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transHello everyone, I would like to tell you a story. Please forgive me if the story seems to jump around. I’m not the best writer. ^^;
July 9, 1980, in the early evening, right around supper time, a new voice cried out for the first time. A little boy had been born, much to the joy of his grandparents. While they had been blessed with 4 beautiful and smart daughters, they had always wished for a son. The boy grew up slowly, looking at the world through innocent eyes, his soft, tender heart giving him great patience and great ability to trust and forgive.
I would love to tell you that the boy grew up totally happy, never having to feel any sort of pains or anguish beyond the normal childhood problems, but I cannot. If you ask his family, they would tell you he was a happy child, full of joy and wonder, always laughing and smiling. But that would paint a very bright picture, and I have already stated that such a bright picture did not exist. If you look at pictures from his childhood, you would certainly see the picture that his family would have painted. But if you asked the boy himself, he would tell you quite truthfully that he couldn’t remember.
The boy was always very shy, very quiet. His grandmother would always say he was the best child she had raised, the only one who could keep himself amused for hours on end. The boy liked to play by himself, he was always lost in some other world. When he learned to read, the boy developed a fast interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy books, when he wasn’t reading, he was dreaming of make believe lands.
While his childhood certainly wasn’t a horror story, things weren’t perfectly peachy either. School brought with it kids who enjoyed picking on other kids, and being small and shy certainly made him a target. His home life wasn’t great either. He often had problems with his sister who was 2 years younger then him. Being the oldest meant he was to lead his younger siblings by setting a good example, a responsibility he neither wanted nor liked. The picking on didn’t just go off at school however, it happened at home as well. The boy knew there must be something wrong with him. Everyone else was able to see there was something wrong, he never really fit in anywhere, tended to feel awkward and extremely shy around others.
Now his home life had never been what one would consider ideal. His grandmother did most of his raising, instilling in him an older sense of values and such. His father wasn’t the greatest person in the world, a drunk with a temper, he left when the boy was young, probably around 5. There was a lot of moving around as well. The boy was told many times that he looked exactly like his father, and was told even more times that he was just like his father, these insults echoed insults the other kids used, things like looser, idiot, etc. The boy always loved his father however many times he was told of the bad things he had done to his mother, or how worthless a father he was.
The most vivid memory the boy has from his childhood is not a happy one. It is from between the age of 5 and 7 when his mother was not with his father anymore and was dating. It was also the last time the boy saw his father until he was 12. His father had come by to see his mother and they had gone to the bedroom to talk. Him and his sister were sitting watching TV when the current boyfriend had come home and his sister had blurted out that daddy was here. Needless to say there was a fight which ended in the boy, his sister and mother standing outside the bedroom while the boyfriend and father fought. This ended in his mother calling the police of course and the bedside telephone being used as a makeshift club on his father’s skull. He can still see the blood on the wall beside the long dresser.
Now when he was 7, his mother started dating a man her sister had been dating. The man was a hard man and constantly tried to “make a man” out of the boy. Now the boy had always been a very emotional child, crying easily at raised voices and such. This always got the man very mad and was always giving the boy the option of being given something to cry about. This is also when the boy started to learn that in order to survive, he would have to hide himself, build himself a wall to keep him safe. He really found that he did not like attention and did everything he was able to in order to avoid getting attention. Attention meant nothing more then pain to the boy, so that meant attention was bad.
When the boy was 12, his father went to court with his mother to reduce the child support payments. The courts condition was that the father take the boy and his sister for at least 1 month out of the year. The boy was very happy at this decision, he felt that finally things were going right, that one of his best dreams was finally coming true. For 2 years things went well, the father took him and his sister, but come age 14, not enough money was available. The boy didn’t mind, next year he would see his father again, but next year had the same story, no money. The boy began to worry and in his 16th year, he found that everyone had been right with the things they had said, his father didn’t care, he hadn’t even bothered to call that year. The boy saw his most precious dream shatter and break, the world suddenly looked a little darker.
The man and his mother had 2 children over the years, giving the boy a little brother and another little sister. This is when he was told he was to be a role model for his younger siblings. The boy tried to be what he was told was right, but something always went wrong. Being the eldest meant that when his siblings made a mistake, he had made a mistake too. The boy dealt with things as best he found able, burying most of his feelings, letting himself seem happy and joyful. He felt that if his parents could be proud of him, if he could make them happy, then the feelings that gnawed at his guts telling him something was wrong would go away. At times, he even fooled himself into thinking he was happy.
As the years went by and the boy continued to grow, the picking on never stopped, the bullies who were gaining puberty started to use muscle as another route to make others feel bad and themselves feel strong. The boy had good morals in him, and never fought the bullies when they challenged him, never fought back when they pushed him around. This of course made them see him as that much weaker and they continued with joy. The boy had another problem when a potential fight welled in him, a ball of fury burned his insides. He feared this fury inside him, he felt that he was not strong enough to control this fury if he let it out. He pushed this fury down every time he felt it stir, not wanting to risk the horrors his mind saw if it was let loose.
Things at home didn’t get any better. As he grew, so did the expectations on him to be a man. The boy got depressed a lot even though it never tended to show. He contemplated suicide but never had the nerve to try. The boy had always been scared of things, irrational fears of most everything to be more exact. When puberty came about, feelings that didn’t fit with those of the man he was supposed to be started to arise vehemently. He pushed those feelings down the deepest and did his absolute best to focus just on what other boys focused on. It took the boy until grade 11 to actually get his growth spurt and fill out like the other boys had back in Junior high. He was still small compared to most of the other boys, but he wasn’t the smallest.
He was still shy all through junior high and high school and thus never dated or had a girlfriend while the few friends he had did. He preferred to stay home and play video games or read while other kids went out to parties and such. He was still feeling out of place and awkward no matter the group he was with. These feelings tended to make him think, which would almost always end up with him crying tears of frustration. He had no answers why he felt the way he did. He knew something was wrong, he thought a lot that maybe everyone was right about what they teased him about. Whenever he got called a fag he held onto the fact that he was straight, he liked girls, not guys.
When he found the internet, he was overjoyed. He was able to find all sorts of things, meet all sorts of people. This new avenue let him feel good, kept his mind occupied so that the feelings in his heart and head that said something was wrong seemed to almost die off. Of course in time he found things that gave him new questions, with fresh pains.
In June of 2005, a friend he had met playing Final Fantasy 11, told him about herself. She told him about being born into a male body but being a girl inside. She opened closed doors inside him and old repressed feelings came surging forward. A lot of things finally seemed to make sense. He was finally able to admit to being interested in both girls and boys. And he finally found someone who felt like he did.
Unfortunately this also led to approximately 8 months worth of depression, in which he constantly badgered himself about his feelings, and tried to figure out how to tell his parents about this new discovery. The friend showed him to the first information site he had ever seen about transsexuals. He wasn’t new to this sort of thing, he just finally had a term for it, and knew that it wasn’t just a fantasy, it was a real problem. The only question now that really had no easy answer, was what to do about this. He knew that this would hurt some of the people he loved, and he did not wish to cause that sort of pain.
This story continues daily. This is all that there is right now. This is not a work of make believe, this is all truth from the boy’s point of view. In case you haven’t guessed yet, this is my story. I was born Jonathan Darrell Winter, born out of wedlock, a bastard child by the older ways of thinking. My parents changed my last name to de la Ronde, thus I had my father’s first and last name, Darrell de la Ronde.
I have felt much pain through my life in this fragile heart of mine. It has been broken from love more times then it should have. I place no blame, nor have any ill will against anyone who had committed verbal and/or mental abuse towards me. These things happen to kids, it’s “normal”. Unfortunately the end result is that I have little to no self confidence and self worth. I always have put the feelings of others before mine, because I was always able to see a solution for others, but never for myself. I am not strong person, except when others need me to be strong. I am irrationally afraid of many things. I have been wrong with every major decision I have had to make in my life thus far and am horridly afraid of being wrong again.
I am male born, but the body does not feel right. Sometimes I feel female is the proper answer, other times I have no answers. I am not a fighter, I have never liked to fight, yet everyday is a battle. I have become so tired of this fight, I feel that I have nothing left inside me most of the time. Yet I continue on, because if I fall and give up, that would cause those I care for pain, and that would hurt far worse for me.
Offline, in real life, I am John de la Ronde. I am male. For now at least….
Online, where I am free to be myself, I am Chame J Winter. I am female.
Thank you for reading this. I am sorry it was so long, truly didn’t see it to be much more then a few paragraphs in my head. If things didn’t make sense at parts, I am sorry. Writing has never been something I was good at in school. Thus far, to my pain filled eyes, I have been a failure in life and in love, I have failed my family in numerous ways, I cannot be the son they wanted. It feels wrong to be considered male most of the time, but I am frozen in place by irrational fear… fear of being right, and even more so, fear of being wrong. Because if I am wrong about this…then I have nothing left and the darkness that wells inside is truly all there is in this soul.
I am sorry to be a drama queen, if it seems that way, I typed how things came out for the most part. Any parts that seem to be missing pieces, probably are. My memory is very bad, I cannot remember the vast majority of my past, memories can float up at random a lot.
*huggles*
Chame/John
P.S. If you have not heard the song “When she cries” By Restless Heart, I recommend you look for it. It is a sad but beautiful song, and it touches me deeply.
Cross-posted to a few places including my own LJ.
Sorry to those who got this before my cut was fixed..ty to those who helped me to fix it. ^^;
July 9, 1980, in the early evening, right around supper time, a new voice cried out for the first time. A little boy had been born, much to the joy of his grandparents. While they had been blessed with 4 beautiful and smart daughters, they had always wished for a son. The boy grew up slowly, looking at the world through innocent eyes, his soft, tender heart giving him great patience and great ability to trust and forgive.
I would love to tell you that the boy grew up totally happy, never having to feel any sort of pains or anguish beyond the normal childhood problems, but I cannot. If you ask his family, they would tell you he was a happy child, full of joy and wonder, always laughing and smiling. But that would paint a very bright picture, and I have already stated that such a bright picture did not exist. If you look at pictures from his childhood, you would certainly see the picture that his family would have painted. But if you asked the boy himself, he would tell you quite truthfully that he couldn’t remember.
The boy was always very shy, very quiet. His grandmother would always say he was the best child she had raised, the only one who could keep himself amused for hours on end. The boy liked to play by himself, he was always lost in some other world. When he learned to read, the boy developed a fast interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy books, when he wasn’t reading, he was dreaming of make believe lands.
While his childhood certainly wasn’t a horror story, things weren’t perfectly peachy either. School brought with it kids who enjoyed picking on other kids, and being small and shy certainly made him a target. His home life wasn’t great either. He often had problems with his sister who was 2 years younger then him. Being the oldest meant he was to lead his younger siblings by setting a good example, a responsibility he neither wanted nor liked. The picking on didn’t just go off at school however, it happened at home as well. The boy knew there must be something wrong with him. Everyone else was able to see there was something wrong, he never really fit in anywhere, tended to feel awkward and extremely shy around others.
Now his home life had never been what one would consider ideal. His grandmother did most of his raising, instilling in him an older sense of values and such. His father wasn’t the greatest person in the world, a drunk with a temper, he left when the boy was young, probably around 5. There was a lot of moving around as well. The boy was told many times that he looked exactly like his father, and was told even more times that he was just like his father, these insults echoed insults the other kids used, things like looser, idiot, etc. The boy always loved his father however many times he was told of the bad things he had done to his mother, or how worthless a father he was.
The most vivid memory the boy has from his childhood is not a happy one. It is from between the age of 5 and 7 when his mother was not with his father anymore and was dating. It was also the last time the boy saw his father until he was 12. His father had come by to see his mother and they had gone to the bedroom to talk. Him and his sister were sitting watching TV when the current boyfriend had come home and his sister had blurted out that daddy was here. Needless to say there was a fight which ended in the boy, his sister and mother standing outside the bedroom while the boyfriend and father fought. This ended in his mother calling the police of course and the bedside telephone being used as a makeshift club on his father’s skull. He can still see the blood on the wall beside the long dresser.
Now when he was 7, his mother started dating a man her sister had been dating. The man was a hard man and constantly tried to “make a man” out of the boy. Now the boy had always been a very emotional child, crying easily at raised voices and such. This always got the man very mad and was always giving the boy the option of being given something to cry about. This is also when the boy started to learn that in order to survive, he would have to hide himself, build himself a wall to keep him safe. He really found that he did not like attention and did everything he was able to in order to avoid getting attention. Attention meant nothing more then pain to the boy, so that meant attention was bad.
When the boy was 12, his father went to court with his mother to reduce the child support payments. The courts condition was that the father take the boy and his sister for at least 1 month out of the year. The boy was very happy at this decision, he felt that finally things were going right, that one of his best dreams was finally coming true. For 2 years things went well, the father took him and his sister, but come age 14, not enough money was available. The boy didn’t mind, next year he would see his father again, but next year had the same story, no money. The boy began to worry and in his 16th year, he found that everyone had been right with the things they had said, his father didn’t care, he hadn’t even bothered to call that year. The boy saw his most precious dream shatter and break, the world suddenly looked a little darker.
The man and his mother had 2 children over the years, giving the boy a little brother and another little sister. This is when he was told he was to be a role model for his younger siblings. The boy tried to be what he was told was right, but something always went wrong. Being the eldest meant that when his siblings made a mistake, he had made a mistake too. The boy dealt with things as best he found able, burying most of his feelings, letting himself seem happy and joyful. He felt that if his parents could be proud of him, if he could make them happy, then the feelings that gnawed at his guts telling him something was wrong would go away. At times, he even fooled himself into thinking he was happy.
As the years went by and the boy continued to grow, the picking on never stopped, the bullies who were gaining puberty started to use muscle as another route to make others feel bad and themselves feel strong. The boy had good morals in him, and never fought the bullies when they challenged him, never fought back when they pushed him around. This of course made them see him as that much weaker and they continued with joy. The boy had another problem when a potential fight welled in him, a ball of fury burned his insides. He feared this fury inside him, he felt that he was not strong enough to control this fury if he let it out. He pushed this fury down every time he felt it stir, not wanting to risk the horrors his mind saw if it was let loose.
Things at home didn’t get any better. As he grew, so did the expectations on him to be a man. The boy got depressed a lot even though it never tended to show. He contemplated suicide but never had the nerve to try. The boy had always been scared of things, irrational fears of most everything to be more exact. When puberty came about, feelings that didn’t fit with those of the man he was supposed to be started to arise vehemently. He pushed those feelings down the deepest and did his absolute best to focus just on what other boys focused on. It took the boy until grade 11 to actually get his growth spurt and fill out like the other boys had back in Junior high. He was still small compared to most of the other boys, but he wasn’t the smallest.
He was still shy all through junior high and high school and thus never dated or had a girlfriend while the few friends he had did. He preferred to stay home and play video games or read while other kids went out to parties and such. He was still feeling out of place and awkward no matter the group he was with. These feelings tended to make him think, which would almost always end up with him crying tears of frustration. He had no answers why he felt the way he did. He knew something was wrong, he thought a lot that maybe everyone was right about what they teased him about. Whenever he got called a fag he held onto the fact that he was straight, he liked girls, not guys.
When he found the internet, he was overjoyed. He was able to find all sorts of things, meet all sorts of people. This new avenue let him feel good, kept his mind occupied so that the feelings in his heart and head that said something was wrong seemed to almost die off. Of course in time he found things that gave him new questions, with fresh pains.
In June of 2005, a friend he had met playing Final Fantasy 11, told him about herself. She told him about being born into a male body but being a girl inside. She opened closed doors inside him and old repressed feelings came surging forward. A lot of things finally seemed to make sense. He was finally able to admit to being interested in both girls and boys. And he finally found someone who felt like he did.
Unfortunately this also led to approximately 8 months worth of depression, in which he constantly badgered himself about his feelings, and tried to figure out how to tell his parents about this new discovery. The friend showed him to the first information site he had ever seen about transsexuals. He wasn’t new to this sort of thing, he just finally had a term for it, and knew that it wasn’t just a fantasy, it was a real problem. The only question now that really had no easy answer, was what to do about this. He knew that this would hurt some of the people he loved, and he did not wish to cause that sort of pain.
This story continues daily. This is all that there is right now. This is not a work of make believe, this is all truth from the boy’s point of view. In case you haven’t guessed yet, this is my story. I was born Jonathan Darrell Winter, born out of wedlock, a bastard child by the older ways of thinking. My parents changed my last name to de la Ronde, thus I had my father’s first and last name, Darrell de la Ronde.
I have felt much pain through my life in this fragile heart of mine. It has been broken from love more times then it should have. I place no blame, nor have any ill will against anyone who had committed verbal and/or mental abuse towards me. These things happen to kids, it’s “normal”. Unfortunately the end result is that I have little to no self confidence and self worth. I always have put the feelings of others before mine, because I was always able to see a solution for others, but never for myself. I am not strong person, except when others need me to be strong. I am irrationally afraid of many things. I have been wrong with every major decision I have had to make in my life thus far and am horridly afraid of being wrong again.
I am male born, but the body does not feel right. Sometimes I feel female is the proper answer, other times I have no answers. I am not a fighter, I have never liked to fight, yet everyday is a battle. I have become so tired of this fight, I feel that I have nothing left inside me most of the time. Yet I continue on, because if I fall and give up, that would cause those I care for pain, and that would hurt far worse for me.
Offline, in real life, I am John de la Ronde. I am male. For now at least….
Online, where I am free to be myself, I am Chame J Winter. I am female.
Thank you for reading this. I am sorry it was so long, truly didn’t see it to be much more then a few paragraphs in my head. If things didn’t make sense at parts, I am sorry. Writing has never been something I was good at in school. Thus far, to my pain filled eyes, I have been a failure in life and in love, I have failed my family in numerous ways, I cannot be the son they wanted. It feels wrong to be considered male most of the time, but I am frozen in place by irrational fear… fear of being right, and even more so, fear of being wrong. Because if I am wrong about this…then I have nothing left and the darkness that wells inside is truly all there is in this soul.
I am sorry to be a drama queen, if it seems that way, I typed how things came out for the most part. Any parts that seem to be missing pieces, probably are. My memory is very bad, I cannot remember the vast majority of my past, memories can float up at random a lot.
*huggles*
Chame/John
P.S. If you have not heard the song “When she cries” By Restless Heart, I recommend you look for it. It is a sad but beautiful song, and it touches me deeply.
Cross-posted to a few places including my own LJ.
Sorry to those who got this before my cut was fixed..ty to those who helped me to fix it. ^^;