A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far....
...wait wrong story.
Sorry about that.
Now here I am entering high school trying to deal with everything normal high school kids deal with. Yet I have something sitting in the back of my head that makes all this even more uncomfortable.
Somehow I managed to keep it all together though I won't say it was easy and I did have my issues.
First thing I will cover is that for the early part of my high school career I hung out with mostly the drama crowd. I actually did like acting, I had left the band scene since a fallout with my junior high instructor (add into the fact he was the acting HS director and I just wasn't looking forward to it.) I tried some sports but being in a smaller school, population wise, there wasn't a lot of options for me that I liked.
So moving into life I did my best. Granted at home my crossdressing expriementation was growing. Now this wasn't at all a sexual thing. Really I was a late bloomer in this regard it was more about looking like a girl. Thus allowing me to feel like a girl. I could just let those emotions and thoughts out. Which I didn't feel I could do otherwise. As I got older it came into play somewhat, but I never felt ashamed by it, just conflicted.
(In a pavlonian attempt to deal with this I actually conditioned myself to keep both sides apart. You'll see this in entries to come. But instead of a bell I relieded on the clothes. If I dressed as a boy I acted as a boy if I dressed as a girl I allowed my full personality out. Allowing either to mix wasn't a good idea.)
To add more to this I discovered a love of fashion. I would read any fashion magazines I could get my hands on. I would watch MTV's House of Style all the time. Almost never missing an episode. Yes I did normal boy things too (I was big into drawing and painting, video games, reading, and some sport) but sometimes I think I allowed a little bit of the girls stuff in to help with the dysphoria I was feeling but I wouldn't be surprised if it only made it worse.
One thing I could do is allow some of the outgoing personality out around others. I would act a little silly, say some things that people would chalk up a general weirdness or youthful exuberance. Really this was me letting little parts of her out without anyone catching on. It helped me deal with the pressure that would build from time to time. My personalty can be very bubble and sweet but if I let it go I find I start sliding down a slippery slope and I didn't want others to know.
For a while I was ok, I found a few distractions. After having given up running due to trouble with my knees in my sophomore year I picked up cycling. For some reason it just worked for me. I was able to exercise and keep myself distracted from other things quite a bit. I wanted to be the next Lance Armstrong, before Lance Armstrong was Lance Armstrong. It was however very effective in keeping my thoughts and my time occupied, but not always.
However at the time my second year of school was coming to a close the primary group of friends suddenly left me out of the group. To this day I still don't what happened or why. I was just annexed out. So there I went into summer vacation with not a lot of friends. Way too much time on my hands. You could see where this is going.
Cycling kept me out of trouble for the most part. It provided a distraction enough to keep me generally focused on other things. However it wasn't enough, without a lot of interaction with my peers my life started to spiral in directions I couldn't control. Crossdressing became a larger part of my existence. I just wanted the boy to disappear permanently. Yet I didn't know how I could do that or if it was even possible. There wasn't much info at my local library (it was rather small). And the internet didn't exist in 1990, at least publicly.
And I simply could not take daytime talk shows when they had women who used to be men on. Seriously did anyone buy that?
So there I was totally at war within myself. Another school year fast approaching, not a lot of friends, and I did not know who or what I was.
It was during this time I wished time and time again that I could take a pill, step into a machine, whatever and change myself into a girl and go on happily being me. For good and/or bad that it would bring.
...wait wrong story.
Sorry about that.
Now here I am entering high school trying to deal with everything normal high school kids deal with. Yet I have something sitting in the back of my head that makes all this even more uncomfortable.
Somehow I managed to keep it all together though I won't say it was easy and I did have my issues.
First thing I will cover is that for the early part of my high school career I hung out with mostly the drama crowd. I actually did like acting, I had left the band scene since a fallout with my junior high instructor (add into the fact he was the acting HS director and I just wasn't looking forward to it.) I tried some sports but being in a smaller school, population wise, there wasn't a lot of options for me that I liked.
So moving into life I did my best. Granted at home my crossdressing expriementation was growing. Now this wasn't at all a sexual thing. Really I was a late bloomer in this regard it was more about looking like a girl. Thus allowing me to feel like a girl. I could just let those emotions and thoughts out. Which I didn't feel I could do otherwise. As I got older it came into play somewhat, but I never felt ashamed by it, just conflicted.
(In a pavlonian attempt to deal with this I actually conditioned myself to keep both sides apart. You'll see this in entries to come. But instead of a bell I relieded on the clothes. If I dressed as a boy I acted as a boy if I dressed as a girl I allowed my full personality out. Allowing either to mix wasn't a good idea.)
To add more to this I discovered a love of fashion. I would read any fashion magazines I could get my hands on. I would watch MTV's House of Style all the time. Almost never missing an episode. Yes I did normal boy things too (I was big into drawing and painting, video games, reading, and some sport) but sometimes I think I allowed a little bit of the girls stuff in to help with the dysphoria I was feeling but I wouldn't be surprised if it only made it worse.
One thing I could do is allow some of the outgoing personality out around others. I would act a little silly, say some things that people would chalk up a general weirdness or youthful exuberance. Really this was me letting little parts of her out without anyone catching on. It helped me deal with the pressure that would build from time to time. My personalty can be very bubble and sweet but if I let it go I find I start sliding down a slippery slope and I didn't want others to know.
For a while I was ok, I found a few distractions. After having given up running due to trouble with my knees in my sophomore year I picked up cycling. For some reason it just worked for me. I was able to exercise and keep myself distracted from other things quite a bit. I wanted to be the next Lance Armstrong, before Lance Armstrong was Lance Armstrong. It was however very effective in keeping my thoughts and my time occupied, but not always.
However at the time my second year of school was coming to a close the primary group of friends suddenly left me out of the group. To this day I still don't what happened or why. I was just annexed out. So there I went into summer vacation with not a lot of friends. Way too much time on my hands. You could see where this is going.
Cycling kept me out of trouble for the most part. It provided a distraction enough to keep me generally focused on other things. However it wasn't enough, without a lot of interaction with my peers my life started to spiral in directions I couldn't control. Crossdressing became a larger part of my existence. I just wanted the boy to disappear permanently. Yet I didn't know how I could do that or if it was even possible. There wasn't much info at my local library (it was rather small). And the internet didn't exist in 1990, at least publicly.
And I simply could not take daytime talk shows when they had women who used to be men on. Seriously did anyone buy that?
So there I was totally at war within myself. Another school year fast approaching, not a lot of friends, and I did not know who or what I was.
It was during this time I wished time and time again that I could take a pill, step into a machine, whatever and change myself into a girl and go on happily being me. For good and/or bad that it would bring.
3 comments:
I can't imagine being in a small town and dealing with all the things you were...even here in a large city, it's still the MidWest and I'm sure it isn't easy!
And yes, you are a rock star, you just haven't been discovered by the masses yet!
alan
Actually Alan I grew up in a very densely populated area. Just the city I was in had small borders with two school districts (never understood that) but when I got to HS the population had declined (people had kids, they grew up then the parents stayed until they retired so not as many kids) so there was only 600+ kids total in the HS while I was there. In fact my class was the largest the entire time I was there at 140+ students in it.
My Cousins who lived 5 miles away in the next city over routinely graduated 600+ each year. Not to mention the 3 other cities around me did pretty much the same if not more.
Strange, Kelli. I've known about your blog for years but never really have gone back and read the posts. After reading your post about the transgender kids camp, I realized that I've really missed out on reading the thoughts of someone else I can relate to. I hope that makes sense. Anyway, this post so reminds me of my early years and after reading this I know why you want to spend time with the younger kids who have it so much better in today's more open (relatively speaking) society.
Calie
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