How NOT to Handle Transition-Related Stress in Public

1) Agree to go to a family friend's wedding (people you have known since before you started to transition) when stress has been building up for the last week and you haven't had the alone time you need to deal with it

2) Decide to be polite and ask the groom if he has a preference how you sign the guest book (guarantee: you will get an answer you don't want!)

3) Admit to your mother that you're angry when she asks you why you're acting grumpy

4) Suppress your anger rather than let it out in a healthy way

5) Have two glasses of wine and a glass of champagne at the reception when you know you're a lightweight

6) Refuse to answer your mother's questions when she wants to know why you're pissed

7) Take every reference to you as your biological gender as a personal insult

8) Leave the reception, go to the nearest bar, and drink shots by yourself

9) Confide in the bartender, who notices that you are very upset, that you're transitioning

10) Go back to the reception and leave again within 5 minutes, the first time you're referred to as your biological gender

11) Go back to the bar and drink alone some more

12) Tearfully thank the bartender when he calls you your preferred name

13) Go back to the reception, now relatively drunk

14) Confess to your mother why you're really upset when she asks for the umpteenth time

15) Get royally pissed when she responds the way you expected her to ("Well, everyone here knows you as a [biological gender]...")

16) Leave the reception and cry in the hallway

17) Stumble tearfully back to your hotel room, passing several friends on the way, and not stop to talk about what's wrong

18) Yell at your mother when she comes to your hotel room to check on you

19) Yell at your father, who your mother has called and insisted you talk to on the phone

20) Take the argument out into the hallway

21) Yell at a man in the elevator who politely requests that you quiet down when you want to go outside and smoke a cigarette to calm down and your mother is trying to pull you back to the room

22) While outside smoking, sob into the phone (which your mother made you take with you) to your father that everyone hates you

23) Cry all over a groomsman who finds you, bawling and distraught, in the parking lot

24) Leave the gathering with little or no word to the other guests

Transitioning is INCREDIBLY stressful. On EVERYONE, family and friends included, although I will say that the people transitioning are the ones under the most stress. And we all do stupid sh*t in the process of transitioning. You don't get through it without multiple breakdowns and fights, unless you're Gandhi or something. But public breakdowns = not good. Alone time to deal with stress = GOOD.