what are the life changing events in your life?

[Deleted]

What events in your life were pivotal turning points, moments that altered your destiny?

[Deleted]

Me:

Obviously my mother saturating me with DES in who knows how early trimester of pregnancy.

Making band, all state, making the wrestling team. Gave me survival strength.

One audition, landing the lead, made Broadway a hundred shows later.

A cup of coffee and an open door in an AA meeting, because God had my acting teacher and voice teacher both be 20 years sober and they seized the opportunity. Changed literally everything.

Praying for the perfect woman for me, and the office hiring her the next day, transphobic and all.

Deciding not to be trans early on and growing a beard. The ripples move on.

Meeting Jesus face to face in a true vision. Changed why I exist.

Walking off the street into an interview because I could read a blueprint. Changed my career, provided food, a modest life.

The stalker, the sexual preditor that sent two kinds the psyche wards, the wife screaming on the bathroom floor, us running over a thousand miles to hide.  Never again.   The hypervigialance, being forced to present strong male, only stability they know.  Sealed my fate on not being able to fully transition.

Hitting the wall trans. Cracking up, and finally going to an endo. God knows how many changes that will make.

Meeting Patty.

[Edge]

Leaving my parents' house for the last time.
Leaving my ex and deciding to embrace the person I am and who I like being.

[Laura J]

Up until 10th grade I knew I wanted to be a marine biologist or study the oceans, I just knew it. I'd already checked out every book on it in the library, over and over, I was probably already near college level.

One day I had to give an oral presentation for some career day thing, and I stopped, looked at all the people, and had a huge panic attack and lost it.. That day broke my spirit, and set me on a downhill path for a very long time..

I never ended up doing what I really loved with my life..
I "settled" for less than happiness. I don't recommend it, it's a horrible feeling that never goes away..

But I've recovered today, and feel much better about myself and my life..

Much of what helped me to finally get past that was my faith and belief in god.. It just took faith in more than this life, and this world, to help me understand things..

No more for now..
Its not a lot of fun to remember.

[Whisper]

when i gave up
when i gave up trying to please others
when i gave up trying  to hide
when i gave up sabotaging myself
when i gave up wishing for something i could never have
when i gave up finding happiness outside of me
when i gave up

[Cynthia13]

Childhood abuse that altered me
Teen pregnancies
Starting my life over 800 miles from "home" at 18 years old with a 20 month old son
Giving my daughter up for adoption and being reunited with her 18 years later
My youngest son's addiction and him introducing me to a 12 step support group for families
This group providing a foundation to build trust, friendships and faith
Communication and Creative writing classes that taught me I could write
Finding a counselor, getting diagnosed and finding answers that fit for me
Learning to listen to myself and others

[Deleted]

The most exciting and adrenaline filled year of my life was 1965 - 66, it was what I was born for, I lived each day on the cusp of life and death and it was invigorating! The outflow of that in the years following was the advent and discovery of my female side which I believe is something that everyone has in spite of being suppressed by repression. There is nothing else but to await the next great adventure and my senses tell me it's coming soon.

I have a bedtime story for you all from that time. I had an opportunity to ride as armed protection on a trucking resupply convoy to the docks at Saigon. There I checked my automatic weapon and equipment in an arms room at a hotel run by US military. Had real food at the upscale Continental Palace Hotel and wandered into a bar as I killed time and had a beer and played a game of 500 rummy with a bar girl. She was big for an Asian woman and had a very pock marked face from a childhood brush with plague. I liked her, she was smart and a good conversationalist. I asked her if she wanted to go out, she assumed that I was propositioning her for sex and said, "No I am a Catholic I don't do those things!" I was impressed with her response though I hadn't been interested in sex, just a walk along the French made boulevards for an hour. Later she told me that her father had been killed leaving her to support her mother and a sibling so she had indentured herself to the bar for a sum of money to support them.

Three months later I had yet another opportunity to ride as fire support to Saigon, I made a bee line to see my new friend but she wasn't there. One of the other bar girls said that she was sick and at Saigon hospital. I bailed that girl out having to pay the bar owner 10,000 piasters about $8 USD for her company and we hopped in a cycelo, a rickshaw pushed by a motorcycle attached to the rear, your shinbones are the front bumper if theres a wreck. We caromed through the streets to the hospital and found my friend on an overcrowded ward with two people in each bed head to toe. I asked her what was wrong and she began to cry, it was her stomach, she was afraid that she would die and leave her mother and little sister helpless and alone. I had her point out the doctor, a younger man in a white smock who spoke English. I asked him why she didn't have her own room, he said that only people with money get rooms. I asked him what was wrong with her, he wasn't sure maybe a bleeding ulcer. I pulled out a roll of money about $350 USD and not the script we were suppose to use in Vietnam to suppress the black marketing of USD as their own currency was next to worthless. I put it in his hand and pulled out a .25 caliber Baretta pistol I carried for personal protection and shoved it in his face. I told him that i wanted her to have a room and that I expected him to get to the bottom of what ails her and expect to see her recovered when I returned in the next few months and warned him that if he steals the money and disappears that I will find him and blow his face off of his head. (Hehehe it was another life, I was a different person, the master of intimidation) He assured me that he would take good care of her. I had to return to get my gear and head to the docks, so I dropped the bar girl off and settled my friend's debt in full with the bar owner paying it so that she was free and clear with several wide eyed bar girls as witnesses to the transaction. It cost me $700 USD, all of this money would only have rotted in some god forsaken jungle or stolen from my corpse if I had been killed anyway, so it was no big thing. I never went back, I can only imagine that things worked out for my homely lady friend who had a selfless heart of gold for her mother and little sister. Rarely does one find good morals in a place like that where people are reduced to the lowest common denominator of human animal, it was rather refreshing.