Whatever possessed me to think it could ever be otherwise?
That is not easy stuff to deal with, but it appears he is giving you no alternative. Probably what will be important to you (in the end) is that you did your best to set things right with him. You can’t ask more from a person than that.
CJ, I know you will get a lot of responses all saying the same thing, differently, but the same thing. Honey, you did what was right! You gave it a shot, if you had not it would be on your mind until you did."How will my father accept the fact that he has a crossdresssing son?" Well, now you know and you can move on. Not that it would happen, but what if CJ was arranged in all her radiant glory and answered her door and there stood her father (for whatever reason) and did not know?? Well at least he knows now. He may not like it, accept it or realize what a gift you have and that you share and the difference that you have made in a lot of our lives, but you know, and that in the end that makes all the difference.
We love you here and I know I always look to you for guidance, acceptance and love and that is what I get. You are making a difference in a lot of lives and I am not, as they say, "blowing sunshine up your skirt!"
Keep the faith, CJ
Love,
Virgina
First star to the right, then straight on 'till mornin!
Virginia makes a good point. At least now your Dad should be wary about showing up at your place unannounced. You did the right thing in telling him and trying to get him to listen to reason.
And Donna hit the nail on the head when she stated that HOPE was what you had that was your driving force. I think that's one of the major "drivers" we all have when we make the decision to tell someone close to us.
There's still the possibility that your dad might "come around" down the road somewhere. He's in what seems to be the denial stage at the current time. When he passes that AND the anger stage, there could be some of the hope Donna speaks of in the future so don't give up on him quite yet.
Dixie
"If you're going to LOOK like a lady, then ACT like one too!"
I wish I had the words, or magic wand to make this all better. I was so expecting your post to have a happy ending. When it did not, it made me cry. I am sure I did not feel the heartbreak you must have felf, but it did make me wish there was some way I could comfort you.
I know the terrible frustration of trying to make those with irrational beleifs, understand that we are still people!!!!!!! That other than having a terrible secret, we are the same person they have always known. Perhaps that is why your post hit me so hard. It brought back some very bad feelings I had in the past.
I read it last night, but could not answer it. I just felt your terrible dissappointment when you asked what possessed you to think you it could be otherwise. I so know this feeling, and my heart skipped a beat just reading it, and all those negative emotions immediately filled me back up, and reminded me of just how much pain one can go through being transgendered. I did not want to answer your post feeling like that. I know you are not looking for a pity party.
CJ, Don't ever give up your hope!!!!!!!! Your wonderful optomism has so many times lifted my spirits and helped me get through a day that I thought I could not get through. And while I don't have to words to ease your pain, I can tell you with absolute certainty, that better days are ahead.
Hi CJ--
There's a wealth of posting up above me. I have been waiting for this post to resolve, and I am glad that it DID resolve. It is better that you tried, and that you know.
His argument that that is your private life is not necessarily true--it's just that he doesn't see it in public.
This is hard for me to handle, second-hand. I know how you must feel. At least you've done your best to make it work, in the here and now.
You're as up-to-date with him as you can be.
You know, this is nothing new. My dad has known about my CD'ing since I was about six or seven years old. He's caught me a couple of times but has always turned the other way. I mean, literally turned the other way.
I guess I'm still "fixated" on the fact that he was a child psychologist. Perhaps this fixation is something I need to work on eliminating. Well, I've certainly been trying for the last few years to see him as a person, first, and then as my father, and then, finally, as a psychologist. I guess it was hope that drove me. Hope that a parent has enough love for his child to be able to embrace him regardless of his gender identity. I really don't know what other conclusion I can come to.
Perhaps this is a time where "the child must become a father to the man." I don't know that I have the strength for this just yet. But time, as ever, is fleeting.
As I told another forum member in a PM, although I've learned much from my father and I am who I am today in large part because of him (and that's a good thing), I feel that he is unable to give me what I now need... emotional truth, authenticity, honesty, and transparency in my relationships with those I love and care about. I can probably, eventually, accept that he cannot give me these things, but it won't be easy.
The link between my heart and my dad's heart is the only emotional "loose end" in my life right now and it appears that it will remain so. But, as dear Beauty said, in a phone conversation (and as have some of you here also said), I've done what I could. Enough, at any rate, to try to be at peace with the whole situation.
Okay, fast-forward a few months... we're in November now. I last saw my father on that visit in July.
Inevitably, the link we had (already tenuous, at best) is breaking down and it seems I can't prevent it from doing so. I used to visit him every month and a half or so but now I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've been to his place over the last sixteen months. I just can't help it.
My brother (who lives in Victoria, B.C.) was here, in Montreal, last month for about three weeks or so. Of course, he took the opportunity to go visit my dad as they've seen each other only twice in the last decade. I was supposed to go join him there, at my father's, a couple of weeks ago. As the day of my departure drew near, I became increasingly anxious, moody, and depressed. As it turns out, I didn't go. I just couldn't. When I decided to cancel that visit, my spirits immediately lifted; I felt as though a heavy, heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders.
I replayed, in my mind, a few "highlights" of that conversation I had with my dad back in July and it paralyzed me.
"...I don't want you coming here with polish on your toenails; it's a form of assault..."
"...You have an illness and, yes, I'm not comfortable with people who are sick..."
"...What you do is not normal; if you're to share that abnormality with the world at large, you must also be prepared to be a martyr for it..."
"...It's not my business to know your 'true' self; it's your business to know it..."
"...Nature has made men men and women women for a good reason; you need to conform to those reasons if you want to be happy..."
"...You're, in a sense, 'defective'; for your own good, you need to focus on your own defects rather than see the world around you as flawed..."
Dad,
Part of my "defects" is my believing that a father can love his son regardless of the shape of the latter's soul or spirit (or his gender identity). Given the events not only of the past six months but of my entire life, I'm finally coming to see that this isn't necessarily true.
Part of my "defects" is my supposing that you saw the same wisdom I did in Joseph Campbell's exhortation that we must "follow our bliss." Far from the "slap in the face" I got from you last summer, I thought you'd be happy for me that I'm finally opening up to the world--to my friends and colleagues--and that I'm finally "becoming real" as a person... a thoughtful, caring, compassionate, inquisitive, loving person. I'm proud of who I am, Dad, warts and all. Your own issues won't change that.
Part of my "defects" is my assuming that you care enough about me to, at the very least, get informed (whether through me or through some other source) about what this thing is that has made your own son the person he is and that has caused him so much pain and turmoil in his life. I cannot but come to the conclusion that you don't. As I said in my original letter (at the very top of this thread), I'm truly thankful for everything you've taught me and for instilling in me a thirst for knowledge and a curiosity about the world and I'm grateful for all the sacrifices you've made in raising two boys--not an easy thing to do at the best of times. But it's still beyond me why you apparently think that effort must cease when those boys reach the age of eighteen.
Part of my "defects" is my thinking that you'd value more a person's character by the fruits of their deeds than by their ability (or inability) to conform to traditional social models and expectations. There are people who love me, Dad. They love me for who I am. They love me for what I do. And they're not afraid of showing it. Often. This need to love and to be loved is not a sign of weakness... it's a strength... it's what connects us to other people much more strongly than ever social conformity or even the life of the mind could.
Perhaps my biggest "defect" (and I've touched upon this in a previous post here) is my failing to relate to you on your own terms. You are who you are. I know that. Not a thousand crossdressing sons would change that. The difference here, between your being who you are and my being who I am, is that there is very little in your world that prevents you from being who you are (no, not even your own son's suffering) whereas I encounter obstacles everywhere I go (well, not quite everywhere, and thank God for that!). People don't laugh at you because of who you are; cops don't bring you down to the station because of who you are; drunkards don't physically assault you because of who you are; friends and family don't shun you because of who you are (although, as this very letter shows, you come perilously close to being shunned); lawmakers don't enact laws against the kind of person you are; you don't lose a job (or, at least, are not prevented from getting one) because of who you are; the world in which you live, Dad, doesn't see you as a liability. I'm just thankful society doesn't operate like a manufacture because I--and my friends here, on this forum--would be considered "faulty units" and be coldly cast aside in the blink of an eye.
Well, though you may see me as a "faulty unit," I don't see myself that way. In the end, that's what matters to me. I'm proud of who I am. I know I'm a good person--yes, even with all my flaws and weirdness.
Over the past few months, I've discussed at length how I feel about you (and about our relationship) with my trusted friends--Marie, Carole, and Beauty--and I see a pattern emerging. I need to come to a place of peace regarding the fact that you see me the way you do. I won't change, Dad. You won't change. And that is that. We each have the right to live in the world in a way that we see fit. Unfortunately, aside from the blood that runs in our veins, there are very few features that are common to both your world an mine.
Carole thinks that all you want is to have (or to regain) a relationship with the son you've known for the better part of 44 years--not with this feminine freak of a man who so much upsets your world with his demands. Well, that's not possible. Not because I won't "back down" (now that I've started discovering who I am in the past few years) but because that son that you want a relationship with never existed. It was all a front, a facade, a charade, a travesty. For most of my life, I was the person the world wanted me to be. I cannot do that anymore; the pressure to be (and to become) who I truly am is just too great. Literally, in my case, it's now a "do or die" situation. Talk about a guilt trip, eh? Well, not my intention. I've merely set my mind to the task of "following my bliss." There's now a distinct possibility that path might not include you (in the same way that yours doesn't include me).
Your disdain for the way in which I choose to have many of my emotional needs met (by belonging to an "unreal"--read "online"--community of folks such as myself, who have a better understanding of the pain I might be going through) is a sign, to me, that there's an unbridgeable gulf between us, Dad. That gulf has little to do with understanding or tolerance; it has to do with love. We don't always find love in our lives in the places we look for it; we find it in the places where we've allowed ourselves to be "found." I've been "found" by many people here, Dad, as well as by those folks in my "real" life who can get over the fact that I'm a crossdresser and who can value my gender identity as part of my natural eccentricity (thanks, little brother; you don't know how much that meant to me to hear you say that).
Beauty, one of the administrators of this forum, recalled to me a film that came out about a year and a half ago called Garden State. In this moving and funny film--one, by the way, that celebrates the joy of being alive when you're able to finally be who you truly are--the main character heads back to the east coast to attend his mother's funeral. This man is, at first, so drugged up on anti-depressants and various other medication that he's totally numb and heedless of the life around and within him. He leaves L.A. but leaves all his meds behind. The kicker is that the psychiatrist who prescribes his medications is his own father. And he's been prescribing them since his son was a teenager. Needless to say, now that the son's mind and heart and spirit are gradually clearing, the father/psychiatrist-son/patient relationship becomes a little rocky. More than that, though, the son starts rediscovering all the pain and beauty and longing and fear and desire and love that just being alive makes us all heirs to.
Dad, I sit here, today, telling you: I no longer want your "medication."
I'm on an extended sick leave right now. Last week, I went to see my boss to tell him that I was quitting, that I could no longer do what I'm doing for him. My own issues have now become so pressing that it's become almost impossible for me to focus on the pain and suffering of others. My boss refused. He told me he loved me, he valued me, he cared about me--he even hugged me, something I could never get from you, Dad--and would rather I just take the rest of the year off--paid--than lose me. However, he added this proviso: "Do what is necessary to become better again." On the "to do" lists that my colleague Carole helped me write up: 1) seek therapy (check); 2) resolve financial difficulties (in process); 3) finish apartment redecoration (in process); 4) express gender; crossdress for a week straight, if possible, as a "mini-RLE" (in process); 5) write another letter to father, tell him how I feel (I'm right here, now).
I'm right here, now, Dad.
I'm printing this and, unlike the last time, I'm sending it off to you, along with the "first post" letter (and the birdwatchers club membership card my brother forgot to give you back when he left your place).
In the end, despite everything, this remains true: I love you. I'm just no longer able to show you in a way you'd understand.
Now I'm going to go have a cry. What you just wrote is a reflection of my feelings about my own father. I could never talk to him about who I really am. All he ever knew of me was the facade.
Now my father is gone. We will never have this conversation, regardless of outcome.
Thank you, CJ, for being you.
Love,
Kathy
Whatever you accomplish in life is a manifestation not so much of what you do, as of what you believe deeply within yourself that you deserve. - Les Brown
CJ.
I am sorry you have to go through this. I have been through similar with my whole family. It is very painful stuff and yes paralyzing. I can understand why you need time off from work. I have been there too.
If it is any help to you those occasions lasted about two to three weeks (at a time) for me. (where I could not work) But they also happened on more occasion than one during my journey. It has been a very long time now since that has happened to me. I can not remember the last time it happened, It has now been several years.
The one statement from your father that I agree with is:
"...It's not my business to know your 'true' self; it's your business to know it..."
That one was the biggest hurdle for me. Once I was able to do that then I had something to work with (or on.)
Wishing you more than Good Luck. You are going to need it. It is good that you are addressing this issue.
Your openness here has given me far greater insight into who you are as a person. You may or may not be happy with that. I hope that you are.
I am so moved by your post that I am unable to respond to it right now. I got goose bumps down my back, both legs, and both arms as I read the conclusion of your post. I know where you are. I have been there.
That is quite a post, CJ. Thank you so much for keeping us in on it. I feel sorry for your father, but there is not much you or I can do for him at this time. I feel some pain for you, too, but you're moving on through it. That's different.
A week of RLE really makes me take in my breath--I see that I don't want to look at that right now. I'm glad YOU are, though, if it'll help things get sorted out. Just this week I was faced with a situation where if I went to see my therapist dressed, then I was going to have to "change back" for a customer later that evening. I never have done that yet, and don't want to now--either I don't dress, or I do everything dressed. I almost called the customer and explained that my femme self was going to be showing up, but I didn't do that. I can see the day is coming when I will be, though, and it may not be that far off.
Not meaning to hijack the thread, but that's what came up reading your resolutions.
Best to you, CJ. I'm rooting for you! Anita
I'm heading out to buy a few groceries in a few minutes; the letter is in the envelope, ready to be sent out. I'll make sure to bring it along with me this time.
Loretta,
I know, I know... you're right; it's the one thing I'm still struggling with. I agree that it's more my own work to tend to my inner life than it is anyone else's. And I've been tending to my inner life ever since I first picked up the DSM-III when I was thirteen years old. But the difficulty I have lies in the fact that my father's unwilling (or, as many have said to me, unable) to allow me to share the fruits of that labour with him. He does not want to (or cannot) know who I am. I find this puzzling because I know myself to be a good person. So my work now consists in accepting the fact that having that kind of relationship with my father (i.e., an affective one, heart-to-heart) is no longer an option (and, sayeth the members of the peanut gallery, probably never was an option). It's tough to come to this realization but, as usual, I'll live. And this is largely because of the feedback and support I get from people here, on the forum (yes, Loretta, that certainly includes you, believe it or not--and thanks for sharing with me your own ways of dealing with it).
Again, thank you, all of you. You have little idea how much I cherish you.
You wrote:But the difficulty I have lies in the fact that my father's unwilling (or, as many have said to me, unable) to allow me to share the fruits of that labour with him.
Perhaps this will serve to show you what I have meant when I have said that there are some people with whom it is pointless to attempt to seek support. I think I have said it something like there are those in this world with whom it is wise to keep at a distance. And for some of us that includes family.
The positive side of this (although it is indeed very painful to go through) is once you have been forced to acknowledge that with one of your own kin. You then have an opportunity to be much more selective in whom you choose to be apart of your inner circle of friends.
I choose those who will be supportive, but also realistic. (Your boss seems to be one of those kind of people) I am glad that you have people like that in your life, especially while you are having to work your way through this heavy stuff.
We were not given a choice about who are parents would be, but we do have a choice who our friends will be. My hope for you is that you will be able to choose wisely once you are through this.
It does seem like you have done a pretty good job of that by choosing people like Beauty and your colleagues
It is good that you are addressing this issue. 
Anita