Hi, I figured I might as well do a brief introduction to this blog
so that all of you who happen to read this can get a general sense of what it
is going to be about.
For those of you who either just stumbled across this blog OR are friends and family who accessed this from Facebook or Instagram and haven’t put two and two together yet, I am a 37-year-old Lab Technician who lives in the South and was raised in the Southern Baptist Church. I am married to one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever known and I don’t know where I would be without her in my life. I am a Christian and I take my faith seriously but I think that the Church (all denominations) as a whole was lost sight of some of the key teachings of Christ. Politically, I am a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, I feel that a beneficial balance can be achieved if our nation’s leaders would grow up.
I am also transgender. I have only recently come to terms with that part of myself after years of suppression and self-hatred for being what I am, realizing that if I didn’t come to accept this part of myself, I would end up dead by my own hand. Therapy has played a big part in helping me to come to accept myself for who I am and given me the tools to start loving myself, no matter how difficult that may be. In September of 2017, I started Hormone Replacement Therapy initially to see if it would help with the gender dysphoria I have dealt with my entire life and it has been extremely effective in helping me to manage it. I also suffer from depression and have been on antidepressants for several years now. The combination of gender dysphoria and depression is deadly and, with both my hormones and antidepressants, I have managed to get them both to a manageable level though, I know there will still be days where they both hit me hard.
Right now, in my life, I am at a bit of a crossroad. Because of the physical changes that female hormones have brought about in my body, I am trying to figure out which path ahead is what is best for me. If I fully transition to female, I have so much to lose and I am constantly being reminded of that in my everyday life. Personally, If I had to guess put a number on the odds of me fully transitioning, I would have to say they are 50/50 and the odds could tip in either direction. I know the pain that I am causing the people that I care about in my life because of this and it tears me up inside. I never thought I would ever get to this point in my life and thought I would never have to deal with this part of myself. I thought I could be strong enough to resist my nature but, in the end, I was just too weak and here I am.
This main purpose of this blog is to attempt to put my past experiences into perspective so that hopefully the people affected the most by my transition (however far it ends up going) will be able to better understand how I got to this point in my life and be able to, in a limited capacity, put themselves in my shoes. Also I hope that doing this will help me to reflect and grow in ways I haven’t been able to yet, to become the best me that I can be.
To that end, I am going to have some posts on here that are very personal in nature. There will more than likely be some triggering speech as well due to the nature of the things I am going to talk about. I am going to occasionally offer advice to all the cisgender people who read this, on how I think handling certain situations with transgender people will be beneficial to both you and the individual in question. These advice posts will come from my own personal experiences as well as the experiences that have been shared with me from my transgender sisters and brothers so that hopefully more consideration will be taken into how people respond to the transgender people in their lives.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope that, if nothing else, reading this blog gives you some insight on who I am and what I, and others like me, are going through.
For those of you who either just stumbled across this blog OR are friends and family who accessed this from Facebook or Instagram and haven’t put two and two together yet, I am a 37-year-old Lab Technician who lives in the South and was raised in the Southern Baptist Church. I am married to one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever known and I don’t know where I would be without her in my life. I am a Christian and I take my faith seriously but I think that the Church (all denominations) as a whole was lost sight of some of the key teachings of Christ. Politically, I am a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, I feel that a beneficial balance can be achieved if our nation’s leaders would grow up.
I am also transgender. I have only recently come to terms with that part of myself after years of suppression and self-hatred for being what I am, realizing that if I didn’t come to accept this part of myself, I would end up dead by my own hand. Therapy has played a big part in helping me to come to accept myself for who I am and given me the tools to start loving myself, no matter how difficult that may be. In September of 2017, I started Hormone Replacement Therapy initially to see if it would help with the gender dysphoria I have dealt with my entire life and it has been extremely effective in helping me to manage it. I also suffer from depression and have been on antidepressants for several years now. The combination of gender dysphoria and depression is deadly and, with both my hormones and antidepressants, I have managed to get them both to a manageable level though, I know there will still be days where they both hit me hard.
Right now, in my life, I am at a bit of a crossroad. Because of the physical changes that female hormones have brought about in my body, I am trying to figure out which path ahead is what is best for me. If I fully transition to female, I have so much to lose and I am constantly being reminded of that in my everyday life. Personally, If I had to guess put a number on the odds of me fully transitioning, I would have to say they are 50/50 and the odds could tip in either direction. I know the pain that I am causing the people that I care about in my life because of this and it tears me up inside. I never thought I would ever get to this point in my life and thought I would never have to deal with this part of myself. I thought I could be strong enough to resist my nature but, in the end, I was just too weak and here I am.
This main purpose of this blog is to attempt to put my past experiences into perspective so that hopefully the people affected the most by my transition (however far it ends up going) will be able to better understand how I got to this point in my life and be able to, in a limited capacity, put themselves in my shoes. Also I hope that doing this will help me to reflect and grow in ways I haven’t been able to yet, to become the best me that I can be.
To that end, I am going to have some posts on here that are very personal in nature. There will more than likely be some triggering speech as well due to the nature of the things I am going to talk about. I am going to occasionally offer advice to all the cisgender people who read this, on how I think handling certain situations with transgender people will be beneficial to both you and the individual in question. These advice posts will come from my own personal experiences as well as the experiences that have been shared with me from my transgender sisters and brothers so that hopefully more consideration will be taken into how people respond to the transgender people in their lives.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope that, if nothing else, reading this blog gives you some insight on who I am and what I, and others like me, are going through.
- Arylin Michelle
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