Blooming into a wonderful life.

Would it be a wonderful world if we could all bloom into our very best life. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing. Imagine the joy and wonder that each of us would bring to, well, each other. It is such a sad reality that so many of don’t get to bloom into the wonderful beautiful amazing humans that we could be. We are so often held back due to trauma, expectations, self-doubt or any number of other things. There are so many of us that don’t get to be all we could be.

I truly thought for many years that that was the case for me. I was riddled with self-doubt, I was recovering from trauma, I was not aware or accepting of my own neurology and I had repressed my true self so strongly and deeply with in myself that I was unable to see how that was toxifying so many aspects of my life.

I am now an out proud and visible autistic trans woman and because of this, because of knowing this, because of understanding this, because of accepting and celebrating this I have been able to, albeit far later than it should have been to bloom into life. To emerge, grow and blossom into a beautiful and wonderful person.

You can probably not imagine how empowering it is to be able to write that last sentence. For much of my life I saw myself as a useless, ugly, failure of a person. That was my everyday, I believed I would never amount to anything.

There are so many reasons why that was the case and they are complex, dark and difficult and far too big to pull apart and unpack here. Needless to say they controlled me, what I thought of myself and consequently what I was able to do and achieve in my life, be that personal or career.

It’s not that way anymore and this is largely, almost entirely due to my comings out. My coming out as autistic and my coming out as trans and lesbian. Yes those comings out are that important. Since those comings out I have seen amazing things happen for me. I have felt more alive in the few years since than in the rest of my entire life.

Of course it wasn’t all because of this. There are other issues like processing of lifelong trauma and working on my mental health. These too were of course important but in some senses they were peripheral. Yes I could absolutely work on my PTSD, my dysthymic depression and my high anxiety and yes that would and did absolutely impact my life. But these were not the root of why I was a crumbling mess rather than a blooming spring flower.

It is absolutely in the acknowledging, accepting, celebrating and having pride in who I am at my core that has allowed this to be the case. It is knowing and learning to love me for me that has fertilised and grown me as a person that is largely unrecognisable from the person I was.

Over the last few months I have been working on accepting that I am a good person and have some great skills and talents. This has been a challenge for me as even when faced with all the evidence the internal messaging within me has been that I am a destined to fail useless piece of garbage. I have made immense progress, but of course there is work still to be done. I am working hard on taking it as true and genuine when I am complemented for something. This is a huge part for me in truly integrating the reality that I have bloomed into a beautiful woman who has much to offer the world.

Last week I obtained a new tattoo. It is a beautiful colourful piece which includes flowers, a cocoon and a butterfly. But they are not just those things they are the whole of the thing and also they are more than the some of their parts. These things have a message. It is a message to me to remind me that I have bloomed. That I am valuable and good. That I can fly free in the true person that I am.

I can look down at my arm now to remind myself of those things. I can look down at those flowers and remind myself of my growth in someone wonderful. I can look down at that cocoon and remember I don’t have to hide myself away anymore because I am not a horrible thing to be hidden but valuable and worth and I can look down at that butterfly as it flies free from its cocoon, and remember that I too have flown free, emerged from darkness and transitioned into a person of deepness, beauty and wisdom.

This tattoo is quite new but as I look down on it as it heals it reminds me that I endured pain and struggle in order to emerge. I am reminded that who I am has been fired in a crucible of experiences that were really tough. Once it has healed I think it will be a reminder that I am no longer stuck in that crucible, that I have endured that pain, that I have indeed bloomed. This of course won’t stop me from looking down at needing to wipe a tear from my eye as I remember just how far I have come.

Originally published at A Transtistic Life.