Trans Rants

Trans guy working through his relationship with his resentful mother // TW childhood trauma and honestly a lot of shit I can’t even think of rn

[trannts]

How do you get over the fact that your mother counts your transition as a rebellious personal attack on her even tho you’ve been out for over 8 years? Asking for a friend

[trannts]

Hey mom

Everything’s normal rn but my world is crumbling. Not being loved by you is killing me. We talk like everything’s fine. We act like it. I had started believing it. But once the eggshells crack I’m back on the floor. Once I take a wrong step it’ll be back to normal. I’m so familiar with this sick feeling of never being enough.

I will Never make you happy being who I am. I will never see you being proud of me as a whole. The water will always be tainted by resentment. Sometimes it’s black mud, sometimes it’s just lightly discoloured, clear-ish. But it’s always there. Never untainted. Never clean.

[trannts]

Hey mom

I wish I resented you as much as you did me. I don’t know why I don’t. I feel stupid for still loving you like a child. Because you don’t love me like a mothers. I don’t know when you stopped. I’m scared I caused it.

When you are disappointed in me, I cry like a little kid. The kid that you were convinced was lazy and selfish. The child that only wanted to make you proud and tried to hard to get you to be proud. I don’t remember the last time you told me you were proud. I remember asking you a lot when I was 11. I also remember you getting mad at me wanting so much praise. I once found my old Nintendo which still had a recording on it if you saying that you were very proud of me. I remember asking you. I remember thinking this was the perfect solution so I wouldn’t bother you so much with my constant need for praise.

Are you proud of me, mom? I don’t remember the last time you were. I’m proud of me, mom. I wish you were.

[trannts]

Hey mom

Did you know I thought I had breast cancer when my chest started growing once I hit puberty? Did you know I would have rather died than talked to you about it?

[trannts]

Did you realise I was making myself sick on purpose because going to school, going to a place where everyone hated me was so much worse than being really sick?

I’d make my T-shirt wet and sleep with an open window until I got sick. Remember when I had pneumonia? Yeah I do too. My wet chest remembers.

TW vomit

I would almost cry after realising I wasn’t strong enough to make myself throw up in the morning. I just couldn’t. But going to school was so much worse.

[trannts]

Did you know I was hiding my period for months because you never talked to me about what to do?

Did you know I used toilet paper as pads? And threw away underwear if it got stained? Did you know I didn’t know what was going on and struggled immensely with it? I got it the first time when you told me my uncle died. We were fighting and I couldn’t approach you. We weren’t speaking.

Did you know I only told you after months of managing it on my own because I stained the bed? Did you know I would have continued hiding it?

You seemed strangely happy. The fight was suddenly forgiven. You didn’t apologise, you told me it made sense that I was acting so crazy now. You didn’t apologise.

You never do

I wish you sometimes did. so I wouldn’t have to say you never do

But you don’t even do it sometimes

You never do

[trannts]

Maybe, when you told me that my uncle had died, maybe you shouldn’t have been aggressive about it making me feel like it was somehow my fault. Maybe telling me that right after a fight wasn’t the most compassionate move. Maybe you didn’t know any better, but I think you did. Did you think about storming back into my room to semi-yell at me “and by the way your uncle died tonight”? Did you think that through? Did you think it through when you closed the door behind you and didn’t offer any support to your 12 year old depressed child?

Do you know I never cried about him? Did you look into my face at the funeral? Did you understand that I was ashamed of my feelings and couldn’t let them out? I still don’t cry unless you yell at me. I still don’t feel unless I have to.

Did you know my guitar teacher bullied me? Well, yeah, you did. I had developed a blockage. I couldn’t practice. I was depressed, couldn’t do homework, couldn’t focus, had undiagnosed ADHD and had a rough Christmas. I had lost a relative under 90 for the first time. I hadn’t practiced. I tried to break my fingers. I cut my guitar strings. Did you know about me trying to break my fingers? Did you see the skin peeling from my fingertips due to the stress? Did you know my guitar teacher talked to me like you did?

That’s why I could cry in front of her

She kept on going. She kept making me cry. Telling me I was lazy and selfish. That I was too talented to waste everything. That my uncle dying was no excuse not to practise. That I’d have to start playing without my sheets in front of the headmaster if I didn’t improve. Her words were like yours. She hated me for not being the way she wanted me to be. She took things out on me I didn’t understand.

She apologised

Years later she apologised

I did. too

You didn’t

I apologised to you too

But you didn’t

[trannts]

I don’t wan to seem ungrateful but maybe I wasn’t actually asking for too much when i was asking to be loved? Maybe that’s not selfish. Maybe that’s not me expecting everyone to always do what I want, maybe that’s just a child’s desire to be loved by their parents? Maybe. Maybe i wasn’t lazy and ungrateful. Maybe I was just sick, and desperate for support. Maybe not being able to make any friends at school and being bullied, not being able to get up in the morning and just rotting in bed all day wasn’t a normal lazy 13 year old thing, maybe I needed help. And love. Not resentment.