u/AveragePichu

Something I've periodically had reason to think about the last 8-9 months since my egg cracked, and particularly when my mom casually brought it up a few days ago - "of course, you always say you don't care if you die anyway"

Just gonna brush past the fact that it's utterly wild that my mom was unconcerned with the fact I said that multiple times in the past, over the course of years - huh, I actually want to be alive now, and I'm happy about the fact that I am.

I realized "I don't care if I die" stopped right when my egg cracked and I started thinking of the future as something I was allowed to experience as a woman. Life used to be a checklist of things I was supposed to accomplish, to fit into what other people expected of me - and I felt a general apathy towards it all. But I don't need to do any of those things - I don't need to be a "man" getting married to a woman in a mormon temple. I don't need to be a father to kids. Everything else that was eventually expected of me, is also completely my choice, but most importantly, I don't need to be a "man" at all.

I can actually live my life as myself - and since my egg shattered in August, I have hope for the future. I have joy in the now. Yeah, dysphoria sucks, and in some ways it's become dramatically more pronounced since admitting to myself that it's real, but having transition goals to some day be fully comfortable as myself, as well as 6 months of HRT and 5 months of social transition helping me to be generally comfortable, has me actually happy to be alive, just as a baseline.

I am happy to be alive! I am happy to be me!

I just don't understand my mom.

Like, she calls me by my preferred name and correct pronouns. I've known her to go to bat for me when someone decides to be transphobic about me to her.

And a bit ago I found out that my deadname is still in her phone - I went to check something on amazon, imessage was open on her computer, and there it was.

So I told her I'd noticed that, and asked if she would change it - and she started making excuses for why she didn't want to, before going on about how she bends over backwards to support me, and that nothing she does is ever good enough.

Then, when she started prying into why I looked upset, and I explained that seeing my deadname was upsetting to me, and seeing anything that suggested other people still saw me as someone I'm not was upsetting. To which she responded "what, are you going to make yourself upset every time you log into your bank account?"

I can't with her. I can't. She pulls bullshit like this all the time then acts like it's my fault that I don't want to talk to her

Ughhhhhhh

EDIT: for some context, my parents are mormon, I and all of my siblings were raised mormon, and my mom's been doing this since it became clear her precious youngest daughter was not going to fit neatly (or at all, actually) into the mold of what a mormon man was. There's some religious transphobia baked into her, used to be baked into me too, might still be baked into me on some level because that kind of thing is sticky

I saw someone saying recently that "ex-mormon" or "apostate" frames our leaving in a way that gives the mormon church power to label us as bad, wrong, sinners. They're gonna do it either way, but on the individual level, telling others that we're mormon survivors sounds better and is equally true, and gives them the implication that the mormon church hurt us, which for a lot of us here, it did.

Anyway, that's how I've started thinking of myself, in terms of prior cult affiliations.

All the things church demanded of me felt like little things, not too difficult to bear. Word of wisdom wasn't a challenge because I never wanted to have any of those things anyway, right? Tithing was no big deal because it was such a small piece of my income and I was good at budgeting, I could make it work and still have money left over for fun stuff. Church and my callings weren't so bad, it was only a few hours a week, right? And so on.

But in aggregate, it was so, so much.

Coffee! I've never had a strong desire to try it, but I've got ADHD and I hear caffeine can potentially help with that. Might be worth trying. And anything else I abstained from in general, like normal underwear or violent movies/TV - Invincible is pretty good!

Two hours at church each week, and a couple hours before and after for callings! It's hitting me that I have the whole day tomorrow to catch up on homework, as a burnt-out college student trying to balance 16 credits with work and with obligations my mom put on me as an alternative to paying her rent. I've been learning to advocate for myself (which my mom calls being selfish but whatever) and I've been realizing that it's okay to take breaks, and I've been slowly unwinding from being permanently wound too tight for years. A few extra hours of time to myself is genuinely huge, I have two weekend days instead of one now.

Ward activities and service projects! Sure, it was only a few hours a month, usually. It was one more thing though. I love doing things for other people, but I love doing them on my own terms and being told "the priest quorum is doing this this Saturday" and being expected to be there was exhausting.

Tithing! Yeah, I could easily afford it, I'm not paying many bills and I believed it went to supporting the people who needed it. Now I can use that money to support causes that I know do good, like the Trevor Project.

Scripture study! I was never very good at it, but it was always a few minutes a day at being annoyed by something I knew I was "supposed" to do but got nothing out of, or feeling guilty for not doing it.

Family scripture study! Stopping what I was doing every evening to go downstairs, listen to my parents talk about scriptures for ten minutes, and feel bad any time they called me out for not interacting, was more torture than I was willing to admit.

General conference and stake conference! Ughhhhhh

Temple attendance! My parents would guilt me into going a few times a year. Three hour drive to a place I don't want to be. Two hours in the place I don't want to be. Stop at a restaurant (my AuDHD ass does not like restaurants). Three hours drive home. A whole day not just gone, but spent doing something I didn't like. Also feeling ashamed for my sins the entire time I was there, because I was not "worthy" of a temple recommend and lied because I was more afraid of social backlash than I was of god.

To say nothing of the fact that I kinda felt like shit when I came out to myself as trans, and the humiliation ritual I put myself through of coming out to people at church a few months later and getting removed from my callings - most people took it well and were supportive but I had my share of people doing Christian Love at me, or telling me that I wasn't really a woman.

I'm sure I missed some things in all that. But I never realized there was so much. And my mom, for all her ability to see things the way she wants to, has admitted to me that I've been doing better recently - I both seem to be in a better place mentally, and I've been more available to help her with things. She's likely attributing that to starting therapy, and definitely that helps, but god it feels so good to have a few extra hours to myself every week. I was at a breaking point, and I'd been at a breaking point for over a year holding on through I-don't-even-know-what, and I'm finally just starting to find any time and space at all for myself. And I'm not selfish for it. It's not all about me me me like my mom says, it's just not "everyone but me, never me" anymore either.

So because I have extra time tomorrow? I'm going to finish one homework assignment. I'm going to bed at 11. I'm waking up refreshed tomorrow so I can get done the other two that are due tomorrow, and maybe start on Thursday's homework too. And I'll even have time to play Tomodachi Life.