I took my first breaths in this mortal existence during the mid 1950s. I was a happy and contented baby boy, the youngest of five children. My parents descended from a devout Mormon tradition, and raised our family with those same deeply honored beliefs and values.
While in fifth grade, I became engaged in an internal struggle that would take a great many years to figure out. Deep feminine feelings began surfacing in my soul, causing me to experience gut-wrenching confusion regarding my gender. My teenage years played out in two vastly different realms, one quite visible, and the other kept deeply hidden.
In the visible realm, I appeared to be the perfect Mormon boy, doing everything that perfect Mormon boys are expected to do. This was neither pretense nor a façade. I loved my religious heritage with all my heart. I was determined to measure up to my deeply held beliefs—the honored teachings of my youth. You might say I was standing on an “invisible pedestal,” desperately and genuinely attempting to maintain an image of perfection.
In the hidden realm, my life was a virtual roller coaster ride of confusing emotions and secret experiences. I was overwhelmed with what I considered “evil and sinful” feelings, wishing I could have been born as a girl, longing to experience and to express my feminine self. A nagging little conscience voice, perched on my shoulder, whispered to me that I was on a “fast track to Hell” if I pursued and explored such disgusting fantasies. Yet the more I struggled to eradicate those feelings, the more they strengthened and overwhelmed me. Deep shame and guilt became my constant and persistent companions.
I stood tall on my pedestal, being determined to cure myself of my perceived evil. After serving faithfully as a Mormon missionary, I married a beautiful young woman. “Surely marriage will be my magic cure,” I convinced myself. To my dismay, the internal struggles persisted. Ten years and six children later, I was an emotional wreck, still attempting to stand firm on my now-crumbling pedestal, hardly able to function. I was dying inside, recognizing that my literal survival required me to explore and to understand those long-suppressed gender struggles.
In my subsequent soul searching, I succeeded in obliterating all of my religious beliefs and began to feel victimized by both religion and God. I even began to see my family as a roadblock, preventing me from having the freedom of self-discovery. At age 31, in an act of desperation, I managed to get myself excommunicated from my church, and nearly destroyed my beautiful and precious family. I spent the next ten years trying to pick up the pieces, anxiously searching for a happy middle ground. “There has to be a way I can find peace within my heart and still remain married!” I told myself.
By age 41, I reached a point where I knew in my heart that living as a man was no longer an option. Suicidal thoughts followed me around like my shadow, and I knew that I would most likely die an early death—probably by my own hands—if something did not change. After months of agonizing emotional struggles, I finally took the terrifying step of letting my wife and children know that I desperately needed to move on. A judge signed our divorce papers just a few short months later. While divorce is never easy, I am truly blessed by a continuing loving relationship with my family.
In 1997, I experienced a physical rebirth at the hands of a gifted surgeon, finally allowing me to feel a sense of spiritual congruence with my newly remodeled body. I believed that my journey was now complete, that I was now a “whole” person. Little did I know in my naïve beliefs that my real journey was just beginning.
The roller coaster ride took me to new heights and new lows. At the peaks, I experienced unconditional love, peace, and joy. At the valleys, I shoveled my way through piles of deep emotional anguish.
My renewed sense of self and hope for the future ushered in a renewed spiritual energy that began stirring within my soul. I equated that spiritual energy as telling me, “The Mormon religion is true.” Responding to these feelings, I rapidly abandoned my atheistic beliefs, and over a course of five years, I genuinely and valiantly pursued rebaptism.
An earthquake ripped apart my entire emotional foundation when a newly appointed Bishop began serving in my congregation. A few months after the leadership transition, my new Bishop invited me into his office for what I anticipated would be good news. Instead, deep crevasses opened up in my soul as he informed me that my rebaptism would definitely never occur under his watch. I left the Bishop’s office feeling like unwanted, discarded, defective waste.
My feelings of victimization ran deep, compounded even more by other seeming traumas in my life. My tear ducts were like floodgates on a large dam, and the reservoir of tears behind those gates was constantly full—ever vigilant for the opportunity to spill over and flow freely. The slightest of provocations, or even a simple statement of genuine concern from a friend, would release the latch on those floodgates.
Unexpectedly, this flood of victimization completely disappeared in the course of a single weekend, when in the fall of 2003, I stumbled across an intensive experiential-therapy-based trauma healing workshop. In three short days, I let go of the major pain, grief, and judgment that plagued my life. On Sunday night, I left that workshop as a confident and empowered woman, ready to take on the world. I embarked on a new path of spiritual growth and emotional healing that continues to this very day. I am now very grateful to my former bishop for pushing me off the branch of the ‘tree-of-life’ as I knew it, out of my comfort zone, forcing me to spread my wings and to learn to soar on my own.
As the last six years have unfolded, I have experienced unimaginable spiritual growth that still amazes me as I continue to expand my personal connection to my divine source. My internal spiritual promptings are guiding me step-by-step through a gentle undoing of all that I thought I was. I walked away from a 29-year career as a computer software engineer, sold my home, gave most of my belongings to my children, and recently graduated with a Master of Science degree in Mental Health Counseling.
Now, with only my internal spiritual guides to shine a light on my path, I am embarking on the next phase of my journey. As I step into the gentle fog of the unknown, I honestly have no idea what the outcome of my journey will look like. I only know that I could never look myself in the mirror if I did not honor the spiritual feelings in my heart—and I am deeply excited to find out where they lead me.
© Brenda Larsen, 2009
