This thought started with the 10-year challenge thing going around.  As with most topics, I think about it alot.  When I looked up pictures of myself from 10 years prior, I realized I don’t look that different.  But I knew my life had taken a turn for the best over the last ten years.

Ten years ago, and before that, the person that I was was beholden to anxieties.  From when I was a young child I was told I was a boy. I was taught that boys act and dress one way, and girls act and dress another.  But I knew very early on that I was different, long before I knew much else about me.  I think it was most apparent to me by 2nd or 3rd grade that I wasn’t like the other kids, and then it was just a feeling inside.  Back then there was only two ways to be, and that decision was made for a person at birth  Even after the Klinefelter’s Syndrome diagnosis, nothing changed and I still felt different.  As I went through my 20s and 30s, I sought out places that I could dress and act in a way that was comfortable.  There were clubs and a club-scene that I was drawn toward, but in a weird way still felt apart. 

I wanted to build up a solid group of friends, after losing many in a divorce. But my social anxieties didn’t take a break—and going into these public places meant I was super nervous. This lead to a drinking problem.

Not this type:

via GIPHY

An actual, gradual problem. When going out having that first drink lowered my inhibitions, having a few allowed my anxieties to dissipate and a new confidence to surface. I felt happier, at least in the moment, and better able to interact with people. But I also found problems—getting caught up in other people’s personal minutiae, arguments and fights, and an endless stream of one-night-stands to name a few.  I assumed this is what life was, all of my friends had this same lifestyle too. 

After each night of bad decisions I tried to bury it with another night of drinking and partying, and that was followed by another, and then another. 

One big turning point was after breaking up with a girlfriend—who was big into going out.  As a solution to not seeing her, potentially with someone else, I spent my nights at home. Not going out also meant that I dumped a load of friends whose lives revolved around a club-scene.  In addition I unknowingly left behind their toxic and cynical viewpoints of the world.

With more free time, I started to run greater distances, explore the outdoors, and became more introspective.  Introspection and finding out what the term Intersex means has lead me to self-acceptance.  Accepting that I am different, and that it’s not only ok to be different, but I should feel lucky to in a unique group of people. 

Eventually I found a new group friends, people who were also runners.  I got remarried to an ever-supportive person.  And for the first time ever I am comfortable with how I feel on the inside. 

I still have anxieties, but they don’t control me to the extent that they did when I was younger.  And I realize now how so many of my anxieties sprang from the uncertainty of being a non-binary person. There were no resources back then, and no Internet, to explore what Intersex or Non-binary concepts were.