Okay so that title may take a little bit of clarification.
I do not feel like I am invalid.
I know I am valid.
I feel like I am being invalidated by my family--an entirely different thing.
They are not seeing me as Bree. I have the power to accelerate this being forced...but I've not grasped it, so I am frustrated at myself for how slow I am, how stupidly not assertive I've been.
I've not once said "that's not my name" to my deadname.
I've not once said "my name is Bree" to my deadname.
I've done some passive resistance to the deadname by refusing to answer to it in some cases, but after my family bypasses the name I answer anyway without them having validated me...and this is the best of my responses.
The others? Me trying, when they use the deadname, to emphasize, "I have/haven't done X", in a way that to me emphasizes that I am not responding to them using the deadname, I am responding to them...but this is something so subtle that it is something that they do not validate me with. They probably don't even notice.
Or worst of all? Instinctively responding to the deadname. 27 years of responding to a name is not something I can undo over a short amount of time, but the number of times I do is outweighing the number of times I don't. I'm not really progressing in pushing those to the minority.
I've not progressed on changing my name legally.
I've not progressed on job search stuff.
I've not sent emails to my mother and older sister containing resources I was given...by now, close to two weeks ago.
And yet, every day I am feeling less and less validated by them.
And it'll get worse on July 23rd.
What name do you think they're going to use to sing 'Happy Birthday' to me?
What name do you think they actively tell other extended family members is mine?
I'm not even being called by my real name on phone calls to our dance group. Yet alone our extended family on either side of the family.
And I've no real way to reach out to them beyond what I have done in making it public in the places I have.
So I am feeling awfully frustrated, both at myself for my utter lack of having pushed further and at my family for doing literally everything to invalidate me.
I tell myself every night I go to bed, 'tomorrow, I will change this'.
I tell myself every day I wake up, 'today is the day that I change this'.
I've yet to do so in about two weeks.
I am aware that this is more on my family than it is on me--
But if I do absolutely nothing, I won't be able to do anything to influence them, anything to affect them.
So I need to keep moving forward here.
I cannot afford to not.
I do not feel like I am invalid.
I know I am valid.
I feel like I am being invalidated by my family--an entirely different thing.
They are not seeing me as Bree. I have the power to accelerate this being forced...but I've not grasped it, so I am frustrated at myself for how slow I am, how stupidly not assertive I've been.
I've not once said "that's not my name" to my deadname.
I've not once said "my name is Bree" to my deadname.
I've done some passive resistance to the deadname by refusing to answer to it in some cases, but after my family bypasses the name I answer anyway without them having validated me...and this is the best of my responses.
The others? Me trying, when they use the deadname, to emphasize, "I have/haven't done X", in a way that to me emphasizes that I am not responding to them using the deadname, I am responding to them...but this is something so subtle that it is something that they do not validate me with. They probably don't even notice.
Or worst of all? Instinctively responding to the deadname. 27 years of responding to a name is not something I can undo over a short amount of time, but the number of times I do is outweighing the number of times I don't. I'm not really progressing in pushing those to the minority.
I've not progressed on changing my name legally.
I've not progressed on job search stuff.
I've not sent emails to my mother and older sister containing resources I was given...by now, close to two weeks ago.
And yet, every day I am feeling less and less validated by them.
And it'll get worse on July 23rd.
What name do you think they're going to use to sing 'Happy Birthday' to me?
What name do you think they actively tell other extended family members is mine?
I'm not even being called by my real name on phone calls to our dance group. Yet alone our extended family on either side of the family.
And I've no real way to reach out to them beyond what I have done in making it public in the places I have.
So I am feeling awfully frustrated, both at myself for my utter lack of having pushed further and at my family for doing literally everything to invalidate me.
I tell myself every night I go to bed, 'tomorrow, I will change this'.
I tell myself every day I wake up, 'today is the day that I change this'.
I've yet to do so in about two weeks.
I am aware that this is more on my family than it is on me--
But if I do absolutely nothing, I won't be able to do anything to influence them, anything to affect them.
So I need to keep moving forward here.
I cannot afford to not.
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