How I Survived Middle Age

3 September 2010 by kathleen.

I survived by luck, I think.

In fact, I almost didn’t survive middle age.  I became covertly suicidal in my 40’s.  By age 50, I was praying that I would die before I turned 51.  When I had my cancerous prostate removed, I prayed that I would not wake up from the anesthesia.

I survived by drinking, mostly, and by crossdressing on the weekends.  Since I fervently believed that I could never pass, I stayed at home and drank myself into numbness.  In my 20’s and 30’s, I added additional camouflage by maintaining an interest is apparently manly things.  By my early 40’s I gave myself permission to abandon those charades, and increased my alcohol consumption proportionately.

If you, Gentle Reader, are not yourself transsexual but love or are related to a transsexual, know that for us the right gender is always on our minds.  Being transsexual is more than a fascination; it is more than a fetish; it is obsessive, but it is more than an obsession.  Many times we do our best to hide it.

Someone you love may be going through the same exercises of denial.  It is irrelevant whether that person is denying the same thing I denied, or is denying something entirely different: denial is not healthy.  She or he may, like me, be so totally locked up and frozen that discussion of the issues and causes is out of the question.  Just be patient, be supportive, and be loving.  If you can open yourself to consider an unusual mode of existence, perhaps your friend or loved one can, too.

Posted in AutoBiog, General MtF topics | 1 Comment »