Hi and welcome to our caring community Ink;
Transition for transgendered individuals is difficult enough without dealing with gossip as spiteful and ignorant as you've mentioned. It's a 'learned' coping mechanism to let these comments go and focus on self as a priority, otherwise it can eat away at your soul.
I was given a visualisation once that's stuck with me ever since. It goes like this;
'Imagine you're standing in a large room in the middle of a circle of one hundred people all looking at you. Who do you please or listen to? See yourself turning round and round trying to think of ways to satisfy all 100. Who's the only person important enough to focus on in that room?'
It is of course 'you'! We can't please all of the people all of the time, and most are irrelevant to our life as a positive influence anyway. When I did this visualisation, I didn't even see faces; I saw bodies surrounding me. Strangers who I'd been trying to cope with leaving myself open to all sorts of rubbish.
The only person in that room who I could totally please was me. That realisation helped me immensely to understand I'm not super human; just a vulnerable woman in a room of strangers. It's the one's who stick by us regardless of our origins, choices or orientation that's worth our love and focus.
Being surrounded by small town mentality requires a stoic constitution and for some, it means moving on. The world is your oyster hun...you're a pearl who might just be ready to leave her shell that doesn't meet your needs anymore.
I welcome you with open arms and hope I've created an opportunity for a discussion you'd like to engage in. I'm excited to have you here to voice your pain and hopefully help you discover a strength you might not have known existed.
Kind thoughts;
Sez x
