I am massively confused. For those of you that don't know my history, I didn't have any idea I was trans until a couple of years ago at the age of 24. It started when I began trying to come to terms with my sexual orientation and I started to get a split identity. Over the last few months, I thought this split was 'healing' and I was letting go of the old me, an identity that was no longer right for me and starting the journey of finding the new me as a guy. But then yesterday, I met up with a friend and went for a drink at the pub (non-alcoholic 'cause I'm on anti depressant/anxiety meds) and I just felt really really weird. It seemed like all these feelings and thoughts I have been having about my gender were unreal, like I'd just dreamed the whole thing up. I was sitting in the beer garden talking with my friend and surrounded by other people and I just realised I had no idea who I was. Here were all of these people, men and women, and yet I couldn't say to which group I felt I belonged to or to which group I am attracted to. Perhaps out of habit, I caught myself admiring women's fashion again; the floral pattern on a girl's shirt, the girls' hair and nail varnish, the dress on the girl at the table next to me. 'What was this?', I thought. 'Am I attracted to them?'. I didn't think so but I know that the person I used to be would have gone away and tried to find where I could buy that shirt or dress and copy their style in some way. Knowing this, I sat there imagining myself as I used to be playing the straight girl checking the guys out and getting more and more confused. 'Why do I not feel like a straight guy as I'm sitting here?' I thought. 'Why am I admiring girls' hair and clothing instead of checking them out?' I know that female clothing feels wrong on me now but still, I imagine putting it on and it's like putting on a persona and there's something about that which still appeals to me. I imagine putting on make up, women's clothing and this charade and instantaneously feel uplifted. It is an identity I know well and a part I know how to play. I am the master of this character. I know it inside out; how to behave, what to say, how to dress. It might be a charade but while in character, I fully embody this person. I feel alive, invincible, confident. It becomes my identity while the real me hides inside, clueless and empty with no idea how to connect with another human being and how to function in the world. Has anyone else had this same experience?
I've had a very similar experience. I went through a really serious depression, and about six months ago felt like my personality was splitting just to handle all the emotional pain I was in. Once the meds started to heal that pain, it felt that split was healing, and I was becoming just a guy, which I'd never thought about before the split, although I've always had a more masculine personality. And yet I still know my female character so well that sometimes I wonder if I was right about being trans* in the first place, or like I imagined it all. I catch myself admiring nail polish and wondering why I don't paint my nails anymore before I remember that last time I tried to paint my nails, I got really dysphoric about it and it felt wrong. It's a very confusing feeling.
Oh my God. This sounds 99% of how've I've felt. I put it down to having a past as a "female"/perceiving myself as female, and even if I think differently now, it's part of who I've been, part of my experiences, and they're still freshish... but the more I express my male side the more faded the old feelings become.
A car is not a car because of its final product. It is a puzzle of thousands and thousand of individual, moving/unmoving co-dependent parts. It is the sum of all its parts. You are no different, thousands and thousands of moving/unmoving parts. Your physical and mental and emotional existence, regardless of how you were born or how you are now, everything in your life has made you who and what you are today. Take away any one part and a car might still function (for a while), but eventually parts will begin to break and damage will begin and a (slow) cascade of systemic failure will result in the eventual destruction of the car. ---------- Post added 16th May 2014 at 11:17 AM ---------- Stating the obvious fact that the human body, mind and spirit make up an infinitely more complex machine and the above comparison is a rough one at that, but the point remains the same.
