I trip over the wrong name. So I don’t use it. I fumble with the wrong pronouns. So I don’t use them When I refer to you, it’s “my kid,” with context included to distinguish you from your brother. When I talk about you, I avoid any names and pronouns.
Omg this is me. I do my best to not use pronouns and It is so hard and stressful tiptoeing around my words. I keep asking God, why us? Why is this happening to my family? We did everything we could to provide a loving family. We went to church as a family and we tried to plant the seeds of God’s word in my kids hearts. We are living in a nightmare and I can’t wake up
Supposedly having dreams as a woman. Then starts wearing women leggings and a coat, grows out his hair.
Never says anything to anyone except his wife but she’s too immature to speak up.
Then decides these dreams must be true, so let’s go see a LGBT doctor and oh I have gender dysphoria and here’s your hormones.
Then writes the note saying he’s always felt this way and sends it to tell me. Afraid to tell his brother or dad. No talking can convince him that he’s in a cult.
Moves on to telling all high school and college friends, they all tell him he’s wrong and leaves him.
Moves on to more women clothes, purse and removing all hair from body. I find out he works in a LGBT IT department and suddenly they are his new friends.
Decides he needs to legally change his name, never had told me but Amazon account shows it and I find it in the court system. I’m crushed.
Finally brother and dad find out. Dad disowns him, brother says I’ll never call you anything but your real name. Starts ghosting all of us. Only texts when he needs new phone and accounts under my name. He pays for it but ghosts me now.
I listen to Catholic radio show and one day the host says to Pray to their Guardian angel. Ask your Guardian angel to help my son’s Guardian angel to watch over them and protect them but guide him to find deep down inside love for himself.
My son doesn’t love himself. He was made in Gods image and he doesn’t have the strength to accept himself. He’s exactly the person that God created but mentally he lost his way. He’s trying to fit in with these people instead of just accepting himself. He has to be exhausted every single day of pretending.
I pray that the angel can help him love himself. To admit he made a mistake but it’s not too late to be the person and man God made him to be. These are my days alone with our Lord. Moments I wake up asking him to please give my son a sign or thought that maybe just maybe he sees the truth.
It’s been a long 3 years of hurt and hiding. I haven’t told my extended family because I can’t handle their endless questions and hoping someday my son comes back and no one will judge his mistake if they don’t know.
I miss my son. I don’t text much because I’m just giving him the silence he wants.
I did hear from my daughter in law Happy Thanksgiving on the text I sent them.
Otherwise I trust and give it to the Lord. I know my Guardian Angel and my sons are in overdrive working on his heart and I’ll keep praying they can break through to him to love himself soon.
I’m so sorry. I also pray that God wakes my daughter up from her sleep, the sleep where she has learned to hate herself. Our children don’t realize family is the ONLY group in their lives loves them exactly how they are.
One of the 30 or so disturbing observations I have made over the past decade (approx), is the continually growing number of young people (under 30) who seem to be in the midst of various levels of disassociation. Most of the time, even when discussing this with other clinicians, the response is silence or a polite “yes, I’ve seen that”. In the psychology realm disassociation is considered a defense mechanism. For past 25 years or so, I’ve worked with many people who disassociate to varying degrees. However, since let’s say 2018, there’s something amiss with the type of disconnecting I’m witnessing in young people. It almost seems learned & then internalized over time. One hypothesis: the earlier in development children begin engaging with the “phone” (funny how calling each other is the last thing we do with phones now), or/& IPad, the more likely they are to lack the ability to empathize, feel, function in the material world. It’s quite disconcerting.
So so true. It's like my daughter became a "sociopath lite", her father gave her a phone in her early teens which I protested against (we shared custody). By the time she reached her 20's she was a different person, she became distant, dramatic, and lacking empathy.
I feel your pain. My tongue slipped one too many times for my then 21 year old son, 3 years later he still won't respond to any attempts of communication no what tack I try. I will continue to bombard the evil mind virus that has stolen my son with words of love, the only "weapon" I have left. May God bless your family.
I am a changed person. I find I don’t have empathy anymore & that isn’t normal. But if I empathize that means I have feelings. And if I let my true feelings show, I would barely function.
Haha yes I could waffle on for hours. If I react normally to people’s distress or sadness in normal conversation I would lose my mind or go into a rage. My son called me & told me he hated me. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Even now, if I let myself think of those words, I walk around in a daze. I’d never before realized the importance of mental health to functioning. I have health (physical), wealth, but am missing happiness. It is so debilitating. My husband, as kindly as he can, says to ‘toughen up’. This works to some extent. But when people share anything about how they feel about their loved ones absence (they’re on vacation, or they live far away..) the comparison is minuscule. Losing someone because they’ve chosen to dissociate is beyond cruel.
I’ve read your other comments & you are right. This generation does this. Not just for trans issues, they cut people off, they seem to be the most selfish & intolerant group of young people..& they think they are the kind ones. My husband doesn’t take it as seriously as I do. He says we, they, are caught up in cultural moment & need to grow up. When will/does this happen? Many parents on this site have kids approaching their 30’s. It’s too late.
I’d also add that the empathy thing is weird..my kids kind of have hyper empathy. They were always very kind, humble & sensitive. My middle son has cut me off, his empathy for his friends feelings take priority. He is so ‘hurt’ for them that I won’t embrace the language (calling his female friend a ‘they’). It’s the same story over & over. How did this happen & it goes back to what they were taught in school, DEI & affirming counselors
We do this too. I have also found myself halting over a pronoun when I didn’t need to because one of my kids is still going by her correct name and pronouns and one daughter says she is a boy and has a new male name and one daughter is nonbinary and goes by they/them and chose a neutral name. When we are together I sometimes use their correct names and pronouns but I usually do the gymnastics to keep the peace. Meanwhile they don’t try not to offend me so we might call the sane person she and he when talking together about the same person. What a horrible mess.
Yes. My family just doesn't refer to my son at all. It's so sad. I don't talk about him because I can't use the pronouns that he prefers, and I don't want to talk to the other kids in a way that they think is disrespectful towards him. So he is gone for all intents and purposes. No contact, no conversation. Just deep sadness.
Me either. At her birth, I gave my now AGE 24 DAUGHTER the name I wanted her to have FOREVER. And all her pictures and all my memories of HER only match that name I gave her… my only DAUGHTER. This is all so hard… God, please help us all… 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
I hear you loud and clear. I find people not going through this can't understand why I can't just use the new name !! My only daughter, also now 21 - robbed of the mother-daughter relationship we thought we would have when holding our precious newborns in my arms.
My life for the last six years, too. It is exhausting and I have hated myself for doing it the entire time, worried that my slip up would cause her to run away, to medicalize, scream transphobe at us, threaten to kill herself, etc.
It didn't matter. She has been medicalizing for the last four months behind our backs while at college (she is 19). So now I am done pretending.
Spot on. The hardest I have found, is when you are talking to your child, who pretends to be someone completely else, and some innocent by stander interjects and joins the conversation, you try to relate to experiences about your child, who now pretends to be the wrong gender and uses a different name than what you gave them, and tell similar relatable stories about what you had observed your child do who is now living a lie. It is quite the tongue twister. It is deception, I hate it.
It was just TWO days ago, after avoidance and silence, that my husband broke....He had spoke with our daughter about Thanksgiving and she had told him that no, she would not be attending since she KNEW that people were not EVOLVED enough to use her correct pronouns and new name; her MALE name she legally just acquired after mutilating herself into a facsimile of male-ness. Gone are her breasts, her ability to carry a child, her beautiful voice, her smooth skin and replaced is a person who is a perpetual victim of her own creation---who demands we all play a twisted game of silence or lies, where truth cannot be spoken, deadnames are verboten and if you break a rule OUT YOU GO! (No more speaking to you and your intolerance wont be tolerated)
No room for mistakes in this world, no giving of grace, no trying to understand that 30 years of usage cant be stopped overnight, no efforts to speak and explain, and all this with an air of arrogance, an air of superiority and smugness for all of us that are so beneath and behind the times that rule in transland.
I refuse to lie....I was raised lying. Lying about the bruises on my moms face...Lying about that fact my dad was a drunk and beat my mom thats why I couldnt have friends in the house or for sleepovers...Lying about the bruises I had on my body---the times I had been head slammed, slaped...Lying with silence was an artform in my home growing up. Names you were called, things you saw, things you heard, what you watched happen....silence. Dont speak out. Dont tell anyone the state will take you away. Dont tell no one will understand. NO. I wont be silent on this. I wont lie. I wont pretend, use fake names or act like I birthed a son; I didnt have a son--ever.
I thought once upon a time there was nothing I would not do for my child. I sat on Thanksgiving getting parenting advice from a drunk, multiple baby daddy mid life relative who told me I needed to just 'listen', to just be their 'FRIEND' and not be so judgemental as a parent. God can help us to do his will---the in the flesh me wanted to clock her one.
I have no more 'pride' anymore---my child has enough for this whole family. I am exhausted. I would gladly have my child sit with me anywhere, anytime, regardless of what anyone thought but the truth is she sits on a pedastal I am not willing to eat off of or grovel in front of. My 'God' has been rejected, my beliefs declared worthless, my actual being and who I am cast away and echoes of my childhood come back...."I hate you", "I want nothing to do with you" and the feelings of once again not fitting in with my family come back to me---usually at night, in dreams.
I have a faith, a relationship with Christ that I did not have prior to being cursed for voting for Trump, prior to being told everything I stood for was wrong. You see- I have had a pruning of sorts. What do I believe? What do I KNOW is true? Who am I and what are my core, rock bottom beliefs--the HILLS that I will stand and defend? I have wept alone in my car, homeless and sleeping there in storm--and I had a long talk with Jesus. I started working out own crap; childhood traumas that enabled me to raise a child who cannot handle reality, traumas that enabled me to choose poorly a marriage partner, behaviors of ignoring problems, of ignoring things that are wrong and have to be dealt with, and seeking counseling to be a better me.
Ive lost my mother, my brother, almost lost my marriage, had both my children stop speaking to me---and if it was not for my faith I would not be able to stay and pray, and fight on my knees for my family to survive.
This has been a trial unlike any other I have ever had. I have found solace here--reading others' words and emotions on the screen that no one else in my life care to hear. I go to church and smile--and weep, and realize how good God really is...and how one day if and when my child awakes from this--she will need faith to survive. I pray for that. That she find faith in Christ; thats the greatest of all things I can wish for her at this point, other than if she wakes up, she helps others who are still living in transworld get out.
My lost GIRL is 24. And this is close to my life… from your beginnings to your final paragraph… I too pray God will SAVE her soul and protect her body from testosterone and other medical things and please to USE her to save others someday if she comes out of this… please God. And somehow let my extended family see she needs our LOVE above all else, not their condemning attitudes. And please God don’t let me physically break into pieces from this heart-ripping pain inside of me… I feel so alone but I know You are here… give me YOUR will and YOUR way to go in this life I am left with… if it’s without my DAUGHTER, without my only baby GIRL. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
For you Susan--you are in my prayers---as is Emily here and others who have told me they are broken-literally broken from their childrens' choices. I daily read Intercessors Of America and devotionals and I feel a heaviness on my heart at times that is crushing...I am trying to lay my will down-in every area of my life, and just say tell me what to do, give me strength to do it, and call me home at some point because down here is not where I belong...when my work is done I know where I am going...I have made peace with the fact that I may not get my daughter back--God will have her even I cannot hold her or help her in my lifetime.
I repeat the variations IT IS WHAT IT IS and I cannot change it. Just give me strength and faith to get through this. Ill pray for you Susan...much love your way
What you said, I also do and feel: " I daily read Intercessors Of America [and other sources] and devotionals and I feel a heaviness on my heart at times that is CRUSHING am trying to lay my will down-in every area of my life, and just say tell me what to do, GIVE ME STRENGTH to do it, and CALL ME HOME at some point because down here is not where I belong...when my work is done I KNOW WHERE I AM GOING...I have made peace with the fact that I may not get my daughter back--God will have her even I cannot hold her or help her in my lifetime. ...Just GIVE ME STRENGTH and FAITH to get through this. Ill [also] pray for you [Tdiaphenous]...much love your way"
I have an earnest question for all the parents out there who are Christian and struggling with this; do we pretend? Is that really love to use the pronouns and the fake name and pretend all is well? I do not think that is love...its a lie, to me anyway, and I refuse to lie.
But as this past Thanksgiving proved to me--with everyone around me either drunk or high, that I am living with people who think I am a hypocrite, a fake Christian and all who blatantly think I am now a joke, a bad parent and a bad person.
I am married to man who drove our daughter to be butchered, who tries in earnest to say all the right things, and has a silent judgment against me for not joining him....this has, like Trump, just exposed the rift in our marriage, not caused it.
I have been told about _______________insert topic here, that I am an ideologue, cannot discern fact from fiction, believe whatever the orange man tells me, am wrong on all things and silently, told I should join in the rest of the family---do as they do, believe as they believe....and I am sit here realizing today that it is not ever going to happen.
I think in most ways my faith has strengthened in the last four years--however I have a silent manifest in my spirit of how much longer do I live this way? Not respected, though at its core I just want to be heard and valued, not listened to, as if I nothing I say is intelligent or thought out or researched enough to listen to what I think, and at the core--to not be loved....my pain and needs ignored? At what point do I either tire and give up trying to fit in a square hole OR at what point am a helpless victim of staying where I dont think I can say or do anything?
I spoke with a neighbor down the street--he knows about my daughter, my husband and with him being elderly he walks a lot-and yesterday he stopped to ask me how I was, how I felt with the election over....I updated him, and he said this " I just come home and sit down and be silent...with two girls and my wife I have learned to say nothing"....I FELT that in my bones...I have learned too--to say nothing, to have no needs, thoughts beyond vapid musings, to avoid conflict with man who hated Trump, with daughters who do not believe, with an extended family who cannot gather without getting drunk or high...I am alone at the utmost, rejected in every way I feel and on my worst days I lose hope that will change. On days where I have been to church, prayed or seem calmer and more focused I think if I keep praying I will have an answer...but overall I am lonely and in pain if I allow myself to focus on what I see.
I have learned this one thing---when in church, while reading a Bonhoeffer book or the bible, or listening to praise songs I have a reprieve of sorts...but it doesnt seem to last and that is what bothers me. I cant be alone much longer--and the voices I hear on this forum are no longer enough--I think I will join a church group on my own--I need to be around others who think like I do, or at least are open to discussions...to seek others who are not closed minded and yell others into silence. I am tired of being alone.
So--everyone reading this--AM I WRONG to not pretend? I dont think I am.
God help us parents here...we need help and answers and a movement of God that hasnt yet happend yet....I pray now for revival. Please Lord....I cant change anything but I know the holy spirit can.
WE are NOT wrong to NOT support and NOT use the pronouns. To do that would be to deny GOD'S CREATION. We cannot do that!
Some encouragement...
I am also surrounded by persons who say I am crazy or are angry about my politics ("Trump-loving B*") and/ or condemn and turn their backs on my child... "it's HER fault we don't show her love" (coming from "Christians"). I have been praying 4 years since my age 24 DAUGHTER said she is trans and I have not seen much change in her (still injecting testosterone and planning for other changes), but I have seen change in my angry husband... and I believe he is changing "for GOOD/ for GOD".
So DO NOT GIVE UP!
This song was given to me this morning (by God) as I was contemplating this reply: (The Words I Would Say, By Sidewalk Prophets)
"Be strong in the Lord and never give up hope
You're gonna do great things I already know
God's got His hand on you, so don't live life in fear
Forgive and forget but don't forget why you're here
Take your time and pray
Thank God for each day
His love will find a way
These are the words I would say (the words I would say)"
ALSO, this BIBLE VERSE has been HOLDING ME UP this past couple weeks:
When I said, "My foot is slipping", your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, Your consolation brought JOY to my soul." Psalm 94:18-19
GOD IS WITH US... WE ARE A PART OF HIS STORY... HE IS MAKING US STRONGER AND BRINGING US CLOSER TO HIMSELF... AND HE WILL GET US THROUGH THIS. ❤️🙏🙏🙏LOVE,,
P.S. I also feel stronger while reading my Bible and in devotions and prayer "with God"... those are critically necessary!! But I encourage you to find a good Bible-believing church. I have a lot of people in my church praying for me/ us... even resulted in starting a weekly "Prodigal Prayer Group" for all our children/ grandchilren/ relative prodigals. Although I know they cannot fully comprehend my specific situation and the pain I feel (ours is a whole different universe than having a child who just no longer goes to church), I think my "fellowship" there is key... they are my "support network" when I absolutely cannot pick myself up and go on (times when I feel worthless in this world!)... I cry out for prayers, they pray, and I am stronger!!
"Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who HOPE in the Lord." Psalms 31:24
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5:4
You have no idea how badly I needed to hear this; I feel alone in a dark room with no one listening to me--my entire family does not agree with me. Thank you for this answer... I am starting to see that I need to find a place in our church-and disregard what happens when my husband clashes with others...It has not been good for me to be alone in this. Thank you Susan and prayers your way and prayers for me that I find where I need to be.
[9] Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. [10] For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up. [11] Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone? [12] Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken. 🙏🙏🙏❤️
I'm crying while I read this. First you are told to lie for your parents. Now you expected to lie for your kid. But I don't think the others would encourage lying about where the bruises came from. But they sure do want lots of lies about what fuckin "gender" your kid is. When do we get to be ourselves? When do we get to make decisions? When do we as parents get some autonomy? When can we have our own souls?
Thank you for taking the time to share all of this. I am so sorry for all that you have lived through, and now this. It is absolutely surreal. I honestly can't believe the things that have happened in our lives over the past few years. When one of my daughters got pregnant I thought it was a struggle. I knew nothing.
Wow. We just had our daughter miss Thanksgiving for this same reason and because we refuse to continue to pay for college if she is medicalizing. I have had a similar journey as you. I have nothing left but faith, my husband and son, and this community of people. All I pray now is that God wakes her up from the slumber she is in. I'm praying for you.
Much love your way fellow sister....What a strange time we were born to live in. I will add you to my morning prayers; I wake in the early morning hours now and go through my thoughts, and pray. This has shook my family and marriage to its core. Prayers Emily-feel free to reach out if you ever need an ear or a prayer warrior 'siren prayer'. I thank God every day for this forum.
Yes, I relate very much. I have referred to it as linguistic contortions. I won’t say the name that feels like a punch to the stomach every time I hear it. I won’t call her “he”. I won’t support her rejection of her self. But I also know it’s counterproductive to antagonize her, or embarrass her in front of her friends. So I construct tortured sentences to avoid having to say the forbidden words. I’ve gotten so used to it that lately I find myself stumbling when I use pronouns to refer to anyone, then realizing in relief that it wasn’t about her so it was ok.
The right pronoun is "you". That is the only one they did not steal. Isn't this like a psychosis? A derealisation commissioned by the woke frenzy. It is sad to hear your story and how far it got. "I" and "You" seems to be the level to address this. Am I right?
This is like an initiation into personal contact 101, very mystical. You meet me and I meet you, as if for the first time over and over again. Who do you want to be? That is an open question, an invitation to play. Shall we define the game together? What if... ❤❤❤
Omg this is me. I do my best to not use pronouns and It is so hard and stressful tiptoeing around my words. I keep asking God, why us? Why is this happening to my family? We did everything we could to provide a loving family. We went to church as a family and we tried to plant the seeds of God’s word in my kids hearts. We are living in a nightmare and I can’t wake up
The Trans script my son has followed to a tee.
Supposedly having dreams as a woman. Then starts wearing women leggings and a coat, grows out his hair.
Never says anything to anyone except his wife but she’s too immature to speak up.
Then decides these dreams must be true, so let’s go see a LGBT doctor and oh I have gender dysphoria and here’s your hormones.
Then writes the note saying he’s always felt this way and sends it to tell me. Afraid to tell his brother or dad. No talking can convince him that he’s in a cult.
Moves on to telling all high school and college friends, they all tell him he’s wrong and leaves him.
Moves on to more women clothes, purse and removing all hair from body. I find out he works in a LGBT IT department and suddenly they are his new friends.
Decides he needs to legally change his name, never had told me but Amazon account shows it and I find it in the court system. I’m crushed.
Finally brother and dad find out. Dad disowns him, brother says I’ll never call you anything but your real name. Starts ghosting all of us. Only texts when he needs new phone and accounts under my name. He pays for it but ghosts me now.
I listen to Catholic radio show and one day the host says to Pray to their Guardian angel. Ask your Guardian angel to help my son’s Guardian angel to watch over them and protect them but guide him to find deep down inside love for himself.
My son doesn’t love himself. He was made in Gods image and he doesn’t have the strength to accept himself. He’s exactly the person that God created but mentally he lost his way. He’s trying to fit in with these people instead of just accepting himself. He has to be exhausted every single day of pretending.
I pray that the angel can help him love himself. To admit he made a mistake but it’s not too late to be the person and man God made him to be. These are my days alone with our Lord. Moments I wake up asking him to please give my son a sign or thought that maybe just maybe he sees the truth.
It’s been a long 3 years of hurt and hiding. I haven’t told my extended family because I can’t handle their endless questions and hoping someday my son comes back and no one will judge his mistake if they don’t know.
I miss my son. I don’t text much because I’m just giving him the silence he wants.
I did hear from my daughter in law Happy Thanksgiving on the text I sent them.
Otherwise I trust and give it to the Lord. I know my Guardian Angel and my sons are in overdrive working on his heart and I’ll keep praying they can break through to him to love himself soon.
God bless us all in this group.
I’m so sorry. I also pray that God wakes my daughter up from her sleep, the sleep where she has learned to hate herself. Our children don’t realize family is the ONLY group in their lives loves them exactly how they are.
Angry mama bear substack posted this one today:
https://angrymamabear.substack.com/p/measures?publication_id=1194528&post_id=152465387&isFreemail=true&r=khop7&triedRedirect=true
You sum up the outrage like the wordsmith you are!
One of the 30 or so disturbing observations I have made over the past decade (approx), is the continually growing number of young people (under 30) who seem to be in the midst of various levels of disassociation. Most of the time, even when discussing this with other clinicians, the response is silence or a polite “yes, I’ve seen that”. In the psychology realm disassociation is considered a defense mechanism. For past 25 years or so, I’ve worked with many people who disassociate to varying degrees. However, since let’s say 2018, there’s something amiss with the type of disconnecting I’m witnessing in young people. It almost seems learned & then internalized over time. One hypothesis: the earlier in development children begin engaging with the “phone” (funny how calling each other is the last thing we do with phones now), or/& IPad, the more likely they are to lack the ability to empathize, feel, function in the material world. It’s quite disconcerting.
So so true. It's like my daughter became a "sociopath lite", her father gave her a phone in her early teens which I protested against (we shared custody). By the time she reached her 20's she was a different person, she became distant, dramatic, and lacking empathy.
I feel your pain. My tongue slipped one too many times for my then 21 year old son, 3 years later he still won't respond to any attempts of communication no what tack I try. I will continue to bombard the evil mind virus that has stolen my son with words of love, the only "weapon" I have left. May God bless your family.
I am a changed person. I find I don’t have empathy anymore & that isn’t normal. But if I empathize that means I have feelings. And if I let my true feelings show, I would barely function.
Anon, can you say more?
Haha yes I could waffle on for hours. If I react normally to people’s distress or sadness in normal conversation I would lose my mind or go into a rage. My son called me & told me he hated me. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Even now, if I let myself think of those words, I walk around in a daze. I’d never before realized the importance of mental health to functioning. I have health (physical), wealth, but am missing happiness. It is so debilitating. My husband, as kindly as he can, says to ‘toughen up’. This works to some extent. But when people share anything about how they feel about their loved ones absence (they’re on vacation, or they live far away..) the comparison is minuscule. Losing someone because they’ve chosen to dissociate is beyond cruel.
I’ve read your other comments & you are right. This generation does this. Not just for trans issues, they cut people off, they seem to be the most selfish & intolerant group of young people..& they think they are the kind ones. My husband doesn’t take it as seriously as I do. He says we, they, are caught up in cultural moment & need to grow up. When will/does this happen? Many parents on this site have kids approaching their 30’s. It’s too late.
Anon I agree. These 20-30+ year old adult children of ours think it’s perfectly normal to just cut off parents
I’d also add that the empathy thing is weird..my kids kind of have hyper empathy. They were always very kind, humble & sensitive. My middle son has cut me off, his empathy for his friends feelings take priority. He is so ‘hurt’ for them that I won’t embrace the language (calling his female friend a ‘they’). It’s the same story over & over. How did this happen & it goes back to what they were taught in school, DEI & affirming counselors
We do this too. I have also found myself halting over a pronoun when I didn’t need to because one of my kids is still going by her correct name and pronouns and one daughter says she is a boy and has a new male name and one daughter is nonbinary and goes by they/them and chose a neutral name. When we are together I sometimes use their correct names and pronouns but I usually do the gymnastics to keep the peace. Meanwhile they don’t try not to offend me so we might call the sane person she and he when talking together about the same person. What a horrible mess.
Yes, my goodness what a mess. Hang in there Heartbrokenmom.
Yes
Yes. My family just doesn't refer to my son at all. It's so sad. I don't talk about him because I can't use the pronouns that he prefers, and I don't want to talk to the other kids in a way that they think is disrespectful towards him. So he is gone for all intents and purposes. No contact, no conversation. Just deep sadness.
Heartbreaking. May God bless your family this holiday season.
Such a cruel kind of grief
I do the same! I just can’t use the “preferred” name & pronouns
Thanks for sharing
Me either. At her birth, I gave my now AGE 24 DAUGHTER the name I wanted her to have FOREVER. And all her pictures and all my memories of HER only match that name I gave her… my only DAUGHTER. This is all so hard… God, please help us all… 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
I hear you loud and clear. I find people not going through this can't understand why I can't just use the new name !! My only daughter, also now 21 - robbed of the mother-daughter relationship we thought we would have when holding our precious newborns in my arms.
My life for the last six years, too. It is exhausting and I have hated myself for doing it the entire time, worried that my slip up would cause her to run away, to medicalize, scream transphobe at us, threaten to kill herself, etc.
It didn't matter. She has been medicalizing for the last four months behind our backs while at college (she is 19). So now I am done pretending.
You're not alone.
Spot on. The hardest I have found, is when you are talking to your child, who pretends to be someone completely else, and some innocent by stander interjects and joins the conversation, you try to relate to experiences about your child, who now pretends to be the wrong gender and uses a different name than what you gave them, and tell similar relatable stories about what you had observed your child do who is now living a lie. It is quite the tongue twister. It is deception, I hate it.
It was just TWO days ago, after avoidance and silence, that my husband broke....He had spoke with our daughter about Thanksgiving and she had told him that no, she would not be attending since she KNEW that people were not EVOLVED enough to use her correct pronouns and new name; her MALE name she legally just acquired after mutilating herself into a facsimile of male-ness. Gone are her breasts, her ability to carry a child, her beautiful voice, her smooth skin and replaced is a person who is a perpetual victim of her own creation---who demands we all play a twisted game of silence or lies, where truth cannot be spoken, deadnames are verboten and if you break a rule OUT YOU GO! (No more speaking to you and your intolerance wont be tolerated)
No room for mistakes in this world, no giving of grace, no trying to understand that 30 years of usage cant be stopped overnight, no efforts to speak and explain, and all this with an air of arrogance, an air of superiority and smugness for all of us that are so beneath and behind the times that rule in transland.
I refuse to lie....I was raised lying. Lying about the bruises on my moms face...Lying about that fact my dad was a drunk and beat my mom thats why I couldnt have friends in the house or for sleepovers...Lying about the bruises I had on my body---the times I had been head slammed, slaped...Lying with silence was an artform in my home growing up. Names you were called, things you saw, things you heard, what you watched happen....silence. Dont speak out. Dont tell anyone the state will take you away. Dont tell no one will understand. NO. I wont be silent on this. I wont lie. I wont pretend, use fake names or act like I birthed a son; I didnt have a son--ever.
I thought once upon a time there was nothing I would not do for my child. I sat on Thanksgiving getting parenting advice from a drunk, multiple baby daddy mid life relative who told me I needed to just 'listen', to just be their 'FRIEND' and not be so judgemental as a parent. God can help us to do his will---the in the flesh me wanted to clock her one.
I have no more 'pride' anymore---my child has enough for this whole family. I am exhausted. I would gladly have my child sit with me anywhere, anytime, regardless of what anyone thought but the truth is she sits on a pedastal I am not willing to eat off of or grovel in front of. My 'God' has been rejected, my beliefs declared worthless, my actual being and who I am cast away and echoes of my childhood come back...."I hate you", "I want nothing to do with you" and the feelings of once again not fitting in with my family come back to me---usually at night, in dreams.
I have a faith, a relationship with Christ that I did not have prior to being cursed for voting for Trump, prior to being told everything I stood for was wrong. You see- I have had a pruning of sorts. What do I believe? What do I KNOW is true? Who am I and what are my core, rock bottom beliefs--the HILLS that I will stand and defend? I have wept alone in my car, homeless and sleeping there in storm--and I had a long talk with Jesus. I started working out own crap; childhood traumas that enabled me to raise a child who cannot handle reality, traumas that enabled me to choose poorly a marriage partner, behaviors of ignoring problems, of ignoring things that are wrong and have to be dealt with, and seeking counseling to be a better me.
Ive lost my mother, my brother, almost lost my marriage, had both my children stop speaking to me---and if it was not for my faith I would not be able to stay and pray, and fight on my knees for my family to survive.
This has been a trial unlike any other I have ever had. I have found solace here--reading others' words and emotions on the screen that no one else in my life care to hear. I go to church and smile--and weep, and realize how good God really is...and how one day if and when my child awakes from this--she will need faith to survive. I pray for that. That she find faith in Christ; thats the greatest of all things I can wish for her at this point, other than if she wakes up, she helps others who are still living in transworld get out.
My lost GIRL is 24. And this is close to my life… from your beginnings to your final paragraph… I too pray God will SAVE her soul and protect her body from testosterone and other medical things and please to USE her to save others someday if she comes out of this… please God. And somehow let my extended family see she needs our LOVE above all else, not their condemning attitudes. And please God don’t let me physically break into pieces from this heart-ripping pain inside of me… I feel so alone but I know You are here… give me YOUR will and YOUR way to go in this life I am left with… if it’s without my DAUGHTER, without my only baby GIRL. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
For you Susan--you are in my prayers---as is Emily here and others who have told me they are broken-literally broken from their childrens' choices. I daily read Intercessors Of America and devotionals and I feel a heaviness on my heart at times that is crushing...I am trying to lay my will down-in every area of my life, and just say tell me what to do, give me strength to do it, and call me home at some point because down here is not where I belong...when my work is done I know where I am going...I have made peace with the fact that I may not get my daughter back--God will have her even I cannot hold her or help her in my lifetime.
I repeat the variations IT IS WHAT IT IS and I cannot change it. Just give me strength and faith to get through this. Ill pray for you Susan...much love your way
What you said, I also do and feel: " I daily read Intercessors Of America [and other sources] and devotionals and I feel a heaviness on my heart at times that is CRUSHING am trying to lay my will down-in every area of my life, and just say tell me what to do, GIVE ME STRENGTH to do it, and CALL ME HOME at some point because down here is not where I belong...when my work is done I KNOW WHERE I AM GOING...I have made peace with the fact that I may not get my daughter back--God will have her even I cannot hold her or help her in my lifetime. ...Just GIVE ME STRENGTH and FAITH to get through this. Ill [also] pray for you [Tdiaphenous]...much love your way"
I have an earnest question for all the parents out there who are Christian and struggling with this; do we pretend? Is that really love to use the pronouns and the fake name and pretend all is well? I do not think that is love...its a lie, to me anyway, and I refuse to lie.
But as this past Thanksgiving proved to me--with everyone around me either drunk or high, that I am living with people who think I am a hypocrite, a fake Christian and all who blatantly think I am now a joke, a bad parent and a bad person.
I am married to man who drove our daughter to be butchered, who tries in earnest to say all the right things, and has a silent judgment against me for not joining him....this has, like Trump, just exposed the rift in our marriage, not caused it.
I have been told about _______________insert topic here, that I am an ideologue, cannot discern fact from fiction, believe whatever the orange man tells me, am wrong on all things and silently, told I should join in the rest of the family---do as they do, believe as they believe....and I am sit here realizing today that it is not ever going to happen.
I think in most ways my faith has strengthened in the last four years--however I have a silent manifest in my spirit of how much longer do I live this way? Not respected, though at its core I just want to be heard and valued, not listened to, as if I nothing I say is intelligent or thought out or researched enough to listen to what I think, and at the core--to not be loved....my pain and needs ignored? At what point do I either tire and give up trying to fit in a square hole OR at what point am a helpless victim of staying where I dont think I can say or do anything?
I spoke with a neighbor down the street--he knows about my daughter, my husband and with him being elderly he walks a lot-and yesterday he stopped to ask me how I was, how I felt with the election over....I updated him, and he said this " I just come home and sit down and be silent...with two girls and my wife I have learned to say nothing"....I FELT that in my bones...I have learned too--to say nothing, to have no needs, thoughts beyond vapid musings, to avoid conflict with man who hated Trump, with daughters who do not believe, with an extended family who cannot gather without getting drunk or high...I am alone at the utmost, rejected in every way I feel and on my worst days I lose hope that will change. On days where I have been to church, prayed or seem calmer and more focused I think if I keep praying I will have an answer...but overall I am lonely and in pain if I allow myself to focus on what I see.
I have learned this one thing---when in church, while reading a Bonhoeffer book or the bible, or listening to praise songs I have a reprieve of sorts...but it doesnt seem to last and that is what bothers me. I cant be alone much longer--and the voices I hear on this forum are no longer enough--I think I will join a church group on my own--I need to be around others who think like I do, or at least are open to discussions...to seek others who are not closed minded and yell others into silence. I am tired of being alone.
So--everyone reading this--AM I WRONG to not pretend? I dont think I am.
God help us parents here...we need help and answers and a movement of God that hasnt yet happend yet....I pray now for revival. Please Lord....I cant change anything but I know the holy spirit can.
WE are NOT wrong to NOT support and NOT use the pronouns. To do that would be to deny GOD'S CREATION. We cannot do that!
Some encouragement...
I am also surrounded by persons who say I am crazy or are angry about my politics ("Trump-loving B*") and/ or condemn and turn their backs on my child... "it's HER fault we don't show her love" (coming from "Christians"). I have been praying 4 years since my age 24 DAUGHTER said she is trans and I have not seen much change in her (still injecting testosterone and planning for other changes), but I have seen change in my angry husband... and I believe he is changing "for GOOD/ for GOD".
So DO NOT GIVE UP!
This song was given to me this morning (by God) as I was contemplating this reply: (The Words I Would Say, By Sidewalk Prophets)
"Be strong in the Lord and never give up hope
You're gonna do great things I already know
God's got His hand on you, so don't live life in fear
Forgive and forget but don't forget why you're here
Take your time and pray
Thank God for each day
His love will find a way
These are the words I would say (the words I would say)"
ALSO, this BIBLE VERSE has been HOLDING ME UP this past couple weeks:
When I said, "My foot is slipping", your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, Your consolation brought JOY to my soul." Psalm 94:18-19
GOD IS WITH US... WE ARE A PART OF HIS STORY... HE IS MAKING US STRONGER AND BRINGING US CLOSER TO HIMSELF... AND HE WILL GET US THROUGH THIS. ❤️🙏🙏🙏LOVE,,
P.S. I also feel stronger while reading my Bible and in devotions and prayer "with God"... those are critically necessary!! But I encourage you to find a good Bible-believing church. I have a lot of people in my church praying for me/ us... even resulted in starting a weekly "Prodigal Prayer Group" for all our children/ grandchilren/ relative prodigals. Although I know they cannot fully comprehend my specific situation and the pain I feel (ours is a whole different universe than having a child who just no longer goes to church), I think my "fellowship" there is key... they are my "support network" when I absolutely cannot pick myself up and go on (times when I feel worthless in this world!)... I cry out for prayers, they pray, and I am stronger!!
"Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who HOPE in the Lord." Psalms 31:24
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5:4
You have no idea how badly I needed to hear this; I feel alone in a dark room with no one listening to me--my entire family does not agree with me. Thank you for this answer... I am starting to see that I need to find a place in our church-and disregard what happens when my husband clashes with others...It has not been good for me to be alone in this. Thank you Susan and prayers your way and prayers for me that I find where I need to be.
We must HOLD EACH OTHER UP!
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 NKJV
[9] Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. [10] For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up. [11] Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone? [12] Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken. 🙏🙏🙏❤️
Perpetual victim of her own creation- wow that’s awesome
I'm crying while I read this. First you are told to lie for your parents. Now you expected to lie for your kid. But I don't think the others would encourage lying about where the bruises came from. But they sure do want lots of lies about what fuckin "gender" your kid is. When do we get to be ourselves? When do we get to make decisions? When do we as parents get some autonomy? When can we have our own souls?
Thank you for taking the time to share all of this. I am so sorry for all that you have lived through, and now this. It is absolutely surreal. I honestly can't believe the things that have happened in our lives over the past few years. When one of my daughters got pregnant I thought it was a struggle. I knew nothing.
Wow. We just had our daughter miss Thanksgiving for this same reason and because we refuse to continue to pay for college if she is medicalizing. I have had a similar journey as you. I have nothing left but faith, my husband and son, and this community of people. All I pray now is that God wakes her up from the slumber she is in. I'm praying for you.
Much love your way fellow sister....What a strange time we were born to live in. I will add you to my morning prayers; I wake in the early morning hours now and go through my thoughts, and pray. This has shook my family and marriage to its core. Prayers Emily-feel free to reach out if you ever need an ear or a prayer warrior 'siren prayer'. I thank God every day for this forum.
Yes, I relate very much. I have referred to it as linguistic contortions. I won’t say the name that feels like a punch to the stomach every time I hear it. I won’t call her “he”. I won’t support her rejection of her self. But I also know it’s counterproductive to antagonize her, or embarrass her in front of her friends. So I construct tortured sentences to avoid having to say the forbidden words. I’ve gotten so used to it that lately I find myself stumbling when I use pronouns to refer to anyone, then realizing in relief that it wasn’t about her so it was ok.
The right pronoun is "you". That is the only one they did not steal. Isn't this like a psychosis? A derealisation commissioned by the woke frenzy. It is sad to hear your story and how far it got. "I" and "You" seems to be the level to address this. Am I right?
This is like an initiation into personal contact 101, very mystical. You meet me and I meet you, as if for the first time over and over again. Who do you want to be? That is an open question, an invitation to play. Shall we define the game together? What if... ❤❤❤