Reply To: Welcome!

[Mrs. Mesmer]

Hi, Thanks for the welcome. Did I really sign up back in March? I’d say time flies when you’re having fun but I’m not.

I’m terrible with passwords and don’t want anyone to be able to log into my account just by clicking so I’ve gone round in circles a bit the last few days but I’m glad to finally be able to post.

I’m having a rough time and I’m thoroughly confused about whether, and how, I should leave. I’ll post about that in the right place when I can but for now, it’s just a relief to be somewhere where I can let my guard down a little. I’m coming to terms with being trans and have – if I can get away from the house – an assessment this week for referral to a gender ID clinic. It’s been long and difficult to get to this point, and the more the me inside is let out, the harder it is to put her back in her box until next time. It really hurts.

I live with someone who’s also gender nonconforming but f2m and who denies my gender. So I’m doing all the exploration in secret. She – she’s still using ‘she’ at the moment – denies my gender. She says it’s just a kink. Which is kind of my fault because when we met, 20+ yrs ago, I reassured her that I didn’t want to transition; which was a lie but I thought I’d lose her if I told the truth. When she’s being nasty, I make her ‘sick’. Where we were before we came here, she used to go down the pub and tell all the blokes I’m gay because ‘I want to be the woman’. I’ve never been attracted to men and I really, really don’t like men’s bits (sorry chaps). The only vaguelly sexual contact I’ve ever had with men was non-consensual.

Anyway. She has a stack of mental health problems that I won’t name but they sometimes (when does it become often?) drive really abusive behaviour. And sometimes there’s abusiveness that seems unrelated to those problems. For a long time I thought I had to put up with it because the support sites for those problems tell family and friends that it can be scary but never say ‘and sometimes you may need to get out for your own safety’.

But today I’m just really sad. It’s three years this weekend since I started a new job that got us out of a toxic situation and offered the hope of healing. But Covid messed it all up and since the summer (? I can’t remember) the mental health stuff has ramped up again. When you marry, you promise ‘in sickness and in health’ but even when the sickness puts you at risk? Let alone the sheer nastiness of what she becomes like.

I’ve lately managed to plug into various support things, have a DV case worker, should be getting counselling soon and have some friends who know everything. I use the Hollie Guard app (or try to but it keeps re-opening when I close it which seems really dangerous) and send myself recordings when things are bad. But the bottom line is. Everything hurts. And I don’t know if I’m strong enough to leave. And she scares me. When she’s desperate, there’s no guessing how far she’ll go to cause hurt; and she’ll be desperate if either I’m diagnosed with gender dysphoria or I tell her it’s over. I’m safe right now. And I know I’ll be feel able to walk out if it gets really bad again because I’ve drawn a mental line in the sand. But it’s so much more difficult to think about that when things are relatively normal.

That was supposed to be a short ‘hello’. Sorry! I have very limited opportunities to talk about so when I get a chance, it kind of gushes!