About me

I want this to be a short summary of all things me, as my blog contains the big, extended, uncut director's version of... well, everything :) So here goes:

My youth can be summed up briefly. I started off as a regular child here in the Netherlands, all happy and friendly and being friends with everyone. When I was around 5 years old I began to withdraw into myself and turned from an energetic, extroverted child into the exact opposite. This situation lasted through and worsened through primary school, puberty, high school, college (half a year). During the last year of HS I discovered that I was gifted, which provided at least some explanation for my social isolation, my greatly differing interests from people my age and why I was underperforming at school like there was no tomorrow. All I really seemed to care about were my own projects and internet, as an infinite reference resource and my primary source of social interaction.

After high school I hardly left my room for 3 years straight, a time during which my parents divorced, my family except for my dad moved to another house. Cut loose from the place where I had grown up, my physical health took a nosedive together with my mental health. As my mom told me later, during this time I looked like a ghost.

Moving again, this time to the other side of the country (the Netherlands, so not that big :P ), where we stayed for 3 years. Shortly after we arrived there in 2004, in early 2005 I became aware of something I had known subconsciously for a long time already, something which had induced an enormous stress in me. Normally a child opts to stay with either boys or girls when he or she is around 5 or 6 years old, which furthers itself during puberty. I had never undergone this process and stayed a child emotionally, skipping puberty. The cause for this? Partially because of my giftedness, but largely because of something else. The thing was that until that point I and those around me had assumed that I was a boy, while subconsciously this had never felt right to me. Even though I had been born with externally male-like reproductive organs, these never functioned right during and after puberty, I experienced profound breastgrowth for a while, fit male clothing rather poorly and began to express a preference for being with girls as friends, which led to situations as me sleeping with the girls during a school trip in high school instead of with the boys. During this time there were numerous occasions during which someone 'confused' me for a girl, or just plain asked me whether I was a boy or a girl (adults and children alike).

So I learned that something definitely wasn't right. As I finally began to look at my body with a more objective look I began to acknowledge the lack of male characteristics, discovered the presence of female reproductive organs (a vagina at least) and slowly began to grow emotionally, developing into an adult, then beginning to morph into a grown-up woman.

Naturally, I wanted to know what was going on with my body and what could be done about it, so I went to the VUMC in Amsterdam where I thought the Gender Team could help me. Instead I experienced a horrific experience filled with psychologists, coordinators and others who were convinced I was a confused boy, possibly transsexual and spared no expense to hammer these 'facts' into my head. The result of this experience is a profound hatred against transsexuals, paranoia and hatred against psychologists plus severe depressions. Also pushing me further off the cliff during this point was when the first 'friend' who came to visit me, a boy I had met online, decided it was a good idea to rape me. It took a year before the memories of this event resurfaced and I could deal with them instead of them destabilizing me from inside. Thanks to him I've got multiple traumas regarding men, worsened by my handicap of not having a functional (open) vagina and the resulting lack of confidence when it comes to relations with men.

2007 was the year in which I said goodbye to the VUMC (after they told my mother that it might be a good idea to put me away in a madhouse) and began to take hormones which I ordered via the internet, so as to get a normal female hormone balance. I bought a digital camera and began to show my pictures to people. I was somewhat (strangely) shocked to find that they not only thought I looked feminine, but even pretty and attractive. However, I was so fed up with everything which had happened so far that I decided I wanted to migrate to Canada, where I had met a really nice guy who had become a vital part of my company, which I had established in 2006. After a few weeks in Canada I decided I needed to return, though, as what I had done was basically run away from the real problems.

A new guiding light at this point was an MRI scan I had undergone late December in Germany thanks to a friend who had provided me with a link to the site of the clinic. This scan proved that I was indeed intersexual as I had suspected, with a vagina clearly present, albeit with the labia merged, closing the vagina. Back in the Netherlands from my trip to Canada I went back to the VUMC with the scan report, expecting them to finally acknowledge that I was right and correct their previous position. Instead they brushed away the MRI report as being 'impossible' and proclaimed that nothing could be seen on the MRI scan images. Another try in the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam gave the same result.

Now, a second German clinic has looked at the MRI images and came to the same conclusion as the first clinic. As it turns out I was provided with the wrong CD with MRI images which I had then presented to the hospitals here in the Netherlands. I'm having the Erasmus MC taking another look at the right images now. At this point however, I would prefer asking my insurance company to allow me to receive further treatment and the surgery to correct this birth defect in Germany, as I'm completely distrustful of the healthcare here in the Netherlands, not to mention the glacial speeds at which it operates.

My company's activities have suffered immensily thanks to these troubles, resulting in me being on the verge of bankruptcy. If my Canadian friend hadn't stayed by my side all this time, I don't know whether I'd even have any hope of getting out of at least this financial mess. I have found shelter by a friend I made here in Almere by whom I'm now staying in his house for little more than the cost of the food. I love you guys :)

I'm looking for friends... support... love... perhaps even a relationship, while gradually regaining confidence in my own skills and acknowledging and accepting my own existence. Above all I'd want my condition acknowledged and resolved. It's a delicate point, but if I can manage to keep things afloat, everything should be alright from now on, despite the pessimistic and negative tone of most posts in my blog.

Yes, this really is the short version :D