Back in 1983, I had a nervous breakdown. It was a long time coming, and when it did things were never quite the same again.
In 1983, I was 26 years old, still living at home, and a virgin. I was also gender dysphoric, though in denial over this at the time. I believed that I wasn't a man, but a woman. But facing that reality was too much to bear. I was fully in denial. Sometimes when the rest of the family were out, I'd dress up in my mother's clothes. Sometimes I'd masturbate too. I'd look in the mirror, and the figure there seemed much more alive and real than I'd ever felt. It was exciting and sexy.
Sometimes I'd buy items of women's clothing as well, like pantyhose. But those times were few in number because storing them at home was risky, and too often I'd go through purges of disposing of everything of this nature. I was a virgin because I was so totally afraid of this secret of mine. I couldn't risk being too close to others in case that was discovered, and I'd be "put away"(1).
This was one reason I was still a virgin. There were other reasons too. Although I had an enormously power sex drive it wasn't directed into anything except masturbation(2). I wasn't particularly interested in women, or men either. In fact I was an extremely shy person, and the idea of dating or doing anything remotely to do with sex with another person scared me shitless!
Then in 1983, an opportunity came along to change that. At the time I was working as a public servant and was also a union representivive. Because of this I was sent from Perth to Adelaide on a fact finding mission about changes in office design and structure. I would be over 2000km away from my home town in a city where I was virtually unknown. It was all the opportunity I'd need to lose my virginity.
You see, there was more riding on this than I realised at the time. For the longest while I'd just wanted to be a "regular guy". Regular guys were heterosexual weren't they? I thought that by losing my virginity things would be different. I thought that it would be like breaking the seal on something, that I'd become a `better person', that the world would change. I hired a prostitute for the act. She arrived on time -- I explained that I was a virgin and she went easy on me. It took 30 minutes, and then she left.
And my world fell apart.
For you see, nothing had changed. Penetration with a woman felt just like masturbation -- nothing more, nothing less. My immediate reaction was "is that all it is?" I didn't become a better person, and nothing was different. And so I thought that there must be something wrong with me. I had to be at fault, not the act, or the hopes that I'd pinned on it.
The trouble was, I couldn't even convince myself of this. I returned to Perth and my job, and found my head spinning around on this issue. My work suffered because I couldn't concentrate. There was one person there who kept on picking on me about this. She wasn't even my supervisor, in fact she wanted my job. I got dropped back to lighter duties. And I because to fold in on myself. I because to ddevelop a fear about coming into work and was afraid to.
I took all the sick leave I had. But I didn't stay at home, because I was afraid that my family wouldn't understand(3). So I pretended to go into work each day, but went into town instead. I went to the films, the library, for walks along the foreshore, to shops. And I did this until either my money ran out or I got caught.
My father was a guard on the trains, and one day he saw me get on at Midland station when I should have been at work. So my parents knew something was going on, but not what. And my sick leave was running out. I confessed to my parents that I was afraid to go into work. I went to the manager there and was sent to a psych.
In my first session I was prescribed an anti-depressant. I tore up that prescription(4) but continued the sessions. It seemed to work, but very slowly. I got to the point where finally I was able to go back to work. At one point I became convinced that the psych was more interested in my hobbies than in me.
Help came from a weird source. I read the Thomas Covenant series of books by Stephen Donaldson. The main character is a person who appears to be without hope - a leper who is slowly dying of his disease. By the end of the books his real physical situation hasn't changed (and by the end of the second trilogy he's dead), but his spiritual situation improves by leaps and bounds.
The books suggested that there was hope in even the worst situations. reading them began a turning point for me. Life moved on, but it was one step at a time. I made a determination that in future, I was the only person who could solve my own problems.
Things got better.
See also...
100 Blows & Collapse.
Footnotes
(1) Would I have been institutionalised? Probably not -- since being gender dysphoric and transsexual is no longer something seen as madness. But this was something I didn't know at the time, and the fear of going to "Greylands" was a strong factor in my being ultrasecretive.
(2) Actually, I resented feeling compelled to masturbate intensely. It was a physical release, yes, but a loss of control too. And it didn't seem like me.
(3) My family had a very strong work ethic. Once when I had been badly sunburnt -- so bad that the skin was flaking off and white fluid was underneath it -- my father drove me into work. I lasted 30 minutes before they drove me home and told me to recover before coming back in.
(4) After having epilepsy and being on medication for over 10 years, the last thing I wanted was more pills! Ironically, when I began my gender transition, I went back to the same psych. When he asked me why I hadn't mentioned anything about it years ago I had to tell him that back in 1983, I didn't trust him. Work had sent me there, so I had to go. My how times change.