Sunday, 18 May 2025

I have been quiet but..

 I know I know... I've been slacking on the posting, but as for lots of us, everyday life has been getting in the way of Emma getting more time. 
  I am still seeing my MHP every couple of weeks, and it has been very positive in helping me become more settled in myself, but also being able to cope with outside stresses. 

  One of the biggest stresses i have been carrying is coming out.  Yes i for the most part am not out to friends/family/work as the stress of what could happen and job security could become quite lacking. 

  One of the things that has been part of my bi-weekly sessions with my MHP has been building a plan for coming out, and even though it seems counter intuitive, the plan has been built with coming out in stages. Starting with Family and ending somewhere down the road instead of just coming out in one swing to everyone. 
  Part of this staged coming out is because not everyone i know needs to know right now, as the ones who are i do not see/hang out/talk to with consistency are not the most important people to know.  Also some of those who will find out later on down the line i cannot trust to hold information to themselves and may leak the news to people who have no need or right to know. 
 
  Another part is some of these people will see such an announcement as it being my whole identity, where being in the rainbow communities as not only Bi, but in the Trans community as well are parts of who i am, but not the definition of who i am. 

   In the last week, i have started the Family part of the roadmap by making a call to my one sibling. 
 I have been avoiding getting the process started as a huge part of my brain was constantly shouting the negatives of what if they do not accept, what if they tell me to F... Off and never talk to them again which would absolutely destroy me as i only have the one sibling, and we are close. 
   BUT thankfully that never happened. They responded with Oh ok, is that all, what ever, as long as you are happy in yourself then whatever, your my brother whatever i will love you no matter what which made me break down and have a damn good cry, especially when they told me that they and their partner were
at an event but me talking to was more important, i did let them know that they could tell their partner as the questions would have been asked as i am not normally a phone caller.
  Later on in the night i got text messages from both of them re-affirming their support and love, and thar no matter what family is family and the love will always be there.
 So step 1 has been a success and next step is to my Dad... And this one scares me even more than the sibling as Dad is the sole surviving parent, and i am as close if not closer with dad than the sib, but knowing that the sib is behind me gives me some more confidence in being able to come out to Dad, but this is down the road a little ways to give me time to come down off the high of takign that big step.

In other news, i managed to get some time off work, and let Emma out a little. I managed to do some shopping, and bought some new boots.. but also get out of the house during the day dressed, even if only into the driveway to take a couple of pics, there are still properties around us that can see into the driveway