I added a forum to the site. Feel free to sign up, log in, and ask us any question your little heart desires. If its inappropriate we may not answer, and if its a difficult topic the turn around may take time, but hey, knock yourselves out. Whadda ya want to know?
Oh, and I realize the site colors and font may drive people batty. If so, leave feedback in the forum and I’ll consider changing it. My eyesight isn’t the greatest, and black on yellow is actually the easiest thing for me to read. Since I’ll probably spend a lot of time here, it made sense to make it easy on my eyes.
I’m an absolute nervous wreck about this whole “coming out” thing. All my fears are dancing in my head. They’ll come and take me away. I’ll lose my job. I’ll lose my friends. I’ll be vulnerable and open to attack… sigh. So, let me address those here.
Fear 1: They’re Coming to Take Me Away….
I actually had the police called on me once when I revealed just how screwed up I was on a phone interview for Short Term Disability benefits. I had to convince the nice, armed, pair of cops that I was no threat to myself or others.
NEWSFLASH: I’m not threat to myself or others. No one in the system is a threat to ourselves or others. We haven’t had a suicide attempt in over 25 years.
Fear 2: I’ll lose my job
This one has a little more meat to it. No, I don’t think my company would fire me outright for being, well, me. But I’ve missed a lot of work this past year, for one reason or another, and I don’t need to continue the trend. Unfortunately, when I’m switching a lot (like tonight because of the stress of the big reveal) I, or whoever is out, often has to call in sick.
I can’t really say “Hey, um, I’m switching personalities left and right, am dissociated all to hell, and I won’t be in today.” Nor can someone else in the system say “Hey, neither Saoirse or Janet are out right now, and no one else knows how to network engineer…” Those statements could led right back to a “They’re Coming to Take Me Away” situation, which I’d like to avoid. Fortunately (?), I’m also having trouble breathing (stress related again, likely), so if I call in sick, it will be with that real, and acceptable, excuse.
Fear 3: I’ll lose my friends
This comes out of my experience of being transgender. When I came out at age 20, I lost almost every single friend I had. Since this has already happened once, who’s to say it won’t happen again?
And I need to stop, because I’m spacing out really heavily right now. Anyway, go to the Forum. Post. Interact. I’m going to eat something, ground, and maybe take a nap before work.