Guest Post - By Paige - From Self-Destruct to Daylight
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I hear such amazing stories of customer journeys that are inspiring and thought provoking for me. Recently, I realised that these stories are too important to not be shared, and I have asked a few customers if they'd like to guest post here. I have been very lucky that they have agreed and many found it to be cathartic and fulfilling, and often it brings hope that it will help others.
First up is Paige, who has come to her trans journey later in life, and who's journey of self-discovery is really blossoming. Hopefully her story will inspire you, and if you are moved by anything you read, please do get in touch if you need support.
From Paige:
Where to start with this is never easy and including every aspect of the entire journey is virtually impossible, so I'll miss out the first forty something years and cut straight to the interesting bit,, if you want to hear about the depressing years I'll tell them, but another time, I'll start this little story from summer 2020, I'm 47 years old and fest becoming a non intoxicated person, as for many years of my past I was on a self destruct mission, but I guess only half heartedly as I'm still here and in relative good health, so all my life ever since I was a child I wanted to be female, this was very unacceptable in the late 70s and 80s and lead to the subsequent self destruct ,, what changed, when it changed, I have no idea but somehow I found myself in 2020 a year that was hideous for so many and yet it seemed my time to live and love life and myself for the first time I can remember had arrived,
I've dressed feminine indoors all the time, never venturing outside except under cover of darkness with my dog for protection, luckily I live on the very outskirts of the city and its always been quiet, the thing about being closeted and scared of your own life is its very easy to convince yourself that what you are doing is for the best and never consider how it's effecting you mentally, a kind of brainwashing on one's self, I'd tell myself 'I'll be fine staying indoors ' and 'I'm a realist, I could never pass anyway so no point trying ' bad defeatist thoughts that have festered for a lifetime and now bit by bit becoming eradicated from my mind,,
So summer 2020 , I join my first online transgender group, and meet for the first time people like me, by the way I've still to this day never met a transgender person in real life,, anyway at this point I'm once again determined to discover myself, what I'm supposed to do with these feelings of trapped frustration, the dilemma of feeling feminine and looking not feminine and not even acting feminine but I slowly discover I'm not the only one,, however the group seems quiet to me and no-one really wants to do video chat and I'm desperate to be seen, for validation, so I join a second group which covers the whole of Scotland, its very much more active and they are doing many things on video so, I decide the Saturday night meeting seems good one week games night one week movie night finally I'm visible but after only a couple of meetings it's not enough or moving forward I need to know if I'm good enough to get outside,, so I'm asking and asking until eventually someone gave me the answer I guess I needed to hear, and it's very simple, I am good enough, no matter what I look like as long as I'm me, as long as I'm projecting what I feel, dressing how I want, there's not a soul on earth who has the right to judge me,, or anyone else who may be in a similar dilemma to mine, so from summer to November I cultivated my new me as the indoors me was not entirely suitable for day to day living,,, November 25th I step outside in daylight hours and I haven't dressed male since that day now my name is Paige, I love being me and I feel love for the people around me even when they just look at me and don't know what to say or think it's a big change for everyone close to me and close by but I've had almost no negativity.
I'm sure a lot of you will connect with her experiences and others will be interested to read about another's life experience, and be glad that Paige has moved passed a self-destruct phase to digging in deep and confronting her feelings. We all know how hard that is for anyone to do. Thank you very much Paige for sharing your story.
If you'd like to share your story, no matter how long or short, I'd love to hear from you. You can just send me an email at any time.