One of the things about nonbinary is we don't have to try to run away from our birth genders. We can embrace it all, be it all, simultaneously and in perfect freedom.
Yet our pasts can be horrendously full of pain, and we can still react and recoil and make all kinds of decisions based on that past that, because it is reactionary, take us into the dark places of the unicorn forest.
How do you deal with your past?
One of my wife's stock questions she asks of people is "What are your hopes, wishes, and dreams?" I had no answer as the only hope, wish, and dream I had died long ago.
Another of her questions is "What was your childhood like?". Hey.. I had an answer to that one at least. "Average kid." since I worked hard at fitting in with all the other kids, at least the sides of their lives I saw
The past is buried, just like the present and future will likely be.
Much of my past before age 14 is deeply buried. Bits and pieces come bubbling out and reveal enough that I wish to bury it all deeper. I seem to be picking at the edges of the scab on this in therapy -- and wonder why as it is so awful that I even dread thinking about facing it. There are analogies to be applied here and the frightening one is that there can't be real healing until it is opened up, the poison removed, and the whole mess disinfected. Yuck!
I am going to have to go there, but I STILL keep fighting it.
Some things really suck...
Erin
Quote from: ErinWDK on August 11, 2018, 10:56:46 AM
Much of my past before age 14 is deeply buried. Bits and pieces come bubbling out and reveal enough that I wish to bury it all deeper. I seem to be picking at the edges of the scab on this in therapy -- and wonder why as it is so awful that I even dread thinking about facing it. There are analogies to be applied here and the frightening one is that there can't be real healing until it is opened up, the poison removed, and the whole mess disinfected. Yuck!
Same here, except that in my case, it's age 10 or 12.
The voices in my head keep telling me I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, that my childhood was normal, but this much I can remember: my childhood was Hell, which I only survived by learning not to feel. When I doubt it, I remember how practically every day I fantasized about killing myself, about the practical steps involved in taking my life. That's not exactly a happy childhood.
I'm working with a therapist who has trained (and continues to train) in techniques for dealing with trauma, but it's slow going. I read and reread Judith Hermann's and Bessel van der Kolk's books on trauma, and they mention that for people who never had anyone they felt safe with while growing up -- which describes me -- healing is very, very slow. Even now, I only really feel safe when I'm alone.
And, no, I can't bury my past. It's like some undead creature that keeps clawing its way out of the grave to haunt me. Nor would I want to -- buried in that awful past is the child I once was, or maybe the child I should have been. My intuition (which is a lot smarter than I am) says I need to somehow befriend and learn to love that creature, and that will (with time) heal it (her?)
I've had therapists say I should just get rid of all that awful stuff from the past, but I can't -- that would mean throwing out the real me (cf. babies with bathwater.) If I did, I might just as well kill myself, like I wanted to back then.
Anyway, I can't bury it. If anything, transition pulled the cork out of that particular genie-bottle. (Mixed Metaphors ‵Я′ Us) And now I can feel again, for better or worse. I feel like I've gotten a bit of my soul back.
Maybe someday I'll be able to cry again.
You know, I've always figured I had a pretty "normal" childhood, whatever that is :) But then there's this weird questioning I am going through, what am I really? what do I want to become ???
So this morning my dream took me to a moment when I reached for a file folder that contained my past, and I suddenly awoke with my heart racing. What was that all about? Am I hiding something?
I wear my past, my scars, my individuality, like a badge of honor.
Read the quote below.
Bury, bury, bury!
I developed Dissociative Identity Disorder to protect me from childhood trauma. Dissociation allowed me to live a "normal, happy and well adjusted" until my System collapsed under its own weight when I was 48 in 2009. I have been in trauma recovery every since.
I don't bury my past necessarily but I don't keep contact with anyone from before my transition. Except my immediate family
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I don't really remember my early past I don't try to, im just living in the moment
Quote from: Satinjoy on August 11, 2018, 09:25:11 AM
One of the things about nonbinary is we don't have to try to run away from our birth genders. We can embrace it all, be it all, simultaneously and in perfect freedom.
I like that it's so true 😊
Like I mentioned before I don't really remember my early past it is hidden behind a decade's old haze of drugs and alcohol
it's not that I can't confront it.... But for me it is counter productive the only way is to keep going forward I don't have time to look Back ...tommorrow never comes......
Quote from: Drexy/Drex on August 19, 2018, 11:04:17 PM
I like that it's so true 😊
Like I mentioned before I don't really remember my early past it is hidden behind a decade's old haze of drugs and alcohol
it's not that I can't confront it.... But for me it is counter productive the only way is to keep going forward I don't have time to look Back ...tommorrow never comes......
The Siren call of drugs and alcohol and gender and sex can be one heck of a deadly mix.
There are many things I choose not to remember, they are quite dangerous for me. But there are root issues that I need to be aware of that color interrelationships, and those I need to be wise to. And to how that affects me on the street and in other ways, how it makes me fight for what is right and true, or hide in plain sight. But the people pleasing I learned early on as a coping skill delayed my transition for about 50 years, and those were my beauty years, so it is not something easily forgiven or forgotten. It is my greatest pain.
But in the now, and living to go forward, I agree, it can save your life, otherwise, for me, it can overwhelm and push to the edge.
There is so much pain in being trans, and in growing up trans, so all the skills we have for survival are so very important to use.
You have to embrace it as that was who you were for so many years. If I would have transitioned in my twenties it would be another story. Heck I might be living with a husband now. I don't know. I have never felt an attraction for men at least consciously. Ahh the subconscious were I was regularly raped is a different story..
Quote from: Satinjoy on August 20, 2018, 09:25:35 PM
The Siren call of drugs and alcohol and gender and sex can be one heck of a deadly mix.
But the people pleasing I learned early on as a coping skill delayed my transition for about 50 years, and those were my beauty years, so it is not something easily forgiven or forgotten. It is my greatest pain.
Yes I do understand that.... It's something I find ironic and cruel I try not to dwell on it
I still haven't figured out if I'm nonbinary or just a very androgynous person, but as I see myself now I relate highly and connect to both femaleness and maleness on and within myself. Both feel like me at the same time. I read up a bit about the nb label "androgyne" and it felt strikingly accurate for me, but I'm holding off settling for any label for now. But if I'm nb, my thinking is it would be somewhere along the lines of androgynous and/or both male and female gendered.
To sum up the mess that is my journey: born female, I first thought I was a binary trans man and transitioned. Then I connected to being female and thought I was a binary cis woman, so I began detransitioning. Then I started connecting to both being male and female and wondering if maybe I'm bits of both, somehow.
So where I'm standing now, my body is androgynous and so is my mind. I connect to most of it but not all, and I'm now in the process of figuring out how to deal with what I may want to reverse or keep from my transition, and also how it relates to how I see my gender. As I'm no longer "completely female" physically, but also don't wish to continue transitioning to male, connecting to and loving my body is a little complicated. It means I have more than just my birth sex to embrace about it. I now love and connect mentally to all of my remaining female traits though.
I have social dysphoria about my facial hair, but what I really want with that is to come to embrace it too. I love the idea of rocking some face fluff with my feminine style, but I'm scared to. "Movember" is coming up soon and I'm contemplating growing out a mustache as showing my support for the cause, of men's health issues. Maybe that could help me face my social dysphoria about it by also making a powerful political statement with it, that I can use as a reason and a crutch for my insecurity. I'm already picturing I'll look like Freddy Mercury in drag, but... he looked damn good in drag! (The music video to Queen's song "I want to break free" comes to my mind. Also I love that song, and its message might actually be quite fitting for my situation! But anyhow.)
My only actual body dysphoria now is that I'm very uncomfortable/distressed about my chest. I should not have gotten top surgery. That was a big mistake for me and I grieve the loss. I truly miss that part of my original body... So I'm looking into getting a breast reconstruction surgery to restore/replicate what my heart is missing. I talked to my gender therapist about it a few days ago, and she pretty much assured me that I'll be able to get a reconstruction via that gender clinic. Hearing that calmed me down massively. Such a huge relief.
So, in my past I buried my afab-ness, tossed it away and suppressed it. But then I scrambled for it, dug it up again, wanted it back. Now I'm embracing it, wholeheartedly. I thought I hated it, but actually I love it so much and wallow in its awesomeness while I also embrace the aspects of maleness I got from the testosterone I took. The only thing I'm truly dysphoric about now is my chest, but also socially insecure about my facial hair. My goal is to just get new boobs, and stay off the T, but not reverse anything more. My "social label" as of now is cis woman (which might change) but really I'm just trying my best to be me, whatever that means, and finding peace with my transitioned body by doing kind of a partial detransition. Meaning, I'm trying my best to embrace both my past and my present, and carry both with me into my future.
I likely have OSDD (variant of dissociative identity disorder (DID)) and I used to be at constant war with my one alter as she was abusive and disagreed with my transition. But I connected with her too and now we love and heal each other. We're still continuing life as two separate personalities, but we partially merged and are on very good terms now. Our past is dark, but we've forgiven each other and are moving forward together as a healthy system. I used to think that would never be a real possibility, but now it's my reality.
I never healed in professional/actual therapy, but due to my own self-therapy. A lot of it has been Jungian "Shadow work" (a kind of process to integrate my mind with itself), letting go of my inner barriers/walls and escape mechanisms one by one, and replacing self-harm with self-care. Yes, it's been a very long and difficult process (3 years so far), but extremely rewarding. All in all, the more I heal and love myself and my various aspects, the easier it is for me to embrace my past and see it as my enriching journey that led me here. Without it I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be me.
My past is my history, it is the foundation of who I have become. Some of it is actually quite awful, some quite meaningful, but it is what it is. I recognize it and no longer fear it, but it is and it must be over. For me to become the person, friend, lover, pilgrim that is my destiny I must transcend the pain, the loss and the wasted time.
A day, or an hour, or an instant at a time, I have to live in present. If I do not, I will (and have) become paralyzed with fear and stuck in the cycle of repeating behaviors that no longer work. To live authentically is to live in transcendence. To live transcendentally is to live in the eternal now. My identity, my sexuality, my future are all dependent on paying attention to what is and to what can be changed. What I believe can be changed is my attitude and how I visualize reality. I think that reality is a verb. It changes depending on my point of view. A setback, a failure, a success, even love are constructs that I embrace or I reject in real time.
There is an old saying, that illumination is easier if you are fed. I am fed. I am not afraid of violence, nor am I fearful of Trump or those of his ilk. They will pass, we will prevail.
Blessings,
Julie
I reflect on my past experience, learn from it, and move forward.
Our conscious tried the bury at all costs route. It exiled fragments and early incomplete personas, along with their memories to our sub conscious.
As a consequence, depersonalisation is normal for us, and derealisation when the world gets too stressful. We have been reassured by our therapist that we do not have DID - mainly because of the lack of major recent amnesic episodes, and because our parts are incomplete in some ways - we cannot function as one, and the switching between us is fast and fluid as a self compensation mechanism of sorts. We are non-binary, as it is the only way that our whole can be reflected in a way that is commonly understood - much of our genders are agender, or neutrois and a few clear distinct female fragments.
Somehow we will have to find a way to accept what we don't know. Somehow we will have to find a way to soothe and calm our inner children, from the pains that they are carrying.
Beware what you wish for, burying it, has far reaching consequences.
(Hugs)
Rowan
Quote from: SeptagonScars on October 21, 2018, 10:02:18 AM
I still haven't figured out if I'm nonbinary or just a very androgynous person, but as I see myself now I relate highly and connect to both femaleness and maleness on and within myself. Both feel like me at the same time. I read up a bit about the nb label "androgyne" and it felt strikingly accurate for me, but I'm holding off settling for any label for now. But if I'm nb, my thinking is it would be somewhere along the lines of androgynous and/or both male and female gendered.
Whoa, thats a tough road walked, and unfortunately, it does happen.
Suppressing a component of self is a dangerous thing to do, and not understanding that gender is simultaneous, coexistant, inside, not of the binary where attributes are assigned as boy or girl but instead as wholeness, which is what you have strived for and embraced.
Don't worry about the labels, labels limit, confine, and can be inaccurate, and that is a form of untruth, and untruth is not a good thing for us. We need to know ourselves inside out, make sense of it all, be.
Nonbinary you can have any body needs you want, its part of satisfying the whole of you, a necessary thing. A lot of folk don't understand nonbinary dysphoria and how painful that can be.
Grieving the loss is well said, so sorry to hear this.
Anyway, hang in there. And I'll hit what Sno said, love their stuff here, but yes. Repression and stuffing the past, not a great thing. Its hard to feel the pain, but going through it brings healing, and the past that was good can surface as a result of facing it.
SJ.
Quote from: Satinjoy on October 24, 2018, 08:49:56 PM
Whoa, thats a tough road walked, and unfortunately, it does happen.
Suppressing a component of self is a dangerous thing to do, and not understanding that gender is simultaneous, coexistant, inside, not of the binary where attributes are assigned as boy or girl but instead as wholeness, which is what you have strived for and embraced.
Don't worry about the labels, labels limit, confine, and can be inaccurate, and that is a form of untruth, and untruth is not a good thing for us. We need to know ourselves inside out, make sense of it all, be.
Nonbinary you can have any body needs you want, its part of satisfying the whole of you, a necessary thing. A lot of folk don't understand nonbinary dysphoria and how painful that can be.
Grieving the loss is well said, so sorry to hear this.
Anyway, hang in there. And I'll hit what Sno said, love their stuff here, but yes. Repression and stuffing the past, not a great thing. Its hard to feel the pain, but going through it brings healing, and the past that was good can surface as a result of facing it.
SJ.
It is very rough, yeah. I'm still in my grieving process, although I do also have my brighter moments and feeling very hopeful about my future. And just that I've begun to embrace my traits from T as part of me does feel very uplifting in this trying time. Just a few days ago I did manage to fully embrace my facial hair too. Although still a bit nervous about it in public, it also felt very freeing and liberating to just walk outdoors unshaven and femme at the same time. I felt so "me" like damn! But yes, these sort of stories do happen.
Suppressing an aspect of who you are is not a good thing at all, no. I was unaware of that I did that before, and it shocked me when I figured out that such a huge part of me sees itself as female. And now it's a little difficult for me to balance both my female aspect and the male aspect of my gender, so I don't accidentally suppress one or the other again. They both need to exist freely within me, and to both be expressed as well.
I know, finding a perfect label is not so important that I should wreck my brain over it. My main goal is to just be myself and express my gender senses however I see fit for myself. Then what I call myself is of lower priority, I think. But it can also be a learning experience to just dig a little into nonbinary terms and see how I feel about them and what thoughts they might spark.
I guess I do kinda worry a little that maybe others might not understand me if I say I'm just a woman but then basically display nonbinary dysphoria. But then a lot of (mostly cis) people don't understand nonbinary either, so yeah... I'll just glare at people who give me trouble about my gender/expression, I guess.
I think even I don't quite understand nonbinary dysphoria, even though it seems I have it. I mean, I'm really confused about my own situation with that. But I think I will come to understand it given more time to think and feel about it.
Yeah, grieving my loss is the hardest part of my journey, and also reconciling with that my chest will never be the same again, even after reconstruction. So I've got a lot of mental work to do about that too.
Yes, going through the pain of starting to accept what's been repressed does bring healing. And eventually it will hurt less. I've dug up a lot of stuff I've suppressed now. Accepting those things, and integrating them as a part of my surface personality, has actually made me feel more complete than ever. And also considering my DID symptoms, my mind is very fragmented and disorganised to begin with. So it's very rewarding, even though it's also a very intense and sometimes painful process.
I have no photos, ID, or documentation from the past, but I do reflect on the past once in awhile.
Our past is just that, our PAST... and without it we wouldn't be where we are today.
Every once in a while I will turn the pages (actual paper pages) in my private/personal journal and diary that I started keeping up to date when I was in 7th grade. There is a lot of revealing detail in the what I wrote then that orchestrated my transition in later years when I was in college up to now.
There are family pictures and other various pictures, report cards, school picture albums, events that I attended, friends that I had made, old employment resumes, my HRT progress reports and photos, etc.... .... basically all my life experiences that I have documented.
I do not bury my past, I do indeed embrace my past, it is and will always be a part of me.
On cold rainy nights I will sometimes cuddle in my comfy chair in front of my fireplace and sit and read for hours, sometimes bringing tears to my eyes and sometimes a smile to my face. Keeping a private and personal journal and diary, at least for me, is very beneficial personal therapy... it lets me see problems that I encountered and then solutions that I took to overcome those problems.
Just my opinion, that is all...............
Danielle
I embrace my past. Since I'm AFAB bi-gender (both binary male and binary female) it doesn't bother me at all to embrace my female history, and it feels great to finally embrace my guy side. There is nothing in my past that bothers me all that much, and so much to celebrate. I certainly wouldn't take down our wedding picture, nor my senior photos. Everything that was good, which is 99% of it, stays.
So, I embrace everything about my past. Even when I get my name changed (I think it will happen next month!) I am keeping my female birth name, just adding on a male name.