The road to freedom

When I was eighteen, I weighed six stone, which is light for a young man 5’10” tall. That’s 84lbs, 38kg. By age twenty I had bulked up to 8½ stone, 120lbs, 54kg, 1.78m tall. This BMI calculator says that is seriously underweight.

When I was a child, the only way I had control in my own life was by refusing food. My mother made a special diet for me, of rissoles- mince stuck in a lump with egg, coated with breadcrumbs, fried- and baked beans, or beefburgers chips and beans. Thinking back on my weight showed the cost of forcing this. I must have frightened her. I don’t remember starting this, or refusing food particularly: I only remember when we had reached a modus vivendi. She had a story about when I was being weaned, and she forced chicken through a sieve to mince it up- “and you spat it at me,” she said, reliving distress. I would eat anything now, though don’t choose to eat salad.

Everything else was controlled. I grew up in Argyll and spoke with my mother’s English accent. There was one political view permitted, which I assented to aged 12, reading The Sunday Telegraph before the election of Margaret Thatcher. There was one musical taste- classical, nothing else worthy of notice. My parents took me Scottish country dancing, which I still enjoy, and to the Scottish Episcopal Church, so I continued Anglican until 2001. I last voted Tory in 2010.

I am feeling my way in to giving details about my “dreadful” childhood. It felt completely normal at the time. I met a monster mother about two years after mine died, and repeatedly told the story, thinking mine was worse though I could not say why. I see telling the story in 2011 I said the other was worst. Then there’s the story about being stressed as a child, and I felt the need for corroboration.

It was good to play the piano. My mother did not like me being so demonstrative of feeling with the Pathétique sonata. I kept myself to myself, like my parents, and still do.

I was controlled. When I was considering transition I read that real transsexuals knew there was a problem aged two or three, knew precisely what it was aged four or five. I started cross-dressing at puberty. I still think of that as casting doubt on me being really trans, twenty years after transition, rather than showing that I did not know who I was or what I felt when I was a child.

I am typing this now with the controlling parent or inner critic on my back, inching my way forward, desperate to convince her, thinking I need to convince you. And, I believe it. I want my inner critic to believe it too. This is not the inner light or true self which says these things clearly. Now, I am in the adjusted self, which did what the inner critic desired, which thinks itself rational, seeking out evidence to convince the inner critic or controlling parent.

Yesterday after an ACA meeting on zoom three of us stayed sharing for more than an hour. I spoke of M. I continue to think of her. Today I cried, while the inner critic railed at my ridiculous self-pity. We stopped talking, and M required five days without texting, controlling by withdrawing. I sought to control by continuing contact, which would never work, then worked hard to shame her and drive her away. First I felt self-righteous about shaming her, then shame. Trying to assert control, I felt desperation or hope, casting about for persuasive argument. Today, crying, I felt the pain and sadness of that separation, while the inner critic told me how bad I was for shaming M and had no right to feel this way.

I believe I felt that sadness and so might let it go.
-You must have felt it before, says the inner critic, in disbelief.
-You have no right to pain, having been so monstrous, says the inner critic.
-This is ridiculous self-pity, judges the inner critic.
-It won’t be enough for you. Either you will revel in the pain and get stuck, or continue fantasising about talking to M, says the inner critic.
I believe I felt that sadness and so might let it go.

After a lifetime of suppressing and denying my feelings because of my mother and my inner critic, feeling my feelings is the road to freedom. I try to avoid sadness, and it stays with me as a burden. If I feel it, allow it to flow, it may pass through me and away.

On the value of feeling sadness.