I haven’t had very much sex in my life. Not compared to others. I haven’t had many partners. I don’t like having sex.

I don’t like my body. In fact, I hate my body and everything it stands for. For me, it’s just wrong. I don’t like to be photographed. I don’t like to look at photos if I'm in them. I don’t like to see myself in the mirror. I don’t like people looking at me. I don’t like people to see my body and I don’t like people to touch my body.

My body is a constant reminder of the fact that I'm female. There have been many times when the sensation of someone touching me has made me feel physically sick. There have been times when I have pushed my husband’s hands away, as he will confirm. And I know how that must have seemed to him. He would have taken that as a rejection; an invalidation of his prowess, his masculinity, his love. And I hate myself for that. It was never my intention to treat him so badly. I loved him. I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. And part of that life would include sex and I thought I could do it, if I loved him enough.

But I've failed. He will confirm that we haven’t had anywhere near the amount of sex that a normal, happily married couple should have. I know that. I'm well aware of it. It’s just another thing to feel guilty about. But I still can’t bring myself to do it, even if it would ease the guilt a little. It isn't his fault. It’s mine. He’s a good lover. He’s attentive and caring. I'm the one who is useless in bed.

My body has been fat and it has been thin. At one point I was a UK woman’s size eighteen and I didn't care. Because it meant that people wouldn't look at me. Or, if they did look at me, they would probably look with disgust. And I deserved that. Because my body is disgusting. Around a year ago, people started to tell me I was too thin. I know that I had lost a lot of weight but I wasn't concerned and I didn't care because it didn't make my body any nicer. Not to me, anyway. But when they told me I was too thin, I weighed myself and found that I was less than nine and a half stone. What’s that in American terms? 130 lb maybe. I hadn't been that light since I was twelve or thirteen. So I started to eat more to put some weight back on. Not to make myself feel better, but to shut people up. Because, if they were pointing out that I was thin, then they were looking at my body. They were noticing me. I don’t like to be noticed.

Not wishing to be noticed has caused problems at work. In a company where you’re supposed to sell yourself to get ahead, to get promotions, to receive praise and rewards, I have avoided it. I know my pay packet has suffered because of it. I know there are people who work there, who have been there for much less time than I have, who earn plenty more than I do. But that’s because they seek out the opportunities to get themselves noticed. They are welcome to the additional money. They have sold themselves to earn it.

My manager is frustrated by my lack of enthusiasm to try to progress and “put myself out there” to be noticed. But he doesn't understand how much I hate standing in front of a room full of people and speaking or presenting on a topic. He doesn't understand why I don’t want to do it. He thinks I'm shy or nervous about public speaking, but that’s not it at all. Years and years of hiding myself away so that people don’t see the things I don’t want them to see, that’s the reason. I've taught myself to stay in the shadows and it’s a hard habit to unlearn.

I know what they see and what they perceive. They see a woman and they treat me accordingly. I don’t want to be treated like that, but at the same time, years of hiding and denying (even to myself at times) what I am means I'm still too scared to fully come out and tell people about me. So, what do I do? I get annoyed when I perceive that I'm being treated as a woman. Which is ridiculous, I know, because why would they act any differently when they don’t know? I have never really allowed anyone to know the real me. That’s what it boils down to. And that is nobody’s fault but mine.

So how, after all these years of pretending, denying, faking, do I finally come clean? I don’t know. My main fear, now, is that people just won’t believe me. Why should they? I've done a pretty good job over the years of covering all of it up. It started with my mother refusing to discuss it. She denied it all those years ago, and that, combined with Paula’s rejection, made me think it was safer to keep all of it to myself.

So I suppressed it all for a while. Only when I went to university did I allow a little of the real me to show. I even saw a doctor, while I was there, and tried to explain it all. And I was surprised to find they were sympathetic. I began to be more male. I dressed accordingly; I behaved more like I really wanted to behave. But people started asking questions and I still wasn't comfortable with the idea of telling them what I was and it stressed me out. I failed my exams. I retook them and failed them again. I failed at university. And at the time, I blamed it on the fact that I was trying to be more “me”.

I had to go back home to the parents, because I hadn't gained the qualifications I needed and I had no job prospects. And I had to put away the men’s clothes. I gave them away to charity shops. I was miserable. I managed to secure poor jobs that didn't pay very well and I had no prospects. I met other people with poor jobs and no prospects and problems of their own. I fell in with that crowd. They were a bunch of people who saw themselves as misfits, and I was definitely one of those. I had always been a misfit so finally I fitted in somewhere. I used to drink with them. I used to take drugs with them. A pattern of behaviour that I can see now was very destructive and didn't help anything at all. But, if nothing else, it gave me something more to be ashamed of.

Shame and guilt. Fairly constant companions, really. Shame at what I was. Guilt at the way I have treated people over the years, because of what I was, or because I was so busy denying what I was.

My temper is terrible. I explode when I'm angry. I can get annoyed at the most insignificant and trivial things. Meaningless things. I get offended at things that I perceive as a slight, even when it’s pretty obvious that they were never intended as a slight. I'm the only one who would ever have seen them that way and maybe it’s because I was looking for them. Looking for them to prove what I already know; that I'm not a nice person and that I'm unworthy of anything other than slights. I read a book, a while back, where the author suggested it’s all about validation, or lack of validation. Not receiving the validation that a person needs causes anger; regular invalidation turns that anger to a deep seated rage. I realise that I need validation of what I am but I don’t receive it. Well, I wouldn't receive it, if nobody knows what they’re supposed to be validating; I understand that now.

So I've caused this mess. I have failed to progress at work. I have failed in my marriage. I have failed at multiple relationships - with family and friends. I have always failed to hold onto friends. That’s probably because I'm not a very nice person, deep down. I have twisted myself into this bitter, resentful, quick-tempered individual who locks away feelings until they find the wrong kind of outlet. I have lied, I have covered up, I have faked and I have denied. How can people like me if they don’t even know me? How can I expect people to love me if they have never known the real me? I'm essentially unlovable.