APTG: A Failed Retrospective - 4 Years On

This blog was 4 years old on the 10th May. I tried to prepare some kind of retrospective looking over what ive been up to, what ive learned, and what ive been feeling over the past year and 4 years, but there was nothing to type about. I wish id have gotten up to more by now, but life just seems to be passing me by at the moment. Im aiming to change this soon, but ive been meaning to do that for a while. I guess my confidence just isnt there and its holding me back a bit with regards to getting out there a bit more.

So I thought I should say im still here, im doing ok, and I will be back soon when I have something worth typing about.

A Look Back at 2014

First off, I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope 2014 went well for you all and I hope you have an amazing 2015.

So, I suppose I should wrap up how the year went. Im not going to bore you with the stats of the blog, instead im going to bore you with how it went for me. What went well, what didnt go so well, what I want to do differently next year... it sounds like im writing my monthly appraisal in work.

Another year has passed, they really do feel like they go quicker every year, and it feels like I am achieving less every year too. This year ive ticked quite a big thing from my trans-to-do list, but around that I dont feel like ive achieved much else.

This is the year I went through NHS counselling, which I had waited for so long for but didnt really feel like I got much out of it. I had waited for so long for the sessions I had already sorted through a number of the issues plaguing me by myself. I also went out in London, which was something that had been on my trans-to-do list for as long as ive been trans, and it was a bit of a let down in some ways. I was with some amazing people, but without the local knowledge the weekend didnt quite go as well as I would have liked. But, im glad I did. It was still an experience and it gave me a few things to reflect on.

But soon after the London trip I was pretty miserable, I just couldnt bring myself to express my female side and im still struggling a little now to really push myself through the massive effort and the dissapointment that can follow. Towards the end of the year I realised all this negativity was being counter productive and I needed to change my thinking and be positive about it, to accept my limitations and actually begin to enjoy expressing my feminine side again. I changed the name of the blog in order to fit with this new outlook, and have had reasonable success with this change in thinking. I still only dressed up once before the end of the year but I did enjoy it, and im not beating myself up mentally anywhere near as I have been in recent times.

But, im still not 100% happy, and im not sure ill ever be really. It still eats at me a little when I have quiet moments. I still have regrets. I still have needs that I feel are unfulfilled. And while im not completely happy with this, is it bad enough to warrant a move towards living full time and in turn losing my girlfriend? No, I dont think it is. So I just have to suck it up and get on with it, and be happy with what I have, and who I am.

So what now for the new year?

Im not going to do what I did last year and set a massive list of specific things that I knew in the back of my mind I was going to fail at. Instead, im going to set a few loose aims, some of which im already making progress with. This year I want to make new local friends, my confidence is not the best when it comes to meeting new people but this year I am putting myself out there because I need to socialise with people who are on my level. I want to get out more, whether it is meeting people at their homes for a girls night in, or going out somewhere LGBT friendly or more public, I dont care. And this year I want to work on my body image. I want to be able to look in the mirror and be completely happy with the person looking back at me, without compromise. Clothes, hair, makeup, overall style, the works. This is going to involve not only a different exercise and grooming regime, but also a change in thinking. I need to do it, I just feel like im wasting away and have nothing to show for my time. Its been a few years now since I started 'coming out' a little, and it feels like I have made so little ground.

Thats it I think. I hope you all have an amazing 2015! x

T-Central Guest Post

A while back now I received an email from Calie over at  T-Central, asking if I would be interested in writing a guest post for their new series of 'Thoughts and Reflections'. Initially I was hesitant, I wasnt sure that I was going to be able to type anything that I felt would be up to standard. I felt like if I was going to write for her then my post should have meaning (like Lynn's excellent, motivational piece), rather then the self indulgence I usually post on here. But after countless attempts at trying to write something meaningful without coming across as preachy, I stuck to what I know and settled for the self indulgence anyway! I decided that my journey was the only one I was truly qualified to speak about, so I created a post which covered a brief bit of my history, along with some ponderings ive been having lately about how to fit all this trans stuff into my crowded and established male identity.

I spent a considerable amount of my free time working on it (when I should have been job hunting) and went through loads of different ideas, versions and edits. I found it quite difficult trying to be honest about what ive been through without sounding too negative/depressing, but I think I found a nice balance. And I also didnt want to spend ages waffling on, so I even cut loads out to try and keep it interesting. I just hope I didnt cut too much out and lose some of the points I wanted to make.

So yeah, if you are interested in reading it, my contribution to 'Thoughts and Reflections' can be found here. I would love to hear what you think.

MGC 2 Years On: A Retrospective

2 years.

2 years ive been dipping in and out of this blog, recording the very few highs and very many lows of trying to figure out how I can make myself more comfortable on my journey between genders. Since the first retrospective I think there has been progress and I have come to a few realisations, however it feels like every time I eventually manage to move forward, it raises more and more questions.

In July last year I went on my first weekend away to spend entirely dressed up, daytime and night time! I went to Sparkle in Manchester and while I didnt particularly get on with the entertainment or things to do, it was a good introduction to being out and about in public, but in the relative safety of the gay quarter.

Following this was a period of inner turmoil. I was struggling with trying to cope with my gender issues, and in turn this caused my dysphoria and depression to kick back in in a big way. This was different than my last bout of depression, it was a lot more emotional. I eventually had to tell my GP about my trans side, and was prescribed anti depressants to help cope while I was referred to counselling. After a while I had to come off the anti depressants, not because I was better, but because I was not reacting well to them.

My low mood meant for the rest of the year I was finding it difficult to motivate myself to express my female side, since fighting the 'maleness' felt more and more difficult everytime I needed to trim it back, to the point it felt almost futile. I was struggling to find a balance where I was happy with my appearance in either form, and this became a vicious circle.

As we entered 2014, this slowly started to calm down a bit. I finally started counselling over 7 months after referral although by this point I dont think I needed it. I still havent dressed up much this year though, mostly as it feels like a waste to dress up just to sit around the house.

This month I also finally managed to go on my first weekend dressed up in the general public, I went to London and spent a night out in Soho, and a day out wandering through Covent Garden towards the Thames. This was a totally different experience of Sparkle, without being in the relative safety of the gay quarter it was fairly uncomfortable after a while.

To summarise, mentally this past year has been a bit of a rollercoaster for me but it has slowly evened out over this year so far. Experience-wise I have done a couple of quite big things over the past 12 month which I have wanted to do for years. Im really happy I managed to push myself out there to do them, but I dont think I would do them again. So, I am left left thinking "what now?".

Looking Forward

Im still trying to process London so to be honest im not sure where to go from here. While im confident and happy with myself (largely) as a female, im not the kind of person that is happy to put up with the scrutiny I felt I was under when mixing in with 'normal' people. In some ways, this is what I wanted. I wanted to build myself up to be able to go anywhere and do anything dressed up and for it to be and feel normal, but the reactions of the people around me made me feel anything but normal.

So, what now? I dont know. I really dont know.

Sometimes I just think what is the point? What I want is to be seen and accepted as female but that just seems completely unattainable. What is the point of going through the hassle of being trans if I cant achieve the thing im striving to? Most of the time though I try to look at things more realistically, I know my limitations and can work around and accept that I have to deal with them, but this doesnt help when it comes to other people and how they choose to deal with the man in a dress stood in front of them. If im not getting the social feedback from the people around me that correlates to the gender I present as, it makes it more difficult to keep it going mentally.

I dont want to have to limit myself to trans friendly places or private meets, but I think I am out of options.

MGC 1 Year On: A Retrospective

It has been a year since I started using this blog (I had set it up in August 2011 but did not used it for another 8 months), so I wanted to create a post reflecting on what has happened over the past year and my hopes for the coming year, and beyond.

So when I started this blog I was suffering severely with depression, and I had been off work for nearly a month. I was feeling low, demotivated, emotionally unbalanced, isolated, my self esteem was shot, I had a very short temper, I never left the house, and all I did was spend all my time working myself up in my head and making myself worse. Some months later my girlfriend even said she didnt know how much longer she would have been able to take it, it almost cost me my relationship with her. Work was a main factor in causing me to melt down, but my gender issues were also an underlying part of it too. I needed to express it more but felt trapped by my relationship.

I was off work and didnt even have the motivation to do any of my hobbies so I spent a considerable amount of time trawling the internet looking at trans blogs and sites, and in some ways this made me worse. I would read and see photos of people out and about, enjoying and living their lives as their female side and it would just make me jealous, so insanely jealous. This made me feel even more isolated.

July 2012 is when it all kicked off for me. In one month I started seeing a counsellor, I went to a dressing service so I could see me fully dressed for the first time (which I forgot to write a post about), and I also came out to my girlfriend which is one of the hardest things ive ever had to do. Telling her was something I planned to do 12 months previously when I first started properly exploring this, I said after a year if it wasnt something I would be able to stop, I would tell her. The pressure of knowing I would be telling her could also have possibly contributed towards my depression but it was a necessary thing to do.

After telling her it was like a weight was lifted from my shoulders, it felt like it was the final piece of my depression being taken away from me and I was happier and more relaxed than I had been for a long time, but this did not last. Over the coming weeks and months I started wanting more, I wanted to take things much further, permanently further. This made me feel low again and I became very confused, was I meant to be a girl? Was transition something I needed in my life? It took me nearly to the end of the year to start to realise that maybe that wasnt  the right choice for me. I cant begin to tell you how bad I want to be a woman sometimes, how bad it makes me feel that I am not and never will be one, but I dont think it is enough to need to transition.

In September I went on my first (and only so far) night out dressed as a woman, and as much as the club was not my kind of place, I really enjoyed being out like this. It is something I would love to repeat again, very soon hopefully! And this was pretty much the end of anything major happening in my trans life. When I had the odd opportunity that I could express it, I spent my female time at home gradually feeling more and more isolated, and continued to struggle with my body image while trying to get my dysphoria under control. This is still a work in progress.

So where does this leave me now? Well I dont feel like im depressed anymore but im still struggling with varying degrees of dysphoria. Sometimes im happy just getting on with my business as a man, no problem. Other times I feel off and hate who I am, wishing I was living as the other gender. I also feel as if my gender exploration has stalled, since September I feel like I have literally done nothing with this. When I came out I had big expectations and plans of things I wanted to do. I wanted to get out into the world and make up for lost time, and I havent done anything. This isnt helping either, and it can really get me down too. Im still trying to find a balance for both sides of me that works, but I am yet to find it.

I need to make the most of my 2013, and hopefully even this summer to try and get out there as much as I can. Day trips, nights out, social groups, anything... I need to get out there otherwise this is going to turn into the biggest regret of my life. I cant keep on like this. I just feel like my life is passing me by and I cant do anything about it.

I want to make this the year that I step out of my closet a little more. I want to see the real world through Aimee's eyes. I want to feel feminine (and dare I say it, sexy...) from the inside out, and I want to show the world my true colours. Summers coming and I want to experience it the way I have dreamed about for so many year, in a nice top, loose skirt, sandals and with my legs out.