Missed-comunication

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Dear diary

Today is the day! I'm wearing my normal clothes and I'm going to prove to Mom and Dad that they made a mistake. I am not a boy but their daughter.

I'm wearing my favorite pleated skirt, black tights, white blouse with the peter pan collar just like I see those girls wear to that school I so want to attend. But I cannot because Mommy and Daddy keep trying to make me a boy.

It hurts so much when they call me a boy! Even that name Dalan hurts it's not my real name. I don't know what my real name is as I haven't let myself think that way for some time.

Every night I cry myself to sleep because of the 'boy' and 'Dalan' names. They feel worse than the bad names people call me at school. I do not understand why Mommy and Daddy cannot see me as I really am!

Look at me I'm even crying as I write this down. How many icky boys do that!

I just heard Mommy and Daddy drive up! Now is the time to show them but I am so scared! What if they hurt me?

NO its too scary I'll change back into the Dalan costume and hide my normal clothes with you dear diary under my matress all safe and sound.

Kiss kiss hugs.

--SEPARATOR--

Jim and I arrived home and I hoped beyond hope that for once our little girl would show herself. I know that if she came down as herself I could finally be brave enough to confront Jim on the fact our youngest was really our little girl.

Sadly it was Dalan the boy who came downstairs. It almost broke my heart to see this sad little boy with the droopy shoulders try to act like she was happy to see us. Its so painful to watch my little girl try so hard to be a boy. I can see it hurts her but until she can tell us I cannot do anything. My heart belongs to Jim but its painful to see how much he enjoys having two sons and tries to include Dalan into whatever boy activites they do.

They have now left to go to the mall to get Jason a new baseball glove as during his game this morning his old one fell apart. I had hoped that my little girl would show us how pretty she was if we left her alone. But she hasn't.

I reach under her mattress and pull out the few items she has under their, the pretty blouse, grey pleated skirt, the panties, the tights, and the worst item the diary. The first time I found and read that diary I felt like my heart would burst from despair. To see how to her eyes we were being cruel. I cried openly for hours. My poor little Deanna, which is what we would have named her if she had been born a girl.

I can't do anything though she has to make the first step. I am so scared I might loose her if I push it. I'm prepared to even divorce my husband Jim if it is what it will take to make my poor little daughter whole. For now I will wash her clothes once a week, careful as always to put them back.

--SEPARATOR--

My poor little Diana. I see you sitting in the back seat of the car trying so hard to be a boy for your mom's sake. I just don't know what to do. All the guys I spoke to about this say I should make you man up and be a man instead of encouraging the 'sissy' behavior. They just don't see you like I do.

I know in my heart of hearts that you are really my little girl Diana which is what you would have been named if you had been born a girl. It pains me to see you try so hard everyday. Your mom doesn't seem to see how when she says "and these are our two boys" that you cringe as if you have been hit.

I have done what I can. I casually left the box of girl clothes for you to take after I had spent all that time getting them for you. It wasn't easy to do so without your mom knowing and Daisy suggestion of "clothes for charity" was a good one. Although I knew you had taken out the clothes I had bought for you I played that I didn't notice just so there would be a chance to see you really smile once.

I love your mother Janet with all my heart but to tell her that one of her babies is really a girl would probably break her heart and I just cannot bring myself to do so.

I am sorry that I sometimes make you do boy stuff with us but it is for your mothers sake that she sees two boys.

--SEPARATOR--

My parents are nuts. Can't they see that they are hurting my sister with this insistence that she be a boy!

I have done what I can for her. I trade away many of my baseball cards for those broken barbies and put one together just for her. Yeah it may have a different color arm but at least its something she can actually play with and the few doll clothes I got for her are not much but when I gave it to her it was like watching sunshine. Her face became soo animated and so much a girl I had to run away to my room and cry for her.

It hurts me so much that adults are so blind to her pain. Today I even broke my baseball glove so we could go to sears and get a new one. The store where the sports section is right beside the pretty girl section so she can look at the clothes I know she aches to wear.

I tried to get help for her but I am scared of doing it again. The one teacher told me I didn't know what I was talking about and the other one is convince I am really Janice instead. If being Janice for my little sister is what it will take to bring an end to her pain then for that teacher I will be.

--SEPARATOR--

Poor Janice I can see her trying so hard to protect her little sister it breaks my heart. I am only their teacher and I can see how much poor little Dalan is such a girl. She only plays with the other girls and talks just like them. Janice is trying just as hard to not show her girl side as she doesn't like being teased. She is such a tomboy!

If their parents would just come to me for help! I have all the documentation on this being a real problem and even a list of doctors to see but my hands are tied. So for now I listen to that poor girl pour out her heart about her little sister.

I was so touched when the girls of the class came forward with that work of art showing me that Dalan was really a girl and almost begging me to do something so that she wouldn't be made by her parents to be a boy. I have that treasure pinned up in the staffroom where many of the other teachers agree but as a whole our hands are tied until one of the parents makes some move to let us help.

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Comments

ouch.

this one .... hurt. Such a situation, no one ready to take the move but each suffering in silence thinking they are the only one who knows the truth...

I'm going to go cry now.

DogSig.png

Thank you Tels,

You really have excelled yourself with this story,
a masterpiece,but you owe me a box of tissues.

ALISON

thank you

I love comments they mean alot to me.

this is beautifully sad :'( I

this is beautifully sad :'(

I didn't see the Janice part coming though, I wonder if She's real or not.

I'm pretty sure this is a one-off, but I would be interested to see how long this mis(sed)- communication would go on before someone actually speaks :--)

But knowing how many projects you have, it's best not to get to many series :p

grtz & hugs,

Sarah xxx

thank you

Thanks so much for the comment

Ouch indeed...

Like Dorothy says, this one was hard to read, and yet Allison is right that it's a masterpiece too. I read and enjoy most of your stories (sorry I don't comment much, bad me, but I really do like your work), but I knew as I was reading this one that it was something special. Both the concept and how you executed it.

I gotta go blow my nose and wash my face now. Thank you, Tels.

Lisa

thank you

Thank you for comments it helps me more than you can know

Missed-comunication

When they talk, I can see them laughing about keeping silent.

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

I think you missed the point...

Andrea Lena's picture

...so much lost time and heartache over a lack of communication. This isn't something you look back at and laugh. This is something you look back at and cry. Case in point. The most poignant moment between my late mother and me was just before she died when she admitted that she know all along that I had dressed in her clothes. It was bittersweet, to borrow a word from you, since it was wonderful to know that she accepted this part of me, but painfully tragic because it was forty years too late because she died the following week.

How many of us here are crying right now? So much time lost and never to be recaptured. Sorry, but not all stories are fun and frolic and lighthearted. Some of them, under the surface or out in the open, are raw and sad and lamentable.

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

Missed-Communications

Are you going to continue this story as it keeps calling for more??

Richard

Laugh,

Why would any sane person laugh about such a delicate subject?
Not fair and unfriendly to the author and readers who are TG/Ts
and who understand.I find such comments unnecessary and insensitive.

ALISON

Hey, If Someone Doesn't Get It...

...that certainly doesn't make their comment unnecessary -- it's at least potentially useful information to the author. Those who read the story the way it was intended will find the comment insensitive, but that's not the fault of the commentator, if he doesn't see the story that way. The comment wasn't critical, just misguided.

I don't agree with Stan's comment; the story's focus is too much on the current situation to conclude that everything will work out fine and comment on that basis. That said, I don't think it's necessarily wrong to say that the relief of getting it out in the open and Deanna/Diana's transition underway would result in plenty of relieved smiles.

Admittedly, my first impression of the comment was the one you probably got -- that Stan thinks these people are so evil that they're laughing about the present situation. On further reflection, though, I'm thinking that he can't have meant it that way.

Eric

Sometimes laughter is nervous laughter

My dad actually laughed at my mother's funeral.

He did not disrespect her, he loved her deeply but sometimes when things are too much he laughs at really inappropriate times.

This tale was so painful.

I wonder are their three kids, the two *boys* and a yonger daughter or or there two girls, one a tomboy and the other the boy shell a girl's soul is stuck in?

I think it is three but it was hard to tell.

But then that is part of the problem with this family, they each only see a piece of the elephant.

IE the story of the blind men describing an elphant having only touched one part of it each.

John in Wauwatosa

John in Wauwatosa

Oops I seem to have missread things here,. I am sorry

and in commenting without having read all the previous comments with due care I have upset several people here which is never my intention.

If in any way my previous comments appeared to condone making light of anyone else's or to make light of the pain of people in a situation like the main character and supporting characters in this tale, I am sorry. That was never my intention.

Okay, here goes, It may be possible that at some future point this family could find humor in the failed communication, IE seeing the sad absurdity of the situation as viewed by a dispassionate third-party observer, a sort of all seeing observer. But I find it hard to believe this family would do anything but cry once they learn so much pain could have been avoided if they had all opened up and spoke their hearts. It would take a lot of healing before they could *laugh* at this. That they are trying gives hope but in the ways they have failed so far there is also reasons to despair.

* * * *
Now a comment, clarification on my original comments.

What I meant, or more correctly what I was commenting on originally was a not uncommon phenomenon where people SEEM to act in ways contrary to the situation.

These would be things like crying when happy. Laughing when angry or in grief to name a few. When one is under great stress sometime you do the strangest things, seemingly inappropriate things. Or quite often you do just so much then stop as seems the case in this story. IE the reaction become inaction. The shock, the stress is too much and our minds overload and freeze up.

In this tale everyone of the family -- even his teachers if I recall correctly -- started or wanted to open up, started to try and bridge the gap then backed off in shame or fear or in not wanting to pressure someone. They all found reasons to rationalize not taking that extra step. The stress of the sitation was too much and they *froze*.

An over simplification to be sure but I hope it made my point.

That is what is so sad in this tale, they all mean well. They all are good people and yet it is all going very wrong.

I marvel at the intensity and creativity tels is showing and am impressed by the diversity and passion of the comments in response. I may not or may not agree with any or all points of view in these comments but I am gladdened we have a forum here to make them... within reasonable limits.

In ending, I repeat if I have given offence to anyone I am sorry.

John in Wauwatosa

John in Wauwatosa

(sometimes inappropriate) laughter

I agree, John, maybe they will be able to look back and laugh about this, but only long after they get things out in the open and after much healing and tears.

And speaking of inappropriate laughter, I had that happen to me once, 25 or 30 years ago. I seem to recall seeing a bunch of soccer riots on the news. One in particular shocked me, with stands collapsing under a bunch of fans, while hooligans threw bricks and other things at fans of the other team, shown in gory detail on tv. I remember seeing this and laughing, and being further shocked at my reaction. Why was I laughing? That's the last thing I felt like doing. And oh, what if others think I'm some sociopathic freak? I'd seen worse than that in movies and didn't laugh, but I knew this was real people, real tragedy, not special effects... It wasn't until later I read about how some people laugh "inappropriately" when overwhelmed by emotion.

Lisa

Dear John and Eric,

With due respect to you both,my comment reflects my thoughts as
a TG/TS woman.Stan is entitled to his thoughts as I am to mine
and I expressed them as mine, as my comment on the story.

ALISON

Tragic

It is truly a tragedy that 4 people in the same household all know that Darlan is Diana, and would be happier as a girl, but none of them can find the words or ability to communicate this. It would be terrible/horrific, if mom, dad and Jason only find the ability to communicate this after they bury their child and sibling.

I am not sure where the teacher is coming from regarding Jason/Janice, but she is also failing Diana, by not speaking up.

Rami

RAMI

Jason/Janice

tmf's picture

It's often use that when some one come to you with the problem of a sibling/friend they are talking about them-self but are to scared to say it. Some kind of protection if the message doesn't have a good reception. "It's not me, it's that friend"

Peace and Love
tmf

Sob...

Ole Ulfson's picture

What more can a decent, feeling, empathetic, person do when seeing all these missteps. How could anyone not be affected by this pathos?

Ole

We are each exactly as God made us. God does not make mistakes!

Gender rights are the new civil rights!

uhm

uhm does that mean you like it or hate it? Im confused.

Like or hate it?

Can't someone feel both? *grin*

Lisa

(p.s. I don't, I just love it. Tragedy of the situation and all. Even wishing I could shake them all and go "Speak up!")

Sad

Just sad. No beauty, no wonderfulness, no masterpiece, it's like watching somebody put a bullet in your dog's head and being unable to do anything about it. Major depression. Everybody is so careful not to do the wrong thing that nobody does anything, a form of moral cowardice.

Sometimes the only way to stop the pain is to stop.


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin

Ouch and Wow

tmf's picture

They say it all....

Good writing
another chapter please where the communication start and the healing begin....

Love and Peace tmf

Such is the nature of miscommunication.

We are all timid to a degree. Unfortunately bullies are not but they are the true communicators. They get their point across (that we are useless and without value). We believe them and many commit suicide as a last statement that these bullies are correct. WHY? Because the timid do not express the value that they see in us. Never let an opportunity pass to tell the ones important to you that you love them. Or more importantly... SHOW THEM!

Missed comminication

So sad, so sad....

Robyn Adaire