You don’t need to have the knife gun or pill-bottle in your hands to phone the Samaritans. Though you can phone for a listening ear, I did not; because I did not know whether to give a male or female name.
Having believed in autogynephilia– the idea that I could have been an ordinary husband and father if I had had a little more self-control, but because I wanked to fantasies of myself as I woman I decided to become one- I saw my sexuality as diseased, and I suppressed it. Now, emerging from my denial that I was a sexual being at all, I find quite how passive I am, and how ashamed I am of that.
I had a disappointment, and it overwhelmed me. First I felt upset, then I went into a vicious spiral. I want this ridiculous, ludicrous thing, because of the way my sexuality is, which I cannot have, that makes me miserable, and my misery prevents me functioning. Frightened of my own misery, my fear magnified it; it became proof of my uselessness and unchanging impossible weakness. For some time before weeping I was numb.
Even now, there is an ideal relationship in our culture- heterosexual, of course. The man should earn more money. The woman should look after the house, though this is no longer a full time job. There are other ways of being, or we would not have words for them- a woman might “wear the trousers” in a relationship. Rod Liddle called Simon Schama a “male lesbian”, relating to women but not in a properly hetero way. Among gays and lesbians there are the terms butch and femme, top and bottom.
I want a woman who “wears the trousers”. After my long period of denial, I realise how utterly ashamed I am of this. I found myself wondering whether this was why I imagined I was transsexual: it was less shameful to be passive if one was female. That is deluded. Do I want to go back to male clothes or a male name? No. Horrible idea. And pretending to be female for ten years would be unbearable, except that I am female.
I have been wiped out and weeping today (Thursday)- and I have worked this out. The shame is the problem. I am so fearful of my desire and my misery that it overwhelms me. And- I was disappointed. It is natural to have the emotional reaction of unhappiness at a disappointment. And that unhappiness passes. I need not fear it, the fear makes it a far greater problem than it would be.
I am glad not to be so deep in denial. This is progress. My shame lessens. My sexuality is within the normal bounds of human diversity, and diversity is a good thing: we have a cliché for that as well. It is “all part of life’s rich tapestry”.
If I despise and hate myself and fear my own reactions, then every reaction I have brings me to a juddering halt. If I can come to accept myself the outside world does not become any easier, but it does get less overwhelming.
As always, Claire, I’m stunned and humbled by your frankness.
Thanks for this.
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I do it for my own benefit, and I am delighted that you value it and tell me so.
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Dear Clare
Our reality is that we see and compare. Unfortunately, we make unfavourable comparisons, and feel shame as a result of our judgements. I do this all the time too, in small but insidious ways, so that sorrow, unhappiness, is never far behind.
But what if there is a greater reality in which we are not compared, in which there is no judgement and so we can never be found lacking, wanting in anything? If we are connected always to the higher part, to the inclusion, to the unconditional love, there is no need for judgement, and no need for shame either.
Leave all the stuff on the back burner for a while, perhaps, and just feel now, how you feel. Leaving all that stuff behind takes the weight off. Where is shame, when we are just being ourselves? We can still be sorry, sad, we can mourn, but the voices of our judgement are taking the day off … and the next day, and the day after that…..
Lots of hugs
Ann
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Oh! To get from past and future to now, from regrets and desires to appreciation and possibility…
Love, hugs
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Dear Clare, I had a dream some years ago where I was standing in front of a very large gathering of people and I was telling them that “the sum of our existence lies somewhere between now and here.” I was saying it over and over. When I woke up I wrote it down and as I wrote now-here I had an ahha moment, well two.
The first is that the space between now here is real and it can be as large or small as we imagine it.
The second is, like the two words themselves. If you move them together you get nowhere. Which in the giant scheme of the universal truth is a truth. We are everywhere and nowhere, it’s all the same.
The gap inbetween time is where all possibility resides. Where your desires and the choices you create are available to you. You are the sum of all that and more. Live it in the knowing that you are loved unconditionally by all that is. Accept it into your heart chakra. We come here to grow down into our souls legend, to be the expression of our hearts greatest desires.
You are the bravest soul to fulfill the desires you desired. You are not a victim of your desires. Embrace your inner female warrior. We need you!
Hugs hugs hugs
Love and light 🙂
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And I was thinking how difficult it is to be in Now, and how wonderfully I had phrased that- “from regrets and desires to appreciation and possibility”, forsooth- and you tell me there is a gap between Now and here! When I got to Eliot, I find he was writing in The Hollow Men about something like that-
Between the desire
and the spasm
Between the potency
and the existence
Between the essence
and the descent
Falls the Shadow
Though Eliot’s hollow man sees it as threat.
I will sleep on what you say.
More on this analysis, written last week, to post tomorrow.
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On this day of your life, jacqui, I believe God wants you to know…
…that what a man can be, he must be. This need we call
self-actualization.
Abraham Maslow said that, and he was right. Inside of
every living thing is an inner drive, a Divine impulse, to
completely and wondrously self-express. That is, to be
what it is, totally.
What is it you have always wished to be or do?
Make this the Time of Your Beginning, and the Moment
of Your Manifestation.
Don’t wait another day!
Love, Your Friend….
Long time ago I signed up for daily messages from Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God. So many days it seems God and I are on the same page. 🙂 xox
I would however change ‘man’ to ‘person’ if I were Abraham. 😉
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Thanks, Jacqui – wonderful. I am reading the fourth in the series, “Communion with God” and love the CWG series. xx 🙂
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