Quote from: Asfsd4214 on July 18, 2012, 01:47:34 PM
It is highly likely that if you were in some way expecting a profound mental change of some sort, your mind will create one regardless of it being the drug or not.
Lots of folks haven't a clue what is highly likely or not.
That is why it is better to share experiences than to lay down the facts.
for instance...
I remember back when I first started exploring transition and taking Internet hormones. I remember how I had to always know what the deal was. I remember thinking how a trans woman will always be trans and how not telling sexual partners right up front was a huge lie of omission. Because I was projecting and part of my male hormonal biology (etc.) equaled my having to always know what the "reality" was. I thought I could look at anyone else's situation and make an accurate judgment on it based upon my knowledge of reality and my willingness to look boldly at the facts.
The reality was I was full of myself (and full of crap).
Transition occurs on a biological, sociological, body and brain level and it can be pretty damn profound. It may not seem profound right away because it probably isn't. Transition didn't become notably profound to me until after I accidentally had sex with some guy without telling him first that I was an always trans transsexual woman and in that experience I accidentally found myself being wholly accepted as a woman. After that experience I had an epiphany. I was a woman. And I began to believe in myself as one on a very real level, one that came through experience, not through thinking.
What I realized after that was a person cannot transition and anticipate what is around the next corner. the reality is that some things are out of our control and we can put on our big girl panties and deal with it (when it happens). The fact is I could type in this box all day and it won't mean anything to anyone who hasn't had a relevant experience, one that he or she can relate from because little words on a website don't mean anything. Experiences mean everything.
It is highly likely (based on my having begun transition around 2000 and having been on websites like this for some time) that someone who is anticipating huge mental changes from transition is just as likely to be disappointed. The placebo effect may play a role in the very beginning of transition but after a while bull->-bleeped-<- gets old and people tire of fooling themselves. They run out of energy and who can have the same level of fascination and drive for something month after month, year after year.
I know some people are pretty good at fooling themselves but most often I honestly believe that people are best at fooling themselves into thinking they know what other people are experiencing when they haven't even had similar experiences.
I would say my mental changes have been pretty big. For instance... I am no longer aroused visually, say for instance porn. It doesn't matter how good the porn is, it does not affect me like it did prior to transition back before 2000 and the changes were gradual and welcome. I remember before transition when looking at porn it was like porn had a hold of something deep inside my chest, it had a power over me, a strong pull and I tended to be it's puppet. Now it has virtually zero power. I can recognize beauty but beauty or sensuality do not give me the drive to engage in sexual activity, except perhaps every nine or ten days perhaps. (I am single). I can look at really beautiful, amazing porn and then easily walk away (no effort or will involved) and do something like rake my yard or go for a walk and not even think about sex. Those are some pretty profound changes.
Also it may seem like I need to be right or like my opinion matters but really it doesn't. I do want to share my experience with people occasionally, because I think people should be open to possibilities but I will happily admit that I have been wrong about things and my being "right" about my own experiences doesn't equal being "right". It just equals my own experience. Feel free to have an entirely different experience. I will say however I don't think people are as complex as they like to think they are. And I don't believe we are all that different, maybe we are at different places in our lives and that can be huge. Different places, different situations... Makes for big differences, differences of opinion, etc.
And after I had sex without disclosure and had my epiphany (that I was female) and after some years went by (like seven years or so since that experience) I find myself where I am today.
And I have gotten to the point lately where I could give a toot what I am. Lately when my father uses my legal name I feel like it is all a big joke. Like I feel guilty that he is making an effort to remember my name and use the right pronouns because he has to make an effort. It doesn't come naturally to him at all and I should have moved away from here, suffered my losses and gotten over them and not wasted my life. But now I am stuck here as ever. And I have reduced myself to being the pretend woman that people have to make a conscious effort to use the right pronouns with. Just today someone I used to work with over fifteen years ago and have known for 25 years and who knew about my transition since I went full-time over seven years ago (a year after having SRS), he referred to me as 'he' twice in my presence. There is no reality in that.
I am so tired of other people's "reality". I wish they would all take their "reality" and stick it. They think they know what I feel and what I really am and they haven't got a clue in Hell. All they know is psychological projection.
And they don't change.
Their reality never changes.
It is always the same crap every day. "We have to pretend Noey is a woman, don't forget to use the right pronouns because it is so hard to remember."
Find your reality. Read Don Miguel Ruiz, 'The Four Agreements' if it helps and learn about psychological projection because it's HUGE and it is what makes the world go round and round the same old crap way.
QuoteProjection concerns externalizing the issues that we need to deal with ourselves. Usually we project onto others issues and problems that we need to address within ourselves, or are unable to manage properly. Projection is irresponsible behavior as we dump our problem onto somebody else. We justify these projections by blaming someone or something outside for the emotions we do not want to feel. We project our disappointments and problems onto other people, it is somehow their fault, we become a blamer. Ultimately it is the person who projects that loses, as they never really sort out their own problems. http://karlrwolfe.com/psychological-projection.html
I remember my dad when I was little telling me how gays had to experience such terrible humiliation in order to do the things they did. He reasoned that it was the terrible humiliation they experienced from their sex acts that caused them to hate themselves and commit suicide. Because my father was projecting his own feelings onto gays. He didn't realize that it was how Society treated gays that caused so much of their problems and not some sex act humiliation issue.
Some white folks over the years have projected their fears and hate onto black people, coming to the conclusion that black people hate whites, etc., because those white people couldn't own their own fear and hate so they project it into some other culture and that other culture (blacks, etc.) become a way for some whites to hate their hate by blaming someone else for having it instead of owning it and dealing with it.
On a forum like this sometimes we like to figure out what someone else's deal is. What their life is really like, how they are fooling themselves... When really perhaps we just haven't had that experience yet but instead of realizing that we haven't had that experience for ourselves we might try to deny someone else from having that experience. That way we don't have to own our own lack of experience because we just nullify someone else or try to discredit them or take away their experience by saying it is bunk.
Projection is huge.
Going back to my "epiphany" experience, the one that caused me to realize I was a woman, a female... Prior to that I used to say I was a woman all the time but it was a way to convince others I was a woman or protest my situation and my need to transition and be done with it.
Learning I was a woman became like climbing a tree. I learned quickly when I first began climbing trees what they felt like and I learned that if I let go I would fall to the ground. I learned there were certain rules. Sometimes when I am atop a very high building or bridge and I lean over the edge there is a very real sensation I feel like the marrow in my bones is aching because even if I am not thinking about it, my body knows and remembers that if I were to jump off that tall building or bridge there would be a very real result of that action. My being a woman is like that now. I could care less what other people think, I know I am a woman and honestly it isn't up for debate because it just doesn't matter. Someone else's belief wont change falling out of a tree and it won't change me. Some things just are. And some people can reason all they want and theorize all they want but when I lean over that guard rail my bones are going to ache and I am going to have a sensation in my chest because that's the reality of it. My being female is the same sort of reality. People can think they know better than me, they can think I am crazy, they can think that I am just the pathetic ->-bleeped-<- who wants to be called "she" but what they don't realize is I am done giving a rats ass. And it's the same about everything else.
Quote"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail" ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
QuoteGo confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler. ~Henry David Thoreau
When we are very quiet and do not determine what is or how things are possibilities may abound, the uncertainty factor can take effect and we can experience something new.
