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My Life: |
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| I have always felt different or out of place in life, something that until recently I never expressed or even really understood. My earliest memories through childhood are of being confused, scared and repulsed by what I sensed within me. I suppose it was because of these hidden thoughts and feelings that I felt that I never really ‘fitted’ despite having many friends at school. When I think about it I realise that I have spent my entire life learning how to hide my feelings, afraid to tell people for fear of what might happen. I worked out what I needed in order to fit in and just did those things that people expected. This may sound strange, but a lot of the things I’ve done (and it’s true to say ‘liked’) were because of my need to fit in and feel normal rather than the desire to be ‘one of the lads’. As I have grown older it has become easier to mimic the things, which were expected of me by friends, colleagues and yes even family. Life did seem to get better and for a while was able to bury my ‘deepest’ feelings. But these feelings, which I worked so hard to control started to reappear (looking back, I can now see that, in reality, they never really went away). Each time they came back it was harder and harder to ignore them and I reached the point where I was becoming more and more depressed about who or what I was. It was made harder because on the surface I seemed to be doing so well, I belonged to a loving family, had a good job and friends but something was wrong. Something was missing. It makes me feel ashamed when I look back on my childhood and early adult years and the things I’ve done or didn’t do because of my feelings at that time. It took me a long time to try and come to terms with the thoughts and feelings I was having. It would take many years of denial and self-loathing. Even after a huge amount of research and soul searching I still couldn’t face the inevitable reality straight away, but I knew I was deluding myself. The strongest early memory I have related of these feelings is of my laying curled up in bed crying whilst praying and continuously repeating the phrase ‘God make me a girl, god make me a girl’. As I’ve said, I kept these thoughts secret, as they were too shameful to ever reveal. I mean, what on earth was I thinking? My body was a boy’s body, and therefore wanting to be or to do ‘girlie’ things was just so wrong and not accepted thinking. You see society tells us that since our bodies are one way then the person that we are must be that same way. Well, despite this convention I eventually realised that this is not necessarily always true. This would probably sound really odd, confusing and worrying for to almost anyone. Maybe friends and family picked up on some of those signs and ignored them in the belief as I did, that they would eventually disappear. So what was the terrible 'thing' that I was so afraid of admitting to myself and eventually telling everyone else? That 'thing' I have is a condition known as Gender Dysphoria or more commonly known as transsexualism. So what does it mean to me? Well, I want the same things as everyone else does to fit in, be accepted by society and just live a normal life without being the centre of attention, in the gender that I’ve always known I am. This isn’t about clothes or about sex it’s about the feelings I have. I don’t have all the answers to describe my situation and goodness knows I’ve looked for them. Basically, whilst my body indicates that I’m male, my brain, or rather ‘that bit which defines me’ says I’m female. This knowledge and feeling that I’m a ‘women trapped in a man’s body’, which seems to be the most commonly used but not overly sympathetic social expression, is what privately made my life an emotional living hell. Science cannot fix the brain (and they’ve tried on people with often hideous results) and to be honest I would sooner die than let someone try and the change the person that I am and feel. So I am forced to do the only other thing possible to keep my sanity, which is to allow my body to match the brain. In trying to understand all this I talked and emailed with quite a few transsexual (TS) people, and have made some friends over the net and in and around the Southampton area. It’s amazing in how many ways our lives are the same, there are common themes that seem to run from childhood. It feels good to know, at last, what is wrong, what has been bugging me since I can remember and that it's neither perverted nor all that uncommon. You see, it wasn’t that I just suddenly one day made a choice that I was a transsexual. It was a long, gradual wearing down of the mental barriers that I had erected over the years. The day that I finally accepted myself as the person who I knew I was and not for what society defined what I should be, I just lay on my bed and cried. That wasn’t the end, but merely the beginning of probably the single hardest journey of my entire life. The road to accomplish the things that I need to achieve is, to say the least, long and hard. I am going through this ‘transition’ under the help and guidance of the medical, surgical and psychiatric profession. I have the full support of my GP, have regular check-up’s and I have been referred to the Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) in Charring Cross. I have been taking medication (hormones) for over a year now and that my body has already gone through a number of changes. At the same time as starting hormones I also started electrolysis of my face in a local clinic on a weekly basis at the weekend. I have made a few TS friends from around the Southampton area. Specifically two friends, Emma and Beverley have been very kind with their support and by just being there for me. Their selfless unbiased help and shared experiences have been like a safety net for me. I have come out to all my friends and ex-colleagues. So far I’ve had a pretty good response from everyone. However, my biggest worry was coming out to my parents and family. I was scared to death of what their responce would be. I am so very fortunate to be able to say that the love and support I've had from them all especially my parents and brother has been overwelming. I love them all so much. You don’t realise what you’ve got until you run the risk of losing it and I didn’t want to lose them. Well, that brings about up to date for the time being but I update as my life continues... hugs Nicole Ashley Wells xxx |
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