#tldr - trauma from being an undersocialized trans girl that I'm slowly starting to fix

[learningtogirl]

1

(nothing wrong with me)

2

(nothing wrong with me)

8

(huh, what?)

1. what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

* My time working as a camp counselor at a place I no longer would feel comfortable showing my face because it was run by conservative Christians (thank god I escaped that, wish I had recognized it sooner). I certainly have mixed feelings now about the Bible portions of that (I don't think I directly peddled the hate at all? But I also was definitely not free of it at the time.)

But the rest really influenced who I am quite strongly. It pretty directly led to a big transition for me from being someone who needed structure to feel comfortable to being happy with winging it as we go (ideally within some known constraints, but still). Huge general improvement in social skills. Made me a much better guitar player. Got me a bit too comfortable with speaking in front of large groups and doing silly things that embarrass myself as long as it's making others happy. And also taught me various skills (archery, canoeing, axe throwing, how to run a ropes course, how to keep 9 year olds from panicking when they're stuck in the bathrooms for an hour straight because that was our tornado shelter).

But the biggest impact was probably the way it made me feel loved and included and truly a member of the community. I have spent the majority of my life being one of those people on the outskirts of groups, a part of it that everybody knows and loves and that's it. They don't actually get to know me or talk to me outside of the group and I never form those deep lasting connections. But the particular combination of relationship of friends/coworkers/sorta trauma bonding over the rough bits and spending literally all the time in this group of 20 people for 2 weeks of training before we started having campers and the way that I would spend a week working very closely with one person in particular, really helped me to feel loved. To a degree that I really haven't seen in many spaces since.

(Now of course that was just a feeling and didn't actually carry into reality for various reasons. Among them the fact that I am awful at staying in touch/communicating and the bonds weren't as deep as they felt and also the whole thing where a majority of the people disapproved of who I have realized myself to be.)

* Being trans. It's influenced .. everything. From the way that I always felt more drawn to the girls in my class to the way that I felt weird and gross and insufficient to actually be friends with them and have left myself in a state where I am very much a hug person and also missed all the learning process for the signs of when someone wants one/is open to it and have an incredibly deep fear of being too forward and seems as weird or creepy so I never initiate and end up completely touch starved. And it's not just hugs, that's just a symptom that's easy to point to. And then the years of drifting through life because I could tell there was something missing but couldn't figure out how to fill it. So I threw myself headfirst into academics which worked for a while (until I flunked out of my PhD program) and then various games and church and books and music and even sports and so on and nothing ever really kept me going. (The undiagnosed ADHD very much did not help this, to be fair.)

But it's definitely not all bad! The fact that I figured out that I'm a girl pretty late in life (started hrt on my 30th birthday, which was <1year since I had admitted to myself even that I was trans) has given me a lot of opportunities in figuring out who I am and what my style is and such that at a younger age I just wouldn't have had the time/resources/awareness of myself/the world to do. Granted I definitely haven't taken full advantage of them... And the way I've been forced to figure myself out has helped me embrace some new things I've been wanting to try, like dancing which has somehow become an absolute cornerstone of my life/stability in the 4 months I've been doing it! And like friends tried to drag me into it in college but I simply did not have the social confidence to enjoy it.

Uhhhh, ya, it's shaped me but I am definitely not one of those girls who embraces it and finds her life better for having been trans. I hope I get there someday.

* Theatre! Joined the tech crew on a whim in high school (tangent: I very nearly did not. I had been interested and then completely missed the message and was barely able to join. And then we had a huge class so I wasn't part of the run crew for my first show which really threw me off as a freshman and so I almost quit forever until my parents talked me into going back for the spring show because I had really enjoyed it up til that point.) It turned into a fantastic group of people to spend time with and really taught me the joys of physical work and of being a cog in a machine to make something greater happen. And the pains of when it goes wrong and someone blames you even though it wasn't your fault. Or if it was.

And then in college the bit I did gave me a great way to meet people outside of my norm. And connections I made through it led to the job I'm at now. And the community theatre I have found myself a part of has a very strange place in my life because it's a bunch of extremely talented people who love me for both who I am and my attitude and my skills, but also we once again hit the "never talk to me beyond it" problem. (Dammit me I hate myself so much for missing the chance to change that by going to the ren faire with a few of them, but such is life. There's always more chances ahead.)

2. show us a picture of your handwriting?

God no. It's awful and embarrassing. (Fine I will but in the morning because I'm sleepy and don't want to find paper.)

8. any reacquiring dreams?

Not particularly lately. There have been a few throughout my life.

When I was very young there was a specific one where I was in a campground gift shop holding my treasured baby teal (like baby blue but green tinted) baby blanket (real blanket) and then something started chasing me and I had to run through the woods and then the slow motion running thing happened and it was awful and I was never actually caught but I would usually drop my blanket and then it would be put into some kind of horrible steampunk crushing abomination that tore it to shreds. No idea if it ever had a real conclusion.

Then of course all the trans ones. Those came in a few main variants:

* primarily in high school was some sort of fantasy in which I was able to swap bodies with a classmate through some mystical mechanism or another. Dream portals that let us try it for a day, random chance, genie granting a wish, god randomly deciding to bless us, god "cursing" us for arrogance and making us prove ourselves in different lives, whatever

* also mostly in high school was the different world sort. Like a VR space where we could just go play board games with friends all night long while bodies are resting, and since the avatar could be whatever why not a girl? (and of course they magically accept me doing that and it's fine.) Or in youth group we have a contest where I lay down and become a sand sculpture and then friends mold me to be the fastest mermaid or whatever and then I unsand and have to race (conveniently of course these are always feminine forms)

* many many dreams about going back to that camp I worked at but as a girl (both counselor and camper)

* in college I had one about how cool it would be if I were a girl and were roommates with another girl (often recurring ones I may have had a crush on) and then for reasons decided to save space by sleeping in the same bed, but because they were bunked and small we better be sure we don't fall off by being in a single pair of athletic shorts together and holding each other close all night. These were surprisingly not explicit for how extremely horny

* and some more weirdly detached dreams in which I was, like, inhabiting a house or whatever and simply watching the lives of people go by. And then I could hop on board to someone and watch their life for a while and then leave and go back to watching wherever they were at the time. Somehow this always seemed like a delightful thing to hope would happen to me, whereas nowadays it sounds like the premise to horror that leaves me scarred