when you have moved on

[AntoniaB]

Forward, while it might be true that you are still here because you haven't felt you have yet accepted that you won't get an answer, I think there are other reasons you're here...you're helping others, for one, who are in the beginning of this stuff, or even those later in the process. I also know that for me, this is the one set of people who really completely "get" what it's like to lose something so integral to your life NOT to physical death but an emotional one, and no one seems to really get it if they haven't gone through it.

My mom tends to get really worried and comes off like I've done something wrong if I ever "cycle" or "backslide" (she wants to find blame in something I did, like "if you didn't do this you wouldn't have cycled back") and I keep telling her cycling is normal and expected and doesn't mean anything bad at all, but she just can't get it.

Once I said "Look, imagine that one of your children just called you up one day and said 'that's it. I want another family. I want to divorce you all. I want a new family and new life because you all displease me. You can't have any relationship with me because you'll be interfering with my new life."

I said "imagine that. Then put romance and sexuality into it. That's my life."

She can only say "I can't imagine. I just can't."

Well....we don't have to ask people here to imagine it. They get it. I think talking to people who really get it is essential to us. So that's another reason you're still here :-)