my aunt the catholic sister that tried to stop me, the homeless and moving forward?

i have been really challenged of late but moving around Portland and seeing true homelessness give me and would give anyone a new and enlightening prospective. then last night i could not see because of my eye infection which is worse due to my anxiety. I thought in the moment that what if I lost my eye sight and what would happen to me? this truly scared me in the moment. also on the train I see men and women that really, really ..... the homelessness is a result of mental illness and with it the physical damage it does to the person over time.

i saw a guy who was, no idea his age, could be my age but his skin was like leather and thought maybe this was due to the harsh living conditions over the years. personally i could not survive true homelessness now because of how feminine i have become and the loss of muscle mass would make me a big target for any predator.  i consider myself lucky to be in the position i am now, very lucky, thank god.

then i was working out today and even with my initial stretches on the floor i had the urge to see if a vagina was between my legs and this caused me to cry uncontrollably.this is becoming a bigger problem as my body appears more and more feminine by the day. the workouts are increasing in intensity and today i felt the power of my legs coming back in a different way. i run straight then to the side as my body and mind communicate how i am suppose to run. but very quickly my muscles in my legs are developing and now my back is beginning to feel the run. FYI i found out the hill i am starting to climb is called MT. Scott. the incline is much more than the hill from downtown Portland to the VA.  I simply don't know how not to succeed eventually.

however in my pain is the thought that i will neverrrrrrrrrrrrr everrrrrrrrrr be able to be me in my 20-40's? and why? as i cry there is no reason. i was kept in a cave in my apt for decades because i feared total rejection and homelessness and true death because of who i am .  now i come to downtown Portland today and i realized today that I come everyday because in the past i was locked in a excuse me F---- cave. in 2009 I lived in the cyber sex world because if i came out as me i could have died and no one would cared, not one person but maybe a few in my family. more than likely not even my grandmother could openly support me in Altoona.

now i live with the fact that i am happy, well almost, for the first time in my life. but i know as i ccryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy and cryyyyyyyyyyyyyy and cryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy that i will never be allowed to know who i could have been. I really thought today .. i wanted to be a flight attendant so i could travel and get out of Altoona when i was growing up and into my adulthood. this was not a passing thought and even in my 30's i explored before my daughter was born. i was not allowed to be me in my family and no matter what i did i could not fight my entire family and the culture of a small town.

plus my aunt, excuse me that bitch, as i finally put together what she brought into our family. so she was a catholic sister who was trained from the prospective of the 1940's in the catholic church ways between 1950-1972. but in 1961 when we moved back to PA from CA she taught my mother to bare ass spank us to make us do as we were told by our mother.I remember vividly she spanked me and then i told my grandmother. but when my grandmother could not stop her daughter she told me to tell my father about the spanking and he stopped them.

her prospective was that men have a specific role in society and women have a supportive role with men which was taught to her in the 1950's. also divorce was rare because it was frowned upon very harshly by the church and other members of the church. also it is apparent that she elevated her beliefs from  spare the rod spoil the child. she believed in literally brute force to get a child to comply with a parent's demand. my grandmother told me more than once your mother and aunt were not raised like this Donnie. she also said I am not happy with them either.

so my aunt deployed her harsh values and used money and her relationship with my mother to attempt to instil her values from the 1950's upon our family. she had to believe that children can be taught to do whatever you want if you use enough force. hence one day she told me " remember you thought you were right handed." yes i was punished until i used my right hand and brute force made me comply in a world that belittled me at the age of 5.  My aunt almost has to believe that this is the way of god and otherwise  acknowledge if there is a different way this would shame god and mean the moral decay of society.

she is the one that brought shame under god's name to our family. Because of her harsh values of doing things one way and her own mental illness it divided our family. each time I saw what she did to my siblings i would tell my grandmother. my grandmother would confront my mother and her sister on the act. this made my aunt and mother very angry but my aunt was furious that I would not comply and I would tell her mother everything.

even when my sister would not comply they, both my mother and aunt would slap her face. i told my father what i saw after talking to my grandmother and my father, the street fighter, got in my aunt's face about hitting my sister. so then only my mother slapped my sister's face as my aunt directed the act. my aunt on many occasions would infer to my mother or grandmother that she knew better because she was or had been a catholic sister. my grandmother would shake her head in disguise and say, " mary Jeanne."

so there was no way in the world genetic female or me could be a flight attendant in Hollidaysburg PA because my aunt, not my grandmother, told my mother how everyone should act in our family. Also it seems like you were told what you should do, live in the small town and produce more children that knew the way of god from my aunt's prospective.

 my grandmother pushed me to get out of the small town and told me she regretted not traveling more than she had in her live in her 60's.  my mother had the imagine of me working in the railroad shops and I told her" i don't do manual label." she said, " that is right you are lazy." I then said," no i have picked enough rocks in my life .. no more manual labor for me." i told my mother i will go to the marines then Penn State like my uncle did and use  the GI bill monies to go to college. then when I attended PSU she said," if you brother was not married he would be in college too." well I am here." i know she detested me because i had defied her and her sister's world and ended up in one of the best schools in the country. often my mother said to me you are just like your grandmother and at times  she said this in front of my grandmother and my grandmother and I would just laugh. my mother would say this is not funny and you and your grandmother do not understand the world. my grandmother would weigh in and say," listen Connnie I raised you and your brother and sisters during the great depression.... "

i get the fire and drive from my grandmother who nurtured it from a very early age. she gave me hope and a desire to become me, Rachel. she knew i was feminine and she was the first to help with make up and help me put on my first bra and dress.

as i have said so many times without the women  in my life there would have been no rachel. i just did not know that the first woman was my grandmother.  she gave me the safe space like i have today to be me. not many are this lucky but i am and thank god.

i am pulling out of my maladaptive dreams via ... well i am trying it is not easy and does not work all the time... but " live now and more forward, does this thought help me heal? so much points back to my childhood and my thought process was elevated with my sales background and goal setting which I modeled from Zig Ziglar.

i will be lucky to survive this journey next yr but i am doing my very best to tell the true story.

thank you

the real pain continues and my drive for surgey even more important

hi

I saw 3 couples on the train today kissing and all i could think of is
being with a woman. then i thought.. have to edit this.... she cannot
be with me because i want her to do things with me that cannot be done
because i don't have vagina.

i am crying because now if a man put 5k-20k in front of me i would
have sex with them to get surgery. there is no more justifying
anything. i would like to cross the line to get surgery at any price
now. the pain is more than i can bare.

i was thinking of what if? in June there is no way i can afford
surgery and what will i do ? i will not wait until 2016 because 2015
will be the year no matter what. to me this is the ultimate all or
none!!

in the shower i cannot touch the thing, when i go to the bathroom and
.... i cried today so hard I had to force myself off the toilet.  when
i workout i am crying so hard that i have a hard time pulling myself
off the floor some days. i cry when i get up, eat, sleep, and every
breath could bring a tear. if others could see this maybe they would
be compassionate enough to grant people like me the option in the
united states for sexual reassignment  surgery.

the energy it takes to prepare breakfast and do the dishes in the
morning is exhausting after i have pushed myself though tears waking
up, stretching in bed and lifting weights or running. maybe this is
why i have switched it to night time work outs which have not helped
since i cry and cry then too.

in the depth of my crying i think of suicide by cutting my penis but somehow I
manage to push though it all with the hope of surgery. when the hope
of surgery is gone i will commit suicide. that is a really hard thing
to acknowledge but since i have been trying for so many years that
hope if removed would be the end of me. i would rather die then keep
this thing beyond next yr this time.

no i am not planning on any specific course of suicide with a date but
i am emotionally exhausted after yrs of fighting this disease. yet
surgery is so close but so far away but i have heard the closer you
get to surgery the more intense the emotional trauma which is where i would possibly
commit suicide. not to mention i have heard of others that commit
suicide immediately after surgery.

I am putting suicide solidly on the table because i am in trouble and
i do not want to hurt you.  i feel like i am limbo where i am not who
i am suppose to be and living and fighting is so hard for me. i am
trying to avoid cutting, attempting suicide like so many others in the
community but wow it is really pushing me hard now. i am almost
positive it is because I will have to risk so much with surgery and so
many unknowns along with the fact each day this thing between my legs
becomes more and more .............what is doing between my legs....
where is my vagina?

i am to the point then when i am in my shower that i try to massage
something that does not exist and my mind does not know why there is
not a vagina there? then i get out of the shower and dry off and i try
to dry something that is not there as i cry. then later in the day my
hormones surge which pushes up my estrogen and drive for sex which
makes me cry because i cannot have sex. this is hell beyond anything
you can imagine. omg i cannot imagine all this pain and how i am still
alive?

managing the day to day chores, personal issues, hormones etc and try
to find a way to finance and mentally heal before surgery is .....
what word of phrase can i use....i know i am in prison and at times a
concentration camp without walls. in the shower i think as i cry up
against the shower sliding door that i am in prison and i wanted out so
bad.

now i am close to the point i will do whatever i need to and any
future gf i hope will understand what i did because i could not take
the pain any longer. i have made peace or close to making peace with
having sex with men for money.

plus on top of all of this when i lift weights either my RA or lack of
muscle mass causes me to cry so hard because i am lifting 5 lbs
dumbbells.

i just think over and over .... what could i have done in this life if
i had expended this much energy in helping others or operating my own
company? no one will ever know because the yrs are gone forever as i
enter my 55 yr birthday of hell.

i am thinking at this moment in the library ... of cutting my penis
off .. i actually can visualize cutting it but then my rational mind
kicks in and says if i do that i cannot get surgery maybe? then i can
see a woman with me and what she is doing to  me with such clarity
that it is like watching a hi def movie. as the days go by the images
of being with a woman drive me to surgery and this really is not new
since i have wanted to be with a woman for decades as a woman. but the
clarity is kiling my soul

approaching 55 yrs old , women and sex

you make me smile, laugh and cry  a little with your last email. you are validating me in so many ways. last night i thought, going back to shortly after we met, everyone in the community abandoned me and i asked you, as i cried, please help me. as i cry now you are a blessing from god. ....everyone left me for dead but you until i met ...... 

I purposely walk the way i do to prove a point i wanted to do for so long. that you can look and walk like a model and have the brains of a scientist and senior VP. although my thought process was at the being of hormones i should be able to strip on Friday and saturday and be a senior VP Monday-Friday. i think i have seen far too many men belittle women, since i walked amongst them i heard what they really thought of us, and this made me more determined then ever to prove them wrong and in all honesty put them in their place.

........

also yesterday as usual i put myself out there and i met the guy that was impressed with my football knowledge which ends at 2010. I thought real women don't like football but Penn State is back and soon we will be off of probation lol.  also i met this guy on the train and he was bragging about he worked for the NSA and dropped MIT in the conversation. the trump card i have for men they cannot beat is I am a Marine.  I have found that men are focused, most men, on their toys and accomplishments and conquest of women etc, which i detest, and whereas so many women are into the emotional part of friendships.

also the age of 55 yrs old is almost upon me and i think i have accomplished between nothing and very little. i wanted to be a successful professional woman but now with all the fixings, sorry that description.  i also want a wife and child and to have everything i don't have now.... home, car, and someone to cook for as i cry. so with my goals in my mind i have done nothing in this life as i enter my senior yrs. i cannot even say i am going to be 55 yrs old.when my case manager brought it up yesterday i cried and cried... i told her i don't want to talk about it. it is on my mind all the time as i beg for anyone to help with my surgery. i am still clawing and scratching to be me where i started at the age of 7 yrs old. so 1/2 century later i am still .......

.................

I thought i had a omen from god, or satan most likely, when i found a flyer for several strip clubs in portland on my run. i thought god , not really, was telling me to go and strip because i have no friends and god is not real.  so i pinned the flyer on my wall. i then looked up lesbian strip clubs in Portland and i found that in Oregon City there is a lesbian strip club for women. i thought i need to go there and i would be embraced by all? also i looked up how much a strip pole was and it is 489.00 that is portable. i feel  like a lost soul and let's go for broke again and the hell with god and everyone around, hence the email the other day.

.....

i am caught between two worlds, one that will accept with the condition of selling my body and soul and other that is so rewarding and one of love. but the one of love is one where i cannot hold one person. as the days go by i am leaning more and more towards the strip clubs but in my heart it is different.

i thought today about women which happens all day long. then i thought i love a hot dyke who would ravish my body and make me feel like a real woman. i have been looked up and down by a few in Portland. plus i was given card blanche at Hamburger Mary's by a dyke that was a bartender. but then i looked in my heart and i said given a choice i would take a woman that would hold me and make me feel warm inside.

.... might be right a healing is going on because i have noticed that the very little things that use to bother me simply don't anymore. i mean outside of surgery. this is a huge improvement over the last few decades.  but if the wrong woman approaches me and offers sex I cannot refuse i have longed for a woman to love me as  woman since my ex wife rejected me as a woman over 20 yrs ago.

i am seeking true love but sex may prevail.

thank you

study on SRS morbidy ...... wow speechless

here is a study I came upon....... no words....... way off base with this girl....

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016885#pone-0016885-t001

what has changed since i was a child, my grandmother , and ?

just today i started to blow dry my hair on my left side. the estrogen for me sees to never shut off.  i have tried and tried to explain to the doctors but this has feel upon deaf ears.  anyhow moving on i have had to learn moderation to survive and i was wrong that i need to remove the maladaptive dreams before surgery . but not only before surgery but now before i mentally crash.

the hormones are accelerating by the day exponentially.  also the more i work out it seems like i am becoming more feminine and physically weaker.  the problem i have tried to explain to you and others is my body frame and muscle mass cannot support my weight. literally i will be in a wheel chair with my RA and and the loss of muscle mass due to estrogen unless i keep losing weight.

then last night i remember as i lost part of my vision because it became very blurry in one eye. I was like i am in my teens and very sensitive to heat, which created anxiety and the blurry vision. none of this is due to estrogen but one could argue it is from the abuse. but i would argue that maybe and maybe it was my hormones back when i was a teen. it became so pronounced that i could not work in the yard with my brother and father. my father would say you are just like the women.

it is also apparent that my father made us pick rocks since he was not allowed, per my mother, to teach us boxing. he told us this will make you tough and tried to teach me how to use a rack to toughen up my stomach muscles.  then at time when my mother was not watching he would teach us , let's be honest, street fighting or rough house play. my mother knew all of this was wrong but feared him and did nothing. i told my grandmother and my mother said there is nothing i can do.

 it is very clear that my grandmother helped me learn things as girl from an early age and  my aunt and mother saw this too.  then my grandmother would direct me to talk to my aunts and in a group conversation with my aunts. so i lived in a loving nurturing place in the conversation and was taught what and how to think like a woman by my 3 aunts and grandmother. then when my mother and aunt would come over to join the talk the conversation changed drastically. 

my grandmother did all she could to help me become a lady but society like today i cannot be me ?  nothing has changed in the last 50 yrs.  i am accepted in small gathering but no one wants to support me in the larger society.

 I thought today in a lesbian relationship would people introduce me to their friends and family even outside say a picnic? i doubt it and so we have not come any further then we did 50 yrs ago. but yes we have policies that Mara and others have taken the credit for writing yet nothing has changed. nothinggggggggggggggggggggg.

link to fund raising for sexual reassignment ; help if you are able

my surgeon has agreed to video tape the surgery and I will make the video able on line after i return from thailand. the link below is to help in my efforts to have surgery ASAP.

thank you

rachel

http://www.gofundme.com/SRS-forRachel

hell of my chidhood, moving past if possible and my thought process before surgery

from a private email

i am not so good. i will be honest i have more episodes of thoughts of suicide but please have faith that i will not cut a piece of your heart............. in such an act.  i am in hell and it is getting worse by the second but the idea that all of my dreams from 3 yrs ago may come true in thailand push me through thought of suicide.

i remember how my aunt told me remember how you thought you were left handed and really you are right handed? you will learn to act like your  mother and i want you to like everyone else. so basically satan my aunt thought that since i was beaten to write with my right hand that she could alter my feminine qualities.

omg there is a force in me i cannot explain nor stop. it is unlike what anyone ever talks about. when i am working out, eating, or whatever there is this internal force that guides me. for example when i am working out , in the past, i would push up to 90 percent but now i know that 60-70 percent will make long term gains. this is true of my mental health and physical health. whatever is in me cannot be stopped and maybe from birth god touched me and this is my mission in life and god's will? 

i thought of suicide briefly yesterday but in the moment i thought to myself out loud, " i  have more to life for then dying."  i know it sounds so different but what i have worked for so long since starting DBT in 2003 has now made it possible for me to think in the moment. the bad part is i cannot stop off the bad memories of the past.

the pain inflicted upon me by society was horrible. but i know why i like to talk in groups now and why i want a family picnic? that is because as a child my grandmother made that space safe for me to act any way i wanted and defied my aunt and mother by telling them to leave me alone while i sat next to my other aunts and my grandmother.

what i am saying is i came out at 7 yrs old and i felt the pain within my family about my gender after i pointed to who i was a girl. but then my grandmother treated me like her daughter, yes daughter, and my aunts by marriage embraced me as one of their own. this made it possible for me to socialize and learn as a woman.   in the small circle of my grandmother and aunts the joke was ," don't worry Donnie is not one of them, a man." we all would smile when one aunt would say that too.  so i was raised as woman in sweats and t shirt but all the women in my family knew who i was at 7 yrs old. i just made it all official in 2003 when i told my mother face to fact again and in 2011 when i wrote the letter that my name is rachel. 

this is why i have a hard time understanding when people say when did you come out? i finally can say when i was 7 yrs old and my mother tried to put me in an institution but my grandmother protected me. this have to go though this is horrible and to know , as you say, my own blood mother tried to lock me up is , no words.

i know now i have the strength to do what i need to and follow through with my rest of my life and surgery. but it emotionally drains me to try to manage a project like this while i am the project. but this extreme stress keeps my mind occupied and deters thoughts of suicide. this is not surgery or death for me. to me it is risking it all to be me or go back to even more self destructive behaviors.

on that note if i email you later and i tell you i bought a car or purchased 500.00 in make up i have taken a step back and this will mean a step closer to suicide. is this true? i am locked in a death roll with surgery and i am betting my friends in the VA can put me back together mentally and physically after surgery. my friends at xerox and the VA have made rachel possible as i cry and cry. i have the safe space my grandmother gave me as a child but now it is ok to be me finally after 50 yrs. this is insane for what i had to do to get this far.

i  cannot and will not turn back.  mentally and physically i will be ready in six months. i need to counter the loss of muscle mass before surgery and strengthen my abs and back to ensure the best recovery time after surgery. while i am mentally fighting for my life and changing my behaviors in the moment.

thank you for being in my life and god bless

video tape surgery in Jan/feb 2015

hi

wow i am crying because i just received an email from my doctor in thailand that he will video tape the entire surgery and keep a copy for himself. the silence of this disease has to end and i am confident my friends and me can do a lot of good by presenting a true story that tells of the pain and healing.

i am not sure how much of the video I will upload but the entire video will be at least 2-3 hrs with the SRS surgery. this was a huge victory for so many and especially me. i have been working on this for a while. i hope he follows through so this goal.

thank you

rachel

this article on rape is how i feel at times

at times i wonder why go on and go for surgery my youth and adult life is almost done...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robinhoffman/rape-stole-my-soul_b_5674421.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000046

my grandmother helped me with make up and putting on my first dress

an email to a couple friends of the truth of how i learned to be me!!

i realize now that a lot of what my grandmother helped me start i am just finding a way to finish it today. 

in my grandmother's bedroom while my grandfather was watching TV, probably around 12 yrs old, I asked my grandmother to help me put on make up for the first time. she said, " Donnie you can never tell your aunt or mother i helped you."  so she began to show me how to put make up on then i said, lol let me do it, then my grandmother said you are pressing too hard when you put on the lipstick.

we made sure all of the makeup was removed before going downstairs. my grandmother said we cannot do this too often but after the event below we had to make sure my grandfather was not in the house when she showed me how to apply make up.( later i told her i did like it better the way my sister put on make up so she said you watch her then you will know how to put on make up)

so one day my grandmother and I were in her bedroom folding clothes after they had been washed and dried. then my grandmother said what you think of these two dresses. i told my grandmother i would not be caught dead in them. so said if she could she would give them to me. i basically said thank you but no thank you. then she shocked me!!!

Donnie which one go you like better? i guess this dress? she said why don't you try it on? i said sure!! so i went into the upstairs bathroom and tried on the dress and my grandmother commended "that is not too bad looking on you" i simply said , " it is ok!" then my grandfather began to climb the stairs to their bedroom.

so I quickly ran with her dress on me to the bathroom to change. apparently my aunt Mary jeanne had asked my grandfather to keep an eye on yes. so i smartly slipped out of the bathroom quickly and hid the dress i had worn in spare bedroom. my grandfather went into the bathroom looking through the cabinets for more than likely the dress. there was nothing out of the ordinary in the cabinets. my grandmother asked me where did you hide the dress? i told her in the spare bedroom.

so then my aunt and mother came back to my grandmother's house and my grandmother asked my mother if my sister would like the dresses? my mother and aunt had talked to my grandfather and asked me and my grandmother," did you try the dresses on Donnie." we denied it up and down.

so then because of grandmother powdering my nose and helping me put on my first dress my aunt and mother did the unthinkable!!! my aunt and mother could not get me institutionalized so they target my grandmother. my aunt and mother told my one uncle, " something is wrong with grandma because she is forgetting things. "  i told my grandmother and we knew what was going on and my grandmother said I will talk to your uncle.

i was so scared that they would take my grandmother away from that i went to my uncle next door and told him what my mother and aunt were up to. my uncle said that is BS!!! i asked him to call his other brother and i told him i am scared they will lock up my grandmother. my uncle said that is not going to happen.

then at a picnic i approached an aunt through marriage who i thought i could trust. i told her what my mother and aunt were doing. my aunt said" donnie do not worry your uncle and I will make sure nothing happens to your grandmother.

then my mother and aunt confronted me since i had told everyone what i had heard. i said i don't know what you are talking about. so my uncles talked to another uncle and there was a meeting and the attempted institutionalizing of my grandmother was over for the moment.

but since they could get to me or my grandmother my aunt and mother tried another tactic. they told me bad things about my grandmother and said, " you don't know your grandmother like you do."  i asked my uncle and he said that my aunt and mother were distorting the truth. my grandmother said the said event did not happen and you know it Connie and Mary Jeanne.

my grandmother told me in private that she was not happy about how my aunt and mother were behaving. she said " i did not raise them like this."

so my grandmother became my mentor, friend and a woman that i told all my secrets too begin at the age of 7.  she helped me learn how to adapt to the world knowing who i was nearly from birth. she said," Donnie you cannot be you here." you need to travel and do it for me since i did not have a chance in my lifetime. my grandmother gave me a life that few can understand unless you walked in my shoes. 

there never was a coming out party as a teenager in my family because i think everyone knew who i was from an early age based on all the traumatic events when i was very young.

thank you

my fantasy world and how in 2012 it was broken

i found out that i am very, very sensitive and fearful of men that are more than an arm length close to me. i am becoming more and more sensitive to my environment and the past experiences with men has had horrible consequences for me. private thoughts about a friend

private info about my friend that is accompanying me to thailand....... she is ready so now i need to fund and prepare mentally and physically for the surgery

then on the train i saw a girl about 6 yrs old. she and i glared at each other off and on the entire trip. then i wondered what it was like to be her. the little girl's nails were polished and she began to swing her feet. then i remember that is what i did as a child when i sat next to other girls. but in that moment today i know the pain as i cry when i was a child. the pain was so deep that i went into my dream world where i was a girl. this is a curse from hell. i know the exact emotions of when i was so young and growing up into my 20's.

then on the same trip on the trip i saw a woman that was pretty wearing shorts. i thought as i ccryyyyyyyyyyyyyy that will never be me. i wondered what it was like to dress a 20's woman and shave my arm pits like this woman. what is it like? i will never ever know.

then i think what am i fighting for? for the F--- for? then as i walked into the library i realized that my grandmother told me to look at the other girls to learn how to be a young woman. my grandmother knew everything about me because i told her in confidence.  so when i watched younger women or girls in public my mother and aunt noticed i was modeling the behavior of girls and women in public. to stop this modeling behavior my mother would grab my face and tell me to look at her not the other girl or woman. i would say i am just watching her. she said no you are not!! so i had to look at my mother and this forced me into my dream world because of the hostile environment created by my mother and aunt.

what broke me out of my dream world? an act of god!!! two women in the VA came to my rescue and guided me in 2011 to speak on February 2012 at a regional conference of the VA. this is when my dream world became smaller than my real world and the fantasy world began to break. why? at the regional conference where no one like me had been allowed to speak i told a story of my life not just about hormones. this single act by two friends of mine altered my world and my life. how? i was embraced by 50 directors and deputy directors of a 5 state region in the VA. that is not the only important thing that happened at the conference where i spoke. at the end of my speak a high ranking member of the region came up to me and said, " i can relate as a gay man."

also i was introduced to the director of the portland VA and for a brief moment we joked about something that i would think would reveal too much about his personal life so i will keep it private. then after this i went into the lobby where a deputy director spoke with me and said, " she thought there was a disconnect." i guess what she was saying was that what i thought was important and what some thought were important differed. after that i said to her, " who took the bigger risk me or the woman that opened the door for me to speak? she said," I don't know."

this seemingly small event where only a few attended in the bigger picture changed my journey of life.

thank you

more of my grandmother, arthritis, and when will the pain end

hi

apparently my grandmother did much more than i said yesterday. when my mother confronted my mother on the powder on my face my grandmother said, " well if ... my brother, wants some powder on his face she would do the same for my brother." my aunt and mother were not amused at that smart remark but i laughed lol.

there is much more because my grandmother showed me how women put lipstick on and then told me to watch my mother put it on so i would know how to apply lipstick. this is why i watched my mother when i thought all along i just did it on my own. my grandmother put perfume on me when my mother would not and my mother smelled it on me. upon arriving home i was told to put that shirt filled with grandmother's perfume in the laundry. 

there is not way i did tell my grandmother everything. the day my aunt and mother tried to put me in an institution is the day my grandmother truly embraced me as a woman.  i just wish she was around to see the woman i have turned into because of her helping me early in my life. there was no coming out party for me because i was out since birth and most definitely at the age of 7.  that is why i cannot relate to people saying when did come out? in the past i would say, " i don't know if i ever did."

now today i am depressed because of surgery and why could i not have been a 20's girl when i was 24 yrs old at Penn State?  i look at the younger girls and i am so dying to be with one so i can be one?  all i know is i am crying and crying and depressed knowing that my grandmother kept the door open but society made me understand it was not safe to come out as rachel.

so i hid and hid for 40 yrs? how do you wrap your head around that your grandmother helped you only to have society stop you at every turn for 40 yrs? i am anger and hurt and want someone to pay? Mary Jeanne? i know i cannot get the time back like .... was explaining to me. but what do i do at 55 yrs old? i want god to take me or something.

i understand my pain is related to not having access to surgery too? but what the hell am i suppose to do after surgery? i have no life because the years are gone? there was no reason for people to threatened people like me only for me to hide because of the threats of death and rape in the news etc.  i saw what people said in many countries about girls like me and it was either sexual or threats of death or harm.  it was made clear to me to lay low or die.

i don't want to be a stripper but at least i will be free?  i mean i want my 20's back after surgery and now.  i think i deserve a relationship now and years ago. i am a good person but i had no where to run and now i really like me but i missed out on all the good years.

now i am physically beaten down by RA so badly that if i do not lift weights i cannot sleep. the loss of muscle mass has ..... i cry and cry and cry when i lift 5 lbs over my head in what are called flyes.  i mean i want to be me so bad and have surgery i am pushing through pain few will understand. i am prepared to die and be beaten down by RA and everything. but all of this could have been avoided if i was me years ago. but no i am 55 yrs old and i am fighting for my life while i relive nightmare after nightmare from my past.

my childhood and adult life did not have to be ..... i am tired of cryingggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg

i want the pain to leave me and for me to have a normal life but it will never be because of the RA and depression that i will never be accepted as a woman. i might be fighting for nothing and maybe i need to do what others do and just quit, file for disability and eat myself to death.

i do not think i will eat myself to death but at what point will i lose my strong will to fight. i have been fighting apparently since i was 7 yrs old and yet god has not intervened for surgery and a life with people that like me in my day to day life enough to spend time with me. where is he?

the day will come when i no longer care and my method of suicide will be food.  i was on that path before 2011 and last week i gained 7 lbs in 3 days with binge eating.  i will not take pills nor kill myself but suicide, like a woman that drank herself to death via alcohol, will be via food for me.  this could lead to me becoming Don again? if i stop caring i will probably do what i did not so long ago and just throw a dress on without showering or putting make up on.  i have yet to start putting my nail polish on like i did in the past.

i am not out of the woods but i am a different person and so vulnerable and susceptible to be drawn back into the world of the adult book stores, stripping clubs. but this time around i might actually end up in a adult film or on the stripping club stage. all of what i thought in the past does not exist and one false move and i will be on the other side of the fence in no time.

how bad are things here? i am ok to a point but i still pre dial 911 when i exercise everyday and go to bed just in case i have another panic attack. when my stress is high i literally cannot see the keys on my phone pad to call 911 so i have to pre dial it just in case i do have a panic attack.  this has been the case for nearly 3 yrs. also it is rare for me to sleep 2 nights in a row the entire night without waking up at midnight in a near panic attack which is mediated by food.

now my hips hurt so bad because of how i walk has changed so much.  the pain in my hips 3 days ago was so bad i could barely get out of bed. all i did the day before was walk around Portland. 

.......friend asked me to call her from face book... private part of story

i am just tired of fighting on hormones and to be me.  at every turn there is a good challenge that test me to a new level. after i beat back the hips what is next? apparently due to a noggle on right foot on one toe because of my new method of walking it is causing intense pain to my foot to walk. so i will have to talk to my RA, ...., about something we agreed in the past to not do. that is i will more than likely have the noggle surgically removed so i can walk without extreme pain.

i want a health, happy and sexy woman here but when will all of this let up?  i know why the others do not talk? you remember all of the horrors of your past and how you hid from others and what you did to others. it is a damn nightmare.  there is never a let up including this morning when i realized in the 1980's when i was training to go back into the marines at Jake's gym i could not go into the all women's section. this is something that cannot be undone and today i am terrified of the thought of rejection of going into the women's locker room in a gym.

who can take a beating like this and talk about it? me for a while but when will it end or will all of this do me in like so many others?

take care

how in 1972 my mother, aunt tried to hide me but my grandmother loved me

this truly is the an unedited email to a couple friends of mine. the truth needs to be told of what some families try to do to hide people like me. i have not edited one name or word from this email. i am tired of hiding and the time has come to just tell my story to the public. the shame needs to stop.

 

thank you for all that allow me to share my story 

 

thank you

 

rachel

 

ps my surgery is still on for Jan 19, 2015

 

 

hi

omg estrogen truly is a truth serum.  now i remember even more of one day my grandmother and I were alone and I asked her to teach me how to put make up on.

this was preceded by me telling her everything including my cutting my penis by pointing to my crotch. i promised never to do that again. when i told her everything she said you cannot tell your mom or mary jeanne because they will lock you up. i told her i know as i cried i asked her to not tell my mother and mary jeanne. then my mother and mary jeanne tried to get me to tell them what i had told my grandmother.

they tried to pressure my grandmother to tell them what i had told her. she refused and then we went home and my mother tried to get me to tell her. i refused and said, ":if i do you will lock me up." she said, " that is where you and your father belong." i said, " and mary jeanne needs to go back to the covenant and she needs help." ( or something close to that." my mother said, ' you are the one that is sick. i said nothing.

so i told my grandmother everything and one day when we were alone she " i cannot teach you to do make up because they, my mother and mJ will kill me." but she said you can watch. so when she was done teaching me how to put make up on when I was about 12 yrs old I asked her to put powder on my face after she powdered her face. then, much to my surprise, i asked my grandmother if i had to wash off the powder? she said, " no" lets see what they say, mJ and my mother."

when my mother arrived she said what is on your face. I said powder and my mother said take that off now. then my grandmother said," it is only powder Connie, my mother." so my mother had me come over and she had a hard time getting the powder off so mJ scrubbed it off my face and it hurt.

the day my mother and aunt tried to lock me up at 7 yrs old my grandmother because my mother.  i am the, as i cry again, the secret MJ and my mother wanted to hide. it is very apparent that the deepest fear of my mother and MJ is that my grandmother would allow me to move in with her and there would be a good chance Rachel could have been me in 1972.

if my grandmother would have backed me i would have gone to the prom in a dress. that is why i think i never went to either one of my proms in HS.  what can anyone say to all of this? my grandmother nurtured me as a woman in the 1960's and beyond. she knew who i was because i told her i was like Renee Richards etc. i used every opportunity to become me because my grandmother provided a safe space for me to be me as much as possible.

maybe it is wishful thinking about coming out in 1972 with my grandmother's help. but one has to keep in mind that in that 1930's my grandmother and catholic married a protestant. even in the 1960's when my uncle married a protestant he had to be married in the rectory of the church not the church. my grandmother was very strong and told me in private, " you will have to leave here Donnie." she meant the small town and my mother and aunt will never allow me to be me in Hollidaysburg, PA. 

i know my grandmother went to my aunt and mother many times to ask to have me live with her. but finally i think she realized that my aunt the one that had the most control over my mother would never allow it and my mother also feared her genetic son was a woman which her mother was about to provide a window for me to walk through. if this happened then a lot of people in this small town would out my mother and aunt and this was what all of this was about, not me.

as my mother said many times " you and your grandmother just don't care want people think." I said that is right!!! 

i am crying because my grandmother in the 1960-70's stood by me and pushed as hard as she could for me to be me. i told her all about me and she would tell me what others would say about me.  i had no secret with my grandmother and to say this in an era when i could have been beat up because of who i was. if my grandmother had provided a safe space like i have today i would have risked it.

this means i would not have joined the marines? i guess we will never know!!  I think the reality of all of this is that if i had been allowed to me in 1970's i would have found a way out of the small town but i would never have had to hide. it means as i cry the world to me that my grandmother accepted me for me and took on her own daughters because what they were doing was wrong.

on that note i know why my aunt came out of the covenant in the catholic church. it was not because of what my mother said, " I cannot handle Don and Don SR" but probably because my mother saw that my grandmother was supporting and this could not happen. so my aunt came out of the covenant to help my mother leave my father and bring me into line. but i refused in 1972 and told both my aunt and mother i will move in with grandmother. so i was blamed for so much when in reality the love my grandmother saw me as human being which my mother and aunt could not see.

i miss my grandmother and i know now that she would accept me as me today. i am crying because i needed to know this omg !!! this was so important to know that someone in my family loved me for me. i miss my grandmother and i honestly hate my aunt and mother.

now i am crying because i cannot fit into a society that reflects so much of my mother and my aunt. a world that god does not understand because loves everyone. so the ones that will only smile at me are afraid of what my mother was in 1972. 

i am depressed but happy that my grandmother love me as Rachel.  but i am the dirty deep secret that my family hid and beat because of who i am.  my grandmother saw how my family treated me and she knew when my aunt and mother were lying about how violent i had become with my brother. the fact is they were right one of us need put in an institution but it was not me.

wow and this morning i nearly broke again but then i ran. this process is so hard and yet others will not talk to me. but on the other hand they did not have Lyle Foor, my grandmother, to lean on when they were growing up maybe? 

now i am coping with building my muscles up in diff parts of my legs so i can walk like a model. sorry but that is exactly how i walked as a teen and my grandmother told them, ":leave me alone."  all i have done by going back is pulled the layers back of what is the real me that started to come to the surface in the 1970's. so i am just finishing what my grandmother and I started in 1972.

none of this should have been necessary and even today i risk much in Portland because of the violence toward women and women like me. i hid for so many years and I no matter what will not go back into any closet for any reason. so when you hear a deep voice and feminine body at some level i say, " and ..."

please know that i appreciate all of your help in recreating what my grandmother tried to allow out in 1972.

thank you

study on transgendered women attracted to men and the challenges of it all

i thought i would share this article :

i am not shocked that many that are attracted to men contract HIV because of other articles and studies i have read. however since i am a lesbian that does not apply but the other issues are very relevant to me. yes even in Portland employment and discrimination is prevalent.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140812122327.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fmind_brain%2Fgender_difference+%28Gender+Difference+News+--+ScienceDaily%29

emails help me heal and here is an email in response to last post

thank you for this space again. i was carrying around so much anger that i was about to blow or lash out at anyone that looked at me wrong. i know how i was as child and in the marines now. i know how i survived the marines now too. however all of this being said my damn hormones will not shut off the matter how bitchy, anger i get now.

how much of this anger is due to my frustration due to no surgery yet? how much is because no one will be come my friend?  and how much is this because my mother, aunt and .... abandoned me? i do know i told myself in that anger mode no one can hurt me so it will not matter if the both of you and ....abandon me too because it has happened so much in my life. then that mean ... sent me a reply to an email.

this makes it hard for me to stay mad very long and my therapist put it best i need a hug but there is no one to hug so i do not feel loved. this is my secret and i don't know how to defuse it until i find a girlfriend.

in absence of a girlfriend i say to myself i will just have sex and party after surgery. i know i am not that kinda of woman. then i think what if a gf leaves me for .. " rachel i found a real woman for a girlfriend." i am terrified to death of that happening more , as i cry and cry, then surgery. that would break my heart and i would not have a reason to live.

i am scared of intimacy and since i don't know how this makes it really hard. plus each day can you imagine the plate you wash or touch is a bit different every day? this is estrogen. my world changes every day so much so i hang on by a thread. it is not surgery it is everything plus surgery.

take care and have a good weekend

the hell continues and how to get others to understand?

i promised to tell the real story so here is how it really is for me


yesterday was a very interesting day if you can call it that?  i am so hurt, anger and there are no words to describe the deep pain of the last 48 hrs.  yesterday I could not take the pain any longer so in anger i took my arm pushed all of my make up on the floor.  I did this in anger when i was a child because there was no hope nor solution then nor now.

i cry when i get up, drink my cup of grape juice, and when i workout i have flashbacks and cry almost the entire duration of the workout. i have come to realize that there is no hope of a happy life nor anything that i wanted all of my life. it is quite clear i wanted to be that woman on TV shopping and yet an educated professional woman.

this is painfully clear when i walked to the library today. i look at the younger girls and think over and over as i cry i never had a chance to be me. i am 55 yrs old and i can see the wrinkles in my face of a 55 yr old. i was fooling myself with the most expensive makeup that i could make it work at this stage in my life. there is no hope of me being me.

i remember my  grandmother saying, " you don't let them chance you and you be you." if only more of my grandmother were in my life prior to my omg 50's i could be ok. again i look at the younger women and i am anger now that so many take so much for granted. especially the girl in pittsburgh who in her early 20's had an supportive family who paid for her surgery. this woman was thankful for nothing except her big ego that could not fit through the door.

i would do anything but i was a coward not to be me years ago.................. no one cares so i don't care anymore.

i am so emotionally shut down over the last 48 hrs i hope some ass bumps into me by accident because my purse will drop and it will be on. i was so nice and nice for what? every time i have been nice in my life i have been excuse me F--- over and over. my friends asked me why i was that way and in college and my grandmother ask me the same thing. i really tried.

then in 2011 i thought i could make a difference in this world in ........and society as a whole. i was wrong because i have made no difference in this world so all of this coupled with people hurting me in the.... and in society has, congratulation, awoken someone i did not as i cry want to every see again. society has awoken the marine and the fighter that is emotionally shut down and wants to fight anyone and anything.

i am so tired of people doing me wrong that the next one will pay the price in one form or another.  i also will deal with my ..........after surgery. she took my life as a child then i would ensure my presence in our hometown destroys her so solid reputation.  my mere presence and mentioning i am her niece will do enough and then i will go to our church. i guess i am like my mother and if you want a war i will give you one.

......thoughts of suicide ? yes and even during working out but i seem to have a mission and the mission of surgery over powers my thoughts of suicide?

there is the 30-40 years where i was in hell and no one helped me as i cry. now i am in hell where i see how good things are on this side of the fence. it is like god tensed me and said look what you have missed. you are an asshole god.  i am in hell because no one cares enough to do the right things for nearly 50 yrs. wtf.

how right are hormones for me? omg!!! i have not taken my embrel shot for 3 weeks and my ankle injury that limited my mobility and range of motion suddenly has healed so i can walk so feminine. not estrogen? then how the hell did it heal after 35 yrs???????????????????????????

?

........ this is no reason for me to live any longer.  i have only to look forward to hell , then surgery, then sex and parties until i am dead in a few years after surgery. but that is not my problem it is the fact that the 30 yrs before i could try to be me cannot be replace.

so the person that could have been will never be. for example instead of helping my friend ...fix his car i could have been with girlfriends cooking or talking!! none of this can happen because time is gone.... come get me god pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeee

to realize the person you could have been will never be is ........ think of all of this drive i have that could have been used to help society and achieve real goals not some dumb surgery.  i have not been able to hold a job for more than one year except when ... helped me at .... at ...people really saw what i was capable of and this all could have happened 30 yrs ago after surgery but i damn did not.

there really is not reason for surgery or my existence. i also am thinking of taking drugs since i thought of my needles to my enbrel. i thought what would it hurt to try coke or whatever to numb this pain. that is what it will take to numb the pain i feel.

to i mean all of the above??? i don't know but i can tell you that  knowing that the person that could have been will never be cuts through my heart like a hunter gutting an animal he has captured and killed. i just do not see a future after surgery. perhaps this is why girls commit suicide after surgery to know that the pain is not relieved by surgery one bit.

surgery does not release us from the prison that is imposed by society. the isolation that i put on myself for decades cannot be changed just because i wear a dress now.  i think too many people are afraid to say what they really think... Rachel you are just a man in a dress!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i looked at myself in the mirror today and yes i can see that but people will not even give me the chance to get to know them. it is like door to door sales when no one opens the door you cannot make a sale. i can win people over but when you are fake and pretend to like me only to be polite. or smile only to appease me makes me think you do think i am a man in a dress. there is nothing i can do in my lifetime to chance people attitudes.

i think i was born in the wrong time in history. i tried so hard to open doors only to be put back in the closet by so many. i can have surgery but i can never be paroled from prison because of how i am perceived. i did my best and i failed and god?

i cannot tell you of how deep this pain is and how long i can endure it. the longer i go on hormones the more i realize it is not the hormones but society that will never allow me to heal. there is one thing i do in public and that is talk but how many friends do i have ? NONE!!!

my out spoken ways puts me out of the loop with the trans community and in the main stream society it is my opinion that people would not introduce me to their friends nor want someone like me to be known that you are friends with me!!!

thank you

surgery Date in thailand for Jan 15, 2015

hi

i have contacted a surgeon in thailand and requested Jan 15, 2014 for my sexual reassignment surgery.  there are no more options left at this point but to press forward and go for broke. as my mother would say," you live your life by the seat of your pants.... you always land on both feet." i perplexed my family and my mother but i have never failed to complete a project. 

this is one project I wish I was not the project manager of my own surgery. I plan to skype before and after surgery for my close friends. I have permission to have my surgery filmed but I cannot find a woman to accompany as of yet to film the surgery. If i can film the surgery great and if not great too.

i have waited until there literally are no other options but surgery.

thank you

rachel

panic attacks, heat sensivity and playing doctor

I jumped on the max last night because my vision became kinda of spotted and i felt like i was going to have another panic attack. then i checked my blood pressure and it was elevated.  but once on the max i realized what the problem is and there is a easy solution but not until i get purchase an A/C unit.

thinking back i remember in May 2012 i had 3 panic attacks that landed me in the ER. one time i was blacking in and in out when i was in my apartment with no a/c. then by coincidence the panic attacks stopped because, maybe, i spend time in the rec room where there is ac and my friends apt that had a/c. but in 2012 i did not realize that i was so sensitive to heat.  so the panic attacks stopped without knowing what the cause was nor would the test the va completed tell anyone this was the core issue?

so in 2013 i was working most of the time so i was in AC rooms.  but the panic attacks returned out of the blue this year but only when it warmed up in portland. so apparently i have been very sensitive to heat and this in turn has caused me dry eye and panic attacks. the dry eye returned last month too.

so i was treated for panic attacks and dry eyes when actually the culprit was my new sensitive to heat that put the dry eyes, fatigue, and panic attacks into play.  so the orange juice i thought would resolve my anxiety, the doctor rx of antidepressants would not resolve my anxiety but removing myself from the heat is the solution.

also i was treated for allergies and sinus infection. i had a flashback of when i was a child i was sick a lot. i was emotionally sick and to counter this i workout in my 20's and this seemed to resolve my sinus issues. so i really did not have a sinus infection nor allergies but the depression was so bad that i was emotionally sick. since i am working out nearly 5-6 days a week the supposed sinus infection has disappeared.

i like to learn on the fly but i was crying last night because no one talks to the doctors so they have no idea of what would cause my panic attacks. i am very upset that i have to play doctor and my doctor at the va tried her best but the real reason we are playing doctor on the fly is because no one talks to the doctors.  then i hear people on line that belittle me, literally for being an " educational tool" of the " nonconformist."  this makes me so upset and to know that i have flying bind into surgery scares me to death.