Overcomplication and Overanalyzation

I have a serious tendency to overanalyze almost everything almost all the time. I have always done this - read too much into something, or worried incessantly about how some minor happening will take place. I am almost never prepared for things to go well, because I've come to expect something of the worst out of people.

When I first came out to someone at school, I came out to my voice teacher. My voice teacher is male, and has always been very laid back and very accepting of pretty much everything that I've seen thrown at him. I felt like it was a safe space, in the practice room where no one else could see. I spent probably the first three weeks of lessons doing nothing but talking, ranting, raving, and crying. And he listened, and let me, and gave advice as best he could. Mostly just listened, which was what I desperately needed at the time.

After talking to him, the proverbial floodgates opened.

I have always known who I am, of course, and people have been calling me Tim for about five years. It's just, well. There are a lot of reasons that I didn't come totally out about it. Eventually I'll get to that in a post instead of pussyfooting around it, but yeah, that's not going to happen tonight.

Part of the reason, though, is overanalyzing.

The head of my department is a rather intimidating woman. I'm not the kind of guy who is easily intimidated, but there is just something about her. I've always known that she's totally open-minded and all, but I was just terrified to tell her about myself for reasons I couldn't even fully articulate.

It took me almost five months to tell her. After telling my voice teacher, I mean. And I spent days planning what to say, and agonizing over it, and thinking of "BUT BUT BUT" and explanations. Just this insane, neurotic, freaking out thing. It was like I was going to go sky diving or something, and everyone was telling me "NO NO IT'S TOTALLY SAFE DON'T WORRY. PEOPLE DO THIS EVERY DAY. IT'S THE RIGHT THING, YOU'LL BE HAPPY IF YOU DO." And I was like "NO WHAT IF MY PARACHUTE BREAKS AND THEN I FALL BUT I DON'T EVEN DIE FROM IT I JUST LIVE IN MISERY FOR THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS OH GOD." That level of ridiculous.

Finally, I told her.

It wasn't like I planned. I was irritated and felt hopeless that day. And I just could not take it anymore. Living a lie was just killing me, and that was way worse than the parachute breaking. It was like being caught on the wing of the plane, indefinitely, flapping along screaming, but no one could hear me over the rush of the wind.

So it just came out (no pun intended). I just told her.

And it was a great conversation, even though I was highly distraught for the majority of it. She was incredibly supportive, and remains such.

In the past two months, she's passed this info on to all the office staff (I work in the music office), and to several teachers and several people in the program. They all call me the correct name, and they're working on the correct pronoun. It's just something that happened because I told her.

I never asked or expected that she tell anyone else. I planned on doing it myself, much more slowly. But this is the best thing that could have happened. Not only do I have her support, but all the music staff have been amazingly supportive. I really feel like the whole building is a safe space.
Some people use the wrong pronoun and it makes me cringe, but most of them correct themselves, and they're dealing.

It's a process. Mostly a good one.

But it's not the end of me freaking out about telling people. I think I'd be more okay with it if I hadn't known any of them previously. But I've known them for two years, and only a handful of them really knew anything about me. I may be a performer. I may love the spotlight and the applause. But I'm a social recluse. Mostly because of gender dysphoria, but also because I just am. I like you all from a distance! But a crowd of you in person talking to me, uh, not sure if want! So you know.

At my other job, I am not out as trans to more than three people. However, most people know that I at least go by Tim, and not (stupid legal name). I asked, when I was hired, for a nametag with the right name. I didn't get one, and it's now been two months.

The other day, a girl in the office was talking to me and noticed I wasn't wearing my nametag. (This is half on purpose, and half because I lost the damn thing anyway.) She asked if I'd like one with TIM on it. Of course I said yes, she made it, and now I have it. Another lady that works there was like "Oh, and here I've been calling you the wrong thing this whole time, sorry!"

I, of course, did not expect it to be so freaking easy.

And now for the last example of this ridiculousness. Congratulations if you managed to read this far.

I am in the summer musical at school, playing a (very small) woman's role. I'm not super thrilled (that's another story, and probably not one I'll tell here anyway), but it's still a show and I was practically born to be on a stage anyway.

Thanks to the aforementioned head of the department, everyone in the cast knows me as Tim. (This started because she told the production manager, and he told the director, and the cast sort of just assimilated the knowledge that my name is Tim and that's all there is to that.) Most of them never knew me previously, or only sort of knew me, so it was easy to get that all out there. My name in the program, unfortunately, does not read "Timothy [last name]," which is really what it should read. It reads "Adrian [last name]" because my mother still can't accept the name thing and I'm trying to accomodate. I really should stop doing that, but I digress.

Of the people in the cast that do know me personally, two of them were aware that I'm really a boy previously. One of them was not. I really like this boy, and it's taken me two years to really get him to open up to me. He's socially very awkward, because he's on the Autistic spectrum. Interaction for him is not always easy, and after two years, he finally initiates conversation with me instead of me starting it.

The first day I was at rehearsal, he noticed the director calling me Tim and asked me why. I told him I was changing my name, and that was the short version. It wasn't that I was against explaining it, but a lot was going on and there were like twenty people within earshot. It just wasn't the time or place.

The other day, he sent me a message on Facebook and asked me why I was changing my name.

It took me half an hour to write a five sentence reply, because I was so busy freaking out about it. What if he thinks I'm not someone to be friends with anymore? What if he suddenly stops talking to me, fuck, it's taken TWO YEARS to get this far? WHAT IF THE WORLD EXPLODES BECAUSE OF THIS? And so on.

So I told him I was transgendered and a few more sentences.

The message I got in reply was "Oh, okay. I'll try to call you Tim, then. I might mess up sometimes because I've never known anyone that changed their names."

Maybe I should stop thinking of this as some HUGE THING I MUST OVERCOME. My mom's kind of pounded it into my head that "CHILD YOU ARE MAKING YOUR LIFE HARDER. I MEAN DAUGHTER. I MEAN SON. SHIT I CAN'T THINK OF YOU THIS WAY WHY ARE YOU MAKING YOUR LIFE HARDER. THIS IS GOING TO BE VERY HARD. HARD HARD HARD HARD." I'm sure it's not even her intention, but it's sort of a side-effect of her resistance to having a son instead of a daughter. (It's not even really a question of "instead of" since LULZ always been a dude, but you know.)

So I go into almost everything expecting UTMOST RESISTANCE.

Honestly, though. If I can't get acceptance from a bunch of slightly socially awkward music/theatre kids, where the hell am I going to get it at all?

Yeah, see. Time to try to relax and let life happen. Honestly, it's going to whether I'm wound up or not, so I might as well enjoy as much of the ride as I can, right?

Now to make myself believe it.