Today marks the beginning of Transgender Awareness Week, feeling reflective today, I thought I would share a part of my journey with you and how I am feeling at this current time.
This reflection spans four decades since my transition and almost two decades before it.
Periodically, I will cocoon, meaning I will stop being social, I will stay home, I will reserve my energy and strength, and be completely still — mentally, physically and spiritually.
It’s almost like taking stock of my journey, regrouping, sometimes even changing directions.
Usually, after these periods, I will relocate with a burst of new energy, new ideas and a new view of life and the world.
Transitions and transformations are part and parcel of my transgender journey, as if I have lived so many lives, so many eras and tried so many different pathways. They have not always been successful, but even the failures were lessons to make me stronger. Rather than creating limitations, they made me more liberated by understanding my limitations and also opening more opportunities to try ever more pathways.
I see life as a series of chapters of hurdles that we must experience to become wise, and I really enjoy this outlook: surviving each chapter and learning something from it. It is after each chapter that I “cocoon”.
I suppose that is why I have always likened the experience of metamorphosis of a transgender woman to the experience of a butterfly.
Over the last couple of years, I have begun my “cocoon” phase. Unfortunately, and probably fortunately, my babies, my two beloved Pomeranians, Penelope and Franklyn, don’t give a shit about my “cocooning” and force me outdoors whether I want to or not.
Since I can’t lock myself away as I have done so many times over so many decades, I have noticed an increase in migraines. So concerning was this that I was in hospital for five days because the doctors kept trying to find where the migraines and the heart palpitations were coming from. Being such a brave and confident person, anxiety was the very last thing I would have ever considered. In the end, after medication, the heart palpitations have stopped, but the migraines have increased.
So, with that in mind, my energy has been lower than usual. But the targeted transphobic attack in Redfern Park, which included the physical abuse of Franklyn and verbal assault at knifepoint towards me, has left me with PTSD and social anxieties, which affect mainly my unwillingness to go to events in the evenings and also environments where people run or walk past me fast. I know it will pass.
Usually, I would have been able to face this and put it behind me, but because of my low energy, I don’t seem to have the strength.
Thankfully, this time I am supported by engaging in therapy with a trauma specialist.
I am finding out new things about myself that I never realised. Since I was ten years old, I have suffered from the most excruciating migraines that nobody has ever been able to explain or cure.
All my stress of being born with gender dysphoria, and all of the abuse, both physical and verbal, abandonment, violation, shocks and trauma, have been blocked out, like a wall holding back a reservoir of anguish. When something seeps into my consciousness, a migraine begins.
In therapy, when I discuss anything that is emotionally painful, a sudden migraine comes on. The therapist offers to stop, but I say no, I must talk about it, and as soon as I do, the migraine disappears.
I am headed into new territory where I am verbalising things locked away for decades, and each time I feel better. I have had six sessions, and I have sixteen further sessions to go.
I have a feeling this new chapter will be transformative in a very different way. Maybe “cocooning” will no longer be required. Who knows? I certainly don’t.
But today, for the very first time since the attack, I am starting to feel more alive.
Albion Centre Diversity and Inclusion Diversity Speaker Diversity Speaker Sydney Gender Diversity Training Inspirational Trans People Australia Katherine Wolfgramme Katherine Wolfgramme FRSA Katherine Wolfgramme Gender Diversity Consultand and Trans Awareness Trainer Sydney Katherine Wolfgramme Gender Diversity Consultant Norrie Qtopia Sydney Queer Screen Rainbow Families Star Observer Sydney Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Sydney Transgender TDoR TDoR Candlight Vigil The Gender Centre The Gender Whisperer trans advocate Australia Trans Advocate NSW Trans Advocate Sydney Trans Awareness Training Trans Awareness Training Sydney Trans Children Trans Employment Trans Equality Transgender Advocate Katherine Wolfgramme Transgender Australia Transgender Day of Rememberence Transgender in Australia Transgender In Sydney Transgender Story Transgender Sydney Trans History Trans Inclusion Trans Role Model trans story Trans Visibilty Wear It Purple Wear It Purple Ambassadors Wear It Purple Day
