Once More With Feeling

Gosh it's been a while hasn't it! Life has been a hectic rollercoaster these past few months and well I just haven't had the headspace to collect my thoughts and think about what to write about.

As any of you that follow me on Instagram or TikTok know I've become obsessed with figure skating in so many ways it's become a new form of therapy for me and I'm pretty sure I'll write more about that and my feelings around it in future post but for this post I wanted to reflect a bit on some of the things I've been discovering and learning about myself since we last met.

I'm two years into therapy with my brilliant therapist Ellis, untangling the complexity of my journey has been a difficult, challenging but ultimately rewarding. I've learned about the ways gender dysphoria has coloured my experience of life but other factors in my life have had just a big an impact as that.

Large parts of my life are a bit of a blur to me really, they're like grasping for something in the fog and not quite being able to catch it. (or for any skaters that have stumbled here, like me trying to do a catch spiral and knowing your foot is somewhere near but you just can't get it!). You know the memory is there and can kinda of feel how you felt but what actually happened is a mystery.

For me in order to deal with emotions and processes that I just didn't know how to feel or cope with I developed really poor coping mechanisms. I distanced myself from the feeling. I became so good at it that I was numb to myself and my own feelings. This can be a really powerful short term way of dealing with hard things in your life but if you continue it for ever then you slowly suck all the colour out of the world and see everything through a black and white lens. I spent the better part of 30 years like that. And you know, was life terrible? Was I a miserable sod who no one wanted to be around? I don't think so. I didn't know better at the time and it's only looking back from where I am now I can see how much I was missing.

I was fine.

But is fine good enough? Is walking through life as 'ok' without ever really feeling sadness, happiness, anger, excitement, and the whole emotional gambit turned up to the max the best we can do? I'm not here to tell anyone how to feel and how to live their life and for some people this is right for them and I support and love them in whatever choices they make, but I wanted more.

As lots of you know, in about 2018 I finally started accepting I was transgender. I explored my identity trying to find a way I could live in a world that felt so very hostile to us. I expressed myself as non-binary for a while, that allowed me to dip my toe in the water. I needed external validation and got a formal gender assessment. They challenged me there to explore my identity and that was probably best done through therapy.

Slowly as I took my mask off I not only began to accept myself as a trans woman but also began to reconnect emotionally.

Let me tell you. When you've not really felt anything for thirty years reconnecting that disconnected wire is full on! I was overwhelmed, confused, and tossed and turned for a long time. Combine that with the induced menopause you go through for a year at the start of transition and I really did question what on earth was I doing.

Coming through the other side I can honestly say it's been worth it. To see and feel life in all its multifaceted, multicoloured glory is a wonderful thing. Yes it means I now cry at more than Kevin the Carrot in the Aldi Christmas ad (I wanted him to be loved, ok!) but it also means I feel joy and contentment and rest (sometimes!)

I always think it's important to say that this is my journey. If it resonates with you that's wonderful but your path is your own. I love supporting people to find their own path and I feel really privileged that some people let me into their lives but if this is not you're story that's ok, I just hope that you too can live life full of emotion and self acceptance.

I'm 40 now I'm entering a different phase of my life and undertaken a lot of self growth. It's time to make up for lost time, and hopefully do things I may have done before but hopefully this time with feeling.