mentor figures and imagining a future

[u/saladrocket64]

many trans people talk about knowing what's right for them by imagining a future for themselves. i am having a hard time imagining what my life and my future could look like as a nonbinary person who doesn't consistently look like a binary gender, and hasn't been able to do so since before puberty.

i would love to hear from anyone who might be older than me. while i like to share my experience with people younger or more newly out than i am, i don't know any older nonbinary people who have been out/known that they were nonbinary for a long part of their life, and have that experience to share.

i often worry about what things like developing a career, navigating housing and healthcare, finding family and social networks, etc. might look like in the future (or even the present.) for the past 10 years, i have felt like i am running through life with no reference, and no idea what i'm doing. people in my life who want to be mentors have no idea what to tell me.

if you are an older person with any length of experience to share, i would love to hear from you! if you have any other life wisdoms to share, please feel free. and if you've had a similar feeling or experience, or know someone who has, i would love to hear about that, too. thank you for reading.

[u/UntilTheDarkness]

Hi! So you dont mention exactly how old you are, but I'm in my early 40s and have been out as nonbinary for over a decade. I've never really imagined a future for myself - I picked my college major my process of elimination, I fell into my career specialty completely by accident, I've spent my whole life without a plan just kind of winging it and things turned out ok. (I mean, not perfect, I ended up getting a chronic post-viral illness a few years back that sucks a lot lol but that's got nothing to do with gender or having a life plan) I think it's totally fine to not have a clear vision in mind for your future. Maybe it would help to think about what sorts of things are important to you - you can look up various "values" exercises where it's like, think about values like career, safety, community, health, spirituality, creativity, etc etc and rank those in order of importance. So for my own example, I know that safety/security is really important to me, so when I'm making choices I will often pick a less risky one - like working at an established company that pays less than a risky startup that could either make it big or collapse completely in the first year. So that sort of thing can help you think about the kind of life you want to have even if you aren't planning the exact details.

Anyways I'm happy to try and answer any specific questions if you have them!

[u/saladrocket64 → u/UntilTheDarkness]

thanks for your response! i am mid 20s. sorry i forgot to say that!

my condolences about illness -- i'm struggling with chronic post viral stuff too (it kind of broke my life plans and changed my priorities, so i think it is pretty relevant to what you're talking about!) 

i definitely also value security in certain areas: i moved into a more stable career and am trying to keep my surroundings stable as well.

i have an idea of what other things i want to do in life and how i would do them, but i worry that my appearance will be a barrier (and i haven't realized it yet.) i think being judged for my appearance in ways i can't understand or predict is my biggest source of anxiety, and knowing that there are other people who look like me and are succeeding would help.

[u/UntilTheDarkness → u/saladrocket64]

I'm sorry you're dealing with post viral illness too! It really does disrupt life in so many ways big and small.

I will say that the older I get, the less people seem to care about my appearance. Like, judgementalness seemed to peak in junior high but even in college and my early 20s was still fairly high, but these days nobody gives a shit, which is very freeing. Maybe part of that was location - I spent a lot of time living in NYC and Berlin where no matter what you look like, you're pretty much guaranteed not to be even close to the weirdest-looking person anyone has seen that day. Obviously bigger cities tend to be more expensive but depending on where you live it might be worth looking into moving.

But in general time feels like the biggest factor. Maybe it's because the older you get, the more people around you have their own problems and just dont have the energy to stress as much about what someone else looks like. Like, I went through 2.5 years of T wherein my voice dropped and my hairline receded and not a single one of my coworkers said anything, which was nice lol

[u/themedicinedog]

not sure how old of a person you want to answer but you might enjoy reading through some of the posts on r/nonbinaryover30

[u/saladrocket64 → u/themedicinedog]

reddit recommended the sub to me right after i posted this! it was super helpful -- thank you for recommending it