I’ve been meaning to write for almost two weeks, but I’ve been stymied by yet more technical difficulties. After a liquid accident, several crucial keys on my laptop stopped working. I had to get the keyboard completely replaced. Fortunately this cost me a lot less than expected…praise be to resale outlet stores.
**
So last time, I left off with a personal-development cliffhanger: did she do Lisa Brown‘s visualization exercises regarding her mother? What happened???
Lisa’s exercise was this: first, to recall a time I felt loved and/or appreciated by my mother, and to fully experience all the attendant feelings; second, to recall a time I felt love and/or appreciation toward my mother, and to experience whatever feelings arose around that. My difficulties performing this exercise so far had had to do with that squirmy feeling I get that my mother is trying to smother me.
But I gave it one more try.
I performed the first before going to sleep one night. What I remembered was being rocked in the rocking chair by our fireplace as a child while my mother sang the lullaby Bye Baby Bunting. This made me cry (feeling a sense of loss) until I fell asleep; it was a release at the time, but I awoke with a familiar heavy sadness, and that recurrent physical sensation of having a raw, yawning, ragged hole torn open in my chest.
The second visualization involved playing hooky from Sunday School with my mother at the coffeehouse across the street from our church, while I was still “questioning the faith.” I felt very close to her then. This visualization had a similar effect, making me cry, opening up that sore place.
For an entire week after that, I was awash in feelings of unworthiness and abject unlovability. Which sucked.
**
How exactly do you think my mother rejected me? I queried Lisa via email, after managing to write up and report my results. (She has steadfastly maintained that this is at the root of my difficulties.)
It took a few days for her to reply. “The rejection is the kind where the other person refuses to let you be visible,” she wrote, “to acknowledge who you are and what you want, including space. It’s not the kind where they don’t want you around.”
Your mother is in your circle, and the only way to feel better about her is to assert yourself with her. I assume she punishes you when you do this in some way.
In addition to asserting yourself with your Mom, being successfully self-assertive with all relationships will help. It’s about being you and feeling cherished by others — friends, lover, family. It’s about honesty. As you work on this with everyone, the feelings from the past will heal. Getting acceptance in the present is very important.
Her distinction made a lot of sense. I hadn’t identified that behavior as rejection before. But I was again reminded of Elsa Becker in Frank Schaeffer’s novels, condemning her young son for nearly every natural thought or desire he had. I thought of my mother’s omnipresent frown, her own “anxious hovering readiness to take offense and disapprove,” and the constrictive overall atmosphere at home that made me vow at nineteen never to live under my parents’ roof again. And that’s to say nothing of the smothering.
I could see how the refusal to allow someone to be seen, and appreciated for who they are rather than who you want them to be, was a subtler but no less painful form of rejection. What would it have been like, I wondered, to have been “cherished” in all my profane and curious disorder?
**
I had described for Lisa some of the methods I’d used to try to heal my persistent and at times overwhelming heart-pain on my own — Eckhart Tolle’s meditation on the “pain-body,” for one, as well as various and sundry other solutions offered by the self-help movement — all of which encouraged a kind of emotional self-sufficiency.
Lisa’s answer was about to astonish me.
You’ve done much to heal the rejection pain that you have experienced in your life, and actually are further ahead than you think (and most people with this challenge).
The missing piece is that you need one person in this world that you love and trust completely…preferably a romantic partner. When you feel survival fear, you need to make money to assuage it. When you feel performance anxiety, you need to perform well to feel better. When you feel unlovable, you need to give and receive love in a healthy relationship. The work you are doing will help you attract it, but that’s the main work that needs to be done now for you to heal your fear.
I don’t agree with Tolle. I believe much of the sadness you feel (and love pain) is a longing for love and understanding. This cannot be healed by sitting in a dark room feeling sad. Tolle’s method is how you heal trauma from the past, not a void in the present. The pain is asking you to get out there and make a connection and get the love you need in your life. That’s it. That’s why being with (Sam) took the pain away. The pain is from having an unmet need in your soul.
For some reason her words brought me overwhelming relief. I read on. “If you are waiting to feel 100% lovable before having a loving relationship, you will be waiting a long time.”
I was floored. I read that line again. If you are waiting to feel 100% lovable before having a loving relationship, you will be waiting a long time.
I couldn’t remember ever hearing anyone in the pop psychology, personal development, or spirituality arena uttering such a heresy. What was practically the wallpaper for any discussion about love or relationships was the assumption that you had to be in love with yourself first. No one could love you until you were whole, healed, and happy — all by yourself.
What Lisa seemed to be saying to me was that some wounds could only be completely healed within a loving relationship. I had done virtually all I could on my own. No wonder I felt relieved.
The confidence you seek comes from ‘winning’ – having a loving relationship in reality. As you improve your relationships, you will feel less justified in blaming yourself for everything. A key, of course, is selecting more evolved individuals in the first place. (Sam), for example, was not able to hear the slightest request. He became very afraid and bailed…not good. So he was actually not evolved enough for you. You need someone with more self-esteem.
As you improve your relationships, you will feel less justified in blaming yourself for everything. An inner constriction seemed to loosen as I read. That terrible ache in my chest ebbed. Lisa wasn’t blaming me. Maybe it wasn’t all my fault, after all. Maybe Sam’s own feelings of unworthiness did get in the way. Maybe I didn’t “make” him abandon me.
**
As my loyal German reader pointed out in one comments thread (citing Alice Miller), it’s a pervasive taboo among those of us who grew up in middle-class, educated, ostensibly “Christian” homes — where we were never starved, locked in closets, or beaten (other than the occasional spanking or paddling) — to say that we had something other than entirely loving and supportive homes. It’s seen as outrageously “ungrateful,” and we are “spoiled,” horrible children unduly influenced by the permissive indulgences of modern psychology to make such criticisms. (One need only read some of the comments Amazon.com customers have left about Frank Schaeffer and his books to see what I mean.) Honor thy father and mother means, in practice, that we are bound to absolve them of every shortcoming, and accept that whatever we may have suffered at their hands as children we surely deserved. If they in any way rejected us, then, it is our fault.
“But they did the best they could…” surely most parents do. But to admit that their “best” still damaged our forming psyches, and to accurately identify the damage, is to allow healing to begin for ourselves. You can’t forgive if you remain in denial, or collude with denial.
Since the day I read that email from Lisa, I haven’t experienced that nearly intolerable, gaping “chest wound,” that deep and intractable pain, even in situations where it might otherwise have been triggered. She appears to have been absolutely correct: I have blamed myself for everything — no doubt including, on whatever unconscious level, my earliest experiences of rejection by my mother (and family). I do know I’ve practically spent a lifetime apologizing for my mere existence. Sorry I’m so inadequate, I’ll do my best to make you like me. Every rejection, every criticism has been borderline traumatic. No wonder I’ve never tried to write much of substance for public consumption! This may also be why even the “passive rejection” of which I spoke last time has been so painful.
**
The proof of the effectiveness of accepting Lisa’s diagnosis was in the testing. And in the following weeks, I got tested.
First, a longtime, middle-aged caller, kind of an oddball, who had been doting on me at work for months, began to give me the cold shoulder after I drew a boundary and asserted myself (he had tried to invite himself along on a coffee date with a mutual friend). This upset me far less than I would have expected, and I decided to leave him be. I realized, on more than just an intellectual level, that I didn’t need his approval or his affection in order to be okay…and that, furthermore, I wasn’t going to run after him if he was going to act like a pissy fifth-grader. I had a feeling he would eventually miss me, anyway, and come around.
After that, a new trainee, an artist, a rather short and nondescript fellow in his thirties who had been exceedingly friendly to me at first (which was more than enough to make me notice him — I’ve lately had an almost unfair bias toward “regular” guys), began to outright ignore me. He instead turned his attentions toward a young woman who reminds me of me in my twenties (dressing up and wearing makeup rather badly — in her case, emulating that Amy Winehouse eyeline-like-an-Egyptian fad — when she knows the guy she likes will be around). After his inexplicable failure to acknowledge me, I saw them huddled together, talking and laughing flirtatiously. I felt a mild shock of unexpected letdown, but it was nothing like the overwhelming flush of shame, that feeling of needing to hide myself, that would typically have accompanied such an event. I was pleasantly surprised.
Another person of interest, a compact ex-marine who physically reminded me of Sam, and whose affectionate squeezes I had welcomed, started avoiding me once our religious and political differences came to light. That would have put me off, anyway — but having him reject me first would usually have stung far more than it did.
In all of these instances, the difference was that I felt, on a visceral level (not just rationally recognized), that if this person doesn’t like me, it doesn’t mean that I’m inherently flawed, and that nobody will. A particular man’s reaction to me wasn’t necessarily my fault — and what’s more, it didn’t mean that there was “none for me.” It didn’t mean that there wasn’t enough love to go around, that the Winehouse-girl’s “win” meant my “fail.” What emotional investment had I really made in any of these gentlemen anyhow?
If my brief happiness with Sam taught me anything, it’s that you only need that affirming response from one key person — as Lisa pointed out.
**
No, I don’t need everybody to love me. I don’t even need the ones who thought they liked me to continue liking me, if they decide not to. Lately I have followed up on some hints men already marginally in my life have made about wanting to go out, only to find them lukewarm or passive about it. One gave me his number to call. Another responded feebly and inconclusively to my follow-up email after telling me in person “We should go get some food sometime!”
If I know one thing for sure, it’s that I am no longer going to play the hot pursuer. I’m officially abandoning my old, ineffective habits. I did ask Sam out first…but his feelings toward me had become quite clear by then. He needed me to say something; given his position, he wouldn’t have made that first move. After that, he pretty much took the wheel. Our courtship flowed with an ease previously unknown to me.
**
As I mentioned, I vowed at nineteen that I would never live under my parents’ roof again, never depend on them again, never ask them for further support. There was a profound loneliness attending that drastic choice, and I squared my shoulders under an imaginary yoke, imagining a life of scarcity and hardship (which seems so far to have adhered to my expectations). I felt exceedingly alone in the world, knowing that henceforth I would be the only person I would have to rely upon. At the same time, I knew that I was choosing being myself over belonging. If the choice was to be who I was, alone, or be loved as someone I was not, within my family, I would choose to be who I was.
Now it dawned upon me that this assumption had unconsciously carried over into adulthood, and into every arena of my life. What’s more, I had a chip on my shoulder about it. All those times I had claimed “Men don’t want women who are X,” I had thought that that “X” (e.g. sexually aggressive) was “just how I am,” and I wasn’t about to change my modus operandi — a concession which seemed to me dishonest — for anyone. What I didn’t understand was that it wasn’t about who I was; the problem was that I was operating without an understanding of how boundaries in human relationships really work. I was forgetting empathy. I was forgetting how much I dislike being over-pursued myself!
Once my lone-wolf stance began to soften, my ossified pride began to crumble as well. When you’re a rock, you don’t have needs. You can feel like a superhero, giving your love to weaker humans, asking for nothing in return. I had always scorned that media stereotype of the aging woman growing increasingly desperate for a husband, pathetic in her object-less longing.
But that was before I tasted genuine reciprocity. And before I touched the apparent root of my wound. Affirmed by my experience with Sam, given permission by Lisa, I started to let myself feel the naked yearning for love I had felt in childhood, before I had suppressed it out of shame, or despair, or both.
I started to let myself really feel my loneliness, as well as my envy when confronted with a young couple choosing a spaghetti sauce at the grocery store. It was more than just envy, it was a sense of being left out, of being “outcast from life’s feast,” as James Joyce put it — a feeling as familiar as not being chosen by either kickball team. I let myself experience it now, unmediated, rather than anchored to the context of a particular situation, of wanting and missing a certain fixated-upon person.
**
While engaged in all of this inner upheaval, I happened to watch Sean Penn’s film adaptation of the book Into the Wild, which proved uncannily apropos.
Christopher McCandless, the film’s protagonist, models himself upon the lone-wolf archetype depicted by writers like Jack London and Henry David Thoreau — sacrificing what he sees as a compromised belonging for fierce, purist self-sufficiency. Minimizing the importance of human connection, he could be quoting a yogi or a born-again Christian when he preaches to a much older (and probably wiser) man, “You’re wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God’s place is all around us — it’s in everything and in anything we can experience.”
One thing that intrigued me, however, was his observation, made to a RV-driving hippie, that “Some people feel like they don’t deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past.” On the surface of things, McCandless is referring to the hippie’s girlfriend wandering alone on the beach, but he speaks with such authority that one can’t help but wonder if he’s talking about himself. What does he do but “walk away quietly into empty spaces” (where he will eventually die)? Earlier scenes suggest that he isn’t exactly visible to his parents, whose values (and fights) trouble him deeply. Perhaps his ferocious independence, like mine, germinated from a sour-grapes rejection of belonging.
His last scrawl (before starving to death on an abandoned bus in the middle of nowhere) is made between paragraphs in one of his beloved books (ironically, Family Happiness by Leo Tolstoy): “HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED.”
McCandless seems to recognize, at last, that he has missed the point…but by then it’s too late.
**
I can say it now: I want to love and be loved. I want to have the kind of amazing emotional and sexual connection I experienced with Sam, but I want that bond, and the two of us, to be strong enough to weather challenges. I want us to create the kind of safe space where we can both be free to have all of our feelings, desires, and needs…to get angry, to get scared, to work through our difficulties, and be the best occasion for one another’s growth and evolution. But most of all, I want — I need — that relationship to be the setting for the experience of love I never had. Not another replay of an old script, with a new person playing my mother or father, acting out the same impossible scenarios of the past where I somehow wind up invisible, frustrated, voiceless.
Lisa predicted that success in other areas would come if I found success in this one. And honestly, I do feel as if I’ve been trying to swim with cement blocks on my feet. I’ve done the best I could, but it’s hard to contribute much to the world when you’re starving inside and won’t admit it.
**
Our old friend Rick returns to the call center, eyes characteristically bloodshot and evasive. I walk right up to him and tell him that there are no hard feelings, that I know where he went (i.e. jail, which visibly embarrasses him), and that after he left, something really great happened to me. This last tidbit makes him focus for all of ten seconds. “Oh yeah?” he says, finally looking me in the eye, intrigued.
“Yeah.” I say, smiling. I realize that I am over Rick. He seems decades younger than Sam now. Then again, he did warn me that he was essentially a fifteen-year-old boy.
**
At a rally downtown for health care and financial reform, my attention is arrested by a young man recording the proceedings with a digital camcorder. He looks a lot like my beloved Damien, gaaargeous in a certain bearded Irish way with his tweed cap and plaid scarf, and I have a hard time not staring. I may have become more egalitarian in my tastes, but his beauty mesmerizes me. He notices me noticing him, and I look away. More than once. I wish that there were some uncontrived way to meet him. After the rally, while I am standing with a circle of activist friends, he works his way over until he is chatting with someone standing beside us. He is practically at my elbow.
When his companion walks away, I turn to him and smile. “So what were you filming?”
He has beautiful green eyes and a high-tenor voice, and is probably no older than twenty-five. We chat amicably for a minute or two, until we are interrupted by some Jobs With Justice cohorts requiring his attention. He gives me an apologetic nod and a smile, and I nod and smile back. I turn back to my circle, marveling at how easy that was. And then I see Eli.
**
“Eli!” That history grad student I called “beautiful and whip-smart,” who disappeared from work at almost exactly the same time Rick did, clearing the way for Sam. Impulsively I hug him, without even thinking about it. I discover as we talk that I no longer feel intimidated by his looks or his intelligence, nor am I worrying about saying something stupid. He’s still writing his doctoral thesis, volunteering for MoveOn, and working for his father’s construction company. He tells me that he made a point of asking an activist co-worker at the call center to say hello to me. (I did get that message. Eli was so far from my mind at the time, however, that I actually had to think for a minute!) Apparently Eli has never forgotten me.
Now he enters my number directly into his phone — supposedly in order to let me know about another demonstration — and calls me that same evening with the details. He adds that we need to have drinks or coffee and “catch up.” I say we do indeed.
So that’s happening Sunday.
**
Is Eli “the one?” I doubt it. But we’ll see, won’t we? I can’t believe how much simpler everything seems since I owned up to what I never got, figured out what I need now, and threw the doors wide open. It’s almost as if I just got visible.
As you know i’m not keeping up, but i’m glad i read this – and it’s oddly synchronistic for me. Besides being a me-too-me-too! read:
- invisibility/inaudibility
- boundaries
- need
- loneliness
- envy, being left out, loss, and other painful feelings
- shame vs blame
- being smothered by being cared about…
First, i’m really glad {hugz} that you have reached this clarity of what’s your doing and what is their doing (whoever is ‘they’), and presumably what’s no one’s doing/fault. I saw that a few years ago and it does change a great deal.
I think that sense of it all being so simple is a clue that you’re on the right track. Things falling into place, and other such clichés.
Parenting, parenting… One reason i got this one worked out is that i’ve been a mother for [a number of] years ;0) and have learnt through that. On the other hand, no one ought to parent until they have this one worked out! But that’s one of those ‘ought to’s. Hm.
I never ‘did’ pursuing, at least i dropped the habit before puberty (primary school memories of ‘Wait for me! Play with me too!’…), but that’s because one of my grandmother’s Inviolable Rules was ‘The woman never does the running.’ Basically i was trained to play hard-to-get. A single degree difference in the setting of the course made miles of difference in where we ended up, but i do think the kind of fuel that propelled you into adulthood was just the same kind as propelled me. We had the same parents! Ye gods.
I have one Alice Miller book which i’m hoping to find again in the remote
reachesshelves of this house, which i read in my early twenties, baffled by the sense of recognition despite never having been abused as far as i could tell. It doesn’t take locking in cupboards. It takes denying a child’s reality, her/his experience of self and world and emotions. I understand that far better now than when i read the book. But something drew me to read it even back then.Recently i’ve been reading a lot about bullying. I’m not going into that publicly (though i don’t mind by email). But it all echoes here. I’m learning that it’s not about whether it’s the person’s fault, in fact i’m learning to ignore the question of whose fault it is, and deal with the effect.
Sunday is tomorrow. I look forward to your update!
(You’d write great literary romance, btw.)
Mand, always delightful to hear from you and have you weigh in! I’m glad there was so much “me-too.” Helps reinforce that I’m onto something! You should dig up your copy of Miller; she was a pioneer in breaking that taboo and in talking about what children really need from their parents. Bm3 posted a link to a critic who thought she was too reticent about blaming mom and dad…but I understand why she would be.
Ah, pursuit. It’s such a surprising paradox, what I’m finding now: all these years I denied wanting and needing to be in a loving, entirely mutual relationship, but I glommed onto select men like a suckerfish and got lost in despair when they inevitably fled. I thought this would get even worse if I admitted any need, but now that I’ve said “I want to be loved in return,” the desperation is gone. GONE. It’s as if repressing it turned it into a monster.
Case in point: Eli. I would have KILLED to go out with him last year. Why? He’s gorgeous, smart, and extremely progressive in his politics. Three big items that used to be on my “list.” However, now what’s more important to me is how we relate, how we feel with each other, whether we resonate. I’m curious and open with him instead of tense and defensive. I’m not on a pass/fail job interview, I’m just having a exploratory excursion.
I think that shift made us both more comfortable tonight. I was able to gently rib and tease him about his admitted misanthropy (“I love humanity…I just hate people”). I made him laugh about it. I have experience with doing so: he reminds me of a lot of guys (surly philosopher-nerds) I knew in college. Probably none of whom I would want to have an intimate relationship with now. León belonged to that club.
I certainly don’t mind being Eli’s friend. He feels very familiar, but like a place I’ve already passed through. I could be wrong about that, and if he asks me out again I’ll go, because he sure don’t hurt my eyes none, but I’m not even looking for a handsome lay anymore. I want a partner.
Who would have thought I, AlienBaby, could have had such a take or leave attitude? It’s nice to look at Eli and see just another person, not some kind of god. It’s not his place to judge me worthy or unworthy, and it’s not my place to put him on a pedestal.
read it all – it sounds just great.
enjoy the ride, what more can I say?
life *is* fascinating – balancing it all out
breathing in and breathing out – another fascinating moment.
Yeah, go figure! I keep having moments with Miss Winehouse Eyes that would have been painful and awkward for me before, but now I’m just annoyed. La Rochefoucauld would say that it’s because her vanity offends my own.
Good to hear you’re making progress, or whatever the applicable term is for your therapy.
Rules are different for men and women, I’ll point out. A man who isn’t willing to pursue, and persist, will lead a lonely life. There is an oft-cited rule (courtesy of Mand’s grandmother, right down to Fein and Schneider of THE RULES) that the woman should never do the pursuing, since it never seems to work. I counter that by saying that it practically never works for men, either, if you want to get statistical about it. The frustration women encounter in trying to play from that angle isn’t unique to women, men certainly feel it, and a lot more often.
And I absolutely know what it’s like to reach a point where you say “this isn’t working, I have to stop doing what I’m doing and try another way.” That point for me came in August of 1997, which offers a convenient demarcation between the person I used to be and how I see myself today. Among other things, I made the resolution not to inflict myself on people, if I didn’t see any interest in the short term then best to just hang back. I’ve probably missed a few good opportunities that way, but I think I’ve also spared quite a few women an awkward moment or two.
More to the point, I’d pretty much played myself out by then. After being stood up in a particularly embarrassing way (for me, at least, I don’t think anyone else noticed), I just didn’t have the emotional capital to pursue anymore. Before I lost my shirt, I had to get up from the table and leave the game for a while. That dragged on for a number of years, actually, but was offset by the fact that I had an incredible and fulfilling job, so I more or less threw myself into that. When that ended, I found myself at age 37 with no social life to speak of.
Two years ago I met the Object Of My Obsessions, and a lot of what I wanted and needed fell into place. Not all, obviously, as now any chance of a relationship with her seems stalled or outright impossible. I would have thought the latest set of developments would’ve sent me into another doldrum like ’97. Well…no, not nearly. But I’ll detail that in an email.
Therapy? Therapy was what I did for ten years, without a lot of significant change, although she did support me emotionally and keep me from killing myself. What Lisa does is “coach” — kind of like that Buddhist master who hits you over the head with some obvious truth that you missed. That’s the only thing I can compare it to. I loved my therapist dearly, and we discussed everything under the sun, intellectualizing and analyzing, but I never had such a big ‘Aha’ in there. Or anywhere. Then again, I’m not sure I could have heard anything she had to say if I hadn’t had my world rocked by Sam first. The boy changed me.
The “rules” are slightly different, but I know my share of men who are pursued by women, and they’re not all Brad Pitt. For my part, I have ALWAYS been a pursuer. No, an OVER-pursuer. There’s even a difference, there! The more I (thought I) wanted the guy, the harder I ran after him. And the harder he ran away! Which makes perfect sense now. Again: when you over-pursue you don’t even give the person the space to figure out if they want or miss you. You don’t allow yourself any ambivalence, so the ambivalence winds up being theirs.
I might even be inclined to be skeptical about this in practice if it hadn’t so immediately reversed things for me…i.e. an immediate date with guy who I thought was the Living End last year. He suggests it, and calls ME. I hang out with him for a couple of hours, allowing myself a curious ambivalence, and turns out I wind up thinking maybe he’s not Mr. Right. Or not right for me, at any rate.
Maybe the new approach won’t net me a lasting partner, either, but I sure do feel better about myself. Which brings me to this: I’m concerned about your framing as “inflicting” yourself on people. That can’t feel good. In fact I know the feeling, and it sucks.
Here’s something that put everything in perspective for me, and of which you may not be aware: an acquaintance of ours from college, a year ahead of us, who was a man then, is now a full-on woman. A genuine transsexual. And she has been married TWICE. Two different straight men have MARRIED her. So if you’re thinking you’re a freak nobody can love, think about THAT. I for one realized that if that can happen in this intolerant world we live in, I have no excuse!!!
Yes, I know about Chrissy. And “she’s” not even from Tennessee, I found out. But I can beat that one: are you aware of someone two years behind us, a certain VERY promiscuous gal named Stacey? Petite, rail-thin, kind of China doll-like? Found out she’s living in Bellingham, met her a few times via (all) our mutual friend, Danger. Not looking so great, she always was kind of frail and anemic. Anyway, she’s gone the other way: started hormone therapy, going to be a he. I don’t know what the numbers are exactly, but female-to-male transgendering is significantly less common than male-to-female, so this is unusual even in this arena. What’s more: I had sex with her (just before graduation, the “last call”). So, on my permanent record, I’ve got a first girlfriend who’s now a happily committed lesbian, and another partner while a student who’s decided to jump ship entirely. My sex life is a storied history, in a somewhat unflattering way.
I don’t draw any inspiration from the fact that Chrissy is now on her second marriage, any more than I do any of the other unlikely relationships that I’ve seen over the years (though I’ve come to place my own relationships in the “unlikely” category, upon reflection). I never thought it was *impossible* for me to be in a healthy, mutually satisfying situation. But just because it’s not impossible doesn’t make it anywhere near likely. Even before ’97, I was of the mindset that I’m irrational, in the original sense of the word: I can’t be expressed in a ratio with anyone else. It’s 2.7188888888888888…forever.
But don’t think that I regard any attempt I make on my part to be inflicting myself on others; it’s just that I’m very conscious of the fact that I can be rather tenacious–that I over-pursue, if you will. So I tend to be conservative in that area, and am willing to give too little rather than give too much. As I say, erring on the side of caution may not yield as many results (or any at all), but I guess that’s where my comfort zone is these days, or whatever you guys in coaching call it.
I just want to say one thing: this doesn’t really impact my self-esteem. I esteem myself very highly, actually, and think I’d be very good in a relationship. Seriously, I *would* make a good valentine, too. It’s simply that I don’t think any woman out there is going to take a chance on me. And that’s a fuckin’ shame, but I don’t feel that there’s all that much I can do. Keep trying, there’s gotta be a connection here somewhere. It’s not too much to ask; but it may be too much to expect.
@russthelibrarian:
F to M is on the order of 1 in 10,000. Perhaps 10-20% of those are from natural changes, due to 17BHDD or 5ARD syndromes.
Yes, there;’s over a thousand men in the USA alone who had female birth certificates, but a male puberty – without medical treatment.
As for the former Stacey – you could try looking at the situation from his viewpoint. Imagine you too had been lumbered with a female-looking body (but keeping your anatomically male neurology). You *know* you’re a guy, but everyone else thinks otherwise. And every time you look in the mirror, you have to doubt your own sex. If you were at all Bi, even in the slightest, wouldn’t you try having a relationship with a guy like, well, like yourself as you are now? Someone who, regardless of externals, is a Decent Human Being?
And if that didn’t work, odds are pretty high that you’re more straight than you thought, and he’s too masculine for you.
In that light… your love life is pretty darned creditable. Any gal who knows anything about the science of sex and gender would think seriously about you as a prospective life-partner. Careful though, they *are* the marrying kind, so if you don’t want that, aren’t ready to be the father of her children and share your whole existence with her, she may not be right for you.
How do I know this? *Sigh* It’s complicated.
Wow, looky there, Russ. I don’t think I need to add anything to that. Welcome Zoebrain! You look an awful lot like Russ’s type of gal.
But you may be right, from everything he’s told me he’s not exactly the marrying kind.
The point I was trying to make, Russ, which I don’t think is in any way diminished by your story (I do vaguely remember Stacey!) is that a male-to-female (MTF) found a partner TWICE, within “straight” culture, which I think is generally even more difficult than in queer culture.
I’m realize I’m in a city with a very high LGBTQ concentration – we rank just behind NYC and SF – I know 6 FTMs personally, and the ones who are friends of mine are currently in relationships with (former) lesbians. Within the queer community, or I should say at least among the bi, trans, and lesbian folk I know, there seems to be more tolerance for sexual and gender identity fluidity.
You seem to be more open about that fluidity, as ZB has noted, but I wonder if you would want to be with a woman who was formerly a man? Who took hormones and had a surgically engineered vagina? This is the challenge that faces MTFs who are attracted to straight men. (The MTF I know who prefers women seems to have no problem finding girlfriends.)
I’m sure this topic and its related stats could and should be the subject of an in-depth and far more scholarly dissertation, but my point is that what Chrissy has managed to do — while I’ve been struggling and fumbling along all these years, alone and cursing about it — blows my mind. Because I’d say the odds are stacked against her in a way they never have been for either you or me.
I don’t think you can assign numbers to it, either. Maybe if she had just found the one guy, you could say she hit the one in a million chance, but no. I think she knows and understands something we could all stand to learn.
Hello zoebrain, haven’t seen you on AlienBaby before. I hope you’ll check her out regularly, as I think she has some of the best unpaid writing I’ve seen on the internet, and I wish more people were reading.
Thank you for your kind sentiments; you flatter me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in sex, women, and the phenomenon of gender–pretty much in that order. Since about the age of ten, when I stumbled upon the entry “Reproduction, Human” in the family Encyclopedia Britannica, I’ve sought out and read everything I could get my hands on. My internet history cache must make me out to be some sort of maniac straight from Lifetime Channel’s central casting, though I suspect by the standards set by single never-married guys over 40 I’m pretty tame.
So yes, I’m open to that kind of gender fluidity, I find it a fascinating extension of that overreaching interest I have, in identity and individuality. I’m all about the self, and I understand most human interaction and activity in terms of self. And so, being myself straight, would I go for a MTF? I don’t know, the idea doesn’t jump out at me, though I don’t find it repellent either. I have to admit that *a few* of the trans I see around Seattle look very nice, but I dunno. Guess it would depend on the person and not the “externals”, as zoebrain has phrased it. Moreso in that kind of circumstance than usual, in a dating context.
There again, I react most strongly to women when they’re natural and not made up, and certainly not surgically or cosmetically enhanced, so the fact that a man would go through that process may be great for him/her, but it doesn’t speak to my personal preferences. (zoebrain: I detail some of that here http://mellontatauta.livejournal.com/2489.html) So it probably wouldn’t be quite the same
Stacey is a curious case, in that she didn’t seem gender conflicted to anyone who knew her (at least in college). She and Elle (my first girlfriend at school, a tomboy lesbian) were very good friends, and even she said she didn’t see that coming. Elle herself, on the other hand, I could totally see wanting to switch, as she was VERY butch. But no, she’s comfortable with her anatomy.
I haven’t spoken to Stacey since I heard about this, but I’d be eager to talk to him about it. It should be noted: he’s only opted for hormone therapy and pronoun replacement, not planning on any surgery. My own impression is that he’s not going for any kind of gender actualization, so much as a kind of self-reinvention, in which case that would be an even rarer occurrence among FTMs. Though I don’t know.
Like I say, it’s fascinating.
I don’t mean to dismiss what lesson you take from Chrissy and her success, but I myself am not really moved by the a fortiori aspect of it. Sure, it’s possible for me, I never really doubt that. It just doesn’t always feel that way. And however possible it may be in principle, it doesn’t suggest that it may be in fact, at least in any given attempt. Which leaves me to keep looking, and not expecting too much. Desiring, yes; expecting, no.
Hi Russ
I have a, well, not unique, but unusual perspective on things, from my own personal experience. I’m not so much a researcher in the area, as a collator and analyst (as in information analyst, not psychoanalyst). Entirely self-taught, but some of the Big Names who are professionals rather than dilletantes, Ecker, Diamond, Drantz, Italiano etc have thought highly of my work, so I must be doing something right.
I should really be doing my PhD in this rather than Evolutionary Computation and Genetic Algorithms, but Life’s too short.
As for Stacey – the recommendation is always for the minimum change required for comfort. That may just be a change of gender role. Usually though, it requires hormones, as the cross-sexed neurology becomes progressively more dysfunctional with the wrong endocrine levels.
That inevitably leads to some dramatic changes in appearance for FtoMs. Testosterone is powerful stuff (unless you have androgen insensitivity syndrome). Beard, baldness. Some muscle build-up. Slight increase in height and shoe size, as the cartilage becomes thicker.
Some – not most – guys require top surgery too. Reduction Mammoplasty. That rather freaks me out, but no matter. The bottom surgery is far more complex, expensive, risky and results are not usually wonderful. Most guys don’t bother.
Here’s something to get you thinking. A CNN report, that while it has some minor inaccuracies and not so minor over-simplifications that put my teeth on edge, does convey the gist of the situation reported on rather well.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/12/17/gaza.gender.id/
Not all apparent “sex changes” are voluntary. That particular situation concerns me, because while it’s obvious that one of the pair is neurologically male, I think the other is at best androgenous, tending towards the female end. If I was involved with the case, I’d try to give more options than masculinisation.
Onto matters personal. Is there a “Ms Right” for you? Certainly. Quite a few of them in fact, some good, some even better. No guarantee that you’ll meet her I’m afraid… but the odds are extremely high that you will. 100:1? Something like that.
I turn 52 next week. At my age, the odds are good, but the goods are odd
But I’m a married woman, and I’ve just celebrated my 29th wedding anniversary. And you know what? At age 21, I’d never even been kissed. Never even dated.
I love it when the commenters on my blog start talking to each other, it takes me off the hot seat. And Russ cleaned up nice for the company and put on his good shirt!
(I only rib him so badly because I’ve known him 23 years — it’s not like I get so cheeky with all my blog visitors.) Seriously, though, Russ, thanks for the compliment. I know I’ve been zealous to the point of evangelical about my change of heart, but you have to admit it’s really only been recently that I stopped believing I had some kind of curse on me and that no one I wanted would ever want me.
ZoeB, your research/collation/whatever you want to call it on the subject sounds fascinating to me. I’ve always been really curious about what these folk go through biologically, but I don’t go around asking them ‘nosy’ questions…I get the unspoken vibe that they hate the sort of prurient curiosity their gender reassignment seems to arouse in people. So my friend Dena tells me her name is being legally changed to Dane, and soon after that s/he’s sprouting a beard, and I just accept it, and call the formerly Dena Dane, and use the ‘he’ pronoun, but it’s not like I’m not dying to ask!
By my calculations it would seem you married at 23, just two years after you were a never-been-kissed virgin. Mazel Tov on those 29 years! Sounds like you hit the jackpot on one of your first tries. I like your saying…the odds are good, but the goods are odd….I’d never heard that! LOL!
Hi AB
Feel free to ask me questions.
Maybe I should mention… those guys in Gaza are protogynous pseudohermpahrodites. Which is to say, biological males who look female at birth. It’s about 1 in 50,000 in the general population due to spontaneous mutations, but about 1 in 500 in Jubaya, Gaza, and 1 in 90 in parts of the Dominican Republic.
Protogynous pseudohermaphrodites exist too, but are much rarer. They’re women who look male at birth. They’re one in several million, so rare we have no good estimate, and in numbers so small the syndromes are not well understood.
Such people face interesting legal problems. Their existence contradicts most mainsteam theological belief, so have problems there too. Many medics aren’t aware that such syndromes can exist, which can also cause issues.
Then there’s the social aspects. While most changes occur in the teens, some happen later. Much later. The effects on one’s partner are … well… imagine if it happened to yours? Or to you?
There’s a PhD thesis waiting to be written on just that topic: how do such people cope in various societies? The Guevedoces in the Dominican Republic, the Turnim-Men in the Sambia tribe in New Guinea, and the Transferers in Gaza all are so common that there are social systems on place. In the USA though, there is no such support, and quite a lot of outright persecution. The fact that they can exist upsets many people, and they don’t react well.
Hard to believe ‘Transferers’ get more support in an even more religious and conservative culture than ours, but I guess the frequency of occurrence would necessitate some adjustment.
So according to what you say the FTMs I know probably still have female plumbing, but the secondary characteristics of men, and are living as men. That’s consistent with their still being with their lesbian girlfriends, I guess. (That was my biggest point of curiosity.) But I also know a young anarchist activist who goes by her given female name and has developed as a woman (breasts, at least, I’ve never seen the rest of her) but she has a sort of scrappy beard and is quite hairy…I’m sure she wouldn’t be taking hormones, she’s poor and uninsured…that could be the result of some hormonal variation or excess/deficiency? Or hermaphrodism? (One nice thing about the anarchists is that they’ve created a totally supportive community of their own for people who fall outside the dualities.)
I suppose you can’t exactly make a diagnosis based on hearsay, but I always wonder about this stuff. A couple of years ago I read a lengthy article in ‘Out’ (or maybe it was ‘The Advocate’) magazine that profiled some FTMs, but you almost never see anything in the mainstream media.
The most likely cause of hirsutism is severe PCOS – Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.
See http://www.managingpcos.org.au/content/view/25/38/
“Studies from Australia and overseas show that up to 10 per cent of all women of reproductive age (post puberty and pre-menopausal) have PCOS.”
The effects vary though, from light acne to far more severe symptoms.
Also possible, but less likely, is CAH syndrome – congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Probably 21 alpha.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_adrenal_hyperplasia
There’s other possible causes too, but now we’re in the realms of 1 in 100,000 or less.
It can be difficult in extreme cases picking 46XY people with moderate-level AIS (androgen insensitivity syndrome) from 46XX people with high-level CAH.
e.g. 46XY + AIS grade 2-3 (NSFW)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/Men_with_micropenis.jpg/180px-Men_with_micropenis.jpg
46XX + severe CAH
http://www.carolguze.com/images/Sex/CAH46,XXmale.jpg
“Hard to believe ‘Transferers’ get more support in an even more religious and conservative culture than ours, but I guess the frequency of occurrence would necessitate some adjustment.”
Trust me on this. They’re indistinguishable from transsexuals to all but experts, and I think you know how those are treated.
The Attorney-General of Virginia recently sent a letter to all publicly-funded Universities in that state, telling them to alter their policies to make it permissible to discriminate against anyone due to sexual orientation or gender identity.
http://quaa.student.virginia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Letter-to-Virginia-Colleges-and-Universities-3_4_10.pdf
Personal as this may be, ZoeBrain, I’m curious: the interest you have in this subject goes well beyond the casual. Were you born with a gender alignment issue, or perhaps someone in your family?
Just a bit, yes.
I was (mis)diagnosed with mild partial androgen insensitivity at a fertility clinic in 1985. Undervirilised fertile male syndrome, number 5 on the list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome.
The diagnosis as of 2005 is “severe androgenisation of a non-pregnant woman”. My female puberty at age 47 was a bit of a surprise to everyone.
As I said before, Protogynous pseudohermaphrodites are so rare the syndromes responsible are not well understood.
See http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2010/01/picture-gallery.html
I wanted to take some time and check out all those links. Thanks for posting those.
Truly, whenever I read this stuff, I feel like I have it so easy, even with my own physical/sexual challenges (what amounts to, essentially, some problematic scar tissue). Can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a guy born with a micropenis. In this culture? Yikes.
I can’t imagine either. I can tell you what it’s like to be a gal with a body that looks like that of a male with micropenis though.
I’m glad those days are over.
The change turned my life upside-down, but now look normal (mostly – even to my OB/GYN) for the first time in my life.
Sorry to hear about the problematic scar tissue.
It can probably be dealt with though. PM me for some recommended surgeons. Marci Bowers at Trinidad, Colorado can even reconstruct after FGM – she does that free of charge. Electricity and plumbing both work.
Wow, Zoe. Thanks for answering our questions! I’m wondering if your spouse is a man or a woman (or, as you’ve shown us, something more ambiguous)? Quite a journey you’ve been on together. And demonstrating once again, at least for me, that love finds everyone open and receptive to it.
‘Electricity’ made me laugh — yours lights UP? Seriously, though, my story is that I went to a slew of (lazy) OB-GYNs on my insurance plan(s) over the years, who told me that my pain was due to the stock cause, the clinical name for you’re-frigid-and-it’s-all-in-your-head, without even bothering to poke around down there. Finally I was able to research it, after the advent of the Internets in the late 90s, and figure out that I’d had a super-tough factory seal to rival Mrs. Kinsey’s, and that it had left behind some pesky remnants. A helpful NP at Planned Parenthood was good enough to confirm for me that I’d formed some equally tough scar tissue, rife with nerves — and was also kind enough to inform me that no insurer would pay for what they classify as “cosmetic” surgery. (Not that I have insurance now, anyway!)
I wound up going to the pharmacy and the sex shop to resort to self-help — a combined regimen of topical anesthesia and dilation helped correct it somewhat — but I still suffer if I wind up taking home an undiscovered porn star. The gentlemen, of course, couldn’t be happier whatever the case, they think they’ve found Nirvana. My last partner, happily, fit me like a glove. Or a missing puzzle piece.
Hi AB!
I’m no fan of “natural therapy”, but papaya juice breaks down scar tissue, without affecting nerves. It might take a long time though, some chemical cremes with the same active ingredient work better.
I live in a celibate relationship with my partner, We’re both the wrong sex for each other. The love remains though. We fit each other like missing puzzle pieces in all other ways, just not this one. I wonder if any sex therapists would be willing to try to convert our sexual orientations from straight to lesbian?
Ideally we’d find one guy and be co-wives, but I think our taste in men is too different. Besides, the concept weirds me out.
I coped with the change pretty well – I never did believe, deep down, that I was a guy, and had picked the name “Zoe” at age 10. If I wasn’t Intersexed, I’d be a classic trans woman. I didn’t actually fake masculinity very well, but with a body that looked terribly male
I didn’t have to. People thought me eccentric, but not effeminate, let alone feminine. I was asexual, mildly lesbian due to socialisation, but really not very interested. I had the wrong bits, the device drivers and peripherals didn’t match. I had a normal scrotal sac and contents (well, we thought the contents were normal..) just not much else. I think if I had I would have freaked out completely.
Anyway, 9 months after the change hit… I acquired a libido. And to my total amazement (and not a little horror) I was straight. It’s the one area of life I haven’t come to grips with totally yet. When a guy puts his arms around me, I can smell him, and feel those firm muscles and run my fingers through his chest hair, it’s pretty obvious from the way my instincts are taking me that I’m hetero.
I had no idea that a libido could be so powerful, nor that instinct would tell my body what to do without conscious thought. I’d always had to think about what I was doing before you see, the instincts and the body were incompatible.
Oh, and Orgasms? WOW. I had to have such extensive genital reconstruction that I thought it unlikely I’d ever have one. I was anorgasmic before, I expected to be anorgasmic afterwards.
About a month after surgery, as I was dilating (usually NOT pleasureable as you have to stretch the scar tissue as you know)… it started feeling… nice. My body got all tingly. You know how it is.
Finding Mr Right now would be inconvenient though. I’m a married woman, and we have a child. (And didn’t THAT take some medical help, syringes to extract genetic material etc).
There are very few biological females who are biological fathers. But there are some. Explaining my relationship to my son to teachers etc is, well, always a bit fraught.
You saw the gallery pictures. I have arms like Rosy the Rivetter, a huge ribcage that would make me size 16 even if I was starving, Brooke Shields eyebrows that need a combine harvester rather than waxing… but otherwise not too bad really. Apart from the hysterectomy scar from bikini line to breastbone – something they did when I had my gallbladder out, and without my knowledge or consent, when I was 20.
I only found that out when we were going through my medical records in 2005, to try to find out what the HECK was happening. Not that what I had would ever have worked. The female reproductive system has to be “just right”, the male one can still work if 90% is wrong. Some guys with 47XXY chromosomes can father children only by having testicular tissue surgically biopsied, and individual sperm cells extracted. Mine wasn’t that bad, I’m 46XY (mostly.. we think…)
I could never be a mother. I got second prize though, and that’s better than many women get.
And yes, my son’s Intersexed, and had to have genital reconstruction long before I did. Just not nearly as badly IS as his peculiar father. (Do you have any idea how WEIRD that sounds to me???)
Huh. Well, my next questions would be, at what point did you realize something was wrong? And, at what point did you realize what was right? I get the impression you blog about this, perhaps a link or two to where you’ve (undoubtedly) elaborated on this very subject?
I’m fascinated by identity and individuality, and the areas of sexuality and gender seem at times to be very fluid, and at other times to be basic and immutable (which is why I’m always wanting to ask about this, though oftentimes I know I shouldn’t). I met my first girlfriend in college when she was 18, and even then she was androgynous tomboy, with a sometimes temper that could turn physical. When she came out a few years later, I think I can speak for just about everyone when we all thought, “What took you so long?”
But for me way back then, it was lust at first sight. Why, I don’t know–I’m not attracted to men, never have been, but my some of my biggest turn-ons are androgynous features in women (I’ve been called every variation of “gay” since about the fifth grade, and even my own father let me know, in his way, that if I was, he was OK with it. But I’ve known I’m hetero since before even that, so for me there was never any question or confusion–I guess I tend to confuse others. I’ve always had a very strong sense of myself, which is problematic in this and other ways).
Hi Russ
Yes, I blog, and have done for some seven years. I was blogging for two years before the change, and continued during it.
In answer to your other questions, here’s an extract from “Bigender and the Brain” at http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2008/06/bigender-and-brain.html
In answer to the question:
>> Of our trans folk, how old were you when you realized that you were transgender?…I’m interested in how old you were when you really started gender bending; were you a child or an adult?
Two separate questions there.
>> Of our trans folk, how old were you when you realized that you were transgender?
>> how old you were when you really started gender bending
It’s difficult being dispassionate when you’re your own experimental animal.
Thank you for sharing your story here on my little blog, Zoe. It’s generous on your part, and I’m happy that you feel welcome to do it. Your life trajectory is fascinating and heartbreaking and amazing all at the same time. Instead of a menopause, you had the Birth of Venus.
It does piss me off, though, when I hear about doctors playing God with adults who should know what’s being done to their bodies. Why why WHY would they not at least tell you what they had found, and spare you 27 more years of inner dissonance?
You have a real way with words – device drivers, peripherals – that makes the experience accessible to us laypeople. I want to read that whole blog entry when I have time. I just realized looking at it that it was going to be a helluva lot of science, and unlike you I am NOT a rocket scientist…
I’m glad to hear that your surgery was such a smashing (or should I say tingly?) success, at any rate. I’d always wondered if TS (or IS) women post-op got the necessary range of sensation for that particular delight. I discovered by accident how to make myself jolly at the precocious age of five, so it’s hard for me to imagine life without it — I actually used to be terrified I’d have some paralyzing accident before I got to go there with a real live boy.
An unrelated footnote: the name you were given at birth is the same as that of the man I perhaps should have married, one of my childhood friends. Too late now, sadly. (I don’t run into many guys with that name, so it kind of jumped out at me.)
There’s more to my blog than science.
I’d been blogging for years before the change. And I blogged through it.
Start with End of Act I
http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2006/05/end-of-act-one.html
Then Annus Mirabilis
http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2006/05/annus-mirabilis.html
Then… try
http://aebrain.blogspot.com/search/label/Fun
Damn, you’re an ANZ and blogosphere celebrity! I was just reading the sidebar on your Fun page. And you’re visiting my humble lil’ navel-gazer of a shadow blog, whose following consists of maybe three real-life friends and a handful of websurfers who liked and kept coming back. Yay.
Those were fascinating reads, too…but I still want to get through the hardcore how and why on that other page!
I value quality rather than celebrity. That’s why I’m here.
Big
OK, done. I remember reading about sexual orientation and the amygdala before, I think it might have even been in TIME magazine, but much of the rest of it was new to me. It’s awesome that you’re out there collecting information and educating people about something that’s so little understood by the world at large. Talking about the chemistry of it all makes the prejudices of the (for instance) religious conservatives look ridiculous (as it should). Some folk are, as you said, “upset” that such people can even exist…but the fact is that they do, so…sorry folks, time to revise your worldview! I know it hurts. I’ve had to do it a number of times.
maybe you like this…heard it on the radio today:
A heart that hurts,
Is a heart that works.
Hey, bm3. True, but I gotta say, it’s nice not to have a heart that hurts ALL THE TIME. Something really has healed. It’s strange not to feel like I have a jagged black hole in my chest anymore.
Just to say, even though i’m not joining in, i’m glad i managed to comment up-front as it’s made the system email me with these comments – and this must be the most interesting comment thread in the blogosphere. (Unless everyone else is living far more interesting bloglives and my interesting threshold is VERY out of sync with the rest of the world.) I wish i could join in, but consider me the person sitting in the corner who’s lost her voice but keeps making intelligent eye contact and smiling. ;0)
HI Mand!
I’ve certainly learnt a lot from it. There’s so much I missed out on in my teens. I’ve gained an insight from listening here, there are some really nice (as well as observant and intelligent) people. Including you.
Parenting… how come children don’t come with a user manual? Yet our parents managed, and theirs too.
Children ARE the user manual.
Ooh, that’s deep.
*Sitting in the corner smiling*
add me to the list of those who lost their voice after reading those excellent comments. i also like the conception of me making intelligent eye contact
+ if I counted right this is comment #37 which is a nice number.
You’re so cute, bluey.