Everything I Never Dreamed I Wanted - Chapter 7

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“The conservatorship papers were filed yesterday.” Helen responds.

I feel betrayed. “And you know this because you provided one of the affidavits.” I not bothering to hide my disappointment.

“She said I needed to do it, to keep you safe, and so that she could handle your affairs. I panicked. I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Tina, darling, I’m so glad you are awake. I asked them to give me a call the moment you were conscious”

“No games mother, just tell me what I need to do to get my life back.”

“I’ve lost one daughter; I’m not losing you too…”

Chapter 7

My mom now has control over my life. It seemed like a long time coming. Parents want the best for their children; right?

"I've been here before and have made my way out, I didn't try to hurt myself. Not like the last time. So how do I get out?"

"You choose."

"Oh? and what am I choosing between? Tim or Tina? Boy or girl? Son or Daughter?"

"You choose to accept help and move forward with your life or you choose to stay stuck in whatever limbo you've been for the last 14 years."

"That's it?" I say skeptically.

"Do you think I'm... crazy?"

"I think that you have been stuck between Tim and Tina so long that it's become 'normal' for you."

"So this IS a choice between Tim and Tina."

"You're holding on to one for the sake of the other."

"Tell me mother, which way gets me out of here and I'll do that."

"I said the choice was between seeking help or not. I hope you find peace as one or the other, but you've never sought help for why you need both."

"I have all my faculties; I can challenge the conservatorship in court."

"You can fight me. I have control over your finances. Helen is one of the people that signed the affidavit and you have no one else close enough to you to champion your cause."

Checkmate. My mother has me over a barrel. I sit smoldering at my lack of viable options.

"My request is simple and very reasonable."

I look at her trying to find anything I can use to change her mind.

"I've already lost Tammy."

"How do you know you haven't already lost me too?"

"I don't, I've taught you to deal with the consequences of your actions. Losing you may be a consequence of my actions. The reality is that while Tammy was taken from me; it would be your decision to walk away from me."

I look over at Helen. She's sobbing either from losing Tammy or what has transpired with me; perhaps both.

I lay back in bed staring that the ceiling. "Thank you, Mrs. Sterling, I'll consider your offer. I'd like to be alone now." I close my eyes, and listen for the footsteps to leave the room.

Over the next few hours, I stew like a spoil child who decided that the tantrum didn't work and that the silent treatment would be the next best thing.

A smell of roses enters the room. A bouquet. I imagine they are from Helen. I haven't look to see whose footsteps entered the room. Then the sound of a vase being place on the nightstand. She must have got permission. They generally don't allow vases in the room. Then her voice. "Please talk to me." Helen pleads. It must be hard on her, missing Tammy. The thought did cross my mind to respond with an impression of Tammy. I'm sure the pain of that would drive her from the room. I look over. The bouquet of pink and yellow roses brings a smile to my face. "They're lovely, thank you." I draw in the fragrance hoping it, for a moment, would mask the sterile smell of the hospital.

"How are you feeling?" she asks.

I want to say that I feel betrayed and alone. I want to say how much her siding with my mother hurts. I want to say how I miss my sister. I want to say how much I miss our friendship even more. All I can manage is a curt, "Fine."

"Okay", the disappointment in her voice is almost unbearable.

Whatever mood altering medication they have me on is beginning to wear off. I feel my emotions coming back. I feel less... Well, I feel more, anyway.

"Morgan and the girls say 'hi', they haven't seen you in a while. I told them that you were in the middle of a few projects and would be by to see them when you could."

"Thank you for not telling them I'm in here."

"How about we have a girl’s night out when I get out of here. You know, clubs, champagne, dancing?"

"I can't, I can barely cover the rent on the apartment by myself. I'm probably going to find another place to live. It hurts too much being there. All of her stuff..." She breaks down again. "I'm sorry, it's just been so hard. God! and you still look so much like her."

It's hard seeing her like this.

"Lucy!" my Ricky Ricardo impression, "maybe you should see a physio-chi-o-trix?"

She looks at me. "What?"

"A physio-chi-o-trix? You know a head doctor?"

The episode enters her head and she begins to smile. "But, Ricky!!! I don't wanna see a physio-chi-o-trix!"

We both laugh... "You know, if you keep this up you can have a bed right next to mine!"

Helen stops laughing and stares at me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“I had lunch with my contact at Brownstone yesterday. Apparently, you made an impression on one of their junior executives.”

“Oh really? I can’t imagine what you are talking about.” I say coyly. My blush betrays me though.

“Really? So you don’t remember a dark haired fellow with a chiseled jaw and just a hint of stubble?”

“Nope, no recollection at all.” I shake my head

She holds her phone up to me with his photo and number on her contact list.

“Oh well!”

My eyes widen.

“Since he REALLY didn’t make THAT much of an impression on you, I should delete his number then.” She says as she swipes the display on her phone to ‘delete contact?’

“Don’t you dare!” I grimace immediately after saying it.

“So… Scott Ward… huh?” She says with a grin.

I sigh and let my guard down. “You’ve seen him. I’d be crazy not to.”

“Well, you’re in the right place for it! Oh sorry! I…”

“I deserved that.”

“So are you ready to get out of here?”

“Mom put you up to this didn’t she?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about at all.” She says with a grin.

“Fine! You win…”

I had thought I had put the past behind me. Then clues start to come together. My sister's concern and how she wanted to make sure I didn't cut off mom completely. How Helen seemed to watch over me and how close we had become. They must have had the same doubt my mother had over how I handled my life. None of them could really have a say while I still paid my bills, kept my life stable, and they could keep an eye on me.

The drastic change in my appearance, the odd plan that was hatched which culminated in the loss of my shot at working for Grant Systems. That brought me to the edge. The possibility that my sister could be dead? That was enough of a nudge to send me off the cliff. Now to find my sister is dead and my mother is in control of my life... Splat!

I've climbed that edifice before, and in my youth it was Tim who reached the peak. I'm determined to climb it again. Can Tina do the same? The climb from the depths of insanity to the plateau of "normal"? That was Tim carrying Tina. It was Tina who pushed Tim into the pit in the first place. Not many six-year-olds would think to take a knife to their genitals. Even fewer tried and still survived.

So yes, the psychiatric ward was familiar. In the psych ward, I learned that Tim was stronger than Tina. Tim emerged, and Tina stayed hidden. So much for ‘modern therapy’ at the time. As time moved forward, Tim receded, and Tina re-emerged. A glacial pace, but progress none the less. "The insane" have no such clarity, or perhaps they are the only ones that do.

That was the past haunting me.

I was released from the hospital after two more days there. My mother visited with me every day in the hospital just as she continues to visit to this day. Every time she walks in I could hear her choke back tears and calm herself before entering with a smile. Over the months my hair returned to normal; the rosewood replacing the chestnut. I look less and less like Tammy. I think that makes Mom sad. It's like watching your daughter’s ghost slowly fade away. Eventually, all that's left is me.

Mom paid for counseling for Helen to help deal with Tammy's death. After all, Helen didn't have me to talk to. They wanted for me to handle my own issues first.

As part of my treatment, I had to attend counseling as well. The counseling regimen is simple. I go to sessions twice weekly. Very little changed in my life at the time, except that counseling required me to take an active role. I couldn't be passive, or the treatments would become more 'invasive’. As I opened up more, I could feel the weight of Tim slowly cast off. The weight of a ‘life’ that I thought kept me safe from another trip to the psychiatric ward since I was six.

I spent a lot of time as Tina, at first just so that I could look in the mirror and see Tammy. I miss her so much. For me, even as the lightness of my hair grew out; I found myself opting for Tina's life instead. As I spent more time as Tina, my appreciation for much of the simpler things that Tammy loved began to weave their way into my life.

I began to simplify my life. The Cartier watches gave way to Fitbits. The Louis gave way to simple shoulder bags. My condo gave way to a nice home in the suburbs and a hefty return on the sale of the condo.

All my life, I dreamed of a future where I’d have the world in my hands. Tim and Tina having their share of an extravagant life. Two years would pass, and I would complete what started so long ago. My mother finally relinquished the conservatorship. I finally had everything I never dreamed I wanted. A simple life, Tina’s simple life.

A knock on the front door. An unexpected guest. A man looking for a ‘Tammy’, who wasn’t. His eyes shine like the day I met him. But that’s a story for another time.

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Comments

Hmm...it isn't clear but did

Hmm...it isn't clear but did she actually get help for her condition when she was a child and if so was she forced to suppress her inner female by that person who was supposed to help her? It sounds like she was forced to suppress her feelings, rather than embrace her female side.

I hate that she was being kept under her mother's care involuntarily even after she sought help, I know it was supposed to be for her own good but like the rest of the story she is being forced to do something that others want her to do. She agreed to the counselling, there didn't really need to be that "do it or you go back in" threat anymore...

I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime

Wrenching

This was like walking down the street with your buddy telling each other jokes when he suddenly stops and body slams you to the pavement. That's life hitting you between the eyes. While I would never question the place an author takes their story I would question the manner in which she does it. The juxtaposition of the lighthearted comedy with the heart-wrenching tragedy numbs the reader as much as Tim/Tina's life is numbed. There is a lot to be said for insanity. It is certainly more interesting than normality. I couldn't like the story. I can admire the writing that created it.

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Everything I Hoped Wouldn't Happen?

So Tammy, Helen and Mom arrange to get Tim/Tina out of a comfort zone that's been successful for him/her for 14 years, and Tammy's subsequent death leads Tim to a breakdown that allows them to hospitalize him and tell him his solution is no longer an option.

After therapy, our protagonist ends up with a complete change of lifestyle: besides abandoning Tim, on the Tina side she exchanges glamor and a downtown condo for the simple life and a home in the suburbs, and convinces herself that's it's really what she wants. OK, I can see the argument that Tina's previous behavior came because she had to overdo things as compensation for only being around part of the time, and she doesn't need it now because she's a "normal" female. (Or at least a normal pre-op t-girl.)

Maybe it's just because I enjoy reading about people who can successfully navigate both sides of the gender line. But situations where everybody thinks they know what's better for the protagonist than he/she does and then plot to make the status quo untenable bother me even if they subsequently convince the mark that they were right all along.

Nicely written story, and it was clear enough, especially after the dream sequence, that Tina was the more desirable self-image of the two for her. But having her two relatives and BFF betray her isn't my favorite way for it to happen. (I hasten to add that it doesn't mean the story wasn't successful; it just means it's not my preference.)

Eric

Thank you all for reading and commenting!

Thank you all for reading and commenting. The feedback has shown how much more I have to grow as a writer. I appreciate all of your comments and critiques. I hope to improve future stories with the input from all of you!

Love you all!

Hugs,
Leila

Cut the cord

Jamie Lee's picture

After a breakdown, after the loss of a love one, a person does need help regaining their stability. But that doesn't always mean removing control of their life from them.

Mom took advantage of Tim's breakdown to do what she has wanted to do for 14 years. Force Tim to face his reasons for bouncing between Tim and Tina. Force him to participate in the sessions or face worse treatment. And at the same time, she got a court order giving her control over his life. While she believed she was ONLY helping, she undermined her relationship with Tim. While the counseling sessions did help Tim emerge as Tina, the way it was done could have caused her to cut the cord with her mother. Being betrayed by family or friends is not something some easily get over. If ever. Even when they do it because they THINK that person needs help.

Yes, many parent(s) only want what's best for their children. But whose standards do they use to determine what's best? If they use their own, it might not be appropriate for the child. If they use another's, it too might not be what the child needs either. Even conventional thinking might not be the best.

Arguments can be put forth "for" and "against" what mom did. Even using Tammy and Helen to keep an eye on Tim. But if he needed this kind of help to begin with, why did she wait 14 years to get it for him? Why did she wait until he was an adult before forcing him to get help? Depending of the law, he was a minor until at least 14 years old. And as such, under the rule of his parents. Parents who should have continued searching for the right help for their son. Instead, it took a tragedy before mom acted.

This an intriguing and thought provoking story. One that, while confusing a few time, was a very nice story to read.

Others have feelings too.

Good story, but I'm ambivalent about the ending

This was a pretty well-written story with a few minor flaws in formatting (see below). The main problem I had was with the ending. The story sets up Tina and Tammy's mother as a fairly unsympathetic character, controlling, manipulative, even tyrannical toward the end. But in the end Tina seems to be reconciled to her without the mother showing any repentance or asking forgiveness for the way she's treated her children and Tina in particular. Tina seems to admit that her mother was in the right, when she was *at best* well intentioned, and certainly wrong in the way she went about trying to make Tina realize she was transsexual. And until near the end we don't have any evidence that Tina is transsexual rather than gender-fluid. Her mother and friends may think that switching between Tim and Tina is a sign of denial or wish-washyness, but we don't see any evidence of that until it's revealed near the end that she tried to cut off her genitals when she was six. That raises, as another poster said, the question of why her mother didn't get her treatment for gender dysphoria when she was a child. Maybe her mother got bad advice from the psychologists she consulted, and didn't realize what was really going on until recently -- but the story doesn't strongly support that interpretation, as far as I can tell.

Still, it was a well-written story that left me thinking about it well into the night and the following morning. I look forward to reading your other stories.

The dialogue is a confusing in a few spots where you have speeches from multiple characters run together in one paragraph. And sometimes, when you have three or more characters in a scene, it's not always clear who is talking. When you have three or more characters in a scene, you should almost always have a dialogue tag (a phrase like "he said" or "she asked") in the first sentence of every paragraph. And each time a different character starts speaking (no matter how many or few characters are in the scene) you should start a new paragraph.

Thank you for the story.

Thank you

Thank you for your comments and critiques. I appreaciate the input and hope it would serve to improve future stories.

Hugs,
Leila