Adrenaline Junkies
You carefully listen at the door. You don’t hear anything. Your pulse quickens. Your breathing is fast and shallow. Your hand trembles as you reach for the doorknob. You grasp the handle and stop. Funny you never noticed how cool the metal feels until now. You listen again - nothing. Your heart races as you slowly open the door. You stick your head out of the door and peer around the corner down the hallway – empty. Then with all the strength you can muster, you step out into the hall and watch with a feeling of helplessness as the door to your safety closes in slow motion. With another deep breath, you turn and walk toward the stairway. You are not going to attempt to ride the elevator because someone might be in there – waiting. Your pace accelerates the nearer you get to the stairs. You feel like you are in some strange Sam Peckinpah film or dream where no matter how fast and hard you run you are not moving. And then finally you reach the door. You are sweating, out of breath and your heart has not beaten this fast since your last IRS audit. Fear, excitement, joy; all of these emotions are rushing through your mind as you begin to slowly walk down the stairs.I bet most of us can remember the first time we stepped out in the world. With all the emotions that we experienced it is a wonder that we would ever do it again but we do. For some of us, it is our beginning of transition. For some, it is just a lot of fun. For some of us, it is also the call of the adrenaline, the rush of living on the edge. I have a lot of friends who used to live for adrenaline rush. Their jobs and hobbies like race car driving, pilot, rock climbing, fire fighting and martial arts were ways to get that adrenaline fix and going out dressed became just a new delivery mechanism to enjoy that rush.
So as we begin, just getting out of the room is enough of a rush for some to be satisfying. That combination of fear of discovery and victory of passing can be very addictive. But after a while, just driving around town at midnight is not enough. We find ourselves adding new challenges like stopping for gas at a pay-at-the-pump station to keep the rush going. Then as our confidence grows we find that we need to push the envelope ever more to get the satisfaction from the rush. We might start going to support groups, clubs, and bars where the risk are greater and the adrenaline keeps pumping through our veins. After a while even that is no longer satisfying. We begin to do the “normal” things like going to the cinema, shopping and to restaurants; anything that is new and exciting and offers a risk.
Eventually one day there is no rush. No excitement. No fear. No panic. You got what you wanted, to pass and be accepted in your new gender roll but something is missing. The adrenaline is gone. I actually know some girls who have stopped dressing because there was “no excitement” anymore. They were “bored” with dressing. They told me that they had done it all and there was nothing left in dressing. These girls never were in it for transition. They were the pure adrenaline junkies. They have found other way to get that rush like jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.
But many of us also experience the withdrawal of excitement when it is exchanged for the mundane. But life is that way. We cannot continuously live in fear or in a state of excitement. We settle into our new routine and get on with our lives. Yes transition is an exciting and scary time; and yet, it is a very beautiful time when we shed our cocoons and emerge as the person we have always been inside. Personally I do not miss the fear factor at all. I think I will keep my adrenaline in reserve for things more normal things like taxes, jury duty, and doctor visits.
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