What are your analogies for your situation?

Those are some interesting analogies- and I definitely love the left hand one. It's very accurate in my case as well in regards to my sexuality.

Here are some I've dwelled on or thought of in the past, perhaps pertaining to sexuality and gender, maybe relating to both, or just emotions surrounding all (*gestures towards identity issues in general) of this.

One of them, also one I've heard around, is having walked with your shoes on the wrong feet for most of your life, so much you had to adapt and get used to it, so it feels like it could work, even if it isn't natural for you. There's an element of discomfort, but it's usually disgarded because hey, nobody else is saying anything. They all seem to think it's normal, and you maybe even begin to think that how you feel, and this slightly unnatural feeling that something doesn't fit right, is actually supposed to be there. Then one day you slowly or suddenly discover that even though you were born with society/family/other people having put those shoes on that way, that it feels so much more right and natural putting them on the right way. Suddenly everything feels far more natural for you, it's a series of epiphanies, but other people question why you would do that, when perhaps they do it a completely different way. They might even ask why you decided to "change" which shoe goes on which foot- you didn't change anything, you just discovered what naturally fit you, something that you can't change in itself. Also, it may take some time to even get used to this, even though it's natural for you, because you spent so long adapting to the discomfort and the other way- which never really worked out right for you anyways.

Another one that I've just thought of off the top of my head, mostly pertaining to self-perception rather than society and external factors, is having seen yourself in warped mirrors for your entire life, or having looked at yourself through a bent or discoloured lens for as long as you can remember. You've gotten used to seeing yourself one way, even though it's not an accurate representation of you. Then one day, the goggles are taken off. The mirrors are fixed; you walk out of that illusion and hall of mirrors into your own reality. You look at yourself and realize that woah- so this is who I am. It's jarring because you've seen a distorted version of you for your entire life, and suddenly you're seeing and exploring parts of yourself in a new light. It's almost overwhelming at first to have so many details shown to you clearly, and no longer distorted, that you wonder if this correct mirror is even right; there is a lot of running back to the illusions because that's what you have been used to seeing. Seeing yourself now is startling and new, but everything matches up far better than you would've thought. There is no more fooling yourself, and the distortion begins to fall away.

Other analogies I've heard around revolve the idea of masks, of pretending, and one that might relate to the shoes one- of having worn clothes that didn't quite fit for your entire life, and suddenly finding one that does, and no longer is too small and uncomfortable, or too big and clumsy and unnatural.

Those are some I can think of for now. Obviously they're not completely accurate or universally relatable, they're just ways to picture it I suppose.

 

Oh wow, I really like the shoe analogy. I can really relate to that. I felt like I spent my whole life wearing someone else's shoes, and on the wrong feet! And while it always felt like something was wrong, I ignored it because I matched everyone around me, so any discomfort I felt must have just been me, right? I mean, I was doing all the "right" things, so what's my issue?

Then comes the day when you find the right pair of shoes, and the epiphany happens, and you realize why you've been out of sorts all this time, and it's all so obvious, and you wonder why it took you so long to figure it out.

 

To me it almost feels like looking up from a book and realizing I had never done it before. I always saw my body and knew what was there and I knew what I like to see and I know all this stuff, but seeing it with MY own eyes is different. All my life I've been hearing the way someone spins their opinion of me and finally I looked down and saw someone who was never what they described. I'd been reading that book you get given as a pre teen all about how your body changes and I kept reading about the opposite sex, thinking that that made more sense and was more relevant but I was told that my own body was not the one I was reading about. And suddenly I look up from my book, look down and see all the positive things in myself. Like reading about how men have hair and a flat chest and square jaws and then looking in a mirror and realizing I have breasts and thin hair and a soft jaw. And I'm beautiful. Of course it's an analogy because I definitely don't have those things but. That's how it feels.

 

I like the shoe analogy.

 

I feel like my life is "in color" now, after being black/white for the past 20 years. Sure there were highs and lows, but the depth of emotion I'm feeling now makes me "feel alive".

 

I often refer to it as a "Helen Keller at the pump" moment. If you remember the old movie The Miracle Worker, Annie Sullivan has been teaching blind and deaf Helen Keller sign language, but Helen has never really connected the hand motions as actually meaning anything. Then one day they are filling a water pitcher at the pump, and as "Teacher" makes the signs for "water", the water flows over Helen's hand....and suddenly it clicks that the signs and "water" are the same thing. She finally understands, and it all makes sense.

Coming out was more complicated than that, but over and over, I have looked back on things that happened, emotions I felt and didn't feel, and suddenly I understand why. It all makes sense now, and it's wonderful.

 

Have you noticed how in summer, sunlight is very thick and rich. You get a lot of light for your light...so much that it's hot. And then in autumn, it becomes increasingly thin? Until winter when it is effectively so thin you can't do anything with it, except read by it...very little light per unit of light. Then starting in early-to-mid February, you can feel it start to thicken again. This thinness/thickness of sunlight is a metaphor in itself.

But recently I've noticed my life doing the same thing. Right now, my life feels extremely...thick. Dense. There is a LOT going on, and I am extremely present in all of it. I'm getting a lot of life per day/week/month. Much more than usual. Even 2-3 years ago, my life was much thinner...much less life per unit of life. And 10 years ago, before I started really grappling with who and what I am...sheesh, no comparison at all. I'd become so non-present in my life as to almost not be there...kinda like deep winter sunlight.

 

The difference, for me, in a nutshell:

In a relationship with a woman: firecracker

In a relationship with a man: atomic bomb

 

I really really like the shoe analogy too. It's very fitting

 

Haha...yes, this too. The good kind of atomic bomb! But with the genders reversed for me, of course...