This past weekend I told my wife about the depths of my depression the past 5 months. We finally had a talk that discussed some of the issues surrounding this depression.
But first;
I'm reading the book "Whipping Girl" by Julia Serano. I'll review it in my next post, but this book was the catalyst (literally) for the discussion that my wife and I had.
This discussion was long overdue. I had just checked this book out from the library and it was sitting on the desk in my office. My wife came into the office and in the course of talking with me, saw the title and subtitle of this book. (The subtitle btw is "A Transsexual Woman On Sexism And The Scapegoating Of Femininity")
My wife saw a glimpse of this book and made some comments about the possibility of our Son seeing this book and wondered aloud about what would he think. She also mentioned that she thought that I was trying to work on not being Trans any more.
I tried to explain to her that I am trying to learn as much as I can about my gender issues and that reading everything that I can get my hands on helps.
I have to help myself, because my I can't rely solely on therapy to decipher my past or chart my future.
She keeps returning to this book that I asked her to read a few months ago called "True Selves". She read one paragraph.
Boy!, was it the wrong one to start with! She still hasn't recovered from reading the story of a Trans person in the book who told of that while making love she would imagine herself as her self-identified gender.
Crap.
For a spouse who is a strict heterosexual and has a severe self-image/body confidence problem, this was like replacing the rock that was the base of our marital relationship with a leaking boat. We still make love and enjoy it very much, but she tells me that this is foremost in her mind.
Indeed.
TMI? Too bad, you've come this far, you might as well put your feet up and finish reading.
I had wanted her to start at a logical place in the book, like I don't know, maybe at the beginning. She is a very logical practical person, so unlike me; how much logic does it take to start in the middle of a book? Unreal. I wouldn't have bet money on those chances.
The middle of the book has put her understanding of my gender feelings in a precarious position to say the least. In fact, she doesn't want to know or lean anymore about it. Granted, there has to be more than just the problems that this book has "caused", and surely there is. We can get into those points later, but for now; I need to finish this post.
Fast forward to last Thursday. This mini-argument over the book "Whipping Girl" sent my already shaky emotional state crashing into the rocks.
Despair soon followed. It was bad. On Friday there were two times that I was ready to give up. Emotionally, I had come to a breaking point. I have never cried while I was running before this day. I'm not talking tears, but crying, the kind that comes with a thought process that will not produce a positive or cleansing emotional state.
I felt that I just couldn't do it anymore. For some reason though, I keep living. I don't know why. I am miserable how I am living now, but when I look into my crystal ball, I don't see life getting any better.
Again; anyway,
On this past Saturday, we went for a motorcycle ride and ate lunch at a beautiful restaurant on Lake Pontchartrain. It was a wonderfully sunny day. We ate lunch on the veranda with this $500,000 dollar view. (there were power lines, ruining the other $500,000). The conversation grew quiet and the plates were cleared when we finally spoke about the baby elephant in the room. (The big elephant didn't make an appearance)
So I told her how bad the depression had gotten. Mostly. I didn't tell her breaking down running or that same evening how, while in the shower I just wanted to fall to the floor and melt into the drain.
What I did tell her is that the depression was bad. She asked how bad, I said it is just short of calling the coroner bad. I couched it, I know. We were in public and some decorum was in order.
She told me that she could tell.
Well gee. She could tell? I mean of course you could tell, but if you could, then why not say something I wondered...?
So we talked about depression, our love for each other, Joel, and that stupid book that she read that she can't get out of her mind.
We were able to reconnect this day on an emotional level that we haven't been on in months.
The crazy thing is that I left the very next day for a two week business trip. I felt awful laying the depression thing on her, then leaving. Things are not too much better here, but at least I have demon rum to help pass the nights.
What will my return in two weeks bring? How can I build on our conversation of that day? Can I tell her that the gender dysphoria is as bad as it ever was, and that even with surgery to correct the this feeling, I wonder if it is worth the cost. Ok, so then what? I'll tell you what. What it does is leave me in a pit of despair, a pit that feels like the wall are closing in. Sort of like that trash compactor in the first Star Wars movie.
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