Oh you poor thing, life is so difficult

Feeling sorry for oneself is a pretty wretched feeling.  Lately there have been lots of tears…a daily occurrence.  These have been coupled with a feeling of suffocating at night, usually waking up at some time when one should really be fast asleep and finding that any hope of sleep is not going to work out.

Today, when I woke up, I realised that the antidote to this kind of emotional malaise is exercise.  Exercise is harder on hormones, in a female body, than it was in a male body.  I am finding that it is harder to run as fast.  I am also finding that it is harder to lose weight by exercising in a female body than it was in a male body.  But, I also find that I seem to be able to run further than I could before.

In an unrelated but parallel way, in most of my professional life I have preferred to hire men over women.  There was a simple logic that applied.  In order for a woman to achieve the same kind of prestige, success, etc in whatever field, lawyer, accountant, whatever, they had to be better than their male peers, had to work harder, because the hurdles of discrimination were higher.  Whether this is true in the specific, it has certainly felt true in the macro sense, and I have not yet gone wrong in life applying this philosophy.  I guess, I get a mini-lesson in this by just running.

I am fiercely lonely at the moment.  And this feeling is strangely magnified by the presence of one of my closest friends, a person I have loved since the first moment I set eyes upon her.  A dear human, and someone who is in the inner sanctum of my life and my transition, and who is a very dear friend.  And yet, a friend is a friend, not a partner, and it serves to remind me of what it means to lose a partner.

So, on my run this morning, the tears were streaming down my face.  Yes, running offers that kind of therapy too.  I was thinking many things.  Mainly that I would have never left my wife.  That the way that our divorce is coming about is the only way that it is okay to leave what appears to have been a loveless marriage.  I was thinking for her.  But in truth, I could also say the same for me.  Could I have possibly loved this person who negated my existence?

I was thinking about this as I ran.  She negated my sexuality from very early in our relationship.  She negated the core of my person, my gender, asking of me, not in so many words, to put it away to be with her.  And when I did say I had needs, was told that these needs were disgusting to her.  I have come to understand that these needs are not disgusting, but are expressions of my vulnerability, my gentleness, and perhaps my loyalty and desire for emotional connection.  

A recurring dream from early in our relationship was for her to straddle me in my sleep, pinning my arms to my sides with her legs, and to suffocate me with a big, fluffy, down pillow.  It was a terrifying dream, and she laughed about it, we laughed about it, but I have found that there was truth in it.  To be with someone who denies your most fundamental existence is to be suffocated.

But surely just as my needs were not being met, hers were not either.  Surely me coming out as trans is a perfect excuse for her to liberate herself without guilt from a relationship with a non-man who she can tell herself all kinds of things about.

Staying up late with my friend last night we talked about what is happening with my divorce.  That I am feeling suffocated by the entire process, that “justice” is bigoted.  Without going into the details or merits or demerits of either side’s arguments, the challenge I face is simple.  In order to pay my legal bills I have to work.  In order to meet life’s running costs I have to work.  Up to point, I can hide behind the phone or on a zoom call by keeping my camera off.  Up to a point.  But on the other side of that divide is the last little place in life where I am not out 100%, work.  Once I am out, I will not be able to put the genie back into the bottle.

And I want the “her” in me fully out, something fierce, but it isn’t safe to take the chance until the lawsuit is over and I know what I have left (which is not going to be much at this rate).  And every day I work to pay bills or do whatever becomes part of her arguments against me…in other words, hanging on by a thread “demonstrates” that I can earn a living.  But it is a very dangerous game.  Hiding at this point in my transition is increasingly costly to my mental health.  I hate every minute, every second that I have to be in boy mode.

And with such a wonderful posse of friends and helpers, one could not ask for more support.  My therapists are great, my friends and family are great, my children are great, even my colleagues have been great.  Even the TERFs have been great…and to see and feel my life experience softening their views has been really meaningful and a delight to watch.  But it isn’t enough.  I am being crushed by this process.  And at first, one turns to these other people, these people we pay to help us through.  And we turn to our friends.

But the tears and that suffocating feeling still comes.  In the end, you realise that the only place to turn is to the self.  The only place one can find that love and support to survive is from the self.  And that of course is what every therapist will say.  And how true it is.  One must hope that the self rises to the challenge.  Does the work.  Finds the strength to do more than just put one foot in front of the other.  To smile, to enjoy life, to do more than just keep going.

Maybe at times, going through the motions is enough.  Maybe it is like CPR.  We keep the system functioning until the system can restart by itself.