Coal For Xmas

I would like to reflect on the last year because it has been quite a year, and yet it ends with Santa bringing me coal for Christmas. I will say now that I am grateful for this year, it has been a year of successes and failures, triumphs and setbacks. Yet it is all part of my choices.

I have certainly grown as a person, and I have revealed some incredible strengths of character. Yet it has also revealed my vulnerability. It is quite a vulnerability, and it has been a real eye opener.

This year I fell in love. Love is a very powerful drug. And I became an addict.

The trouble with addictions is that they creep into your life, and slowly they take over. You become blind or develop blind spots. And you become defensive.

Being a trans person this is actually worse, and I hope this is a lesson for other trans people out there. Trans people can find this game of love much more treacherous waters to navigate. We are already a minority rainbow group, and the trouble for those of us that have not had the full operation is that CIS lesbians reject us because we still have male bits. Thus for us it is a hard road to find the lovers we want, the partners for life, the most intimate of friends, to share our lives with.

Thus we suffer from the effects this has on us. We become tolerant of the red flags because we want that love so much we are prepared to accept risks that would send others running. We become defensive because we so want to believe that it will blind us.

This I am guilty of.

I am guilty, and I own my mistakes which have caused drama with and for others.

I fell in love hard, although I accepted that there were risks. Because of that need, and I mean need not want (some will disagree on this) I developed what a trans psychologist friend calls a Broken Elbow syndrome (or something like that). In essence it is somebody like myself that has developed a high pain tolerance who ignores the broken elbow and carries on. Trans people are very susceptible to this. We are prepared to tolerate more shit, ignore red flags, etc, because we need love and that intimate connection so bad.

I can't speak for others, I will relate only my experience here. My need for that connection with somebody is very great. My last such connection is over 10yrs ago. Yes, I destroyed that, so I take responsibility for that. What I did and what I went through over that time was not very good. To survive I shut down many aspects of myself. I have talked about this before. Since then I had all those parts of me that I shut down were reactivated, almost all at once.

So here I am, suddenly feeling and needing the sort of contact and connection many take for granted, even if at times that might seem hard. I know there are people with worse positions than mine, some are friends.

So I fell for someone that seemed to be the answer to all I desired. I was willing to overlook some plausible red flags, in part because my life is full of red flags and if I paid them to much attention I would never get anything done. I am tired of the judgement of me that red flags represent in my life, and I try not to jump to judgement of others because I know what it is like.

Prejudice is a horrible thing that we all have to some degree. I have had prejudicial views like we all have. I am also the subject of many such views that people have of me, mostly because I made some poor choices in my life, and also because I am part of many minority boxes society has put me in. 

So when I feel judged as I was over this "relationship" I became defensive because of the prejudice that people showed me about the situation and the person I was in love with. The judgement came thick and fast from some, and it continued over time. It felt like a battering ram, and all it did through its repetition was build my defensive response.

What I needed was constructive support.

When people feel attacked they shut down, become thick skinned. When they feel supported they are open to ideas, seeing things with a wider perspective, and being guided to better choices. 

At times I can be hard headed (I can hear the laughter from some about this). Yet I do respond to constructive support. I become very hard headed to judgement and prejudice. I know people care about me, I really do, and it is appreciated. Yet if you have known me for any length of time you will know that frontal assaults on me rarely work. I need people to be open and honest, yet supportive. Come at me without prejudice and I will not bring mine, and walls will become open to deeper discussion and greater understanding for all parties.

So where is this story going?

Well without lots of trivial detail like money, I found out through others that the love of my life was a lie, a scam. That simple. 

It was presented in a sort of confronting way, yet with a degree of empathy that allowed me to see the situation for what it was, and I am grateful for that. 

I am a victim. A victim of myself. I made a big mistake, yet not so bad because nobody died or lost a limb. The loser was me and my bank account. I blame nobody else. I won't remain a victim though, because this setback will not stop me.

Some have had fallout issues with what has happened, yet this is unnecessary. I don't want people stressing over my mistake, because it is mine, and it is your reaction to me making a mistake which is really not helping anybody. The issue is mine, don't take it out on each other. Making me not welcome to visit for Christmas is really not helping anybody.

That was yesterday. I started this blog entry yesterday. I am still processing everything, although I am not in a stage of grief or denial, I am being very honest with myself. I accepted the risks, knew that this could happen, and am not going to dwell on it. I feel it, make no mistake, I just am also accepting of my reality, and I will not allow it to define me. What I have experience is feelings, and without thoughts to support them or make them worse, those feelings will pass. And I shall reinforce myself by more helpful and positive thoughts which are true.

You see even though there are lessons from this, I don't want to change the person I have become; open, honest, prepared to be vulnerable, somebody who loves life. I don't want to become cynical, or full of prejudice. I will use better discernment for sure. I want to keep openly doing good in this world, and I want  to see and reveal and experience the good in this life and world, and there are good people out there to.