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.