about fear, I thought: *why* am I so afraid? It's not as if there will come a point where I will be so crushed by insatiable need or circumstances so dire that I will simply spontaneously perish or implode. I have been alone, in one form or another, most of my life. I have survived, in one form or another, as well. No partner has been present to comfort me in my fear. No partner has looked upon me with desire I embrace and reciprocate. No partner has been on call to protect me, hold my sobbing body, reassure me of my worth and value. And I have survived.

Why, then, am I so afraid? Why am I so single-minded? Certainly, there are attachment models, which I may discuss soon. There are past traumas and current desires. But why is romantic love so paramount? And why, so often, does it seem to be so essential to have now?

I don't know. But I think it's important to figure it out.

Too Significant Other

For as long as I can remember, I have needed others to complete me. I chanted "boredom" as a child, always wanting someone to play with, a refrain my mother would counter with "entertain yourself." I found solace, as a teen, in the nascent internet, fighting orcs and kobolds alongside strangers for hours, away from the gripping isolation of the real.

As a young adult, I obsessed of romance. I wrote manic poems to an unknown "you," as gripped in need as I was in futility. I dreamed and dreamed of arms and lips and knew I was too wretched for either. I was wrong, I was never enough, and I always wanted more.

And then I started to find them. For a month or two. For a few years. Intermittently and all ending the same way: progress progress progress and surprise abandonment. Leaving me with a broken heart and the vacuum roaring anew.

I'm still grappling with the paradoxical products of abandonment and abuse: unquenchable need and unyielding mistrust. But things are changing.

My therapist made a good point last week. I was describing my father (who else?) and she noted that it sounded as if he always wanted more and more from us, wanting us to need and want him so fiercely that he could find some relief from his self-hatred. He was a blackhole, always wanting more, never realizing that nothing could ever be enough.

And she said I'm not too different. And I agreed; the description did fit. Certainly, I recognized the damage my father's need caused, and I set forth to try to protect others from my self. But, fundamentally, my life was and is not enough without others in it. It's the primary source of my distress, and the lingering concern of my life. And, if left unchecked, it could change into something as monstrous as his.

So I'm left evaluating where I want to be. On the one hand, I don't want my happiness to be contingent upon another's valuation of myself. But I also don't think it's unhealthy to need people. People make me laugh, people make me feel loved, people make me think, people are soft and warm and wet and smooth in so many fun places. And the more I read of dystopia and existentialism, the more it seems that horror comes from loss and isolation and meaning comes from connection. A life alone, for most, is no life worth living.

The key, though, is remembering that we are not alone. And, what's more, when we feel we are alone way, we should remind ourselves that this is not forever.

To wit:

So, fun story! On Saturday, I flirted with my first girl!

I was at a seminar thing and she was at a booth for a local social justice thing. And she pretty much didn't say anything about her booth but complimented my hair and I was all "ohmygodsheissocute" and then I was all *tonguestopsworking* and "stupidwords" and she was all "what" and I was all "I'll-let-you-get-back-to-work-bye."

And as I walked away I was all "I HAVE SEEN THIS MOVIE BEFORE OHMIGOD."

So I went back and asked her if she was coming to my presentation and she said "I'd love to but my partner's parents are in town." And I was all "say-words-to-mask-embarrassment."

I mainly note this because it's yet another example of how detached I was from "typical human experiences." I didn't believe two people could just look at each other and feel mutual attraction; it seemed like some kind of romantic media myth. But apparently, when you start to like yourself and believe others can like you too, it starts to happen! Who knew?

Being alive is beginning to rock, you guys.

That's me, posting somewhere else. And certainly, I was rejected. But something happened! Attraction came from simply seeing each other, and it gave me hope. If, in the course of simply being and doing myself, I come across people who see me and say "I would like to rock her bones," then there is little reason to believe the right time and place and person will not conspire in my favor eventually. Because, even as I cringe writing this, I am a pretty decent person: loving, kind, witty, creative, empathic, intellectual, strong-willed, etc. I am certainly no better or worse than anyone else, but I do believe that the right someone could be very glad to have me. And just as I'm looking for my someone, she probably is or will be too.

I think this is key. I still want and need someone, an aforementioned fact my pillows know intimately. But I am not so insecure, not so desperate as to believe that it cannot happen, should not happen, or is too unlikely to happen. I may have to wait for quite some time. And it will hurt and be lonely and will not be what I want.

But unlike the entirety of my life before, I am beginning to think I am worthwhile outside of romance. I hunger for more, always more, but I use that to fuel my growth, not to consume others. And, ultimately, if the next relationship should falter, although it shall hurt, I hope I will remain confident in my ability, if I so choose, to find another. And another. And another.

Being alive doesn't really rock yet. But it's beginning to. And, suffice it to say, that is a life-altering, ever-so-significant change from all the others I have known.

Epistolscarcity

9/14/11
Yesterday, I asked my therapist to help with one of the required letters I need to get Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS) sometime next year. Well, I guess I don't remember asking the question specifically, because I just assumed that she would. It's a bullshit practice, requiring someone to have two letters from "licensed professionals" evaluating what they should do with their own body. I figured it'd just be more i's to dot and t's to cross; I mean, who could even take this shit seriously when I'd have been on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for two years and full time at least a year and a half by the time I actually had the procedure.

But as soon as I gave her the document the surgeon's office had sent me, she got defensive. She didn't "feel comfortable in the evaluative role" saying she had a "dual relationship" that meant her "objective judgment" would be impaired. I said that was fine, she didn't have to do the evaluative component, she could just write the shorter second letter. But she kept on protesting. She didn't have "training." She was worried about what would happen if something went wrong and someone started calling her office to see who approved the procedure in the first place. She expressed a lot of doubt about people's satisfaction afterwards.

And then she kept going. She said, even if she was trained and felt component, she didn't know if she'd write it for me. I might want to have kids. I haven't had sex in two years and certainly not as Juliet. I'd been acutely suicidal a few months ago, she wouldn't recommend me for "any surgery."

And it was telling people I was transitioning all over again. Because every fucking familial adult I came out to did the exact same thing: "I just don't think you've exhausted your options." "I mean, there are maybe two places in the entire world you can live once you've done this." "There are so many steps and hurdles you're going to have to go through." "In college I dated another woman for like three weeks and we fooled around but it didn't work out and now I've been married to your uncle for ten years." "I was young once, too, and I had some crazy ideas about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. But you get older and things change and we're just worried that you're rushing into this." Ad fucking nauseum.

And you know, I can get ignorance. I can get fear and concern. Transsexuality is completely new to you, you've just heard about it on Dateline, you never thought it'd happen to one of your family members, etc. Whatever. The part that really hurts, though, every single fucking time is that they don't ask questions. My therapist did not ask me "What are your feelings about having children?" My father did not ask me "Have you talked to any trans women locally?" My mother did not ask me "Do you think this decision is impacted by any of the other stressors in your life?" My uncle did not ask me "How much research have you done about the process and steps involved?"

None of them asked and let my own answers about my own self satisfy them. A year ago, I had a "conversation" with my father. And he said that he didn't trust me or my judgment because of my "life decisions." And I asked him what life decisions he meant. And he said "I mean exactly what I said: your life decisions." And I said that didn't make any sense, to make an accusation about something and not even be able to explain your argument or label your terms. And he said "You're always going to have an answer for everything." And it's been "I can't say why, but you're simply not good enough" for my entire life.

[Cut for length. Suffice it to say, imagine reading about some hard things survived and a few relative metrics of success.]

And I did it these things with intentional humility and, despite some acerbity at times, continued compassion for others. I've tried to understand and forgive everyone around me. I never missed a day of class. Even in college, I voluntarily missed maybe two classes. I always got up in the morning. I've never taken a sick day anywhere. And I don't think I've really asked much of anyone.

I'm not fucking proud of any of this. I'd never mention it, outside of sharing the emotional component for the sake of you understanding me better or perhaps comparing experiences for a knowledge base. I don't consider myself particularly strong, I don't judge anyone for any differences in their own personal trajectories, I certainly do not in any way consider myself superior or special. I did what I did with what I had for whatever my reasons were.

But I mention it here, now, because overall? I think I make pretty good decisions. I think I act pretty respectfully and conscientiously towards others. I'm not particularly kind to myself, but I'm getting there. I think I'm doing fairly well, all told. And it fucking tears me apart to look at all the above and think that my therapist, my family, my whomever would just assume I don't have good reasons for what I'm doing. That they don't trust me or respect me.

Because, I mean, yeah, transphobia. They're projecting their own fears and insecurities onto me. But if they respected me, at least? They'd ask. They'd think "Damn, this seems crazy. But Juliet usually makes pretty decent decisions. Let me see what she has to say first." And then, after I explained, they would say "It's obvious you've given this a lot of thought and know a lot more than we do. We really just want you to be happy. So how can we help you make this work?"

That doesn't seem too hard. Nor does it seem like it's asking too much.

So why the hell does it feel that way?