Grief

Note: I felt and wrote these words over a year ago. I had just come back from a trip to see my parents, as I was changing my legal gender in Mexico City. That process forced issues to surface, like the irony of going to great lengths to have my gender change officially recognized while my parents refused to do the same.

A lot has changed since then. Time has given me the distance, while progress has given me the resolve, to make my turmoil public, an offering of raw honesty in this collective processing of my journey.

September 2013

This is the hardest post I’ve ever had to write. Because it’s not about me, it’s about my mother (except I promised I would never write about her, so I guess this post will have to be about me after all.)

Ever since my trip back home, I’ve been thinking a lot about coming out. To your parents. Specifically, the part that happens after you come out: having them come to terms with you.

My inbox is full of questions like “What is the best way to come out as LGBTQ?” or “How do I tell my family that I’m non-binary / trans / queer / questioning?” As I dole out untried (likely untrue) advice, I dutifully ignore the open wound I still hide: if success is measured in eventual acceptance, then I have utterly failed at coming out to my own family.

The plea that breaks my heart: “How do I make them understand?” I wish I had the answer, because it’s the one I’m still searching for.

Stages of Grief

They say that when a child comes out, a parent goes through the various stages of grief: Shock, Denial, Pain, Guilt, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Reconstruction, Acceptance. They can go through each stage discretely or may find themselves in many stages at once.

What no one told me was that, as a parent fails to progress through the stages towards acceptance, the child will, in turn, begin to experience these for themselves. Thus I find myself caught in the middle of this grief cycle, trying to navigate a process which I was not fully prepared for.

Shock

My mother’s unquestioned limitless love ultimately came with conditions.

Denial

She was not ready to understand.

She is not willing to understand.

I refuse to believe we will never get past this. But I don’t hold out hope that we can ever overcome this.

Pain

I am hurt.

I have lost my once fearless protector, my confidante; my safe, nurturing everything who enveloped my world with warmth and kindness and compassion; the one who told me everything would be ok; the one who would tuck me into bed every night, even when I was too old to be tucked into bed; the one who loved me when no one would.

She doesn’t love all of me, and perhaps never will.

Shame

As I walk through the front door of my childhood home, half-opened arms await me. Only certain parts of me are welcomed.

I’m proud of being a transgender advocate, but it’s tied to a questionable part of me. It’s not a secret, I just don’t advertise it. If there’s nothing wrong with it, why does it feel tainted?

Being transgender – being me – is not wrong. I believe this with all my heart. I just shouldn’t bring it up. It’s easier this way.

Guilt

I shouldn’t be pursuing my own happiness at the expense of someone else’s.

Shame on me for feeling guilty for trying to be happy. I only have one life to live and that is mine. Don’t we all deserve happiness?

This assertion of my individual freedom is pure selfishness.

I am the worst person in the world. Even after infinite reassurances from my significant love that I’m probably not a bad person, much less the worst person, I can’t convince myself otherwise.

Anger

I’m angry at her.

I’m angry that my mother cannot see beyond what she feels. I’m angry that she cannot overcome those negative thoughts and emotions casting a dark shadow between us.

I’m angry that she hasn’t tried hard enough.

I’m angry at society, for leading her to believe that what she feels is, in some ways, the right way to feel.

I’m angry that she cannot see the wonderful person that others see in me. That I’ve learned to see.

She rejects the idea of who I am. For my entire life, she has refused to notice what has always been there, who I’ve always been. She doesn’t bother to get to know the real me. She’s too afraid to even acknowledge there is more to me than what she wants to see.

Our forlorn relationship will never be the same.

What drives me over the edge is that none of this makes any sense.

My mom looked for answers, but in the wrong books.

Bargaining

I’m confident that there is nothing I can do about it; it’s a lost cause. I’m confident that there’s still something I can do to make it better, some words or books or blogs or someone out there that can help. Both sentiments are quite grim.

Send another letter? Buy another book? I research to exhaustion, weighing out all the options.

Keep talking about it? Or ignore it, pretend like nothing happened?

Some parents love their rainbows. Why can’t mine?

Depression

I lose sleep.

I write.

I make myself physically ill.

I cry.

We’re both still fighting each other, and our own selves. I sincerely hope she gets to the final stage before I do: before I accept that things will never change, before I accept defeat, before I finally bury our relationship and lay this fight to rest. I am ready to give up.

Reconstruction: 2014

I tend to confront problems head on, while my mom may never want to talk about “it.” The rampant emotions encouraged me to push for progress. Only I didn’t realize I was really pushing buttons instead.

I thought books were the answer, because that’s where I usually find mine. So whenever I came to visit, I brought a stack of reading material with me, from detailed handbooks like The Transgender Child to the simplest explanation in the form of a pamphlet. They remained untouched, unopened. I insisted that, if only she read these, she would finally understand and all her reservations would disappear.

Transgender resource books for parents – I tried them all.

I thought stories might sway her, because if she wasn’t looking for information, maybe it was about emotion. Every once in a while I would send a link to a blog post or a news article that was sure to be a tear gusher. Accepting parents, successful children, young transgender children, all praised for being brave and facing the world despite its dangers and opposition. “It’s different here” she would say, “it’s different for me.”

For someone whose journey has been based on embracing differences, I was not doing a very good job.

Acceptance: 2015

I don’t want to end with sadness, because that conclusion is no longer reality.

The coming out process began in my family over a decade ago, bringing a swirl of downs with very few ups. That September I left deeply hurt, more shaken up than usual. My mom is most definitely not at that place anymore. Neither am I.

Mom, Brother, and Me

We’ve rebuilt our relationship. I’ve learned to accept that my mom’s process is different than mine. She deals with things her way, at her pace. She may never understand me in all the ways I understand myself, yet all I need is to be embraced as I am. I think she’s doing that now, in her own way.

I honestly don’t know what changed her, or what has changed in her. I wish I could write more about her process, but hers is not my story to share.

Acknowledgements

I also want to publicly share the support I had from my friends: everyone who patiently listened, who gave me advice, who comforted me, and especially the ones who reached out when I couldn’t muster facing this. It’s important to remember I cried, I hurt, and I did not go through this alone. Thank you <3

Thanks to my friends for their support