The Appointment..

On the bus on the train walking round the streets in a daze it feels like I can't seem to catch my breath right now. I feel like something shimmering in between, both excited and afraid of what I may find in the time ahead of me. I make myself small and invisible and yet still feeling eyes upon me as I walk by I can't help but find myself questioning this path I have chosen for the millionth time again. All the upheaval all the disapproval of it. It would be so much easier and safer to stay locked away safe in the darkness of my secrets. Is this what it is like to be in the closet? Funny how I have spent my whole life out of the closet only to find I was in one all along.

Back on the street my feet taking me closer to the place of no return finally setting myself on that road. Step and step and step and step, not much longer now, step, step, you don't have to do anything now you can just take your time, step, step, I'm at the door, looks like a door to a fancy house, only it's not a front door it's a side door off the main street in a building not attached to the Hospital campus with signs that talk about mental health. I can't help but feeling a wave of irony touch me. Here I am coming out into the world stepping out into the sunlight so to speak in a little side road through the metal health door. I guess this is a day for readjusting my perspective.

My appointment starts on time my mind is shutting itself away tucking up tight like a child hiding under the stairs, I need to be able to talk, tell her how this works for me, why I need this. Panic rising and pushing up against my mouth like a bitter bile it freezes my tongue. The answers to her questions are short and superficial, I feel myself cringing inside scrabbling round for some semblance of eloquence in the hope that I may rescue myself. The hour lingers on almost as if time has slowed down to give me the chance to save myself, but there will be no saving today I fear. 'Do you have any questions you want to ask me?' I look at her blankly my face impassive while my mind races round like a hamster trying to grab hold of everything at once, anything for once. 'No I think I'm fine.' I should of just shot myself right there and then and now it's gone the moment passed she's walking out the door and I am left to pick up my stuff and go, dismissed..

It's been a while..

It's been a long time, I've been up and down and all around the world inside my little world and here I am again. It's been a change of pace a change of job a change of living space a change of me and back to old me and then change again. It never stops changing here and that's ok, I like the change I like the constant roar of back and forth of not quite knowing where I'll be or who I'll be when I wake up.

So Since I've been away aside from the job and new place to live I've given up on love and then found it again ( funny how the universe will always pop along to dangle some sort of delicious treat in the form of something you've just given up to tempt you just as you swear you'll never eat it again and before you know it your stuffing your face full of it, but that's ok too I like it. ) I went to my local psych for an evaluation and apparently I'm not to crazy to go to the gender clinic and so i got an appointment for October, I was happy to wait, I'd waited this long and a few months for time to adjust to the idea of doing something about changing was nothing compared to the years I've spent agonizing over whether or not I should do anything at all. Then I got a letter saying my appointment has been pushed up to June, suddenly the reality is more real and more scary. I'm torn between the excitement and the wanting to finally move a little further along that road to being more me and the fear of what that me might be. How will I change, who will I change into, will I like the me I become? Will this change change the friends I have found or the friends I have kept. Will I remember to take a breath every now and then to take stock and just make sure I am really going where I want to go. Everything is changing..

Appointment pt3

Another unnaturally beautiful morning, I've been out all night and am woken at 7:30am by my phone ringing. I am waiting on a job offer so thinking it might be that I leap up and run for the phone I have drunkenly left in the front room. Once I answer it it turns out to be my Doctor seeing if I can come in earlier to see him. Sure, why not I am just round the corner and the sooner I get it done the more of the day I have to do other things. So I wash up get some clothes on and walk down to the GP in the amazing sunshine, I'm feeling pretty damn happy today.

I've been having real issues with my food over the last few months. I am a punishment eater, I don't eat for comfort I eat to punish my body or at least I have in the past. Stuff it full to bursting with any old crap I can get my hands on to hurt it. Since I have come out as trans I have been getting a hold of it, the idea that I could actually have the body I want or something closer to it has allowed me to take more control over my food and start working out and for the first time I think in my adult life, I am being body aware. I'm thinking about what I want my body to look like and I'm taking steps to try and achieve it.

In the last month or so though I was finding it harder and harder to stop going back to my old habits. Bit by bit I was slowly reverting back to the old tortured eater and would stuff myself with food I didn't enjoy as some way of blocking out the world and hurting myself and I think in a way it is also a way of hiding my body. I couldn't work out what it was that was bothering me and then I noticed it.

I don't know if anyone else plays this game, I expect they must because I think it's just human nature to do this. I play a game when I am out in the world, in my head I call it body shopping. I look around at guys and when I see a guy who's body I like, I think to myself I'll look like that one day. Or I'll see a guy and think I'd like to have pecks like that or legs like that. I'd stopped doing it and when I started to think about why I had stopped I realized I needed to do something about getting referred. Part of me very much needs to explore this option of body modification and though other parts of me seem content to carry on, this part doesn't think life is worth living if I don't have at least a look. So I guess this is a part of me that I have kept pretty quiet for a long time and now it's got a voice it is yelling at the top of it's lungs to be heard.

At first when I started just the possibility of being recognized and addresses in a male context was enough for this part of me it made me believe that that was indeed how people saw me and it gave me the space to start getting control of my eating habits. This only existed in a little bubble of space though and as I grew more comfortable with my male space I wanted to expand that out. I started to realize that I was still being seen as female especially in male company which made me want to revert back to invisible, because being invisible for me is better than being singled out as a girl. It was a relief to realize this in a strange way in fact any revelation be it one I want or one I don't is a good thing it helps to give me some kind of anchor in the sea of what ifs I seem to be constantly drowning in. They change too but for the time they are true for me it gives me a chance to work out how I feel about things and helps me to find enough clarity to make a decision or understand something about myself a little better. Sometimes that is all I can ask for.

Anyway back to the Doctors. He was very open and friendly today, such a sweet fellow, I do get the feeling that he genuinely wants to be of help to me and that for me is a very amazing thing. I told him about the call to the GIC and that they said I needed to be referred to a local psychologist. He said that they have one attached to the clinic and wrote out a referral letter for me and said it should take 2-3 weeks and if I hadn't heard anything by then to contact him. I don't want to rush this so I am almost grateful for the waiting, it can be deeply frustrating I expect, but I am trying to see these waits as positive. A chance to take a breath reassess and see if this is really where I want to go and to try and get my body closer to what it is I want.

Post Appointment

What a unexpectedly beautiful day, so clear up there that it feels like you could see all the way to the other end of the universe. I'm looking out the window of my front room, it's darker and quieter in here and darker and quieter in me thinking about how I will talk to my GP about getting referred to start transitioning, though I feel like I'm doing that all the time. I'm unsettled by it all, that the day should be so clear and so beautiful and I should feel so unsettled and disquieted by this. Am I taking steps forward or steps back, is this brave or is it copping out? I can't decide I need help to decide, this is why I am doing this. I feel impatient about some things like the idea of having top surgery, reticent about others like taking hormones. It's funny don't you think that I would feel less concerned about major surgery than an injection?

Walking down the street and it's like I am suddenly noticing men and women for the first time. How they walk differently, look around differently, hair, body parts, I feel like some sort of alien looking at humans for the first time. I my vision slightly tinged with panic, words running round and round in my head, how do I tell this stranger probably one of the most personal things in my life, something I haven't even dared to speak out loud for the last 20 years. How do I explain this, what if he doesn't believe me.

I sign into the doctors office it's one of those new touch screen sign in thingymajiggs, I haven't been in a GP surgery for almost 10 years, they have come along way in making sure the patients do the work, not so much with the waiting times though. I sign in and find myself hesitating over the question am I male or female, I don't know how to answer this question anymore. I know what I want to answer but I think of all the confusion and questions that will probably follow and I reluctantly touch the screen, I feel like a traitor and a fool all at the same time.

The screen says the doctors running -32 mins so I look around for something to occupy my time with reading but there is nothing. I sit there just me and the lady in the burka, who eventually gets up and after a confused exchange with the more pleasant but less than helpful receptionists she leaves the office. I am alone now in this waiting room, waiting for my name to skip across the moving LED panel and tell me to go to room 2, it's always room 2, I don't actually think there are any other rooms here. I sit there reading the moving adverts that tell me to go have a smear test or let the surgery know if I have changed my mobile number ( spelt mobil, should I tell them it's spelt wrong, I don't think they would care ) and wondering how am I going to explain this.

Eventually the sign beeps and tells me to go to room 2, I walk down the hallway and knock on the door. "Come in." Old habits die hard I've never been able to walk into a room with a closed door without knocking first. There he is, sitting at his cluttered desk, watching some sort of video on a computer screen I can't see and he is very careful to make sure I can't see it. It sounds like a movie of some sort and I find myself trying to work out what they are saying but he calls my attention back to the room and indicates he is impatient to get to the point. GP's they are all business no chit chat, in a way I am grateful for the conveyor belt approach as it means generally that as long as you are confident about what you want you get it, but it is still not easy to say the words and what words. He looks at me impatience growing in his face and I still sit there. I look at him, a tall man of African decent, his accent tells me he didn't grow up here, maybe a blessing I think. Round his neck glints a crucifix so tiny dangling there made even tinier by his huge neck but it may as well be the biggest thing in the room. The words still sticking, he coughs gently, his face is not angry, it is a mask of any emotion and yet it is gentleness I sense in him despite his unremarkable GP manner.

Deep breath, "OK, have you ever heard of the term Transgendered?" I look him dead in the eye, I dare you to scowl at me, dare you to rebuke me, dare you to throw these words back and send me out. He looks at me, still no expression of any real note I am impressed by his control. He nods and says he has and then taps some keys and says he must refer me to the Gender Clinic, I am taken aback by his reaction. I am not really sure what I was expecting, I feel embarrassed, deflated even, unsure of what to do next. He says he needs to have my full records first to see what I have had done and I tell him nothing I want to start the transition process and he says he can write me a referral letter to the Gender Clinic at Charing Cross Hospital and I can take it in myself.

I feel confused, "Can I do that?" He seems confused by my confusion and seems to think I can, so I say yes I can do that. He asks just to be sure "So you are a woman and you want to be a man." I look at him, I want to say a million and one things, I won't say the word man, I just say male, I nod and say yes. He asks "Is this something you have always felt or did something happen to bring it about?" I look confused, I'm sure, I think what possibly could happen to someone to make them suddenly wish to do this? I say no I have always identified as male. Again "So you are a woman and you want to be a man." I say well this body is female, I won't consent to calling myself a woman, I've never thought of myself that way and being asked outright, I realize I never have. "Have you had any difficulties in your life with this?" I almost laugh, if it wasn't for the fact that he seems completely sincere when he asks me these questions I would outright laugh in his face for them. I say well of course it is not easy living this way and mutter something about having to deal with depression because of it. I don't want to go into my long and sordid history, I don't think he wants to know either so I decide to save it for someone else, I'm not sure who but I don't think it's him.

He finishes typing out the letter of referral and prints it out, sticks it in an envelope and addresses it to the Gender Clinic, I watch him as he does this thinking he has nice handwriting, kind of artistic and it reminds me of my fathers handwriting. I can't seem to look at him anymore and just keep staring at the posters on the wall. He hands me the envelope and give a little smile saying there you go, a good smile one that's trying to say I am trying to look like I want to be kind and helpful to you. I say thanks and smile back, and for a moment I want to give him a hug and shake his hand and say what a great man he is for being so calm about it all, but then I think better of it and just walk away with my letter clutched tightly in my hand. Now what? I get home ring the number for the Gender Clinic but it is too late and the phone just rings and rings and rings. I will try tomorrow maybe.

I still feel unsettled though, like nothing is really set in motion by this, I take all my nervous energy and use it to clean the flat do loads of laundry and then go out and buy containers and organize my food cupboards. I feel like I should feel like something is set in motion, instead I feel like I tripped over my feet as the starting gun went off. I find myself being afraid that I am gong to get through to the clinic and they are going to tell me I've done it all wrong and I need to go back. If I do then I will no big deal so I don't know why that bothers me. I guess I feel like I should know what is going on that I should of left there with some sort of roadmap, you know like 6 months see Psychiatrist who will work out if you are crazy in the right way or not, 12 months change name legally, take T something like that, but then nothing works like that does it..

Take 2

Well I managed to get myself up this morning and headed off to the GP, not feeling the best anyway so it won't be a wasted trip I think. The receptionist was very pleasant today unlike the time before maybe it was the sunshine and the warm weather who knows but it was good to not have to do battle with and angry receptionist about why I missed the fist appointment.

So to my surprise she offered me an appointment today, which I took before I could think about it. Now here I am sitting at home on a truly spectacular day in my dark front room, worrying about not saying the right thing to get my referral. I mean I am not in the business of being dishonest about my gender identity but I know that in a system one must meet the requirements of that system to get what one requires, do I meet those requirements? Do I tick the magic boxes? What are the magic boxes? Can my GP refuse just because he doesn't agree with what I am trying to do? Do I even need to ask for anything more than a referral and not even mention my gender issues? So many questions, even more than the ones here. All I can do is trust that what ever it is that occurs I am able to deal with it.

If at first..

I'm going to try again, get up tomorrow and go down to the doctors and make an appointment to get referred and not forget or avoid going in anyway. I am worried though that he will not refer me. Am I supposed to say some sort of magic combination of words that opens the secret door to transition? Who knows? Guess we will just have to wait and see, I have decided to try and take that approach with this whole thing from reading other peoples experiences this takes a bloody long time and I need to be prepared to let things take a long time. I know I can be impatient when I get something into my head that needs to be done. I'm a feet first kind of guy who doesn't hold back because I could be dead tomorrow so I may as will give it a full measure.

I tend to take that approach with a lot of things in my life, when I was younger I watched a lot of people give up on a lot of things ( myself included ) some made it and some didn't and I guess that has kind of left me with this might as well do it now because tomorrow may be too late kind of ethos. Well for some things anyway. For others I will procrastinate till the end of days because I am afraid of a million and one things that could happen some I want some I don't, but I guess most people are like that really. So yes tomorrow, tomorrow I'll give it another go, stop worrying about the what if's and the what could happens and just get on with it. Hop back on the treadmill and get a running.