I could feel my heart thumping in my chest, the anxiety rising and my throat drying out. My mind raced and ran through the words I had prepared earlier but they now seemed so inadequate, so out of place, so.... wrong. Warmth from the glowing camp fire radiated onto my already burning cheeks but I was glad for the semi-anonymity of the night setting. I tried to slow my speech down as I braced myself for the reaction after I told my friends that I was suffering from gender dysphoria and soon they would know me as a girl. I tried to prepare myself for the possibility that they might, at that very point, walk out of my life and never return.
So many times I repeated variations of the above scenario and each time I was fortunate enough to have been met with a polite response or, in one case, an enthusiastic response. Yet, most of my days are filled with an abject loneliness and the number of friends that I have remaining can be counted on just one hand. I deeply value the friends I have left and the time I able to share with them, but they have their own lives, families and other friends to be with and so I spend much of my time on my own.
Social and support groups are helpful in making me feel that there are other people that I can be friends with and that I'm not totally isolated in this world. Immediate friendships can be struck , but deeper friendships always take time to develop and in the meantime there are emotional holes aren't being filled.
It was difficult to open myself up and share my secret with my friends and, for those that left, it hurts that they felt they could not remain my friend after knowing that much more about me. They are who they are and they are entitled to pick who they befriend, so I try not to judge them or bear any grudge. There is much to know about me and much to not like and so it leads me to be cautious in what I reveal. So maybe I'm now harming my ability to make any more friends but I do really love those that know all about me and still choose to like me.
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