OMG!!!!

I have to say that this is amazing. Never in my wildest dreams did I actually think that people would donate money to help me with my transition, but its happening! Thank you so very very very much to those of you who are donating! I'm overcome with tears of joy literally (I feel like such a girl, this is awful!)
Please, feel free to share a link to my donations page or to my Blog. The more people that know I'm transitioning, the more help I might be able to get. This is just amazing.

In the Beginning

Hello Everyone,

I'm Ellen. I'm 40 years old and live in a small rural town in SW VA. I was born female, but by the time I was 5 I knew I should have been born male. However, living in the small rural town in SW VA there was understanding or acceptance of such things, so I made the best of it and tried to be the daughter my parents wanted me to be. I did a fairly good job of it through High School. But, by the time college was over I had already started my chronic battle with depression. I figured that I was just unhappy with my life. So over the course of 20 years I changed just about everything about me. I moved geographically, from VA to DE to WA to DE and back to VA. I change careers, from chemist, to manufacturing to web design to dog bather to vet tech. I changed sexual preference from straight to lesbian. I changed partners, I won't list the names to protect the innocent. :) The only thing that I kept avoiding changing was my gender. I figured that I could wear mens clothes, do mens jobs, keep my hair cut short, and occasionally be identified by others as male and that would be enough. But, nothing seemed to fix my ever worsening depressions.

It seemed like every time I entered into a really great relationship with someone new, someone who accepted my boy side as well as my girl side, my depression would flare up again. I finally realized that my depression was being triggered by the fact that whenever someone else would acknowledge and accept my desire to be male I would retreat into my own head screaming "too much to deal with, too overwhelming!" and turn all my focus and attention onto my new partner. Each time I did this the coming depression was worse than the one before. I have now been hospitalized twice for depressions so serious that I wanted to end my life. The most recent event was in Feb of 2011. This was the worst depression to date, and I hope that it is the last I ever have to go through. I lost so much because of it and its effects on my thought processes, my impulse control etc, that I'm still devastated by the loss of people that had become very important in my life. The good thing that came out of the depression was finding a therapist who was willing to say "You know, maybe you really should consider hormone therapy and trying to get your physical body to match your mental image of yourself". And this time I was willing to listen.

That therapy session happened just over a month ago. Since then I have scheduled appointments with doctors for physicals, blood work, and for starting my hormone therapy. I've completed the physical and the blood work. Now I have less than 2 weeks to go before the trip to the doctor for hormone therapy. I'm excited and scared, but mostly excited. I'm still battling the depression, as I have bad days and good. Typically they are mostly good. I am worried about finances and affording the cost of doctors visits, hormones, gas to visits, therapy, etc. I'm worried that my parents are going to cut me out of their lives because of this (I have yet to tell them). I'm worried that I may not find a job until after my transition is complete (I'm currently unemployed). Its a tough thing that I'm doing, even though some days it feels like the most natural thing in the world. I wish that I had done this 10 years ago when I was living in Seattle and had a much larger support network, but alas I was too scared and not ready back then.

Anyway.... I'm going to try to chronicle as much of my process of transition as possible on this page. If I'm good it will include everything from what I'm feeling, what the next steps are, how therapy is progressing, if I'm managing to repair some of the relationships that I damaged during Jan - Mar of this year. I hope to talk about my realizations concerning my depression, my co-dependency, low self-esteem, etc. I intend to tell you the funny stories of my childhood that came with my gender identity disorder. I may get graphic about some things, I may not. We'll see what happens. I'll also probably talk a bit about various non-transition related issues, like the fact that the roses that I started growing this spring actually have a bud on them!!!! My journey in going back to school and trying to figure out what I'm going to be when I 'grow up'. Life with dogs. That sort of thing.

So, I hope you enjoy it. I hope that it helps you find your way if you are transitioning and reading this for guidance and support! I also hope that if you find it useful, or if you just want to help that you will contribute to my cause. I'm not asking for you to donate tons of money, but if you can help in any way I'd greatly appreciate it. Every little bit will help me cover the expenses. If I decide later that I'm going to do reassignment surgery (i.e. breast removal) then I'll be begging a lot harder, but that will be down the road at least a year or more. So, thank you in advance for your support.

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