11 years have gone by

I ran away from my family to follow my dreams to find unconditional love at the age of 18. I knew my grandparents cared for me but needed time to except my authentic self, my mom and dad and step mom plus aunt and uncle love me for me but I just couldn’t deal with my family toxicity when it came to certain subjects and always saying agree to disagree on it , instead of really taking about it then just shoving it under the rug which would build pressure on me for all the unsaid things I would want to say but just didn’t have the right words or definitions till I researched about my true self for 5 years and had my experiences trying to become a sailor in the U.S. Navy and then being called a disgrace on the family name due to tapping into my true emotions of home sickness and girls being catty to me when I was trying to be a leader and help everyone out but I would cry myself to sleep every night cause no comfort stuffed animal and all my safe space had been stripped from me and then I moved back in with my mom and tried my first job at Wal-mart in the garden center but I felt back slash from my family and my dreams where someone else then Montana and I no longer wanted to be sheltered and my religious views are so far different then my grandparents and my political views as well. So I flew the coop with the help of my best friend and she took me to the airport and I moved to Texas and was a Correctional Officer for 9 months and tons of crazy stuff happened with my coworkers and the warden of the jail just couldn’t stand I was transgender when I came out in my last 3 months and so I just quit instead of getting something bad on my record due to being me. Things fell out with my girlfriend I had in Texas so then I contacted an online friend I have been friends with since middle school and asked if she could help me if I moved to Kentucky and I ended up living in two different hotels for a month and then a women’s homeless shelter but my depression got the best of me and I got kicked out cause I didn’t understand how the program worked and was on the streets for a week with just a bottle of water and some books in the woods and then I walked over the boarder to the bus station in Ohio and called my dad and he got me a bus ticket to Bakersfield,CA and then my depression was so bad I isolated in my bedroom at his house and my step mom tried to get me therapy but I was just feeling like a lost cause and my dad kept giving me ultimatums so I took him up on them and contacted a transgender housing group on yahoo and found my God mom on there and moved in with her in Riverside,CA. I helped her start a nonprofit but was dealing with my depression and alcoholism cause I would go to the gay bars and do karaoke and only pay for one drink and get many more due to my singing. Then when my God mom had to move back to Ohio for her mom I moved to Lake Elsinore with a family from the PFLAG group I would go to and things started to look better for me but then the mom gave me an eviction notice and my boyfriend at the time asked his grandparents if I could move in with him and they allowed it. Then at work at Wal-mart in Murrieta I had my first major mental break down in the bathroom and took a week off from work and didn’t know that was the tip of my iceberg moment that sent me down my rabbit hole to learn I have bipolar like my mom and I went to a mental health hospital with my girlfriend and she stood by me through it all and became my wife.I was homeless with my girlfriend and then we reached out to my pastor and she had me checked out by a mental health worker and said to ask my other pastor if they knew of any resources in San Bernardino cause Riverside screwed me over the first time I got out of the mental hospital and went to rehab and then they couldn’t find me housing so I became homeless. I then went to a mental health group for teens and young adults called the Stay program and then went into rehab for the second time and got into a sober living and started my legal name change with the help of my wife and then found a transgender doctor and started my transition in 2017 and now its been over 4 years on T-gel , had my emergency hysterectomy in 2019 and Top surgery in 2020 and feel like a whole man now. Sure it’s still rough with my family but I have always stayed in contact with my mom be it phone calls or snail mail. I have a way better relationship with my dad and step mom then before. My grandparents still call me by my old name and old pronouns but I know they mean well and love me unconditionally. I’ve tried to get back in contact with my aunt and uncle but they have a farm they are running and its rough having to deal with my uncles family and my family at the same time. I just wish I could explain to my aunt why I used her as my scapegoat as a teen to get away from all my demons I didn’t understand that where bothering me till I went to therapy. So now I am going to college to be a veterinary technician and I have therapy every other week still working on me and how to be a better husband for my wife. I’ve come a long way from how I used to be as user and abuser to just try to get love the wrong way and with T-gel I now have every emotion known to man at my finger tips which can be very overwhelming because now I feel everything even more deeply and my wife wishes at times I could be the stereotypical man but that is not me, I’m Mr.Emotional. I’m the one still searching for unconditional love be it from a friend, partner or animal due to having a rough childhood that looks so pretty on the outside but inside I was struggling. I had to grow up faster then normal due to my mom’s mental illness and I rarely got to just be a kid and that was when I went to my aunt and uncles. Everyday is a struggle for me and I’m trying my best to make the most of my life out of all this craziness.