Is it okay?

A few days ago, I tweeted this question: 

“What % of your life is spent worrying? Enjoying?” 

I directed it specifically to parents of trans-IDed kids. 

The most common answer I got was 99% of the time is spent worrying. Some said they were in a constant state of worry, others said while they might get temporarily distracted or find enjoyment here or there, anxiety, anger, or obsession with the topic is pretty much continuous.  

I think sometimes people are mortified when I say my life is actually better now than it was before my daughter asserted a transID. Like maybe that’s not okay. 

Or it’s implied that I’m engaged in toxic positivity or maybe I’m being disingenuous. Maybe I’m just shoving down all the fear and anger and pretending that life is okay, fake-it-til-you-make-it style? 

That question keeps nagging at me. Is it okay? I truly sense some disgust or…the perfect word is escaping me…I don’t know–unacceptable? Like it’s just not okay. (Am I projecting?)

Is it okay? How do you feel when you hear me say that I’ve used this circumstance as inspiration to become a better human and enrich my life? Is it okay when something so tragic and monstrous is being perpetrated in the world, and our children’s bodies (and futures?) are sacrifices in a powerful and twisted new religion, for me to just go about my life, experiencing joy, awe and wonder, even gratitude? 

One mom responded with this comment: 

After getting ill last year due to the stress and worrying 100% of the time, I’ve had to change my mindset. I now try to live in the moment, and trust that everything will return to normal in the future. It’s the only way to survive this.

^^^This. I was making myself sick for awhile too. My actions were driven by fear, pushing my daughter further away from me. I spent most my time online, learning about how captured our institutions are and the horrors being taught and performed by our current bank of “experts”. It’s indeed a depressing and terrifying reality, and I descended into a deep sense of helplessness. This was 2019-2020, and there were some sane voices by that point, thank goodness, because the loneliness was as painful as the gaslighting and the impotence. 

I certainly remember the desperation when I reached out to a friend–a parent coach–and she arranged for me to have a conversation with another mom whose daughter’s voice was quickly changing, her top surgery scheduled. I remember the knots in my stomach and the nausea as she assured me that it was a slow process, and that we’d all be eased into the protocol, we’d adjust. 

I got off that call quickly and texted a response to my coach friend when she asked how it went, something like “we’re in different places.” And I kept searching for someone I could talk to who wouldn’t make me feel like I was living in The Stepford Wives, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Upside Down. You know what I’m talking about. 

Several months later, I called one mom whose two children had both spent their second grade year in my classroom, to see if my daughter could stay with them (our girls had grown up together and had been best friends for years) while we investigated the out-of-state move that we were considering (and eventually made.) When I got off the phone, I fell to my knees, my chest tight, struggling to breath, a bit hysterical. She’d informed me that her daughter had a new name, was now her son; they had an appointment with their family doctor to discuss the “next steps” toward medicalization. She hoped our kids could remain friends…

Fear, anger, desperation, research, rage, panic attacks, sleepless nights, foundational crises, you know the lifestyle. We did all the things. Pulled our kid out of school, wilderness therapy, adventures, moved to a red state, focused on relationship, and I was still operating out of fear, desperate to find a way to get my kid to desist. Raging against the heartless machine that had my daughter in its relentless grip.  

And some things started to come clear for me. First, was that I was engaged in similar behavior as she was. Obsessed with the state of the world and on finding expert help, focused and intent on freeing her from the cult. My fear was making everything worse. I’ve said it before: the fear is important, it’s what snaps us out of autopilot and into action to protect our children from this madness. Yet, that same fear, if left to fester and grow, can eat away at our connection, turn us into control freaks, consume our lives and, yes, make us sick. 

How effective are we if we’re sick and unhealthy? How attractive do we make womanhood look if we’re in a constant state of desperation? Spewing hate and rage—even if we’re careful not to do it in our children’s vicinity? I still feel all the things. Yes, especially when I visit the Twitterverse. I still recognize the grooming and the totalitarian tactics, and I worry about humanity. 

But I decided that the best way for me to change the world was to do what the Stoics did and change my inner world. I’m so grateful for the parents whose children have desisted who have shifted their energy to effect change in our institutions and rid the world of this toxic ideology. For me though, focusing my attention on the culture wars made me my daughter’s enemy. I came to represent TERF to her, and sometimes I’d catch myself doing the same thing, projecting my thoughts about TRAs onto her and seeing her as the problem rather than a victim of the problem. 

I knew I had to get a grip. I had to pull it together and figure out how to communicate with her in a way that didn’t cause her to dig in and push me away. I went to work. Learning and trying things out, paying attention to the baggage I was bringing into our conversations and working to let it all go. Working hard to see my kid and what she was accomplishing with the identity; what purpose it was serving in her life rather than focusing on a ravaged future that I had to rescue her from. 

So much more came out of this for me. This isn’t just about finding the silver lining or making lemonade. It’s about resilience. Discovering for myself that indeed, “the obstacle is the way.” The bottom line is that I can’t change my daughter. I can’t control her. I had to find a way to trust her. I can have faith in her and in the foundations we gave her, knowing I did the best I could. By constantly trying to fix her, what does that communicate to her? 

It’s still touch-and-go over here. I still don’t know how this all turns out for my daughter, who’s now 18 and has been at this for years now. Several of her best friends are now well on their way down the medicalized pathway. She moves in and out of surliness (usually based on how much time she’s spent “with” said friends who live in a neighboring state,) spending a good part of her life at a job where she uses a male name and the people she works with pretend she’s a boy. 

So is it okay? Is it okay for me to find satisfaction while making something in the kitchen, sipping a g & t and singing along and dancing to my favorite songs streaming from my phone? (Which btw, is what I was doing when I decided to tweet that question. I might have had a little buzz.) Is it okay for me to feel joy more often than worry? I would say when this ratio flipped, things really started changing for the better in my home. 

Is it okay for me to feel gratitude for this circumstance that inspired so much growth? So much letting go. I sometimes think I offend when I say this: that I’m grateful for this journey with my daughter. Or people think I’m lying, putting on a happy face, masking my real emotions like my daughter is masking her womanhood. (I do still feel fear, anger, disgust; they just don’t consume me and I try not to take action when in a funky state. And sometimes I fail at this. And then I forgive myself; I am human.)

How does it make you feel? I’m serious here. I really get the sense others think it’s not okay. Sometimes I even do it to myself, “How dare you?” (Maybe that’s why I felt compelled to write this one. To make sure I’m not projecting all this.) Yet, faith saved my health. My sanity. Letting go saved my relationship with my kid–I hope. We’ve yet to see, I suppose. In the meantime, should I be depressed, lonely, angry? Should I commit to suffering until this madness stops? 

For me, being truly alive is the best way to give the finger to a movement that preys on fear, insecurity, self-flagellation. Being grounded and allowing awe and wonder, creating fun experiences, taking delight in the little things; I think this is the best way to demonstrate that they don’t get me, or my family. I think this is rooted in resilience. I think this is the true nature of the human spirit. We’re wired for this–for overcoming and healing and continuing on. Fortitude is what got the human race this far. Maybe our time is coming to an end; maybe humanity is unsustainable, but you know what? I’ll take what Life I can get, appreciating every precious moment of it! Loving and living as deeply as I can. 

So, what do you think? Is it okay? 

Was that a yes? Really? Are you sure? 

If it’s okay for me, then might it be okay for you? 

What do you need to start living again? Were you living before? I thought I was. My kid helped me realize I still had much work to do to truly live. Life is so rich and delicious. That’s what I got from all this. And guess what that means? That none of this was a waste because it helped me discover and develop for myself a different way of being in the world. A way that’s so much better than the way I was doing it before. I thought I had my shit together, and maybe I would have gotten there eventually, but this circumstance sped me along while also teaching me to slow down and be in the moment. I got crystal clear on what I want out of my one, precious Life.

But what about her life, you say? That’s a good question. It’s not one I can answer. It’s her life. I imagine she’s still got some pain ahead of her in these early adult years. This might sound pretty shitty, but that is some necessary pain if she’s going to come out the other side with the wisdom and inner resources to live a full life in this maddening and magical world we get to play in. In the absence of rites of passage which past humans understood were crucial to creating resilient adult members of our species, it seems our teens will create their own.

The obstacle truly is the way. Now I’ve got the whole rest of my life to engage in a deeper, richer experience. And I know there’s still so much learning and growing to do. Humans are complex, amazing creatures with incredible capacity. Will there be enough learning and growing to save our species? Who knows? If not, Life will replace us with something else that’s even more wondrous and awe-inspiring. I am stardust. I am just a single drop of water in the vast ocean. 

Photo by Romain Gal on Unsplash

So is it okay for me to recognize the gift my daughter gave me? The inspiration and invitation to become a more resilient, solid, joyful version of me? Might this version of me be the greatest gift I can give her? Is it risky? (Even writing this felt risky.) Is it okay?

I guess we’ll see.