My side of the family is very conservative and religious. Any discussion/arguments about anything they don't like turns into everyone ganging up on me or ignoring me. I hate confrontation, so I avoid getting into those discussions as much as possible. Fortunately, they're not close by, but when they do visit for a few days, it's super stressful.
Yeah sounds like it. Sorry you’re going through that.
I’m not going home to see my family this year. My grandmother (who was my only older relative that I felt loved me unconditionally) died earlier this year, and she was the only one I would go back into the closet for to go see (I’m not out as trans with most of my older relatives in my family because there are some who are dangerous people; both my parents are narcs, for example). I had planned on coming out to my Ba eventually this year, but never got the chance. Now I don’t see a reason to go back into the closet ever again to go see anyone else who’s there. I just can’t; there is no one else that I haven’t come out to yet there that I feel is worth going through that closet trauma horror again. But at the same time, I’m feeling massive amounts of guilt for not going, and the honest confusion of my relatives for why I won’t visit is making me feel even worse.
Part of me wants to just rip the bandaid off and just come out to them like RIGHT NOW, but they are the type of people who own guns, aren’t afraid to use threats of and follow-through of violence, and like to stalk and harass their relatives they don’t agree with like it’s a fun hobby. And they are some of the worse anti-trans, homophobic people you would ever meet. So I’m trying to keep myself safe by legally changing my name and moving to a different place w/o ever telling them the new info before I come out, so I can vanish w/o a trace when the get that stalky itch to harass me when they find out who i actually am and don’t agree with my existence (even though it makes me happy, ESPECIALLY if it makes me happy. Because they are both abusive narcs, for which other people who are in their orbit’ happiness is consider a zero-sum game to them that they take personally).
Anyway, I’ve accomplished the move, but I still haven’t changed my name just yet. But it’s just getting so much harder to continue to lie to them. Not for their sake, but for mine, because I’ve been forced by them to lie about who I am to them for so long, I’m ******* sick to jive of it. I hate that they still have that threat of power over me, and I’m almost 40, have a PhD, am married, and work for one of the most powerful companies on the planet. Not saying all that to brag, but it just infuriates me that no matter what I’ve accomplished, I still can’t shake the influence of effing “Mommy and Daddy” from my life. People I hate, and have clearly hated me for being born.
(Sorry, emotional vomit into the void on a transformers fan site; wrong place and time, but I’ve just got a lot of feels I need to unload into said void and I don’t really do any other social media. Thank you and sorry to whoever happens to read this. I’m going to bed now.)
