The Cure And The Cause

I snap awake at 4:55 am.
I'm lying on the fold away bed at a friends house because last night I had a few to many and decided it would be better if I didn't drive home.
I do a quick body check to determine if I'm still drunk and a sense of shame and failure washes over me. The sense of post inebriation dread that I'm all too familiar with.
I lie here thinking about how when I woke up yesterday I felt so good.
I could feel the possibility stretching out in front of me.
Yesterday I got up when I woke up, made myself breakfast, wrote and exercised and, for the first time in a couple of months, I had direction and the energy to do something with it.
And now I feel like I've thrown it away.
I could have not had anything to drink last night, could have gone home after the movie and unloaded all the sewing equipment from my car.
I wonder if I'm an alcoholic.
I know I drink too much.
My family has a history of alcoholism and I'm asking the question so that probably means I am right?
I have a couple of friends and family members who have been worried about my drinking for a long time and I resent it.
I resent the fact that they're so sure I am an alcoholic and I'm afraid they might be right.
I also resent them for being the type of people who just don't like drinking much.
I'm sick of hearing the condescension in their voices as they express their concern.
"You shouldn't drink" as if it's just that easy.

 I think it would be a much easier conversation with someone who likes a drink as much as I do.
Not being drunk, but the taste, the smell, the complex social history, the joy of combining flavors into something mysterious and wonderful, the whirling romantic hedonism of it all!
I'm in love with the Moulin Rouge inside myself and I don't want to give it up.
Alcohol isn't about getting drunk for me, it's about everything else.
Getting drunk is an unfortunate side effect.

I used to enjoy it, being drunk, but after a while I started to regret the lost days.
Now I'd like to be able to stop at tipsy.
But that's my problem, I'm not very good at stopping.
I've used it as a crutch for such a long time, it's hard to break the habit of just having another drink.
I was incredibly shy as a child.
My discomfort with my self, something I was sure others could see, made it hard to interact socially with other kids.  Once I reached puberty that was compounded by having to come to terms with the idea that I would always be a boy.
Fortunately by then I'd already found alcohol.
I think I was ten the first time I got intentionally drunk.
Our neighbors who lived in the old woolen mill down the drive from my house were having a curry night, a big pot luck feast of indian food.  There were two families who lived in the mill, and they had friends and their kids staying plus my parents so there was a mess of kids and adults and dogs and music and Wales has a fairly permissive attitude towards giving children alcohol.
In a situation like that it's pretty easy for a kid to ask for a small glass of wine, and then perhaps a bit of cider from another adult and pretty soon all the parents are a bit drunk themselves and stopped paying attention to how many drinks you've had and boom!

I'm lying on the sofa in our living room explaining to my sister, who is seven, that the room is spinning and I can't stand up properly.
She thinks it sounds awful, I think it's amazing.
From that night on I get drunk at every opportunity that presents itself.
I start smoking weed just before my thirteenth birthday, try mushrooms at fourteen (they grow everywhere in wales), I've taken Acid, speed and E by the time I'm fifteen and it's all just so easy.
When I'm high strange new worlds are opened up, and the prospect of being cool becomes a reality.
Drugs are cool.
So I get good at drugs.
I become an expert at rolling joints, and that one skill (and a few pints) allows me to fit in anywhere.
Well, at least amongst those of my peers who are into the drugs scene.
In Southwest Wales in the early '90s, that's pretty much everyone and everywhere.
As good as I got at rolling joints, alcohol is always the premier.  In terms of being able to forget just how anxious I felt it has always worked better than anything else and has been the one intoxicant I've never really left behind.

After I started transitioning I found that the fog, the physical pain, the fear and anxiety all started to lift.
I'm more social and less intoxicated.
Well most of the time.

My stomach churns and I don't know if it's the gnawing fear of failure or simply the hangover.  I know I can be better than this, do more, accomplish more.

Drugs and alcohol have taken me to some amazing places, moments so magical so full of wonder that I fell in love with them, but none of those places last and the drugs stop taking you there.
I'm still in love with those places, with the ritual, with the glorious hedonism.  I don't want to give up being a romantic, in fact I want more of that in my life, but the thing that used to take me there is holding me back.

Am i an alcoholic?

I just want to be able to have one or two drinks a couple of times a week and leave it at that but that is so very hard to do.
If I'm an alcoholic at least half of my friends are too.
Those of us who like drinking don't want to admit we might have a problem because it alienates us from each other to do so.  The friends I have who, like my sister, just don't feel the inclination to drink don't appreciate all the things aside from getting drunk that I'll miss if I'm have to go T-total.  There may be sympathy there but there's no empathy and the feeling of being judged means that I lie to them and to myself to avoid that judgement.
I don't know if seeking some real help or intervention would work because I'm not convinced I'm an alcoholic.
I don't want to quit drinking, there are too many aspects that I enjoy about it.
I just want to drink less but no one seems to find that idea acceptable because apparently if I can't do that on my own, then I have a problem the only solution to which is that I quit altogether.
Is it impossible to believe that my drinking problem is not built upon a chemical addiction, but rather a habitual pattern founded on years of self medicating for anxiety?
Speaking of which, my hormone levels are low.  I know this, and I know that when my estrogen level is back where it should be I'll have more energy, feel less depressed and have better impulse control.
I can moderate my drinking perfectly well when I'm in a good place mentally, I know this because I've done it before, but when I'm feeling depressed I find it all to difficult to stop with just the one.
I can't honestly say whether it's the drinking that holds me back from achieving my goals or whether it's depression and anxiety that hold me back and also make me inclined to drink too much.
How do you ask for help to overcome a drinking too much problem?
Can I just get some help learning to moderate?



If reading that left you feeling thirsty, here's a cocktail recipe I created.

The Tyler Durden

2oz Gin (Tanqueray, Hendrick's or New Amsterdam)  

1/3oz Dry Vermouth

1/3oz Monin Rose Syrup

Habanero pepper ganish

Shake the gin and vermouth as for a dry martini and pour into a martini glass

Sink the rose syrup into the glass

Garnish with three paper thin slices of habanero

Afterward

I got up, grabbed my things, drove home, unpacked the sewing stuff from the car, sat down and wrote this.  I'm about to exercise and eat breakfast and dammit if I'm not going to achieve the things I had planned today because it's only a few more weeks until I can get my hormone levels re-tested and increase my dosage and I know I'll feel a whole hell of a lot better once that happens.  I'm not going to waste the time in between now and then.  

Oh, and if you see me out, maybe remind me to drink a glass of water and wait a while before I have another Manhattan?

Body Shopping

I thought, just for shits and giggles, I'd total up my costs of my transition.
It turns out that being handed the wrong body is pretty expensive to correct,especially if you wait till your thirties to start correcting things. If I'd had access to puberty blockers then Voice feminization, tracheal shave, laser hair removal and Breast Augmentation would all be unnecessary.
Oh well, on the plus side I've been incredibly fortunate in how well my body has responded to hormones and the lasers have worked really well so I'm very well aware of just how lucky I have been.
Especially given that I was almost 33 when I started HRT.

So in no particular order, here's the whole shopping list.

Gender Confirmation Surgery - $28,000
This is the big one.  GCS is a major invasive surgical procedure with many months of healing required.  I'm hoping I'll be able to get this done in the next two years as I'm not getting any younger and my healing time and recovery will only become more grueling as time goes on.
I'll be going to Dr. Suporn in Conburi Thailand for this procedure.  The actual cast is around $22K but I'm adding the costs of flights and a two month stay in Thailand for recovery.
Fr the curious, Dr. Suporn uses a different technique from most surgeons in that scrotal tissue is used to form the vaginal canal instead of penile tissue. In my opinion he is the best surgeon performing this operation in the world today.
For those of you interested in further reading, here is a description of his methodology.

Yesson's Voice feminization surgery - $10,000
Yeson Voice Center in Seoul, South Korea have pioneered a method of raising vocal pitch via a safe, reversible and minimally invasive surgical procedure that you can learn about HERE.
The basic idea is that a small incision is made at the top of each vocal fold and then both vocal folds are sewn together at the point of incision with a permanent suture.  The tissues then grow together at the site of incision and effectively shorten the vocal chords.
This is the only voice procedure I would ever consider having as all other procedures are very invasive and carry serious risk of permanently losing ones voice.
For those of you who know me and have heard me speaking you may be wondering why I'd bother with this and it's true, my speaking voice is passably female.
The thing is though, I can't sing anymore.  I really, REALLY miss singing and I consider it the single biggest sacrifice that I've had to make.  The other aspect, and this is equally important, is that n a day to day basis, my voice is the one thing that drags me back into a sort of met awareness of my being trans.
Every time I speak I have to think about how I'm modulating my voices pitch.  I want to be able to forget about it.  I want to be able to never have to think about how my voice sounds again.  Well, unless I'm singing or acting or doing something like that.
I honestly care more about this surgery than any other and if I could only get one more procedure done this would be it.  It killed me to make the decision to spend my savings on getting an apartment and covering my living expenses because I wanted to get this surgery done so bad.
Time to get rich and famous because this one HAS to happen ASAP.
The $10K is the cost of surgery and a week in Seoul plus the plane ticket.
Serious bummer? I'll have ZERO ability to speak for two weeks and very limited use for two months.  It will be totally worth it though as I've heard the results from a very dear friend of mine who underwent the procedure and it is frankly amazing.

Breast Augmentation - $10,000
Not much to say here.  This is one I can live without but dammit, if I'm doing everything else, I want bigger boobs too!

Tracheal Shave - $3000
I got this done at the end of the summer.  The doctor mad a small incision under my chin and then proceeded to shave away the cartilage of my adams apple until it was no longer prominent.  It has worked very well an the scar is healing up nicely.

Laser Hair removal - $2400
I've been getting regular hair removal on my face and neck since last october and it has worked amazingly well.  I've had pretty much perfect results.  I'll probably go for a couple more rounds because I'm fussy but I now have less facial hair than many natal girls I know.
Oh, and it fucking hurts!  Don't let anyone tell you different.

Rhinoplasty - $5000
Like the BA, this one is me wanting to make everything exactly how I want it.  It's unnecessary but if I can I will.

All of that for a grand total  of $58,400!  Yipes!!! that is spendy.  Makes your gym membership look like a bargain don't it!

Oh I almost forgot.  Because healthcare won't cover any of this, I also get to pay out of pocket for my hormones and testosterone blockers

Estrogen - $35/Mo
Spironolactone - $25/Mo

It's not a huge amount, but it adds up.

Internalization

I don't think being trans is something to be ashamed of, but I feel ashamed.
I had though, until just this last week that I did pretty well in terms of self acceptance, but I'm coming to realize I still have quite a way to go.
I started seeing a guy recently and things are going very well between us. 
I like him rather a lot, probably more than I should given how short a time it's been, and he's never done anything to make me feel even slightly self conscious about who I am.
But I am feeling self conscious.
It came as something of a surprise to find that while I'd like to think I'm very comfortable with who I am around friends, when it comes to someone I'm having sex with, I catch myself quite deliberately avoiding conversations that address my biological past.
There's no good reason for this, after all I'm 99 percent sure he's noticed that fact that I have a penis, but I still find it hard to talk about. 

I'm afraid that if I draw attention to my being trans, he'll suddenly stop seeing me as a woman and I'll no longer be desirable.
This is a real problem.
Not only does it make me feel very vulnerable, but it means I loose one of the most valuable things in a relationship, having someone to comfort you when you're feeling scared and alone.
I'm realizing that until I can find some way past my own sense that being transgendered is something shameful, something that's wrong with me and makes me undesirable, it's going to be really hard for me to accept that another person genuinely want's to be romantically involved with me. 

I guess it's the same for anyone who's considered undesirable by the narrow minded norms of beauty, whether due to disability, body shape or any other reason.

That German Look

I just got home from a week spent in Frankfurt and Leipzig and it was amazing.
There was also a bit of culture shock.
It turns out that people stare at you a little differently over there, a stare that in the US I would have read as hostile and disapproving.
People don't look away when you catch them staring either.
It was something that I didn't realize had worn on me as much as it did until I got back home and felt the weight of second guessing my appearance start to lift.
While I knew, from an intellectual perspective, that I was getting looks because I'm a 6 foot tall blond who wears very unusual clothing much of the time, it is never the less impossible to suppress the emotional response that feels "they know, they know I'm trans and that's why they're staring like that".
I'm pretty sure this is a familiar feeling to anyone who has gone from being unhappy with their appearance to suddenly being deemed attractive by the world at large.  The persistence of memory is strong and it takes a lot to deprogram one's self image.
I want to go back there already.
In every other respect I had an amazing time, the food, the language, the architecture, I loved every bit of it.
I got to see many family members who I haven't spent time with in years and was thrilled to have them get my name and gender right each and every time.  In fact, not a thing was said by anyone regarding my transition and not in an uncomfortable "we're avoiding the subject" sort of way either.  It simply wasn't important.
It's easy to get too wound up in transition, to start seeing everything through the lens of being trans.  So much so in fact, that a person could easily find themselves with a whole blog to write about the experience!
I'm the first to admit that I'm a pretty narcissistic person and that I have an ego that doesn't feel out of place alongside royalty and the gliterati.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm better than all of them.
There is, however a sort of turning inward towards my own experience that I'm starting to realize is detrimental to myself and my relationships with others.

It was a couple of weeks ago when I found myself dismayed at how many of my cis friends were unaware that the term Tranny is considered a pejorative.
That this surprised was fair enough, however, upon reflection, the fact that I felt offended and angry about it was not the natural and just response I felt it was at the time.
Because honestly, within the context of my friends, I could find no real reason to take offense.
In fact, I've come to believe that I was reacting solely out of received opinion.
I was performing, by rote, the reaction that I'd learned that I, as a trans person, was meant to have.
As much as we may want to believe that intent does not matter, if we wish to deal with people fairly we do need to take it into account.
Not intending to offend does not absolve someone of responsibility for their actions, but we should equally examine out own intent in whether we take offense.
We do bear a burden to educate when we have the opportunity to do so.  Especially when the other choice is to drive someone away with our anger.
The idea that they who wish to be informed do us harm by asking us to educate them is simply a selfish misapprehension of the original complaint, i.e. That it's unreasonable for privileged people to impose their needs over the needs of marginalized groups who they claim to support.
There is a big difference between being asking to have something explained, and derailing the work of others with your misinformed opinion, and then demanding time be taken to educate you at the expense of all else.
It saddens me to see that in the memeification of social justice issues has created a veritable menu of ways to take offense, feel righteously oppressed, and shut down dialogue.  We have enough actual enemies as trans people without our needing to alienate those who may be well intentioned and just ignorant.
Overcoming our own fears is hard, sometimes impossible, but it's not an excuse to be mean.
Sometimes people are just looking at you funny because they're German.

Her Real Mother

My daughter will be two this month.
Being a parent is hard.

I started transition before my daughters first birthday, and for all practical purposes she's only ever known me as one of her mums.
I think when you become a parent. you're generally aware that at some point you'll o something to mess your kid up.  No matter what, circumstance will conspire against you to ensure that your child has just as many problems as everyone else.  The best you can hope for is that the things you do right will be enough.
When I finally realized that living my old life was no longer a tenable option, only for the briefest of moments was I worried that this was the moment when I learned how I was about to screw up my child.
Aside from the fact that she was going to be too young to remember me any other way than I am, other people's bigotry, should she have to encounter it, is their problem, not hers or mine.
I expect my daughter to be vocal in her opposition of hatred and ignorance in the world, even if she'd have to learn to do so very young.
By contrast, when I realized that my marriage was failing, that was when the bottom fell out.
Even though it was obvious in hindsight, the abrupt end of what had been an almost ten year relationship caught both my ex and I by surprise.
That was the first time I knew what one of the ways I would mess up my kids life would be.
I had simply no idea what my future life was going to look like, and while I'm fine with that for myself, I still don't really have a replacement for the vision of what my daughter's life with her two mums was going to look like.
Part of that is because I feel like a fake.
If the role of fathers is undervalued the role of "not the birth mother" isn't even listed.
I can't even imagine being my daughters father.  Maybe if I was a butch cis lesbian, my gender identity inviable, I could embrace that title with an ironic FU to society, but that isn't me.
After I came out to my ex wife, there was some discussion of what our daughter would call me.
It went like this.

"You can't be called mother"
"That's fine (it wasn't) she can just call me Rowan"

Over the months that followed, my ex unpacked her feelings on how the idea of me being our daughters mother too made her feel unnecessary and disposable.  Being our daughters mother was central to her sense of identity self worth and if it wasn't unique, then what meaning did it have?
I understood where she was coming from and how awful those insecurities are because I understood, that even with that title, I would always be secondary and disposable in that role.
Eventually, after we began settling into our new rhythm she came to me and said, that yes, I could be mother too.
For me though, I'm not sure that insecurity will ever go away.
Perhaps it's just self indulgent fantasy to assume that had I been the one who was pregnant I wouldn't feel like my role as mother could be taken away from me by anyone who is privy to my past life (after all, it wasn't enough for my ex) but being as I wasn't pregnant and didn't give birth it hardly matters.
I am inherently suspect in my role as parent, if not to others, then too myself - it's impossible not to internalize that shit.
After the separation I think things got easy for my ex and harder for me.
I only have my daughter for one or two days a week.
I'm a part time parent, the one who has it "easy".
By contrast she's the real single mum.

Last night my daughter was throwing food in the laundry, running around drunk from exhaustion, fussing and making the sort of mess that toddlers excel at.  I got to eat less than half my dinner (already cold) before I just gave up.
I spent the next three hours trying to get her to settle for bed and I have never felt quite so alone.
When she finally did pass out it was that full body collapse that brings a two year old's cranium into sudden contact with some part of your face and all I could do was lie there with a bloody lip and cry.
For me, being my daughters mother is something conditional, not something intrinsic to me, and it feels as if it can be taken away.
Society takes a pretty dim view of my "choice" and my value as a parent and a woman will always be contingent upon my successes at both.
Failures count double.
I had to wait patiently to be given the title of "honorary other mother" and it feels so fragile.
Asking for help is hard enough.  When I only spend a couple of days a week with my daughter, how can I ask for support or sympathy?
No one cares that the baby sitter had a hard time.

Now I know that the way I feel isn't a reflection of reality, it's my internal state of mind not how others see and judge me, but honestly, in many ways that's worse.
Self affirmation is a very hard thing to do, in fact, I'm not even sure it's possible.
I think that's what being a social animal is.
We cannot truly self validate, we can make do with more or less external validation depending on our temperament, but I don't know that anyone is entirely self sufficient in that regard.
Some experiences though are so universal that clear and specific external confirmation is not needed. Society as a whole has woven these experiences into it's fabric.
One of the hardest things about being trans is that we do not have any broad social acceptance of our experiences so we have no cultural well to draw our own affirmation from.
I know a lot of amazing women who are just incredible parents and there is little enough validation for them as it is.  No one however, would deny that they are indeed mothers.

Depression - Too low for Title

I'm depressed.

I haven't been depressed for over a year so the fact that I am now is really worrying me.

Depression was a pretty regular part of my life pre-transition.

Two or three times a year I'd watch as my mood dropped away beneath me and I found myself numb, emotionless and exhausted. 

It usually lasted a few couple of months before lifting.

I'd like to think that it was something that I decided to do each time that finally got me out of it but, in hindsight, I'm not so sure.

Since I started transitioning I'd had some emotional ups and downs but i had not been depressed.

Until now.

This last month I moved into a new appartment and, at around the same time, my hormone levels dropped.  For the first two weeks, while I was moving my stuff and working like crazy to get the place clean, I was also going trough all the symptoms of menopause, I think I also had a viral infection too.

As exhausting as it all was I was still upbeat, still feeling positive

These last two weeks though have been just like the old days.

After almost a whole year without being depressed (the longest period of my adult life) I find myself back in this all too familiar pit and I am scared.

I'm scared because I thought I'd found the answer to my emotional problems, and now?

Of course, I just switched to injectable estrogen and there will be a period of adjustment and fine tuning to get the dosage right, and maybe it's just that.

Or maybe it's that my house is still such a mess that I feel trapped in my bedroom and unable to face it.

Or maybe, depressed is just who I am as a person, maybe this is just me returning to baseline after one good year.

It can't be that last option, I simply can't let it be.

Not after having felt truly like myself for the first time ever. 

Going back to that place is worse than death and I can't let it happen.

I just don't know what I can do to stop it.