So I got a couple of comments from my last blog and they both say that it is obvious that the whole Michelle thing is NOT working for me. While I greatly appreciate my life may seem completely irrational, the fact is that Michelle DOES work very well for me. The difficulty comes in switching back and forth all the time. I am happy as Michelle in lots of other places other than the club. While I realize that it is my one and only absolute safe place, I am totally comfortable in the real world. I really don't care about the odd looks I get because in the end I am the one who has to look in the mirror every day. The 2 or 3 second interactions that I may have with the non-believers out there are not enough to make Michelle go away.

Now the family is an entirely different matter. I still have a VERY strong connection to my wife and kids. I am struggling with the impact that I am having on them. I know that they are going to hate Michelle at first. They may never forgive me. It is this loss of connection that is driving me crazy. This is the major cause for all my wishy-washy flip-flopping feelings. If not for my family, Michelle would have been the major part of my daily life. It is just so hard now because I cannot just give up my family and walk away from all those responsibilities. Both my younger daughters play soccer now so that means being in 2 places at the same time. My wife cannot do that alone. Bob cannot just disappear because Michelle wants some face time.

This is where the real conflict lies. Both my therapists tell me that I AM Michelle. I am NOT male at my core. I am much happier and content with myself as Michelle. They tell me that this does not mean that Bob has to be killed off. This is where the real fear comes in. How do I switch gears and start living as Michelle without losing everything that Bob is? Bob has everything while Michelle has nothing except for a few good friends. People keep telling me that Michelle WILL gain all of those other things back but that it will take some time for the Bob life to adjust to Michelle.

Ok so now I'm not sure where is was going because I got interrupted by work so I guess that I will end here. Please continue to comment. I greatly appreciate and will publish any and all responses whether you agree with my decisions or not.

Love you all

Ok, so let me start off by saying that I am really, really physically tired all the time. I don't know what is wrong with me. All my friends tell me that I sleep way too much but no matter what I always feel physically drained and exhausted. I take Trazadone to help me stay asleep and it does work. It actually makes it very difficult to wake up in the morning but without it, my body just cannot relax enough to fall asleep. Being so tired is also making it very difficult for me emotionally. I had 2 major "episodes" last week where I called my friend crying and almost suicidal. My life is a mess and I am having a hard time moving forward. I hate feeling this way. My doctors seem to think that I am past the major depression and sometimes I think they are right but then these issues keep coming up and I just cannot see how my life will ever be any better. My wife is having health problems and I feel terrible for not being there for her. We are planning to tell my girls about me in 3 weeks and I am scared to death that I am making the wrong choice. I went to Best Buy as Michelle this week and actually had 3 sales people look at me and then turn the other way. What kind of life is that? I am totally comfortable at the club as Michelle, but that simply is not the real world. I JUST WANT TO FIT IN AND BE COMFORTABLE. AYYYGGGGGGGGGGGG, I am getting so frustrated just trying to put my thoughts into this blog. What the hell am I doing. What kind of life could I possible have as Michelle. No emotional attachments. No connections with the real world. Just this little fantasy life that I have in my head. Why can I not be happy as Bob???????? Why do I love strappy sandals and purple blouses that feel so nice. Why do I like my face so much better with make-up? Why why why???? Just go away! I am sick of feeling like such a non-person. I had a very real life with a wife who loved everything about Bob and I am just throwing it all away for some stupid fantasy.

Blah, blah, blah stop flip flopping back and forth. Michelle is fighting to survive. I made this choice so just live with it and go on with your life somehow.


I AM SO SICK OF THIS LIFE AND CAN'T DO IT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I almost forgot to make a post about my anniversary. June 11 was 52 weeks on Estrogen. I must say that I am really happy with the changes but I really want to move up to the next step and talk to my dr about progestin to see if my boobs can get bigger. I am really happy about my skin, especially my face. I am getting away with less makeup now that my pores are almost tiny and my skin is much softer now. The hair is still going really slow but I guess I should stop letting my sister-in-law "trim" it every time I color it. She always takes too much off in some spots and I really REALLY want it to be MUCH longer.

Not much else to talk about but I would like to ask for any advice on the hormones for breast growth. Right now I am still on spiro 100mg a day, finasteride 5mg a day and estrogen at 6mg a day. No other gel or progestin yet so I really would like to know what success others have had with them.

Ok time for bed. Thanks for taking the time to read my babble.

It has been a while since I wrote so I think that I should share how things are going. I cannot say that things have been getting better but they are really not getting any worse either. I have been spending a lot of time with my friend Gaby and we talk for hours. I love her to death. She makes me cry, she makes me laugh and she is at times brutally honest. She really is a great friend to me right now. I really think that her honesty and no-nonsense personality have really been a reality check for me. She is helping me to just live my life as a real person rather than someone with "issues". We have dinner together, we go out to the store and we just hang out like regular girls. After all this time she still listens to the same old crap over and over again. I know it is frustrating but I hope she realizes that I appreciate her just being there for me. Letting go of my wife is an agonizing process but she really is helping me to move on. I know it is a little too slow for her liking but it IS really happening. 28 years of being together is just really hard to let go of especially when we both still love each other. Gaby usually reads my blog so I hope that she does not mind me mentioning her. She is very private person and I do not want to betray her trust in any way. All I really want to say is that we could all use our own "Gaby" to help us once in a while.

Ok on to some other thoughts. Along the lines of a "normal" life, I have to say that this week has been pretty good for me. I had a dr appt on Tuesday and I had my therapy. I went out to dinner by myself but I really felt like just another girl. I am really starting to feel like just a normal person. Not "trans", not different, not weird but just like a real human being and a normal girl most of the time. I had a good time shopping Tuesday. I am really looking for clothes that I "could" wear to work just in case it happens soon. The scary thing is that work really is looking like a possibility. I am excited and terrified at the same time. I work in IT but I am in middle management so I should be able to wear some really nice dresses to work. I can hardly wait until the day when I can wear a cute pair of sandals and I can actually carry my purse to work and leave them under my desk. Kind of a silly thought but I have told many of the girls here that I am jealous of that simple luxury. It is different for me because I pay attention to the cubicles and the girls are very different. It is very easy to tell which cubes are for the girls. Here I am again paying attention to all the silly superficial stuff but it really is the small things that I notice.

Ok, different subject. Told you this would be random thoughts......
So I follow a few different blogs and I am really amazed at the huge differences between each of them. This group has so many different ranges and emotions and struggles. I get worried when someone goes silent for a while while others seem to have something to say every day. The thought that I have right now deals with the fact that some people always seem to think that they are more trans than others. We do not fit into neat categories. I hate these sliding scales that people use to determine who is tg, ts, tv, cd or whatever. I am not looking for any sort of debate and I could care less about all those facts out there. The truth is, your definitions may not fit me. We are human beings. We are biological creatures. We have similarities but we are NOT the same no matter how you try to compare us. Some will argue this exact point in that they are X and I am Y, but the point is that there is no value to these comparisons. We all have struggles. We all have issues. I may think that my issues are unique to me but that will never give me the right to judge somebody else with regards to their issues. As I read all these blogs, I just want to take it ALL in and create my opinions and reality based on the combination of them. I cannot sit here an say that I have a favorite blogger or someone who I think is right all the time. Nobody is so smart that they can have all the answers all the time. If we are lucky, we may have an experience that is close enough so that someone else may recognize something similar in their own experience and hopefully they can gain something in the process. Hopefully the people who read my blog have realized by now that this is all that I am really hoping for with my own blog. Nothing I say is gospel. Nothing I say is any better than anybody else. This is just my own form of therapy since it allows me to talk about just about anything and everything related to Michelle.

Ok sorry about the soapbox. Kind of got away from me there. Nothing else to say so I guess I will just end here. I think that Gaby and I are going to the movies tonight. Maybe dinner and the club later for a drink.

Thanks for listening

So I am finding that Michelle seems much more obvious to all the people around me than I had previously thought. I am actually getting called maam when out as Bob. I was at the grocery store last week wearing my Bob jacket and glasses. Had not shaved for 2 days and the girl at the register says "how are you today maam?" The guy in front and behind me both got a firm hello sir so I know that she knew the difference. I went to lunch today with my friend from work and again the waitress says "I'll go get your check ladies". We both laughed and I got a real pit in my stomach since I was definitely in Bob mode at the time. My therapist tells me that Michelle is much more than just my face and makeup. She says that I must be giving off a very female presence in order for these people to pick up on it. My entire presentation is more Michelle than Bob no matter how I am dressed.

I cannot describe the absolute terror that this creates. Michelle is more and more a full time reality and Bob is slowly fading into the background. We were at my brother's house last night to discuss living arrangements and my wife was there. I was having a very difficult time because my sister and sister-in-law kept referring to me as Michelle and "her" instead of "him" in front of my wife. She actually asked how I wanted to be addressed as M no matter how I was dressed. I could tell that this had made my wife very uncomfortable and I actually said that Donna could call me whatever she wanted. They still pushed the issue and insisted that I pick one or the other. Even though my wife was there, I said that M is always appropriate no matter what. That was very difficult for her to hear and I could see the hurt in her face.

So back to the absolute terror that this causes. I cannot help that queasy feeling in my stomach. People keep telling me that there is no going back now. I need to move on and let go of my wife and the relationship that we once had. I cannot describe the sheer joy that I felt at the thought of getting a new badge for work with Michelle instead of Bob. Yet again this causes a huge conflict since this is pushing the wife and kids farther away. My wife insists that these are all conscious choices that I am making. I know she is right but it is still very difficult to accept the fact that I am willingly destroying my wife and kids.

Sorry this is just more of the same old stuff but I really am struggling lately with this. I keep looking at my friends Facebook pages and wishing that I could just be normal and have a real life like they do. Maybe someday soon Michelle will be out completely and can be just like all the other people in the world. That would be great.