Becoming Daniel: Who Am I?

I've decided to write a book on my experiences on coming out, transitioning and all that goes with it. I'm going to be blogging some part of it, sharing photos and excerpts of the story. I've decided to call it Becoming Daniel because it's the story o how I became the person that you see and the person that you read about in these blogs. I share my life with so many people in so many different ways, so I thought the only logical thing to do would be to share this incredible journey-the good, the bad, the laughter, the joy, the pain and the sorrow with everyone as well. I want people to be able to feel like they're not alone, that there are relatable thing in each of our lives an even reach out if they felt any of the horrible things and even the good things during this journey. 

Who Am I? 

After I was made aware that I was different, that I was not like my friends, that I never would be and that my body would develop differently than their's my entire world fell apart. I was terrified. I didn't want those saying bags of flesh on my chest. I didn't want to have to bleed every month without warming and most of the time, I was both disgusted and terrified at the thought of having a human growing inside me. Thankfully, a few years later I learned that I wasn't going to bleeding every month or at all and that I was unable to have children. I sighed relief at that. It was to me, sort of a validation that I was indeed a male trapped in the wrong body. It was as if my inner being was fighting my physical one. At that age, I didn't know there was such a thing as being transgender or gender dysmorphia. I was terrified to tell anyone how I felt. I was already thought of as a freak and an outsider by most of my classmates, my parents would have just made everything worse. I knew I wouldn't be able to take the bullying. I was truly and deeply convinced that there was something wrong with me; That if I told anyone, they'd see me as some type of diseased thing and throw me away. I thought that if I told anyone, even one person, how I felt and how I saw myself that I would be humiliated even further, which was worse than being thrown away to me. 

As I grew up and started to develop an adult body, I become increasingly unhappy. I felt trapped in this flesh prison that served to remind me that I was abnormal. I tried so hard to ignore my physical body, focusing more on my mind than anything else. I shoved thoughts down, buried them deep somewhere within me and tried to ignore that truth of having a physical form. I hated that I felt so abnormal. (Sometimes I still do.) I guess this was about the time that I started questioning my religion and faith. If there was a God, why would he make me this way? Why would he make me abnormal and cause me such pain and unrest? Why would he punish me like this? I hate myself. I hated that I wasn't a normal functioning human. I hated that I wasn't the male that I knew I was inside. I didn't understand what I had done so wrong in either this life or another that I would be punished this way. Maybe it was a past life echoing inside me and that's why this body feels so wrong. 

Time passed. My chest swelled outward and my hips widened the way most women's do. While the girls I knew were excited to talk about their blossoming breasts and wanted to show off for the boys, I  was deeply ashamed. I thought of them as bags of fat or tumours, which did a number on my self-esteem. I wanted to part of this. I was powerless to stop the progression of something I didn't want. My depression deepened, my unhappiness consuming me. <I wouldn't be diagnosed with bipolar depression until a few years later, but the stress and distress I felt about growing and developing contributed to the worsening of the symptoms of my bipolar disorder.> I was told that I would need to wear a device to hold the precious milk bags in place. A bra. Complete humiliation. I was told that I would be taken shopping for one. Gross, I would have to show my body off to people. I didn't want anyone to see me. Fuck, I didn't want to see me.

I looked at myself in the mirror and wanted to cry. It was a message to me that I wasn't a man, that I would probably have to go through life like this. My grandmother told me that I was growing up and it made her so happy to see me become a woman, meanwhile on the inside, I was crumbling. I don't know how I managed to not fall apart. She told me that these are some of the things that ladies need to have for themselves. I had no idea what she meant and I still don't. Probably some kind of female witchcraft.
...

I was about 16 or 17 when I became aware of transgender people. I'm not sure where I heard the term, probably from a book or a website, but as soon as I looked it up, it felt right. I instantly knew that was what I was. I wanted to know more about it. I needed to know. And when I looked it up, I found so many thousands of people like me. My same thoughts, expressions and anguish all echoing through message board posts. I wasn't alone. The knowledge that there are people out there just like me really gave me a comfort that I had been looking for. Then I read that it was classified as a psychiatric disorder. My heart sank. I was seriously mentally ill.