Work in Progress (Me, In a Nutshell+*)

Time Line

In the Beginning.
1951- 1960 ish - outgoing, talented and exuberant kid, real time emotions. Context: chaos, misery, strife, physical, emotional and intellectual abuse, abandonment. My reality.

Disassociation
1960 - April 1989 - desperate, homesick, disassociate, lose my mojo, a hubot:-victim now of circumstance and ill-informed choices; second hand and pseudo emotion, kleptomania, dressing/identification, displaced anger. Become a caricature of my choices, drifting, isolated, internally confused and externally defensive.

Re-association (with the place where the feelings went)
1989 - 2010 - Serendipity, awakening, deconstruction, differentiation, 9/5; despair externalized i.e. bipolar, heart attack, rejection, suicide, ego-death,  seek outside help, in pieces, reconstruct, anger management, last piece of the puzzle, nanci/frission/fear, individuation.

Self Actualization
2010 - Now and beyond - mojo back, catharsis, real time emotions, exuberant, develop talents, take on life with focus.

From out of the ashes of my parent's chaotic, discordant and ill-conceived marriage, I, Richard (Nelson Brown), become a fragmented, disassociated personality, a broken toy doll neglected and cast aside by squabbling children, 'splitting off' internally and quite unconsciously at the age of nine. Lacking any empathy modelling, I soon exhibited many psychopathic tendencies, i.e. pathological lying, kleptomania, denial, glibness, irresponsibility, myopia, shallow aspect, a bit player in my own life.

At the time of my disassociation, shutting down to avoid the extreme pain I was feeling, concurrently cutting off all my feelings, (other than anger and the unchecked, displaced, unconsciously motivated and extreme exhibition of such), and totally dependent upon my emotionally and otherwise absent father for some kind of 'human' and 'meaningful' connection, I was interminably and narcissistically bound to my him for years. He was the mirror thru which I saw the world, and what a warped view that was. I was incapable of change, real, internal, character developing change that is, a fly caught in the reflection of my father's petrified amber existence, developing my ill conceived defence mechanisms into a life of isolation, 'criminal' activities and endless iterations of a nomadic army brat life, with broken relationships and many relocations.

Serendipity struck in 1989, and thru the miracle of cocaine and the 5th step of the 12 steps of A.A. and it's ilk, I, now Nelson, the reluctant 'wrangler' of an an ersatz collection of schizophrenic chimeras, became reconnected to my repressed feelings, meeting for the first time the 'others;' the Kleptomanic, Ricki the tranny, Dick the Biker, Richard, the shattered, hurt one, all part of me, but somehow not part of me. Denizens of denial. It was an incredible period, and I experienced thoughts and feelings that I hadn't felt in years, the volume of which threatened to overwhelm me, in both quality and quantity. From this point on and for the next 20 years or so, I engaged in all manner of therapeutic ventures, one on one, group, workshops etc, as I strove to put right what I had found that was wrong, one step forward, two steps back and on and on, ad nauseum.

Interlude
There came a time, my suicide period, when I had had enough. Stuck on an oscillating roller coaster of bipolarity, my body breaking down, I tried several times to kill myself, culminating in a final effort which was thwarted, serendipity again, by two mexican desparados. Not able to kill myself, not willing to live with myself, I turned myself in to the 'authorities,' and asked for help. This culminated in anger management, and finally, RLE, which turned out, unexpected, to be the last piece of the individuation process I was, to a certain degree unconsciously, undergoing. Combining the frisson of my gender libido with the fear of exposure,the process of individuation completed itself, and I actualized. I had freed up the necessary parts of my psyche, and I 'jelled' I guess,or emulsified, like hollandaise sauce. I became 'whole,' the flower bloomed, I no longer the seedling. No longer separated from large chunks of my psyche, no longer split off and disassociated, I became capable, for the first time in 50 years, of organic, psychological, and other change, not to mention an active participant and protagonist in my own life. It seems I have come full circle: from the emotionally crippled hubot my chaotic childhood and extreme 'family' life had engendered, into whom I was in the first place. Me.**now nanci blu, flower on the Tree of Life. And life is great.

+ This is a work in progress. I will be editing/shaping it further as I go. I'm starting to get into it. As it happens, so will I.

*Anyone reading this might be tempted to say, yea, so what. We all go thru shit, childhood and otherwise. My point here is not that I went thru shit, but that I chose subsequently to wade thru that shit, to figure out how that shit had shaped me and my perspective, and concurrently, to clean out those reeking unstable stalls, a Herculean task to be sure, and not for the feint of heart. And as a result of that work, I am now as you see me. From a shattered, psychopathic, isolated and disaffected pimple on the ass of progress, I have been transformed into a conscientious, empathetic and productive member of society. It took me twenty odd years, but I can honestly say, it was worth it.


** That I am choosing to live the rest of my life as a 'female' may seem somewhat extreme or... counter intuitive to some, and is somewhat of a mystery to me. However, this is how I find myself, and happily so, and given the extreme satisfaction and well-being that I feel as a result of what I am becoming, and seeing that my sex/gender reorientation seems to be somehow intrinsically wrapped up in the actualization of my once again found self, I feel I must see this thru. I feel great, seem to have become un-bipolarized (two more time points to go), and getting better all the time. I should stop?

Anyway, that's me, nanci blu, in a nutshell. Now, let's get busy.

To Tranny or not to Tranny

In response to Kelly Osborne's "I'm Retiring the Word 'Tranny'... Will You Join Me?" on Huffington Post, Nov 20,'11. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-osbourne/transgender-day-of-remembrance_b_1100542.html?show_comment_id=119355172#comment_119355172 )

…"tr*nny" is a derogatory and hurtful word."

Ackshully, insult is in the intention of the user. I take no umbrage when addressed as transsexual or tranny, or even ‘fucking fag’ come to think on it, regardless of the intention of my interlocutors. ‘Sticks and stones...’ And in terms of the n-word, one was coined originally as an insult, a derogatory, spiteful class marker, whereas transsexual was used to describe those going thru a medical process. Apples and oranges. Those who aim this innocuous barb at me are wasting their time. Might as well call me nancy.

I am a transsexual, a person who is changing my hormonal configuration and primary sexual characteristics from that of male to female, regardless of the question or validity of my gender identity considerations. An MTF. A 'tranny.' Not Mr. or Mz, Mrs, or Ze., but "T" Nanci Blu. Empirically, and in the context of the sex/gender binary world we live in, that works for me.

Am I against bigotry, ignorance and intolerance in these regards? Of course I am. But I see no reason to get hung up on a slang contraction of a word that was originally used (Hirschfeld, Cauldwell, Benjamin et al) to describe what I am going thru.

So thank you for your consideration, but as far as I am concerned, let’s not confuse the rest of the world debating arcane slang terminology and get to work on the attitudes and ignorance behind those words.

Happy "T" day.

Revelation

It came to me this morning. I don't know what it feels like to be absolutely sure. About someone.

Anyone. 

Perhaps not even myself.*

I have no previous experience in this regard. It's not in my frame of reference. No formative experiences of love and warmth,** no certainty of succour***. For me, all was discord, chaos, uncertainty, and loss. No fine whine here, just history. By the time love got to me,**** it was too late. I had retreated to my frosty fortress.

Alone.

Safe.

And even though I am beginning now to engage all sorts of new relationships in open and give and take ways, these spectres of my past taunt me, and I worry incessantly should the slightest hiccup occur in any given situation: that I have said something, done something, want something wrong. I am on tenterhooks in this new land of outreach, frozen, waiting sometimes seemingly forever, crouched at the bottom of the stairs in my pj's listening intently to the concerned (so I think) murmurs above, waiting for the axe to fall, not able to reach out and connect, because of course, I 'm not supposed to be there.

So I put on the old front, retreat once more, at least to the borders, secure in isolation, act like it doesn't matter, pretend that I'm ok, that everything is ok, business as usual.

Solitude, once a refuge, stretches on like a vast desert wasteland.

I am so fucking thirsty.

* though it's thought processes like this that make me think I am making some headway in this regard. I am actually starting to be able to observe myself. That's new, and intriguing.

** at least, not from mom and dad. They were too broken. We've all been broken.

*** Edna, one of my father's girlfriends back then, she did me good, I felt safe with her. She could have saved me. But that would be another life, and she was gone too soon.

**** And it knocked several times. My bad.