Coming out to my family and at work, well sort of....

I have had the most emotionally difficult week I think I've ever had, other than when my younger brother past away. Lately I think about him a lot. Exactly how he would handle the news, and then going forward, how we would have interacted. He is definitely the one person I miss the most. I understand and accept people will come and go in each of our lives, some people even come back into our lives, or make the odd appearance from time to time. Some people will be lost for good and some can never come back. People may think that I have forgotten them, don't care about them, but just because I may have ignored them, I never forgot them.

I have been relationships, I have also been married, also in a long term relationship afterwards, and in all, I was a parent, a father or a father figure since 1996. That is 20 years of helping raise children, other people's children, and none of them I have forgotten. All 8 of them are spread out throughout the globe, doing who knows what, all a mystery to me now. All of them I defended, cared for, help raise, and as the "step parent". None of them have anything to do with me, but some may have something to do with this new version of me. Here's hoping Serah has a chance to be someone in their lives.

Now getting back to my adventure of the week. Monday at work, the start of this emotional snowball that gathered so much momentum everything has started to feel like I'm spinning out of control. Now some context.

Monday - I felt I had to bring something up with a work colleague that hadn't sat really well with me since Saturday. The hard part was that I knew it would upset her, and it did, I did. Because of this I found myself plucking up the courage telling her that I had gender dysphoria as I trusted her as a friend, not as a work colleague. What happened next completely shocked me, and left me stunned. She then told me everyone at work already kind of knows!!!!! I mean WTF!!!!! Ummm, how????? It seems I was clumsy with my laptop and didn't close either a browser or a photo of myself when I gave permission for my laptop to be used....The embarrassment....The shock....I was just stunned. And they have known for weeks.....I was quite shaken and happy to get away from work for a couple of hours. The time away allowed me to really process what was said. What I managed to do was, that the fear of being seen in public by a colleague fell away, the anxiety and stress. So the new was a bonus really, just not at the moment I heard it.

Tuesday - The aftermath from my decision to tell my colleague the information came back and bit me in the butt. My boss' wife asked if I had passed on what was said on Saturday, and I danced around the topic before owning what I did. This once again led along a path where I found myself telling my boss and his wife about my dysphoria, my hrt's and long term plan. This is what I wanted to tell them this week, after I had told my family. Oh well, when there's an opening. Again, after I could process the moment, what came out of it is job security going forward. A huge relief as I was really considering that I was going to need to change jobs, more so for my happiness rather than anything else. So my current role will change as it is, like me, it will evolve. Later that night I went to a local meet up with people from the local kink community and I there as I arrived was this amazing person. There sitting all in white was a gorgeous post op female (T) that is visiting Wellington from Bangkok. She is from Wellington and here for a short time, doing her passport and legal name change etc. OMG I was so inspired.

Wednesday - Thankful it was pretty uneventful after the previous 2 days. Just Consolidated the previous 2 days, but I did head to Cuba Street to meet a few friends for a late night coffee. Silly me went to the wrong cafe and ended up sitting by myself. I did end up meeting them at the right cafe. With the anxiety gone, I felt a lot more at ease walking along Cuba Street while it has people on it.

Thursday - I made plans to travel and catch up with my family over the weekend, went to a friends for dinner and hang out, talked about the beginning of the week.

Friday - Quiet evening and fell asleep really early.

Saturday - Did the work thing then got ready to head out for a night at the local club for an auction night. I always have a lot of fun being able to be completely open and myself being dressed in my true form, being accepted by my local community. It may be a little underground, but it's a safe place for me and great place to gain the confidence to venture a bit further afield outside. I left there a little earlier than I normally do and ended up at a bar across the road, having a couple of drinks with T. A bit more in the outside world and interacting with outsiders, starting to live as Serah, even if baby steps. The reservations I'd been having seen to be so much less, due to what happened earlier in the week. I felt more free, more alive, even more so than other nights I have been out.

Sunday - Another big emotional day!

Today was the day I was going to tell my family. The people who I needed to tell face to face. For good or bad, I had to tell them. I started off by visiting my older brother. I arrived to a house full of teenagers, a sleep over! Mess everywhere and laughter and fun. May not be the right time really, but I managed to separate my brother and went through my delivery.

"So I have been seeing a psychiatrist this year and I have discovered I have gender dysphoria.....Do you know what that is?"

And this approach seems to be working for me. If someone knows, then that cuts out the explanation, if not, then goes the definition and both lead onto questions etc. A couple hours later and feeling pretty good about our chat, I headed to my parents....Nerves intensifying.

When I arrived they were in separate parts of the property. Great, divide and conquer. Not so much, that lasted all of 10 minutes. It took me another 3 hours to find the courage and opening to say my line, then it got a little weird... My mother seemed to try and normalise it, tried to rationalise things and made comparisons to people in her world already, most of which I had no knowledge of so, like I said, weird.

Not long after, my sister in-law arrived with her twins. Someone else to tell. A surprised happy would be the reaction best describes the facial expression. We got to chatting and left to head to the airport to wait for her oldest to arrive home from Australia and chatted more.

So far I've had nothing but acceptance and encouragement. So much support so far. I am reluctant to take it all at face value, as when I start to present female, things may change, but I am remaining fairly optimistic for now. With the emotional anxiety of carrying around my secret, overplaying the possible outcomes in my head, I've started to come off the high and starting to some lonely moments in the strangest of places and at the weirdest of times. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the HRT's or not, or just the general emotions I have. Hard to know.

Monday - I got to hang out with T and we chatted about all sorts of things, got to know each other some more. So much variation in everyone's stories, journeys, worlds. Not one path will be the same as another's. And that is ok. I know I will miss her when she goes back home and I have only known her for a very short time.

I now have more confidence walking alone down the street, sitting in a cafe or a diner in a safe part of Wellington, next will be into the more mainstream part of Wellington, where there is some unknown adventure waiting for me, whether good or bad. It's now about starting to embrace my life and venture outside my comfort zone into a place where it is just my normal, and then bring that into my family and work worlds. Those will take longer to integrate, but it will eventually be what I want.

Again, as always, thank you for reading.

Serah X X