Your family gathering sounds vaguely similar to the night that I just had with my family. I need to finish reading your article later, reading about your experience and how similar it was to mine kind of has me sinking into depression again.
I will get back to it later after we get past this cursed time of the year.
After 5 years of asking for them tochange so they can emotionally support me(and getting nowhere), I sent this to my BirthMom. I hope she sees this (and this comment too). I blocked her until she finds, and is actively participating in [mental health] therapy.
I don't write much on Substack, but I am often busy in the comments sections trying to follow your amazing example of outreach, affirmation, and education. My Substack profile is simply a URL to my lone post on Reddit. And while it covers broad swaths of my life as a newly hatched MtF transbian whose path to realization and acceptance was very different from yours...it doesn't focus on the *precise moment* I had my epiphany. The moment my entire world changed, and my future actually became brighter for once instead of slowly, inevitably darker.
It was almost exactly one year ago when my slightly-cracked-egg internet searching led me to your story, "Part One: A Webcomic".
I wasn't as blissfully oblivious as you were. I always knew, but refused to -accept-, the inevitable truth about myself. Until I read your story and its links to Mae Dean's incredibly "relatable" webcomic.
But while my story and "Greg's" are virtually identical, it wasn't the webcomic in and of itself that shattered those sturdy walls of denial I had labored to build over nearly 5 decades. It was reading *your* reactions and flashbacks in response to the comic, and how that affected YOU that truly affected ME.
Because if someone as utterly oblivious as you were (and I actually mean that in the best possible way, because I truly believe my state was far worse) could be so affected...then what the hell was MY excuse when, just like "Greg", I've known since age 7 or 8...and would cry myself to sleep nightly while praying to wake up as a girl?
Whereas your heart was thundering in your chest by the end of Part One, I was already in tears as the inescapable and highly combustible truth finally breathed oxygen...and the explosive backdraft obliterated all of my carefully crafted rationales for NOT transitioning.
So while I doubt I can ever even come -close- to repaying you for this precious gift, please know that your words and your story and your courage and your FACTS -- all of these things that make up your undeniable Truth -- are like a soothing, curative balm applied lovingly to the raw psychic wounds of your trans kindred.
I came out to my older sister and younger brother in October, and all of us are somewhere under the trans umbrella. As are my younger brother's 3 kids...which is why he and his wife picked up and immediately moved from Arkansas, where we all grew up, to Massachusetts as soon as their 3rd child came out as a transmale at age 14.
None of which I was aware of, btw...until I came out to them in October. So now, thanks to you and your writing, I am closer to my wife and everyone in my family (except for my mother, who is probably going to be like your MIL...a years-long project) than I ever have been before...and it's a source of true joy.
So, humbly, I just wanted to say, "Thank you, ma'am." Sorry I couldn't find a stocking to hold all of that joy. =)
Emotional maturity isn't a state of enlightenment that you unlock once, then you're good. It's a process that never really ends. It gets easier with practice, but it's always *work*. I have bipolar disorder, and there are times I absolutely cannot regulate my emotional state. I do try to recognize my emotional state and manage its impact on other people (and on myself), but I don't always get it right.
I’ve been feeling terrified ever since the election, but I’ve been finding community and people who promise to protect me, I hope you can find your own family too, I’ve been dependant on a MAGA mother for far too long.
My relationship with my mom is a weekly phone call. She pretends I'm still her little boy, and I pretend she's not pretending. She has never once used my name.
I offered to visit her over the holidays, and she politely declined. She's 85 years old, and I don't think she's ever going to change her mind about me. Maybe when she's near death, but by then it may well be too late. I am probably never going to see her again.
I could cut her out of my life completely. I did a while back, for about six months. Maybe it would be better for me. But she's my mom, and so I call her once a week and maintain the small, broken relationship I have with her because that's all I'll ever get.
Thank you for this. It helped me put a few things in perspective. I trend more towards the Lost Child, but gaining understanding of those around me who are emotionally immature helps reframe my internal struggles in a more positive fashion.
I’m glad. The clear-headed, unemotional description of the family system in action is exactly what I need to counter the emotional minefield I find myself in every year. Now, I am armed with better knowledge and understanding and that will make all the difference.
First off, I'm sorry your mother in law put you through that, and I'm glad you had some backup. It just boggles my mind that grown adults can be so immature and petty.
The breakdown is tragically way too accurate. I'm the youngest in a family of four, and I'm seven, eleven, and thirteen years younger than my brothers. I'm actually in a different generation (Gen X) than my (Boomer) brothers. I used to joke that me and the next youngest took turns being the black sheep, but honestly, he was always the black sheep and I was the lost child. And yeah, I got the full brunt of “you’re just too sensitive", and "it was only a joke" growing up. I was the geeky, bookish, shy gamer kid into costuming, ren faires, and history groups. I was the one who could make technology dance. I was the one who didn't fit into my brothers patterns. I was the one everyone believed was a closeted gay man, despite the girlfriends I had.
It turned out they were looking at the wrong closet.
And now? I'm the graduate student. I'm the one looking at a doctorate. And now I'm the only daughter. My mom cherishes the fact she finally got the daughter she always wanted (it seemed I was on backorder). She's proud of me. But at the same time, I've got decades of being the lost child, made all the more so because I'm a married queer transwoman and a scientist. The brother who's the black sheep accepts me. My mother expresses support.
My hippy-turned-fundementalist right-wing oldest brother? The one feted as the prodigal son? I'm an abomination. The second oldest? The one who is a rock-hound and should have commonality with his geologist sister? "It's a phase" to him.
My mom wants to have the image of the big happy family, but it's not going to happen. She wants to believe that all her kids will support me like she does, but she has to know deep down inside that it's not true.
I'm supposed to travel next month to her 90th birthday. And I know, despite what my says, my wife and I are going to possibly face a hostile environment. I'm going to get the barbed comments and "teasing", and the "accidental" misgendering and deadnaming. And I'm going to watch my wonderful wife rise to my defense until we both claim an "early flight in the morning" and leave.
I will be the dutiful daughter for however long I can before any pretense of respecting my boundries are abandoned. And then I will go back to being the lost child again.
Former Lost Child here. My parents divorced decades ago, and my father has been dead for several years. Reading this, I realized just how much it has helped me that my mom, in the last few years, has acknowledged and apologized for the home situation (abusive father) while I was growing up, even as she correctly notes that she did the best she could. She also was great through my transition, even if she still messes up pronouns occasionally. I'm sorry your situation isn't similar, but your writing has helped me to understand and appreciate my mom a lot more.
Really interesting. I think I'd be in the Lost Child category. This was my second Christmas out to my whole family and I've had over a year of CPTSD attacks since coming out to them (20 months after friends). This Christmas Eve was one of the worst of my life but having had a course of EMDR this Summer I was able to write out my triggers in an e-mail to my parents and had one of the best Christmas days. Thanks again for all your work : )
What your MIL did and engineered to be done do you made me angry. Angry not that she was inflicting her emotional immaturity on you (and everyone else), but angry that there weren't people mitigating its effects. Empty stocking? I would have almost expected most everyone else (at least all the adults) to openly re-distribute what they had been given so yours was now full.
But I understand why family dynamics would have deterred something like that from happening.
We hate your mother in law!
I don't. I just wish she could be the woman she wishes she was.
Your family gathering sounds vaguely similar to the night that I just had with my family. I need to finish reading your article later, reading about your experience and how similar it was to mine kind of has me sinking into depression again.
I will get back to it later after we get past this cursed time of the year.
Hang in there.
After 5 years of asking for them tochange so they can emotionally support me(and getting nowhere), I sent this to my BirthMom. I hope she sees this (and this comment too). I blocked her until she finds, and is actively participating in [mental health] therapy.
I love you Irena, please get better
~Chloè
Oof. Yeah, that's a mood.
Here's something for your stocking:
I don't write much on Substack, but I am often busy in the comments sections trying to follow your amazing example of outreach, affirmation, and education. My Substack profile is simply a URL to my lone post on Reddit. And while it covers broad swaths of my life as a newly hatched MtF transbian whose path to realization and acceptance was very different from yours...it doesn't focus on the *precise moment* I had my epiphany. The moment my entire world changed, and my future actually became brighter for once instead of slowly, inevitably darker.
It was almost exactly one year ago when my slightly-cracked-egg internet searching led me to your story, "Part One: A Webcomic".
I wasn't as blissfully oblivious as you were. I always knew, but refused to -accept-, the inevitable truth about myself. Until I read your story and its links to Mae Dean's incredibly "relatable" webcomic.
But while my story and "Greg's" are virtually identical, it wasn't the webcomic in and of itself that shattered those sturdy walls of denial I had labored to build over nearly 5 decades. It was reading *your* reactions and flashbacks in response to the comic, and how that affected YOU that truly affected ME.
Because if someone as utterly oblivious as you were (and I actually mean that in the best possible way, because I truly believe my state was far worse) could be so affected...then what the hell was MY excuse when, just like "Greg", I've known since age 7 or 8...and would cry myself to sleep nightly while praying to wake up as a girl?
Whereas your heart was thundering in your chest by the end of Part One, I was already in tears as the inescapable and highly combustible truth finally breathed oxygen...and the explosive backdraft obliterated all of my carefully crafted rationales for NOT transitioning.
So while I doubt I can ever even come -close- to repaying you for this precious gift, please know that your words and your story and your courage and your FACTS -- all of these things that make up your undeniable Truth -- are like a soothing, curative balm applied lovingly to the raw psychic wounds of your trans kindred.
I came out to my older sister and younger brother in October, and all of us are somewhere under the trans umbrella. As are my younger brother's 3 kids...which is why he and his wife picked up and immediately moved from Arkansas, where we all grew up, to Massachusetts as soon as their 3rd child came out as a transmale at age 14.
None of which I was aware of, btw...until I came out to them in October. So now, thanks to you and your writing, I am closer to my wife and everyone in my family (except for my mother, who is probably going to be like your MIL...a years-long project) than I ever have been before...and it's a source of true joy.
So, humbly, I just wanted to say, "Thank you, ma'am." Sorry I couldn't find a stocking to hold all of that joy. =)
Thank you. 💜
I have a stocking for you, Full of thank you's for your writing,
I'm also the black sheep in the family, mine is a step mother. I live is the USA and the rest of my family is back in my home country.
Thanks, hope you and "B" have a good holiday together
Emotional maturity isn't a state of enlightenment that you unlock once, then you're good. It's a process that never really ends. It gets easier with practice, but it's always *work*. I have bipolar disorder, and there are times I absolutely cannot regulate my emotional state. I do try to recognize my emotional state and manage its impact on other people (and on myself), but I don't always get it right.
That is absolutely true. 🫂
I’ve been feeling terrified ever since the election, but I’ve been finding community and people who promise to protect me, I hope you can find your own family too, I’ve been dependant on a MAGA mother for far too long.
I have found them. It doesn't make the hole in my heart from the family I was supposed to have close up, but it helps refill it.
Thank you for this. I'm a former golden child, now black sheep alone for Christmas this year.
🫂🫂🫂
I hope you have a peaceful holiday.
My relationship with my mom is a weekly phone call. She pretends I'm still her little boy, and I pretend she's not pretending. She has never once used my name.
I offered to visit her over the holidays, and she politely declined. She's 85 years old, and I don't think she's ever going to change her mind about me. Maybe when she's near death, but by then it may well be too late. I am probably never going to see her again.
I could cut her out of my life completely. I did a while back, for about six months. Maybe it would be better for me. But she's my mom, and so I call her once a week and maintain the small, broken relationship I have with her because that's all I'll ever get.
Thank you for this. It helped me put a few things in perspective. I trend more towards the Lost Child, but gaining understanding of those around me who are emotionally immature helps reframe my internal struggles in a more positive fashion.
I hope you find peace this holiday.
Thank you. This was insightful for me, and it arrived in my inbox at just the right time. So, thank you!
I won't say I'm glad, because I'm not. Essays like this shouldn't be necessary.
I hope you find some peace this holiday, at least.
I’m glad. The clear-headed, unemotional description of the family system in action is exactly what I need to counter the emotional minefield I find myself in every year. Now, I am armed with better knowledge and understanding and that will make all the difference.
First off, I'm sorry your mother in law put you through that, and I'm glad you had some backup. It just boggles my mind that grown adults can be so immature and petty.
The breakdown is tragically way too accurate. I'm the youngest in a family of four, and I'm seven, eleven, and thirteen years younger than my brothers. I'm actually in a different generation (Gen X) than my (Boomer) brothers. I used to joke that me and the next youngest took turns being the black sheep, but honestly, he was always the black sheep and I was the lost child. And yeah, I got the full brunt of “you’re just too sensitive", and "it was only a joke" growing up. I was the geeky, bookish, shy gamer kid into costuming, ren faires, and history groups. I was the one who could make technology dance. I was the one who didn't fit into my brothers patterns. I was the one everyone believed was a closeted gay man, despite the girlfriends I had.
It turned out they were looking at the wrong closet.
And now? I'm the graduate student. I'm the one looking at a doctorate. And now I'm the only daughter. My mom cherishes the fact she finally got the daughter she always wanted (it seemed I was on backorder). She's proud of me. But at the same time, I've got decades of being the lost child, made all the more so because I'm a married queer transwoman and a scientist. The brother who's the black sheep accepts me. My mother expresses support.
My hippy-turned-fundementalist right-wing oldest brother? The one feted as the prodigal son? I'm an abomination. The second oldest? The one who is a rock-hound and should have commonality with his geologist sister? "It's a phase" to him.
My mom wants to have the image of the big happy family, but it's not going to happen. She wants to believe that all her kids will support me like she does, but she has to know deep down inside that it's not true.
I'm supposed to travel next month to her 90th birthday. And I know, despite what my says, my wife and I are going to possibly face a hostile environment. I'm going to get the barbed comments and "teasing", and the "accidental" misgendering and deadnaming. And I'm going to watch my wonderful wife rise to my defense until we both claim an "early flight in the morning" and leave.
I will be the dutiful daughter for however long I can before any pretense of respecting my boundries are abandoned. And then I will go back to being the lost child again.
🫂🫂🫂
Thank you so much. I very much needed to read this today, even though like you said there’s not much we can do to force our parents to change.
There isn't. And it's not just parents—sometimes it's an aunt or uncle or a grandparent, and sometimes it's even a sibling.
But yeah. Yeahhhhh.
Former Lost Child here. My parents divorced decades ago, and my father has been dead for several years. Reading this, I realized just how much it has helped me that my mom, in the last few years, has acknowledged and apologized for the home situation (abusive father) while I was growing up, even as she correctly notes that she did the best she could. She also was great through my transition, even if she still messes up pronouns occasionally. I'm sorry your situation isn't similar, but your writing has helped me to understand and appreciate my mom a lot more.
Really interesting. I think I'd be in the Lost Child category. This was my second Christmas out to my whole family and I've had over a year of CPTSD attacks since coming out to them (20 months after friends). This Christmas Eve was one of the worst of my life but having had a course of EMDR this Summer I was able to write out my triggers in an e-mail to my parents and had one of the best Christmas days. Thanks again for all your work : )
I'm glad that you've been able to make the holiday yours!
What your MIL did and engineered to be done do you made me angry. Angry not that she was inflicting her emotional immaturity on you (and everyone else), but angry that there weren't people mitigating its effects. Empty stocking? I would have almost expected most everyone else (at least all the adults) to openly re-distribute what they had been given so yours was now full.
But I understand why family dynamics would have deterred something like that from happening.