SD13 struggling.......
I don't know if SD13 is acting out or not. One thing I know for sure is that she is extremely naive and juvenile. But DH and the school guidance counselor think she is very mature.
DH just got home very late at 8:30pm. He isn't here 10 minutes and it's almost SD13's bedtime at 9:00pm. SD13 started identifying as a boy this school year in 8th grade, for those of you who don't already know. So, SD13 approaches DH and tries very laboriously to ask a question. She is making hand and body gestures and taking for fucking ever to pose this question.
Which means she wants something. DH just got home FFS. So DH and I coax her a little, waiting for her to get the words out. She is grinning from ear to ear, talking in a high-pitched voice and using a primitive sort of sign language to have DH guess what it is that she wants. One of DH's best friends' husbands died today, SD13 knows this and DH is stressed out after a long day. Yet she continues.....at bedtime, no less.
SD13 continues the arm waving and hand gestures, saying "wellllllll.........uhhhhhhh.........ummmm......" I tell SD13 that if she wants something so badly, she'll have to own it and just ask for it.
She finally says she wants a binder. I'm picturing 3-ring, but no, that's not it, then she points to her ribs and chest. Awkward for DH but he's very patient with her. I ask if she wants surgery to straighten out her crooked torso, because it's a little twisted. No, that's not it, either. SD13 wants a binder, an ace bandage type thing that flattens her chest out. So, I just treat her matter of factly and tell her that you can't see her chest. She's very petite and a late bloomer. I ask if she wears a camisole or a bra nowadays? She said she wears a bra but it's no more than a cami with an elastic band around the bottom. Fits comfortably like your underwear would, no support at all. No hooks. I tell her she's really not developed enough to need to cover herself, which is true. I was very gentle with her.
Thing is, whether she was an SD or an SS, and no matter if she was straight or LGBTQ, she isn't responsible enough with her hygiene or clothing. DH just took her clothes shopping yesterday and no mention of any binder was made. She is starting to use her identity more and more to pull at DH's Disney heartstrings, and it's working.
She just came into my bedroom after going to bed for five minutes, crying to DH that she's having nightmares. She'd been in bed for five minutes, and I made light of it saying she hadn't been asleep long enough to have nightmares. DH took her downstairs to talk. This skid really hates herself and her developing female body. I still firmly believe that it's all connected to her BM dying of breast cancer. BM was gone for over a year and a half and SD13 was a girly girl still. My Little Pony, t-shirts from Justice with sparkles on them, purple glasses, dolls, Littlest a Pet Shop.....Easy Bake oven.....long hair. All until last summer when her breasts started developing. She was a girl one day and the next day said she wanted to be a boy. She never grieved her mothers passing, almost like a sociopath, devoid of any emotion. Now she'll cry to DH to get her way because she is confused and scared. SD13 went to therapy a few times in the fall, maybe four times, and the therapist said she is still very much a girl. SD13 doesn't know this has been said. SD13 just went back to therapy two weeks ago. She clearly needs a lot of help sorting things out, no matter what path she is on.
~ Moon
To Mr. Moon, Dear sir, your
To Mr. Moon,
Dear sir, your youngest daughter is not only going through puberty and the emotional crisis of losing her mother but she is also going through something else just as traumatic that may or may not have been triggered by the first two events. Please get this child some therapy right away and be prepared to force attendance and for it to last a long, long time. Just because one therapist said she still is a girl at heart in no way means everything is fine. If everything was fine she'd be identifying as a girl big-time or really full-blown into being a boy. She needs help now so at the other "end" whether she emerges as your daughter or as your son, you have helped raise a healthy, well-adjusted young woman or young man. Your current stance and previous flash-in-the-pan therapy suggests to me you want a quick fix. That is not unusual but in this case it is unreasonable. This is going to get harder and more confusing the older she gets without the professional and parental guidance that can give her tools to cope and protect herself.
Plus, even if, males can get
Plus, even if, males can get breast cancer as well.
Just to make it clear. DH is
Just to make it clear. DH is NOT against her identifying as a boy or getting any help whatsoever. He may need a nudge more from me, stating that she needs regular therapy, as in at least every two weeks if not more. DH has been very supportive of her. He has even taken her to buy boy basketball shoes, boy underwear, takes her to get boy haircuts....just like any parent would. He knows that ultimately this is her decision, but the skid is so juvenile and is overly sensitive to being told no or being parented, it's ridiculous. Remember in my other post, how I had a problem with her blowing her nose at the table, and then she thought I HATED her?
She is milking this at the same time, too, just like SD19, because it WORKS. These skids needed boundaries a long time ago, and now my life is hell because they are enabled and entitled. }:)
~ Moon
go to the website called
go to the website called transgender reality. Teens are pressured to be "trans" if they don't fit in with stereotypes about what it means to be a boy or a girl and its really dangerous. You aren't the only one who is dealing with this. theres a blog called 4thwavenow ran by the mom of a teen girl that now identifies as a boy as well and she isn't getting her daughter medical transition or anything.
those binders cause breathing problems and sometimes fracture ribs. they aren't a joke and a growing body shouldn't be subjected to it.
the real unfortunate thing is if you take a kid to therapy for this the therapist is going to tell you to put your kid on hormones. its madness.
Bible, I checked out the
Bible, I checked out the websites you suggested. What an eye-opener. SD13 is on the internet 20 hours a day. DH has set no boundaries. This was even last year at age 12. He has no idea what he's doing, but who am I to tell him?
This poor skid. A pain in the ass, but so very LOST.
~ Moon
I agree your sd's trouble is
I agree your sd's trouble is her terror of death and its association with breasts.
She did not go from being a sparkly pink girl to iding as a boy via a pre-existing transgender identification. Her terror sparked the idea of not being a death prone breast-person by simply changing herself into a non-death prone person because no breasts.
She is continuing the behavior because it is working for her. It soothes her terrors, she gets special attention when she wants it, she can feel like all her emotions and various failures are not her fault because she's so special and it's on everyone else to acommodate her. Great plan. It's working.
What she really needs is the normal support every girl needs to get through puberty PLUS the grief and fear support people seek out for cancer and death issues.
She is not really solving her problem by becoming a boy. She will still die at some time. It may or may not be from breast cancer whether or not she becomes a "boy." She needs help understanding and accepting these concepts. She needs to learn how to survive life's challenges via self-nurturing not via self-hatred.
If she were truly transgender you would never have seen the sparkly pink childhood. She would have been a tomboy from the first. Think Shiloh Pitt. The girl, yes, girl in your house needs to learn coping skills not underwear designed for equipment she doesn't have nor to suppress those bits of her body that will grow no matter what.
DH made another appointment
DH made another appointment with SD's therapist for next week, and this time, I am attending for the first time. It was suggested last time that we all go together. I am probably going to print this thread and end up telling DH and therapist what I REALLY think is going down. Someone needs to fight for this poor skid! SD13 is too young to know how to grieve her BM, and to know that it's natural and perfectly fine to do this.
SD13 also needs to know that by escaping reality, she is not growing as a person.
Chief, you and I think a lot so much of the time it's scary.Are you a Scorpio, too, lol?
"She is continuing the behavior because it is working for her. It soothes her terrors, she gets special attention when she wants it, she can feel like all her emotions and various failures are not her fault because she's so special and it's on everyone else to acommodate her. Great plan. It's working."
EXACTLY.
~ Moon
Yes yes and YES to
Yes yes and YES to Chief!!!
Have you been watching the NBC national news this week? They are doing a series on transgendered children and they ALL had the feeling of being the wrong gender and verbalizing it at VERY VERY young ages. As one of the parents said, "It was much much more than just dress-up and playing with dolls."
I totally agree that your SD13 is using this for attention and that it's stemming from the grief (or lack thereof) of losing her BM. I mean really.....how can this be obvious to everyone BUT your DH and the therapist?
But yes, I think the boy/girl elephant in the room needs to be discussed frankly with SD. That her feelings and emotions are NOT because she is transgendered....it sounds more like she is scared or dislikes the changes her body is starting to go through.
OK, this is creepy....but, I can't help but think of Hannibal Lecter talking about Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs.....
"Billy hates his own identity, you see....and thinks that makes him a transsexual. But his pathology is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying......"
Sorry....I'm really not suggesting your SD is going to become a serial killer that creates a costume out of human skin....really.
Here's the link for the news
Here's the link for the news stories on NBC.
Malisa and Jacob are the 2 kids they've profiled so far this week. Amazing kids....amazing families.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/transgender-kids
Thanks for the link! These
Thanks for the link! These kids were so young when they decided! I just don't know what to believe about SD13. I knw what my gut tells me, but the fact that BM died.....and you know the rest of the story. I just don't know......