Thuja

It was the same with my mother more or less. It could be like dealing with Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde when it came to her sometimes. We never shared the same world view, but she was still my mother and for all the bad, there was also the good. I always tried to take the good with the bad and although she flat out refused that I was transgender and told me to "snap out of it", it was always more disappointment than anger I felt in regards to her over the issue.

Throughout the years after I told her and things returned to how they were, I kept everything about my intended transition secret from her and never brought the subject up again. I intended to bring the subject up with her again once I had my own space and was transitioning comfortably. I spent a lot of time trying to think of the best way to go about it and to make her understand so that she could still be a part of my life.

However. I never got that chance. She died of cancer back in late 2018. On one hand, it saves me the pain and fear of hurting her about it all. But on the other, I wanted her to know and understand.

I think for my mom, it's more from a place of anger.  Before I moved out of her place, she used to go on these rants about how trans people were ugly and how she was the victim and how much it hurt her to see me become ugly.  I say to that that I prefer being ugly, happy and alive over being miserable and pretty and probably mentally worse off.  When I came out, we had an argument but at that point, I had already moved out.  So instead she drove over to my nurse's office and dropped everything off that was remotely mine that she was hanging onto for me.  She even gave me back paintings I had made for her birthday a long time ago.

She's a very stubborn person and saw my need for going to a therapist as a weakness, so she got especially angry at me when I suggested she talk to my therapist at the time to help her sort out her feelings.  Well she wouldn't go, she's not crazy and how dare I her confused daughter suggest she go to therapy?  Sometimes I hope that maybe she'd realize that her reaction was wrong but I figure she doesn't care anymore because she's not one to let go of a grudge easily.

It's funny to think of that because of the values she holds priority over, dissuade that sort of behaviour.  Whenever I tried to talk to her about how our culture was accepting of two-spirit people, she would automatically say it's meant for something else and how I wasn't a leader in any regards.  She's a confusing person to talk to, to put it lightly.

The things I would give to possess some kind of miracle mallet to bop some folks on the head just to make them see some sort of sense. I would have probably broken the thing through over use by now.