I went back and forth on how to start this post, because it covers a lot of recent progress. In short, I had been having dissociative and dysphoric feelings lately, including wanting to transition to leave my body behind. This seems to be the more mature version of the suicidal ideation of my youth, itself a response to childhood sexual trauma foremost and shame at how my body reacted then. However, in so far as I can’t leave my body and memories behind, I have no choice but to continue living life to the fullest. Further, I vowed to work toward building a stronger support system such that, if in the future I want to transition, I will have an easier time doing so than if I started that process today.

I had just written about trans thoughts that had coming and going. It is perhaps more appropriate to identify them as a type of intrusive thought, not exactly a desire to transition. These intrusive thoughts come in different shades, sometimes violent, sometimes critical, near constant. I had worried there was something more there and, as if it was reading my thoughts, Tik Tok showed me a video of a marine who had transitioned later in life after being a meathead and gym rat in his youth. The music for the video is MGMT’s “Little Dark Age” and the specific lyrics that triggered the discomfort are “forgiving who you are… just know that if you hide, it doesn’t go away.” I have been struggling with this idea for quite some time and saw its echoes in different media I was consuming. I’ll return to the idea of transitioning further below, but at this time and as I’ve stated, these thoughts feel more like aspects of the way I’m still responding to childhood trauma.

I hadn’t connected the dots until this past Friday, after a Halloween weekend that I spent out drinking and not sleeping. I was listening to the Cerebro podcast episode on Illyana Rasputina and the host, Connor Goldsmith, and his guest and current writer in the X-verse, Leah Williams, were commenting that Chris Claremont intentionally wrote parallels between the way Illyana’s and Magneto’s lives were shaped by trauma. They continued to reflect on how both these characters took an immense trauma in their youth and made it a source of strength. Beyond the aforementioned characters is the trend in comics for characters to have a defining moment rooted in trauma, which usually results in a new code name or new powers. I considered how I have tried to move past my own trauma in the same way, turning it into a source of strength. I recalled a recent interaction with a laborer, staring up at this 300 pound plus worker who, in a moment of frustration, had gotten in my face to yell at me about a side decision I was enforcing that would result in an expensive rework. I had recently told my mom how all the physical abuse from her and her mother had toughened me up in this way, let my blood run cold when I should be worried about getting swung on. I had the opportunity then to show that strength, took a short breath and then, “I understand that you are upset and can empathize, really, I know it will cost time and money, but the decision has been made.”

To be clear, the problem isn’t that I can keep cool in these situations. My parents taught me to keep my face still and not show emotion, lest I suffer the wrath of their insecurities. When my mom saw the wrong thing on my face, she would pick a fight with me and make the problems in her life my fault for having been born. This is not an environment that encourages softness, vulnerability, and emotional expressiveness, especially toward my parents.

I can, by appreciating how that upbringing allows me to work in a male dominated, homophobic and racist environment, make peace with that trauma. However, even after these years of therapy, there are still times I wish I wasn’t. If you could could fall asleep on the plane and wake up as someone else, would you? I thought this came from Chuck Palahniuk’s books, but I can’t find the quote. The short answer is yes, absolutely; the longer answer is that I’m going to have to talk to my therapist about this, because I think at the root of the trans thoughts I’ve been having lately is a desire to not exist anymore, to escape from my traumatized past and just move on by leaving my self behind. Back to the comics, I envied characters that could transform their bodies and I envisioned being able to change my body and leave the trauma behind, leave behind the way my body responded to the physical stimulus of when sex was done to me. The greatest shame I still carry is that my member grew erect when my father was touching it, touching me. Perhaps it is the last bridge I have to cross, especially now as a grown man whose body does not react to such stimuli. My young body was overwhelmed, the newness of the physical sensation overcoming the emotional turbulence, and I have to accept that this didn’t mean I was enjoying what my father was doing to me.

I had hoped I was past this… past the thoughts of escaping my body due to the sexual trauma. Halloween gave me the opportunity to transform, to put on a different character literally and leave myself behind. I took advantage of it, worked on different costume ideas, and then partied hard. The revelry left me depleted and in desperate need of some alone time. I stayed up two nights playing video games, strategy games in which I could perfectly micro-manage everything until I snowballed into a victory. A gentle form of escaping life, because, even after all this success, I do not want my life or my body. The shame is still gnawing away and came back, manifesting this time as desires to transition.

I had been scared to look at the thoughts head on, was terrified that perhaps these feelings were legitimate and that, if I engaged them more fully, I would end up wanting to transition. It’s possible they are legitimate, but there is a greater context of a history of self-destructive tendencies that I developed over the years to deal with what was going on to me. Ever strategic, I found socially approved but still masochistic hobbies: lifting heavy weights, running long distance, grueling hikes. Other hobbies tended toward escapism: reading, video games late into the night, binging shows. In them I was looking to either hurt my body or escape it, driven by shame and disgust. So it was this newest obsession, transitioning to escape my body, in hopes that the memories of what had happened and how I reacted would stay with this shell. But this isn’t a comic, and the memory wouldn’t suddenly disappear, it would go with me.

Since I can’t escape, I have to move toward acceptance. Reintegration. Allowing myself the grace to have been a child then and know that the situation wouldn’t turn out the same way now. Couldn’t. I have confronted my dad on this and have even gone so far as to fight him. I have done right by my younger self thus far, but I need to find a way to forgive and love my body. To treat it right as it’s the only one I have.

What if the feelings are legitimate though?

On Twitter, I saw a chart posted from a study on why people were detransitioning. The chart included things like job insecurity, familial disapproval, and generally other societal pressures. I don’t have the energy to deal with the worst of us right now. I’ve already been exposed to the depravity of humanity and those scars have not fully healed. Thus, if the feelings are legitimate, they will need to wait. And I will be ok with that. I will focus on building for myself stronger support systems, continuing in therapy, and advancing my financial well being such that, if I wanted to transition later in life, I would be better shielded from the worst of us. That’s not the here and now. Just this week, I was the butt of homophobic jokes from my coworkers, with my supervisor joining in.

To my future self though, my sole focus and drive won’t be to transition. It will be to build a support system that lets me be happier. If, once that is more established, future me wants to transition, so be it and I hope not to judge myself for waiting. After all, just transitioning won’t bring me happiness, won’t let me escape what happened.

On that final note, I have learned and am learning how to sit with the discomfort of life. The least I can get from all of this is resiliency, learning how to process negativity and move on from life’s little struggles without letting them steal the moment’s joy. Given how bad it can actually get, why ruin the present sweating the details.