It's been longer than I intended between posts, but it doesn't matter. Like I said in my first post, there is no set schedule for updating this blog. I do it as I am inspired. Anyway, putting together this post in a coherent way has been tricky.
You see, I came out as transgender at work.
As I have mentioned in my last couple posts, this is something I have desperately been needing to do, but I've been holding back due to my own terror. Figuring out exactly why being authentic is so difficult me is the core of this post. Let's get to it, shall we?
I have lived my entire life afraid of being myself. Between the fear of losing friends, being annoying, or not being accepted by anybody, I have become quite guarded. Sometimes I'll sit down and search my brain, trying to find the sources of why I have such a hard time letting myself be wholly me. I've often been the pushover in groups of people, the quiet one who tags along and goes with what everyone says. I can pull to mind all the criticisms, all the times people that were supposed to be my friends made me feel small. (I'm not saying I was always the perfect friend either. I still regret how I ended certain friendships). I was often told I was being too sensitive, and to this day, it's hard for me to tell if my feelings are justified or if I really am too sensitive (usually I assume it's the latter). I wonder why I let it hurt me so bad. I guess it's because all that "poking fun" just added to the dissatisfaction I already had with myself. I already felt wrong, weird, out of place, even if I didn't have the words to explain it, then people would have to point out my shortcomings. The things I didn't know, how I was too much of a "prude," etc. I've often felt like a weirdo for things that are beyond my control.
I've noticed this complex in my head formed that if someone disagreed with me, I was probably the one who was wrong, and I needed to shut up and be schooled. I've made myself look stupid so many times unintentionally that it just became easier to shut the fuck up. It got to the point where I couldn't even raise my hand in class to answer a question. Group projects were a certain form of hell. When In groups, I often felt I was faking it more than anything. Even now, it takes a lot of warming up for me to talk to people in social situations (and that feeling of faking it still seeps in). Hell, I avoid cast parties or work holiday parties like the plague. The radio station only ever got me to one Christmas dinner (I was eligible to go to 3 or 4), and I often bail out of cast parties for plays I'm in. I get around people and I just freeze up. They try to ask me questions to get me talking and my tongue fails me. I never feel I can say what I mean. I dread even getting my hair cut because I'm expected to carry on a conversation with the person cutting my hair.
The walls I've built around myself are thick. As hard as I've been working to chip away at them these days, progress is slow. Each time I come close to knocking down another side of the wall, truly breaking free, my instinct is still to hesitate. I hate this. Where's my self confidence? I know that I'm not going to be happy until I can be 100% free, so what's the holdup?
The holdup is I have spent so much time systematically squashing myself down that it has become habit to second guess myself. Automatically, I expect that I am not good enough for people. I expect that people won't like me no filters and that the only way to make sure they won't leave me is to not be wholly myself. That is bad. Don't be like Sam in this way.
So imagine all this going down in my head and then add the need to come out, the need to be completely honest about who I am with people - and to enforce it.
Houston, we have a problem.
Coming out to my family last summer then my friends and extended family on Facebook back in October was the first hurdle. It was not easy and it doesn't seem to get any easier each time I have to do it. I'm lucky that everyone I know is accepting and just wants me to be happy. No one has argued with me regarding my gender nor my choice to transition. For that, I will be forever grateful. I wish every trans individual could be so fortunate.
Despite the acceptance, I let coming out at work be something I put off for a good amount of time. I knew it would be painful the more I prolonged the divide between my personal and professional lives - and fucking painful it has been. With each day it only got worse. It takes a lot of energy to keep up the front of "Samantha," a lot more energy than I realize.
But my mind cries out with my fears:
"What if your bosses are freaked out by this?"
"What if work gets weird?"
"What if somehow you get fired for this?"
Yet as the nightmares got worse, as it got harder to get myself ready for work every day, I knew I was getting closer to the point I wouldn't be able to put it off any longer. It was the week before I came out when I finally had the last straw. I answered the phone with the usual "This is Samantha, how can I help you?" The man on the other end had a need to say that name a lost every other word. "Why hello, Samantha. I was wondering if you could help me, Samantha. Yadda, yadda, yadda, Samantha. Every time he said that name, it felt like he was stabbing me in the gut. By the time he cheerily said goodbye, I felt near tears. I wasn't going to be able to take this anymore. Even if it was just getting people to call me "Sam," I needed some form of relief.
So despite the fears still chiming through my head, I revisited the coming out letter I actually started a couple months ago. I spent several days on it, had a couple other pairs of eyes look at it, and then came the hard part… deciding when to give it to my bosses. When I first pulled that letter back up and started working on it, I had made a silent promise to myself - I had to give it to them by the end of the week. Naturally, the anxiety got worse as the week progressed. My time of things continuing as they were was coming to an end. That was the scariest thought of all.
I mean, I think part of the reason I was afraid of coming out wasn't really just to do with my bosses, it was the customers. You see, you only have to come out to your boss or your coworkers once but when you work in retail it's different. Each customer that comes in, I have to make the silent decision - do I enforce my pronouns if they get them wrong? Do I try to explan? Essentially, I'm going to have to come out to someone new probably every day, and that's the scariest thing I've ever embarked myself upon. (I'm already failing but hey, cut me some slack, this is week one).
Then came the most important thing I had to tell myself:
"Sam, you have to do this because you can't live like this. Who are you living your life for? If it isn't going to work at MBE then you need to figure out where to go next now. The time to unnecessarily suffer is long past."
Somehow on Friday, March 3, I took the leap and as my vague Facebook post announced that day, I went from complete terror to sweet relief. My bosses were fine. I could tell they were shocked and hadn't expected such an admission from me. Still, they assured me that the most important thing is that I'm happy. I couldn't have asked for a better response. That moment of acceptance, of knowing that there really is hope, and my life is not going to all crumble apart… that why it's all worth it. All the pain. All the stress. All the fear. It's all okay because one day you wake up and realize that all those negative thoughts, those stupid worries, they're gone.
The best example is March 6, 2017, the first day back to work after talking to my bosses. On that day, for the first time in I don't know how long, I woke up and went to work and I felt NO anxiety. Will it return? Of course, but that doesn't scare me because now I know it's possible for it to go away.
We're in whole new territory now. Whether I choose to enforce pronouns is up to me, but now that I'm out at least I have the right to. Plus, as the hormones continue to do their work, eventually I won't be misgendered anymore. While there will be new challenges and frustrations to deal with now, I'm happy I've moved on to the next step. Honestly, I still can't believe I actually did it.
So to anyone out there who is struggling with coming out, whether you do it tomorrow or wait a long time, I'm proud of you. It takes a lot of courage to be yourself.
