Teri aka TransGrams

Teri Shares Her Recovery Journey and Transgender Transformation

How to Listen:

Guest Links:   @InstaTransGrams 

Favorite book: Depression: Causes and Treatment by Aaron Beck – https://amzn.to/3wUaLIv

Favorite Quote: “To Thine own self be true”

Morning Routine: “The Smorgasbord” approach – choose 3 things from a list so as not to be overwhelmed

What I wish I knew: The people helping me were really on my side. They were not all out to get me.

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do you have a favorite recovery book?

I’m going to I think surprise you. Okay. And I’ve been looking forward to this because I know this is a question you asked. Aaron Beck is a psychologist or psychiatrist back in the 60s. Okay, he wrote. And I pulled it up on on the phone so I can be sure and say it right. He wrote some books. He was kind of like the one to popularize cognitive therapy.

Really? Okay.

Yes. Professor Aaron Beck aaro in and he wrote some books. His first one was depression Causes And Treatment. And then he wrote a second one, cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. And what happened when I was in treatment? my counselor, she did a wonderful job, I was a challenge. And I made it I made her job very difficult for not intentionally but because I was sick. And she was using the cognitive therapy approach and some of the things outlined by back that deal with how we process things that deals with suicidal behavior. And so after we’d been doing it for a long time, she told me what her source was, you know the title, about back? Well, I went out and bought his books and devoured them and That’s kind of how I do when I’m dealing with something like a medical issue in my life is I try to find out all I can about it. And so back, he talks about how automatic thoughts come into our heads, how they affect our feelings, what we can do about it, how we can deal with those automatic thoughts before they become controlling. And, you know, we can identify our feelings, we can speak truth to those things, and change the way we think change the way we feel and change the way we live. I don’t know if he’s still alive, but he probably owes me royalties now.

Yes, of course, of course, he was dealing with automatic thoughts before they become consuming. Is that what you said? Or is that? Okay?

That was what I said. let’s establish early in this Oh, yes. Remember thing,

you and I are struggling with them. You are not alone girlfriend.

If you if I start a sentence, I won’t always know by the end of it where I was going

to save.

This will be fun. Oh, yeah. Keep maybe like the Keystone cops, if anybody is old enough to remember when

the idea is that we have automatic thoughts to come into our mind? Yes. And some of them are they come into our minds? I don’t know how many there are studies how many hundreds of 1000s times a day. Yeah. And quite often they’re negative. Yeah. Yeah. And so and repetitive and repetitive. Exactly. So we can record those thoughts, write them down, recognize them? And then we can look at them and say, How do I feel when I think this thought? Yes. And is that true?

Is it true? Yeah, we don’t even question our thoughts.

No, we don’t. We question our feelings, we beat ourselves up for our feelings. And then if it isn’t true, then I can dismiss it. But whether it’s true or not, then I can look at how I feel. And I can think, is that feeling appropriately? bid? For that thought? Is that feeling appropriate for me? And is it helpful for me? Or is it more destructive or difficult for me? And so it’s, it’s, you know, the old, the debate, I think, thoughts versus feelings versus, you know, nurture versus versus nature, all of those things. It eliminates that because it recognizes that each of them plays a part. And so we deal with that progression. And we can go at it from both ends. We can jump in in the middle. But we can improve how we feel.

Each plant part. I love that. Yeah, I was talking to a friend today who manifested a she reached out to her Professor colleagues, she’s a professor, she reached out to her colleagues and say, Hey, who’s going on vacation this summer and needs a house sitter and someone was like I do, I live in San Diego, come come to my house and house it for a week and you have a pool, and it’s beautiful and all that. So she gets there. And she simultaneously proud of herself for manifesting this free vacation in San Diego and then beating herself up because she doesn’t feel like she’ll be able to ever be able to have that for herself. Right. And so the conversation was, you know, which of these feelings do I honor? Basically? Or which thought is that whole story about which do you feed the good wolf or the bad wolf? You know, what, whichever one you feed is the one that grows stronger. Right? So that’s a very interesting, I love that you say that feelings each play apart, we have to acknowledge all the feelings and processing

genius. So help me to remember, I referred to his model for understanding, understanding suicide. And eventually in this, I’d like to touch on that because it helped me tremendously. And there was a second thing, but I’ve already forgotten.

Okay, model for understanding suicide, I think that’ll be really important to talk about, because I think a lot of people in recovery, at one point or another will contemplate that question, or, you know, contemplate that as a solution. And so we, you know, that’s the whole point of me doing this podcast is, you know, I’m, I’ll start asking you about questions about your recovery story. But that is a very important solution. Like that’s, you know, suicide is a permanent solution for a temporary problem, right. So we’ll talk about those. I will definitely highlight. We’ll put a pin in it, as they say, and we’ll circle back. What is not growing very rapidly do I know that I never did. Very quickly, and mostly because such great conversation comes out of it. So it’s all good. Do you have a favorite quote or mantra that you live by? Or maybe something early in recovery that blew your mind?

I’d say that there are two, okay. One is to thine own self be true. And the other is, be honest with yourself, with your God, and with other human beings.

Okay.

with yourself, God and other human beings,

yeah, with yourself, your God and other human beings? Because different climates. Yeah, well, the reason I want to highlight that I’m a retired minister. And I tried very hard to ensure that people know, I’m not going to try to force my beliefs or my understanding of the world, or of God on them. So that that may be more important to me than it is to others. But important.

Yeah. Now, I thought that right, we all have our own understanding and an Eastern makes sense to us. So I thought that thank you for sharing those. What is your regular self care routine? I already know the answer to this. Like I’m cheating a little bit, but

Well, let me tell you a couple things. One, the the concept of a smorgasbord. Yes.

Oh, my gosh, so good.

I have a tendency when I do like when I would start a morning ritual. And I would think, okay, I’m a minister, I should read something in the Bible. And then I pray. And you know, they’re not journal, and I’d reflect. But when I pray, you know, there’s so many good prayers. There’s the Serenity Prayer in its entirety. There’s the St. Francis prayer that I love. And there’s others. And there’s some things that I find that aren’t prayers, but really are. And so I’d start wanting to pray each one of them. And then I find several sources to read from. And you know, my time just kept growing and growing and growing. And so then I would, I would think, okay, I can’t do everything today. So on Monday, I’ll do St. Francis, on Tuesday, I’ll do series to Wednesday. Yep. And I’ll break it down. And before it’s all over, I have this massive intricate system that falls under its own weight. Right? Yeah. And I can’t do it all. And I become overwhelmed. Yes. So a friend of mine Arlina. And I came up with this idea of a smorgasbord. And in fact, yesterday, I went to a cafeteria for lunch. I’m so glad I found it. It was delightful, had real vegetables, fried okra Southern style. But anyway, that’s why we’re here for. But, Dad, you have a smorgasbord as you go down the line. And you select what you want for that meal. Yeah, and everything is good. And there’s not something wrong with it. But you want a balanced approach. And you want enough, but you won’t, you don’t want to gorge, right. And there’s some things like the desserts that I try to avoid. But every once in a while, I’ll have one. And so the smorgasbord in self care, means some days, I focus on exercise, whether it’s going for a walk or doing Tai Chi or yoga. Or some mornings, I’ll focus on reading and prayer and meditation or journaling. A number of things like that, sometimes it’s allowing rest. Not you know, I don’t like the idea of meditation where people think that they have to empty their minds, or, or thoughts coming in their mind have to be dismissed or, or recognized and honored and then sent on their way. For me, meditation is heavily cognitive, and heavily emotive. And so that’s why I journal and I just, you know, I am, I’m learning. I learned things from myself when I journal that I didn’t know. And so as I’m writing, the pin writes things to me. And so I’m learning. And I’m writing and I read as soon as I say, wow, you know, and so I learned from that. So that’s one thing is that smorgasbord concept. I love that approach. And it frees me to say, I don’t have to do everything. I don’t have to eat it all, or do it all perfect. I’m still thinking about the food part. I don’t have to clean my plate.

Yeah, I like that. You know what you said about buckling under the weight of all the things that we could be doing? Yeah, right. Yeah. Just hard for me. I do that Anyways, perfectionism is definitely um, yeah, we’ll just let perfectionism go

right? It’s there. Yes. And it’s totalitarian. It’s comprehensive, right? Yeah, it takes over everything. And lately, I’ve been engaged in your challenge for 30 days of meditation, and I’ve made most of them. This morning. I was trying to think of a name for for the the meditation I did this morning. It was, I don’t know. So norik is a word, but it was sleeping meditation.

So here’s the funny thing. People tell me Oh, I miss some. So I didn’t do good and or that’s not correct English. But you’re and I’m saying, but the idea of consistency is not is different from the idea of perfectionism, right? Like over the month, like you have been the one that shows up the most so goldstar for you. But yeah, and you’re saving my save a mad by showing up.

So that’s one of the neat things about AIA. I learned early we have a whole group of people, or any 12 step program, we have a whole group of people who are each there to take care of their own problem is very self centered. And yet, we learn that the way to take care of our own problem is to invest in the lives of others. Yeah. So it’s not self centered at all. So you’ve got this balance. And and it’s amazing how works, turning the backs and

assets, right?

Yes. And so during this, this meditation, exercise, we do some breathing, and then we do the, the meditation. And I’ve learned so much, and it has helped me. And maybe we’ve talked about it when we’re not doing the rapid round. It has helped me face some significant fears, and overcome them.

That’s a beautiful thing. I love hearing that. Yeah, it’s been very transformative in my life as well. So I, as you know, will do for others what I won’t do for myself. So I needed to, you know, I have some personal challenges and or family issues. And so we are I was like, I need to double down on myself care. So how about I know I need to meditate, but I’m so restless. So I was like, hey, let’s do a meditation challenge. I will show up if I know, other people need me to do it.

And I do need that I need something that I have to, you know, I don’t like the word accountability, but I need somebody that’s waiting for a response.

Yeah. You know, like, Terry, I made you come show up for this meditation.

But you know, the other thing that’s funny, without going into details, you know, you mentioned your family and my family. We’ve had some, some significant traumas. And and the only people that have family issues, only women that have family issues. Are those who have a significant other or have children, or don’t have a significant other or don’t have.

Everybody, everybody wins in the game of the family. Yes, I love that. Thank you so much for participating in that. meditel viewtiful Thank you so much. Yeah, we love you. We all love you dearly. Um, okay, let’s go to the next question. Is there any I’m almost afraid to ask what was the one thing one thing you wishing you when you first got sober?

I was so laughing about the idea of one thing. There’s no one in my life. What was the question?

What’s the one thing you wish you knew when you first got sober? Oh,

that people helping me Really? Were on my side. Oh, I love that. Yeah, yeah. Because I was so suspicious. I had gotten a DUI. And I didn’t trust the counselors. I know that HIPAA the law about privacy and confidentiality and medical records, but I didn’t trust the counselors. I didn’t trust the police. I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust my spouse. I didn’t trust my employer. Everybody was out to get let go. We’re all healthy.

They were all out to get me that they were out to get me healthy. Yeah, girl. You are full of brilliant quotes today. Yeah. I love that. amaze myself, you know? They roll out to get me healthy. I love that. Okay, sorry. I’m trying to roll this down. Okay, um, what do you do for fun? Hey,

No, you know, one of the problems with alcoholism is we lose fun. We let alcohol consumed our lives. And that’s all we do is drink. And we forget how to have fun. And, you know, sometimes I look back there’s days I think I don’t remember the last time I had fun. And even doing things that I enjoy. I don’t know if I’m having fun. But you know what i, because of COVID, we’ve gone into the internet and ended communications online. I as a result, I literally have friends around the world. Yeah. And many of them are young ladies. And I don’t coach, I don’t mentor. I don’t pastor, I just, I’m a cheerleader. And one of them sent me a picture of a cheerleader. Up in the Air doing one of her, her chairs in her arms are spread, and she’s gotten bigger legs in the split.

I didn’t want to say she spread her legs. I

didn’t want to say that. But well, and the other thing is I set a goal a couple of years ago and yoga to by the end of the year be able to do a split. And I’m going to reach it but what it did do it helped me work on my hip flexibility. Yeah, but that’s anyway. But cheerleading. I truly. Okay, that is, I love to love. Yeah, I see a young lady in whatever field, and I interact with young ladies in a number of fields. And I’m 62. So by young, I mean anybody under 80. But most of them are, you know, maybe in their 30s. And they’re establishing themselves and they’re, you know, they’re growing and, and they’re facing challenges. And it’s fun just to I don’t help solve their problems. It’s fun just to say you go you’re doing look at what you did. And holding the mirror. That’s damn fun.

Yeah, that’s really good. I love that. Yeah, great. Yes, I think that’s fun, too. I love being the cheerleader and also not able to do the splits any longer. And I You’re so funny that you would say that I youtubed it. I tried for like a week. And then I was like, yeah, that’s not important.

But, you know, setting an unreachable goal is sometimes good. If you know what you’re doing. You know, we always talk about realistic goals, and we don’t reach an unrealistic one and we feel defeated. I knew from the beginning, I was never going to do a split. But I kept trying in water aerobics, and in yoga, and doing things that helped me and it increased. And there was this one young lady at the gym. I was on the walking track. And I walked around and she was standing on her head. Doing a perfect split. So she looked like a tee. Oh, wow. I mean, perfect.

She did that in public. She did. Spray?

Well, yes. But I walked by and I love to Canada. Damn, I wish I could do that.

I know, it looks amazing. When I see people, other women doing the splits and yoga and like, Wow, that looks amazing. I would really like to maybe I’ll keep trying, I don’t know why. That’s, that’s a brilliant. That’s brilliant. Okay, let’s talk about your story. Because and I do want to save a little time at the end to talk about a few solutions that you we kind of touched on some things to thine own self be true. Your morning practice. But we you had some other solutions around breathing and correcting thoughts because I know you had some religious trauma and you use these tools to move through a very difficult experience. And how about you take maybe 10 minutes to sort of give us a recap of the highlights of your

of your recovery journey. Okay. I grew up in a military family. So we moved every two or three years. And the positive effect that has is I’m very, very flexible and very adaptive. And I am able to find friends anywhere I go. And so I have understandings of people that I enjoy the differences. I don’t have parochial view of Like, my family, we believed in God, we were nominally Christian, I would say, I think my parents had had some difficulties around religion when they were younger. And so, you know, I was taught about believing in God, but we very rarely went to church. And when I was in junior high in high school, I became involved in church, and became very active in church. But I remember, I guess it started in about sixth grade. Well, probably, I’d say, fourth grade, the feeling of unworthiness, and feeling like I was second best. anatomically, excuse me, anatomically, I was born aboard. And I had four brothers. And each of them thought they had four brothers. But my mom, as we were growing up, always told me, if you were born a girl, we were going to name you too recently. And I assumed she had picked that name for a daughter. Because back in the 50s, they didn’t know whether it would be a boy or girl until they were born. And so they picked a name for a boy and a name for a girl, depending on bouquet. And so I assume that she picked that name for each of us and just passed it down. And so later, when I came out to my brother’s, I said something about that, and they said, No, she never said that does. And I think why. And so that’s why I have the name I have. A lot of transgender people sought their names for a number of reasons. But my parents named me. And that’s special to me. But, you know, when I was in grade school, I didn’t enjoy sports, I wasn’t good at it. And living in a boy’s life that made me feel less than I would sometimes look over at the girls across the street playing and wish I could be there with them. And among them is one of them. But I didn’t understand it at the time. And so I grew up, became active in church. And there’s mixed messages, mixed signals. in church, we were taught what is today known as purity culture, you know, don’t do anything sexual until you’re married and, and then never do anything outside of marriage. And so the big question was, how far can you go and not be bad. And so I would sit in youth group, and hear all the guys you know, saying the right answer. And then during the week in school, I heard and saw what the guides were actually doing. And I live that same double life. And that set up for me, a pattern of duplicity of doubleness in my life, that I have struggled with ever since.

So not feeling like I was enough. This conflicting duplic I don’t know what to call double ness. And so, but what I tend to do is dive into everything completely. And so I became a minister, and became an army chaplain, Matt pastored, a small church for a couple of years and then became an army army chaplain, had a good career over 28 years of active service, and did some phenomenal things as I look back on it. But again, all the way through my career, feeling like I was not good enough, like I had to do better. And whatever rank I was, I should be the next one. I’m at the end of my career. Well, I guess, the last 10 years, I really didn’t start drinking until I was in my early 40s. I drank a few times before then, but not, not a whole lot. Um, and so but when I started, boy, I went and so then I was not just having a conflicting double draw on my life. I was actually kind of living a double life. But I was doing it in the open. And, you know, I wasn’t hiding that I was drinking. So, um, I near the end of my career. I was 10 months away from retirement, and I got a DUI and I could have gotten one many times before. I never Fortunately, my driving never hurt anybody, or damaged anything. But I got a DUI. And in the military, you can lose some or all of your retirement based on things like that. And it has to go up for review at the Department of the Army level. And, and so my goal for 10 months until retirement was to do whatever I do to save my retirement. And so they put me into alcohol and substance abuse program counseling and therapy. And I, they sent me to an inpatient treatment. And I spent two days very effectively, consistently telling the same lies. And you know, in the assessment phase, they ask you all these questions, and they come at you from every direction. And I wish I knew what they were doing. And I consistently answered. And so at the end of the assessment on Wednesday afternoon, I was in talking with my psychiatrist. And of course, he had all the information in front of him from all the interviews, and he said, Well, I think you’re suffering from depression. And I said, Oh, no.com fine. I just, I’ve had a couple of rough days. He said, Well, when you talk to this person, were you crying? Well, yes. And when you talk to this person, yes. And this, and this, and this. And he said, I think you’re suffering from melancholy depression. And I said, No, I’m really okay, Doc. So we finished and I left, and I went, and I sat on my bunk. And as I was sitting there, I was thinking about what he said, and all he did was lay the facts in front of me. And I thought about those facts. And I don’t know how it happened. But I suddenly heard myself praying. And whether it was out loud, or in my mind, I don’t know. But I, I said, you know, God, I am suffering depression. And oh, by the way, I guess I’m an alcoholic. So I had admitted it to myself, and I had admitted it to my God. The next morning, I went in early and saw that same Doc, and told him, and I thought it was going to be a trouble for having lied. Because in the military, honesty and honors is vital. And so instead, he was excited, because I was buying in, what I did know is I had stumbled on to what we do in 12 step programs. In the fifth step, we are honest with ourselves, with our God, and with another human being. And so that was the first step in me being true to myself. As I went through that program, I grew a lot, I learned a lot. I went back home, and I was in counseling, individual group counseling for the remainder of my time in the army. And I tried very hard to be honest. And I grew to trust my counselor, she was phenomenal.

And one day, I had enough confidence. And it’s a it’s a longer story. So I won’t do it. But it was based on what another person in group had done. And it just shows the impact of when we are honest, and true to ourselves, we have others to be, I told the counselor, I had a box in my heart that I’d never opened. And nobody had seen it. And I lifted the lid off of it. And I let her see something. And that was my femininity. And I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know what it was, I was filled with guilt, and shame. And for decades, I struggled against it. And she took that out of the box, and she held it lovingly and tenderly. And she honored it. And she gave it to me handed it back gently and helped me to normalize it. And to realize that it’s okay to be who I am. And that turned my life around. Because I began to learn what it meant to be transgender. Because there were times you know, part of being transgender is you want to look the part so put on clothing but on makeup. Typically, I would do it when I was on a trip in my hotel room, you know, I would go by a store and buy some clothes, go to the hotel room, put them on, wear them in the hotel room because I was afraid to go out and then before I left on way, because I couldn’t take home any evidence. So sometimes I drank to get ready to dress I drank while I dressed, and then I drank because I dressed. Now I tried to be careful not to say I drank because of so One thing I drank because I chose to drink, but there are factors that contributed to it. And the other thing that contributed to it was death. I had been in combat, I have seen death, I’ve seen body parts. As a minister, I’ve been at hospitals, I’ve been at homes, I’ve been at death scenes. I’ve, I’ve told families, I’ve told children that. And so what happened, I got to a point where when I had to do a casual notification, I would go home to put on my dress uniform, I would take a drink, only one because it couldn’t smell it on my breath, we would go and do what we had to. And then I would go home and finish getting drunk. And I bottled it all up. So I was bottling in my identity, I was bottling in my guilt and shame, I was bottling in

the trauma from having to do that. And the pop, the cork popped off the bottle finally.

And so that when I went through the program, I started to experience feelings. And they were very raw and new and different. And that is I went on this roller coaster, that’s actually when I was getting better was when I first thought about suicide, because I was going to these eyes and then plummeting into these lows. And going back to back, he has a cognitive triad, that when we’re depressed and suicidal, we tend to attach these three symptoms or beliefs. One is a negative blue view of ourselves. Another is a negative view of the world around us. And the third is a negative view of our future. And so I never wanted to die, I just sometimes saw no reason to live. Everything was negative. And so over time, I’ve gained tools to deal with that. And so you know, these different threads, I began to understand and express my femininity. And I continued on with counseling after I left the military. I went continued in counseling on my own. And then I became involved in the Veterans Affairs. And sometimes they get a bad rap. But but there are there are things that they do are that are phenomenal. And I increasingly grew to understand and love myself as a woman, and to express myself as a woman, and to live as a woman. And in the process, I’ve gained and lost a lot. But being true to ourselves means living what is right for us. And so through 12 steps through counselors, I’ve continued to grow. I’m about to go into a an intensive PTSD program. And I’m, I’m both hopeful and terrified of what it will entail. But coming forward to today, and the religious trauma and, and the meditation and the way that all of these things come together. I in in the meditation, the the breathing and the meditation and the prayer and the journaling. I began to identify things. And I recognize that even though my church has started having in person services, and the church is right next door to my Urban complex, I had not gone and I thought about it and I realized why. A year and a half ago. I was serving in a church as a co pastor, and I had gone there in good faith upon retirement from the army as a male. Now they’d had female pastors, they weren’t against female pastors. But I gradually during the time I was there, I was simultaneously growing in my womanhood. And sometimes it showed. It turns out if you wear mascara to church, people do see it. So I came up to my church the first Sunday and in January of 2020. And we worked out an agreement where I left the last February the last Sunday of February. And none of us knew the COVID was about to happen. But I made this step and I went up to visit a friend whose husband was recovering. And then some terrible things happened. And she lost him. So I came here to where I currently live in South Carolina for about two weeks to help her get things situated. And I ended up staying. So now I have my own apartment here. And I’m living here. And so as I’ve been thinking about that, I thought, What’s keeping me from church. And I realized the last Sunday that I was in a sanctuary was the Sunday that they let me go. And thinking of ways to say it, it’s kind of like they wore a nice, soft, fluffy slipper, as they kicked me out the door. There were very time very loving, about half the church was very supportive of me.

But I didn’t process it. I didn’t know what to do with it. And then as I’ve gone, I’ve realized that I have religious trauma dating, way, way back, because I tried to do what I’m supposed to do and believe what I’m supposed to believe. And so I’ve, I’ve embraced things that that I’ve always thought, Well, I’m not sure about that. And I’ve advocated things that really were disrespectful even to myself. And so that is part of my religious trauma. But by facing it, I’ve been able to go forward. And it’s helped me so a week ago, I went to church. And literally with fear and trembling. I was shaking and I, I stayed in the sanctuary for about four minutes before I went out. And then, as a service was nearing an end, I was able to re enter and kind of claim the ground to market. I did it I was there. And so I sat through the end of the service with a friend, one of our ministers, and he just had his arm around me, reassuring me. And it was really beautiful. I was just I was sitting there crying and shaking, while everybody else was singing or whatever they were doing. And the one moment I looked up, and he had his arm around me to reassure me. And his other hand, he was holding his husband’s hand. And in that I saw the scope of love that is available to us as humans, the wide range of ways that we can can give love to people. So that kind of brings me to where I am now. Can I tell you about transcripts?

Please do. I was gonna ask you about it. I think the work that you’re doing there is amazing. I do have one quick question, though. I was so curious. You said you didn’t start drinking until your early 40s. Was that triggered by having to do all the casualty notifications?

No, really? I had done some by that point. But we I’d have to do a calendar and get the timing right. But no, it was I wanted to do it. I found a hunting and fishing buddy. And off we went.

Yeah, but wanting to do it. You know, it’s been my experience that it there’s like an emotional thing that’s underneath the like they say that alcoholism is a symptom of a deeper problem. Yeah, and I didn’t know if that coincided with the, you know, the combat and casualty notifications that you were dealing with, as well as maybe starting to explore. Like, when you were dressing as a woman secretively. I didn’t know if that was sort of all happening at the same time. Maybe that was underneath the drinking?

Yes. And I think that the the doubleness in my life. The life Yes, the projecting one thing as a minister, but really not believing it myself. Right. And so, um, for example, in my religious background, drinking is just not something we did. It wasn’t allowed. Right, right. And but I looked at and I thought that’s stupid. There’s nothing wrong with it. And you know, to this day, I don’t mind being with people to drink. In fact, they can have mine

generous.

I can’t have mine. You know, but if they can handle it, our

God bless their

heart. And so I think it was that doubleness in my life where where I was projecting things that I really wasn’t that sure of myself. But I’m a very good speaker and a good preacher. In a good pastor, and so I did an effective job of rejecting those things. And so I was very good at doing what I didn’t want to do. Yeah. And yes, that’s certainly true in dealing with families dealing with debt. That was, it was after Desert Storm it was before, you know, we’d gone back in. And so the cache notifications were not heavy at that point. But I did deal with that. And I became very good at it. I went to a funeral home, first service, and in the sanctuary part, everybody’s very somber and quiet and touch tones. And the funeral director said, well, chaplain, come back here with me a moment. So we went back and he opened the office door, and it was silent. And he closed the door. And there was a party going on. I mean, it wasn’t not really a party, but people were laughing and joking, because they’re real people. Yeah. And they have to live their lives and outside their door was somber. Yeah. But inside their door, it was different. And I said, Oh, that’s how you do it.

Balance.

No, I wish it was balanced. For me. It was bottling up.

Okay.

For me when pressing down? Yeah. Pressing those emotions down. Right. I became very good. I could express compassion, and love. And I could always say the right thing. And I could always know when not to say anything, but just to be there. I was very good at it. But it was eating at my own heart. Yeah. And, yeah. So that then when, when the time did come, that I was doing, you know, like, three casualty notifications a week. It really magnified it, it. You know, I go and and, again, that’s a whole nother story. But I would knock on wood knock on somebody’s store, inside as a family was proud of a soldier that serving somewhere. And when we knock on the door, and they open it, and they see it, that all in and it’s like we have killed their soldier, we’re the angels of death. Right? And we are destroying their lives.

brutal.

And, and again, I would debrief the the person that was with me doing it, I would debrief the people at the casualty office. And then I would go home and train. And I know in the big picture, if there’s a good way to deal with what we have to deal with, the military does a very good job of caring for the families of those who die. It’s just amazing how well they do. It’s tragic, that we have developed abilities, because we’ve had to write Yeah, so um, yeah, why did I start drinking was your question.

I was just curious to see it, you know, in your 40s. You know, they say that, I forgot where I heard this, but it was some study that was like, oh, if if you can, if you continue to drink long enough, you will, you know, everybody will develop a holism at some point given enough time. And so by your early 40s, if you are unable to process pain to resolution, then you know we start developing developing compulsions that act as avoidance are a distraction to that pain. Like, in my mind, the purpose of obsession is distraction. And the distraction is from the pain. So, you know, there’s that lie, the time heals all wounds, it doesn’t the pain waits. I’ve been in recovery. 27 years, and I’ve heard so many people over those years sharing pains that were that is decades old decades, right. So pain does not time does not heal the wounds.

No. And that’s what I’m learning and dealing with and some of the, the traumas that I’m facing, you know, that I’m coming to face through the meditation.

Right? Yeah, so we’ve been practicing the rain meditation, a YouTube video by Tara Brock. And rain stands for recognize, allow, investigate and nurture. And it has been such a healing process for me too, because it’s a way to siphon off a little bit of that pain every single day. I mean, we move through life and life is hard. So we need to be able to have a way to process to resolution,

right. And I looked at that, and I thought, you know, if we’re going to do this for say, over a month, week, days, 20 days or so, I thought, do I have 20 things to have to work through? No.

Because we’re disassociated from our pain. You don’t realize? Yes. Oh, I’ve had an open problems. Funny, funny thing. Yeah. Let’s transition a little bit. Let’s talk a little bit about I know you’re I’ve been doing it for a long time. You are unrecognizable. I am not half the man I used to be. Love it. Oregon on the other half. Our God bless government laws are changing anyway, are the President announced that I know so excited for you?

Yeah, the veteran is going to pay for gender confirmation surgery.

I like how you’re saying gender confirmation as opposed to gender. They didn’t they used to call it gender reassignment.

They did, it’s had a lot of names.

Okay. But I liked the conversation.

That’s a more, that’s a more positive, just great.

I like it. I like it. So that will work on the other half of that half a man thing. But I would love to talk about trans grams, because you mentioned something about like, your superpower is loving others, right? And so trans grams, you are sort of embody, you know, a lot of I’m not, you know, listen, I don’t pretend to be any kind of an expert in the LGBTQ community. But I’m not blind. Right. And I do love people myself. So I have seen, I’ve been aware and seen the lack of family support in a lot of cases, right. And the, not everybody has a loving Grandma, right? And there’s something so pure about the love of a grandmother. And so right. And so it’s so interesting, as you have been doing the on Instagram, you have your trans grams, and the messages of love that you get are going viral, which is so exciting. It’s just a testament that there’s so many people who are just so thirsty for that the family love.

Yeah, well, you know, I lost a lot of friends when I transition. And it hurts. It got to partially because of COVID were my, my social sphere consisted of three people and two of them were under. They were children, and wonderful people that I loved, and they love me. But that’s not a very big social circle. And, you know, I was able to develop a social circle online. And a mutual friend of ours was encouraging me to do Tick Tock. And I couldn’t see why in the world, and what good it would do and who would want to see anything I had to say. But finally, she talked me into it. So I did it. And I mean, within the first few days, we had 500 people watching and making comments and then it was 1000. And I think now I’m almost to 3000. And but it’s not the number of them that I’m concerned about what happened in the early beginning of it, I would just tell me my life. And a lot of them sent messages saying calling me names. They called me primarily auntie and grams, and or grandma and Queen. And I didn’t know I understand now queens compliment. So I appreciate that. They were not telling me to join a band. But, you know, I I began to realize they need to grandma. And at the same time I was struggling with Wait a minute. I’m not old enough to be a grandma. But apparently it turns out I am. When did that happen?

You could have been a grandmother in your 40s I could have.

Yeah, so so the name transcripts came to us. And so we changed it to that. And it’s grown. And basically, I just tell about my life. I’ve told some things about my own transition stories. I told just what I was doing that day going for a walk. One of my favorite places to go is a park nearby where there’s some waterfalls and and the waterfalls make it hard to take and people that really care about the sound quality fuss about it. And but I just love the water and and so you know, Oh, well. You know, I saw it

be true.

Yeah. I saw a meme that said, you know, I’m not everybody’s cup of tea, but I drink coffee. So if you you know. But apparently there and I had people writing and they’d say I wish you were my grandma.

Oh

And that tore my heart. And I won a couple of them, particularly this conversation. I wish you were my grandma. And I wrote back and I said, I am your grandma. Because anybody that puts a comment, I try to respond in some way. And I said, Cindy said, I am your grandma. And then I get notes back. Like, I’m so glad because my biological grandma was so mean to me. And it just tore my heart. Because the it was never targeted toward LGBTQ people. I just haven’t been one of them. And they relate, but I have. I have other people I have, you know, cisgender heterosexual people, married single do whatever combination you want to come up with? Yeah, I tell people. And, but finally, I realized the core of my message is, I love you. And you can love you too. Because through my own struggle, learning to love myself, was a central component to finally learning how to really love people. Yeah. And learning to love myself was hard. And I’d asked my therapist, I’d say you have to learn to love yourself. And I said, Where is the love yourself in 12 easy steps or 10? Easy Steps are six ways successful people love themselves, those books aren’t out there. And I didn’t know how to love myself. And finally, a counselor asked me when my first child was born, and happened to be a son. And she said, when you held him the first time did you love him? And I said, Oh, yes, he was just so beautiful. And she said what he done to earn that love. And I said, Nothing. And she said, You don’t have to do a damn thing. To be worth being loved, to be loved. And that includes loving yourself. Wow. And that that was a pivotal moment. It wasn’t a great emotional moment. But it was a pivotal moment, because I don’t know what it changed to change my values. It changed my thought patterns. It changed my my world construct. It changed everything. And so when I write to people, I carry forward this simple message. And sometimes I say it directly. And sometimes I don’t. But this simple message, I love you. And you can love us No. Now I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a musician. And if I told you his name, you know or some of the his associates you, you would recognize it on a on a national scale, top 40 type stuff, and I happen to be in a conversation with him. And he said that his. He said, I tell people I love them. I want nothing else. I say I love you. You don’t have to love me back. It doesn’t matter. You can’t stop me from loving you. And I’ve thought that same thought about God. We cannot stop whatever however you conceive it. We cannot stop the creative force of the universe verse from loving us. We cannot stop God from loving us. We cannot stop. You know, whatever being is from loving us. No matter what we do. Rob that bank? Let don’t but it downtown. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I told you sometimes I don’t have filters and young everybody.

Yeah.

But not literally. And so his message was is simply that and I thought about it. And I’ve been and I’m going to think about it some more. Because he he emphasized that I don’t have anything I want from people. Yeah. Not even for them. You know, as I was saying to love themselves, is out here. I’m just going to love them. I prefer they buy tickets, I further buy CDs. But whether they do or not.

Right,

you know, and if you don’t like me, or you don’t like my performance, don’t buy another ticket. Yeah. Love me. I don’t want your love. And so he’s had his successful career brushing with the stars, nice and perfectly comfortable where he is because he just loves people.

That’s amazing.

And I, you know, as I thought about I thought, well, when I tell somebody that they can love themselves too, it’s a gift. It’s something I’m offering them. And it is so vital. I think

it’s so vital It is so and I don’t mean to cut you off. I’m just moved by the Spirit. Just Yeah, it’s it’s so needed. It’s so it’s easy to get caught up in all the negativity and get focused on that and start feeling down. But it’s so important to have that listen, and really take in that message of love of others and love of oneself. So,

yeah, everybody can go to App trans grams. gra, gra ms, you’ll put it in the show notes, as we say in the business. Yes, I will. Not in the business. So I joke about it. But they’re welcome to come and to follow if they’d like to. The point is not to build followers. It’s Yeah, I could say something corny, like it’s to build lives. But you know, it’s just, God has blessed me. And I am living in love. And I love to love and if people want to be loved they can come and watch me in my Oregon little life.

Come on by, I will absolutely leave the links to the show notes. And I just want to thank you personally from the bottom of my heart for all the love that you bring to the women’s community, the Odette women’s community and to my life personally, you’re such a blessing. And I’m so grateful to you for for sharing your wisdom and there was too much to cover. I feel like I need to have you back for another round we’ll go into would be a delight. Yeah, yeah, we there’s so much that we didn’t get a chance to cover today. But we’ll leave them wanting as they say that for next time.

Yeah. And what has been so life giving to me, is the acceptance that I’ve experienced in women’s groups. 12 step groups are the ones I’m in most but wherever I go, women have been very accepting, and very loving. And that has helped me love myself. So you know, you exude love the ladies in our group just love flows from them and through them and, and it’s just so beautiful.

It really is. Yeah, we all have this community and connection and, and that really lends to you know, sort of the antidote to that those negative views of self world and future. Yeah, right. We are connected.

Pardon. Can I break into a Beatle song? Sure. No, I mean, I’m just all these songs. And all these things I love.

All you need is love. Eight Days a Week. So great. Listen, Terry, thank you so much for joining me today. You’re always a pleasure to speak to and we’ll have you on for another round real soon.

What can I finish with one last statement? Please? Arlina. I love and you can love you too.

Yeah, that’s perfect.

Thank you so much. My dear level. We’ll talk soon. Okay, bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai