Brave and real. Thank you 😊.

When I was in the psych ward, depression and anxiety section, at the VA hospital in La Jolla, (San Diego), I had a private room.

I’m a trans-woman.

It was 1996. I had begun hrt in the summer of 1993. I was put in a private room because I hadn’t had bottom surgery. (the military is not known for bathing privacy 😉).

I suppose because it was southern California, and I had changed my name and gender on all identification, there was no problem with names or pronouns.(I had changed my voice by learning counter-tenor).

1995;

I needed no facial surgery or injections, just hormones. I had started out tall, thin, and “easy to look at”.

The only time I felt any animus was when a nurse was giving me a physical, with a very young Vietnamese-American woman doctor observing.

She, as the rn was holding the stethoscope thingie under my left breast, suddenly blurted out, “You know you can’t ever be pregnant!”

The nurse and I shared an eye-roll.

Oh, and once, one of the women in the larger, shared by six, women’s room, speaking in a voice calculated for me to hear as I walked by, “She must be an officer, to get a private room”. She sounded quite jealous, petulant even.

Okay, now that I’ve explained how easily,(physically), I transitioned, I must say that I have attempted suicide more times than I can count, particularly if you count 45 years of severe alcoholism as a rather extended, or continuous attempt.

I doubted myself almost continuously. Even at the time of the above pic, I was often afraid of looking like a man… When the photographer was clicking away, telling me how to position my head, I clearly remember thinking, “He’s working so hard to find an angle wherein I look like a woman. I’m sure that he hates me because I’m trans.”

What I can say is that I knew, deep within myself, where the real knowing is, that I was a girl, starting from my earliest memories as a toddler.(b. October 1958)

In the way of advice, I can only say, trust your knowing, embrace the journey.

In 1998, I was determined by my clinical psychologist and a social security panel of doctors to be “totally and permanently disabled, unemployable”, due to major depressive disorder, with suicide attempts, major anxiety disorder, with panic attacks and agoraphobia, and borderline personality disorder.

You are going to be okay. Make the decision that you are going to be okay. For some of us, “okay” is a fucking miracle!

My meditation mantra;

Peace Love Kindness Respect, the more you give the more you get 😍 (start with yourself 😉 because you deserve it.) ❤️🙏🏼

You really do…I promise.

— weezi —

🥳

PS; I’m a vagitarian too! 😋

Oh! PPS; It may sound a bit trite, but it’s true, when you think about it, and adopt it as a way of life but, You Are As Happy As You Decide To Be! ❤️🙏🏼🥳😋