22 Comments
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Veritas Praevalebit's avatar

I could have also written this story except we are estranged from our son for not affirming.

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SadMom's avatar

Thank you for sharing. Beautifully written. I try to have a routine as well but the tragedy of losing my son to this cult is just too much most days. I want to remain hopeful but It has been four years and I don't see how he is going to come out of this. We are estranged only because we had been steadfast against medicalization. I know we are on the right side of history but the sadness of losing him has devastated me. I miss him so much.

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Mom First's avatar

Yup the “on this day” ❤️

I’m not giving up.

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E. Kathryn Stanley's avatar

There is an epidemic of young people going "no contact" with their families. The reasons for doing so vary, but it almost always involves rewriting the past. There's nothing you can do to convince them the reality was different. We all have our own interpretations of the truth, but when someone views their entire past through a certain "lens," and a newly adopted one at that, you have just lost that person. All you can do is hope they find their way back. At least you are in communication with your son, and that gives you something to work with, even if it doesn't seem like much. It's more than many of us have.

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distressed parent's avatar

Your articulate post captures the silent suffering that happens when Google photos presents  a memories montage.  On the one hand, past photos affirm the truth of my son he was swallowed by this the heinous mind/ body (and family) destroying cult. And yet the photos are as a you say "reminders of what's been lost."  The trans cult is an insidious thief that I despise deep in my bones.

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Estrojen's avatar

I love "Memories From This Day." While it makes me sad sometimes, it also reminds me that my daughter WAS a normal person at one point. She DID have a joyful childhood, we DID do many wonderful things together, I WAS a good Mom. Her narrative of the past does not hold up against the photographic evidence of birthday parties, extracurricular activities, vacations. Yes, there were challenging times too, a divorce, a mental health breakdown including hospitalization, COVID and being out of school and summer camp for two years. But when I see pictures of us together in costume at ComicCon or a video clip of us dancing to Wii Just Dance, I can remind myself, yes, we did these things, I did this for her, it has to be there in her memory banks somewhere. She cannot erase my Memories From This Day.

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KT's avatar

❤️ I could have written this word for word. Some of the stuff you wrote is 100% my 29 year old son. Hugs and thanks for sharing. 😪

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KT's avatar

❤️ I could have written this word for word. Some of the stuff you wrote is 100% my 29 year old son. Hugs and thanks for sharing. 😪

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KT's avatar

❤️ I could have written this word for word. Some of the stuff you wrote is 100% my 29 year old son. Hugs and thanks for sharing. 😪

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KT's avatar

❤️ I could have written this word for word. Some of the stuff you wrote is 100% my 29 year old son. Hugs and thanks for sharing. 😪

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Traci Hansen's avatar

And just like that, everything I feel just came out of her pen.

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Mothers Grim's avatar

Sow small seeds, remind him gently of his past, ask about his future plans and love him out. The world swims in the cult of trans and this is no small feat. I pray he rises to accept his truth.

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EyesOpen's avatar

I need routine too. Yes, life goes on. We are all doing the best we can under extreme circumstances.

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Linda Grajewski's avatar

Thank you for sharing... our son was 41...after Covid when he made the decision that the answer to his mental health issues was trans...he had no testing, never saw a psychiatrist...I begged him to go to a well known brain and neurology clinic and he refused...cut us off .. we wait and pray... have tried everything...his father is and was a really good involved daddy...no risk factors except mental issues with relatives on each side... bipolar and schizophrenia...we are normal but unfortunately the genetic combinations plus culture and Covid proved toxic... You are not alone 🙏💕

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Discrete Music's avatar

I don’t have the perspective that comes of being a parent. Feel free to sneer that I should leave this group.

But I too am a creature of routine and when Facebook shows me my dead cats or rehomed parrots, I mourn.

I am, however, well acquainted with betrayal.

And, projecting into a different life that will never be, I cannot help but feel that had I raised a child, extended all that love, made all those sacrifices, saved for his college… and he betrayed me for an idiotic cult and a fictional identity, cherish though I might that bright past, I would have nothing more to do with him.

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SS's avatar

This.

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Cady Lindberg's avatar

Our story as well… For our son it was the military. His first deployment wrecked him. “Things” happened that he will only allude to, things that followed him home and sought him out on base. Military ordered “therapy” with a trans activist counselor. Today he lives across the country in a city where he’s accepted, celebrated even.

His Dad and I pray. We pray that the God who calls that which is not into being. We pray that he will remember us, his sister, the love our family shared. That he’ll remember the bright, beautiful, tender boy/man that he is/was and he’ll find his way back. Until then, we grieve deeply. Some days I “get the bear” but most days he devours me.

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