I need some help

submitted by FearfulFriend from self.GenderCritical

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[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

OP, I hope you are OK. I slept fitfully last night worrying that I was not kind enough to you, and wondering how you are.

But your most recent posts are making me think that something in your story isn't adding up.

In your original post, you said you couldn't sleep, eat or stop crying coz not over the prospect of losing your close friend who has now gone trans, but coz you were afraid all your (other) friends would cancel you if you weren't thrilled about this:

I have been crying for 2 days and can barely eat or sleep because I love her so much and I am scared that all of my friends will cancel me if I don't pretend to be happy for him.

It was you as a middle-aged woman saying that you've totally fallen apart coz you're "scared that all of my friends will cancel me" if you aren't fully on board with what they all think (or you think they all think) that didn't ring true to some of us oldsters here. That's why we expressed skepticism at first.

But from what you're now saying, it seems that the true cause of your distress is really your friend who has gone trans, yes?

Perhaps you fear her new identity - and her taking T - might change your relationship, and you won't be able to rely on her in future as in the past? Could it be you feel she's your "rock" and the "one person who really gets me" and nobody else in the world will ever make you feel the way she does/has? Are you perhaps perceiving her going trans as another loss, and having "anticipatory grief" over it?

Perhaps you're displacing some of the unresolved pain and distress you have over the end of your marriage and all the "loss of potential" divorce entails onto your friendship with this woman? And maybe you're experiencing her decision to change her identity and body as having something to do with you - and you and her? Since she helped you so much as your marriage was ending, maybe you've come to have a somewhat unrealistic, idealized and romanticized view of her in your mind, seeing her as a savior figure? Could it also be you're a little (or a lot) in love with her?

Whatever is really going on, I hope you will get professional help pronto from someone skilled helping people navigate and heal from the trauma and grief that divorce tends to cause. With telemedicine today, there are a lot of psychotherapy options online - many of them covered by insurance (dunno what country you're in though, so that might not be relevant). Sometimes even a few sessions with a dispassionate but compassionate person who is expert in divorce trauma and grief, and human psychology generally, can do wonders. Also, many therapists work on sliding scales.

If you've made it to middle-age, I imagine you have the mettle to get through this crisis in your life. It might not feel that way in the moment, but this moment will pass. Since you said you have children, do you remember what it was like going through what used to be called "transition" during labor - that incredibly painful time when the cervix expands the last bit, from 7 to 10 cm? This is another time of transition, albeit of an entirely different kind, in your life - as it is in your friend's. Again, best wishes to you.

(Aargh, writing that last passage made me aware of how difficult it is nowadays to use the word "transition" to mean what it meant before the Anglophone world got engulfed by transmania and gender ideologues started appropriating the terms used by various other groups - such as women, people with DSDs, and childbirth educators - and changing the meaning of those terms.)

[–]FearfulFriend[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It's okay, I understand sometimes trolls come onto forums and post out of nowhere to get people riled up, and my initial post probably was overly dramatic, although overly dramatic is how I've been feeling. But I'm not hurt by you or anything.

I don't see her as a savior figure--she helped me greatly but there were also other people who helped me greatly, not JUST her.

I don't know how to give all the details without giving too much information, but word is already starting to spread that I am not 100% happy for "him," and I'm worried that I'll be branded a bigot and that she AND another close, mutual friend will cancel me. I'm a little less worried than I was when I first posted, because I talked to the other friend and she's keeping a cool head and offering to run interference until we both calm down. But only a little less worried, because it could still end badly.

And I mean, I'm not opposed to her transitioning per se, since she's old enough to know her own mind and heck, maybe it IS the right decision for her. It's more that I can't be like, oh rainbows and glitter YAY!! and I'm never going to believe she is actually male the same as a person who was born that way.

The way this connects with my divorce is that I loved my husband deeply and he rejected me and this has left me feeling too fragile to survive any more rejections.

I have a therapist but I haven't talked to her in a couple of months, because of some insurance headaches. Plus what if my therapist thinks I'm a terrible person for not being rainbows and glitter yay?

My first child came so fast that I didn't feel the transition, but the second one, I said something like "I'm not sure how much longer I can do this" and the midwives told me "It's almost over," but it actually wasn't almost over and I got kind of mad, but then I got kind of excited when they got out a bulb aspirator like they actually expected there was going to be a baby pretty soon. BOTH times I remember a sense of pressure releasing, followed by a blank spot in my memory, followed by being handed the baby. It would be pretty cool to release some pressure now!

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Plus what if my therapist thinks I'm a terrible person for not being rainbows and glitter yay?

If your therapist judges you like that, he or she is a crap therapist. From what I understand, there are a lot of them about nowadays. I am so sorry if that's the kind of therapist you have.

Then again, in therapy, it's always been customary for clients to feel bashful and reluctant about divulging certain things for fear of the judgment they assume they will get in return. Sometimes/often this comes from clients believing that they not only can read other people's minds (including their therapists' minds), but they can do so in advance: I can't reveal my true thoughts or feelings to this person coz I already know what she or he will think and say, and that she or he will condemn and ostracize me. So why bother bringing the topic up at all?

A good therapist won't judge you, and should help you see that in fact none of us know ahead of time how others will react to our disclosures. What's more, it's perfectly possible - or it used to be - for humans to disapprove of what others believe and have done - and sometimes continue to do - but not write them off as "terrible people" overall. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said in "The Gulag Archipelago":

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart…even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an uprooted small corner of evil."

Also, what if your therapist did think you're "a terrible person for not being rainbows and glitter yay"? What is she or he going to do to you?

One of the most liberating moments in my life was when I realized in early adulthood that if I spoke up and stood my ground at work, in the classroom, or in public forums, people might say mean things about me and give me the cold shoulder, but it was highly unlikely that anyone in most work and social settings would smack me in the face or make me stand in the corner with the contents of a trash can dumped on my head the way the nuns in the RC convent school I attended as a child often did to us kids. Around the same time, I realized that never again would I have to put up with anyone in my intimate or family sphere hitting me with a paddle, punching me in the face, washing my mouth out with soap, sending me to bed without dinner, cutting off my allowance, etc - coz I was no longer powerless the way I had been as a child and teen.

OP, you're coming out of an emotionally abusive relationship. You say your husband rejected you; I imagine he probably did so in cruel ways. It's completely normal to assume and fear that the whole world is emotionally abusive and rejecting just like your husband was. And now your friend has discombobulated you by her decision to go trans.

I wish you the best. There are lots of people in the world who are not rigid gender ideologues. I hope, and trust, you will find some. Take care.

[–]FearfulFriend[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I did break down and talk to one friend from a different, but equally liberal, social circle. He's male, but he's one of the not-so-bad ones. He admitted that he also struggles with gender identity beliefs. I realized it would help a lot if I knew more people IRL who would just admit that they struggle with it. They don't have to be fully GC, just have some concerns.