10 Oct 24 - resilience

I had lunch today with my peer mentor and one of the things we spoke about was resilience and where it comes from. 

I know that I am very resilient but I have no idea how or why. 

We could both talk about how we maintain it through sleep and diet and exercise and reflection but that is just maintenance, not the source. 

I could probably add journalling to the list of activities as I do find benefit in this. 

Maybe I could also add being trans. Having this whole secret dimension to who I am and having to challenge myself to do scary things must surely help to build my inner strength. 

The other major factor in that is that I have to do it all alone.  I have no support or help, so the strength can only come from me. Not just in a trans context either. Because I am different and don’t fit in with any particular group, I feel as an outsider everywhere so have no support in anything. That sounds bad, but I think it’s good for self-reliance and inner strength to know you only have yourself and not to look to anyone else for help or solutions. 

I am thinking therefore that maybe I should do the gender clinic appointments on my own, because that is how I have to deal with life and certainly how I have to face my transness.  

I did email the clinic to ask whether they allow and encourage spouses to attend the appointment and they do “encourage you to attend with a supportive other”.  I’m sure that’s true, but the key word there is surely “supportive” and I don’t know if that is the case. I support her in everything but it isn’t really a balanced relationship and I still have to rely on my own strength to support myself. Maybe I’m being unfair by not giving her the opportunity to support me by keeping my transgender feelings from her? I have only once told her anything, when I “came out” to her in April and haven’t discussed it since. Her reaction to that though was not very supportive, more about how it would affect her than about me. Understandable in the moment, but there has seemingly been no curiosity since to learn more or hear any of my story. I assume that is denial and hoping that if we don’t talk about it, it will just go away. However, if she were to come with me to the gender clinic, she would need to have heard it all before then, as her hearing things for the first time and reacting emotionally during the session would be counterproductive. 

The big question I have to ask myself is: am I being pragmatic and sensible, or merely cowardly as I don’t want to face talking about my gender with her again?