My Story Part 94 – What It Feels Like

“It's hard to explain to someone who has no clue. It's a daily struggle being in pain or feeling sick on the inside while you look fine on the outside. Please put this as your status for at least 1 hour if you or someone you know has an invisible illness (PTSD, Anxiety, Bipolar, Depression, Diabetes, LUPUS, Fibromyalgia, MS, ME, Arthritis, Cancer, Heart Disease, Epilepsy, Autism, COPD, M.D. etc.) "Never judge what you don't understand." I know my real friends will copy.”

A friend posted that on her Facebook page and I added the comment, “or GID”

I always get asked when I do an “Outreach” to explain what it feels like and that is so hard to convey to someone who is not trans. The old trite saying that I fell like a woman trapped in a man’s body is something that the media has cooked up, it is a thousand times more than that. Have you ever tried to describe an itch? Or describe a feeling of “deja vu”? How would you explain color to a blind person?

It is a feeling of the world being “not quite right” of being out of phase.
It is how society looks at you.
It is how you look at society.
It is not about the clothes.

I am told that I am brave or courageous for having transitioned; but they wrong, it isn’t bravery, it is that strong itch of being transgender. I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t transition, I probably would have stayed in me shell. I don’t think I would have been part of the 15% that took their lives, the drive in me is not strong.

Today watching the tributes to Steve Jobs, they played a clip of his commencement speech at a California college where he said, don’t let society hold you back, and that struck a chord with me. I didn’t and life took me in a whole new direction.

Update 8:30pm

I found the quote of the commencement speech that he made at Stanford University...

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.They somehow already know what you truly want to become.Everything else is secondary