3:18 a.m. - Wednesday, Jul. 31, 2002
Ms Leslie finds the problem
I think I know what the problem is.
I haven�t been able to understand why I�m not making any more progress at losing the weight I need to lose before September. I�m down to just over a month to go before my surgery. I know for sure that I couldn�t lose it before because I still had some personal issues about surgery that I was afraid to talk about, or even think about very seriously. Once I did, I was able to make some final choices and realizations about the whole thing. Then, like magic, I suddenly dropped almost 60 lbs. Now I�m stalled out again; unable to get my weight below the very significant 200 lbs., and not knowing why. I haven�t known because I�m looking in the wrong place for the answer.
The truth is, I�m at peace with my transsexuality. Sure, I have issues and concerns, but they�re not so different from the issues and concerns of any other woman. I hate my body. I hate my face. I hate my age. I�ve yet to meet a woman who doesn�t hate one or more of these things about herself. I hate it too, that I can see some of my closest relationships are being destroyed by my decision to move towards living as myself. It makes me sad, but I accept it. I know that it wasn�t possible any more to live any other way. Heck, I�m even at peace with those few.. and they are really few� people who can tell me that I �creep them out�. I can live with that. None of us can be loved by everyone, you know? It hurts my feelings, just as it would hurt anyone to hear that, but I can at least recognize the honesty of a person like that.
I can�t find a single reason for not proceeding with this surgery. There are lots of reasons to be anxious and even scared, but they�re not much different from the feelings anyone would have when they face major surgery. And, as always, I reject out of hand the idea of not going ahead with it. I know from the depths of my feelings that I couldn�t face life like this any more. I�m at peace� so why can�t I lose the weight? Am I so weak?
The answer, I realized this morning, lies in a completely new direction. Suddenly I understand that once I�ve had this surgery I�ll be beyond the stage where I need to be concerned with whether or not I�m a woman. I won�t need to worry any longer about whether or not I�m doing the right thing. It�ll be done, for better or worse. I�ll be as much of a woman as I�ll ever be. That should be a good thing, and it is. But it�s a scary thing too. Here�s why:
I�ll have to allow myself to return to the issues of PTSD.
Ever since I began dealing in the open with my long-held gender issues, I�ve been able to some degree to hold back or put on a back burner my issues from the war and the hospital. Not always, but sometimes. It�s the PTSD that, while I recognize it, I haven�t dealt with. I�ve only scratched the surface of it. I�ve only learned why I have the feelings, thoughts and dreams I have. And that�s helped me. I�m at least not confused so much. I�m not feeling like I�m quite so crazy. But I haven�t gone very far in dealing with all that.
I�m not losing weight because some part of me knows the day is approaching when I�ll need to confront the larger issues of my trauma in combat. And� I have to keep saying this�. My trauma from spending a year in an Army hospital. And yes.. I have to say this too� my trauma from the years after the war, when I felt I needed to hide my feelings and all the craziness I felt.
It�s been painful so far, just the little bit I�ve done. Painful enough that I�m afraid of going any further with it. At this point, I feel I�d be better off to just keep trying to let it go; to try to keep shutting it out. Hoping that medication will dull it or even overcome it. But I know that won�t work for much longer. I know that once I�ve lost weight and gone through this surgery, I won�t have anything to place ahead of dealing with the rest of my life. I�m dragging myself by the hair back to that. It�s looming on the horizon now, and it scares me.
I swear, being TS is the easy part.
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