Killing yourself on the road

[Rowan Rue]

I'm cross posting this here from my blog as I feel it might be interesting to someone.
It's just a little bit of my personal experience.

When I started transition I knew there would be change.
I knew that.
I mean, obviously there would be change.
I knew there would be change.

I had no idea.

As I was standing on my (as of last night) ex-boyfriends balcony earlier this week, looking out at the cascades I was filled with a profound sense of how completely my life has been changing.
Two weeks ago my wife and I reached the decision to separate.
Thankfully it's been very amicable, we're still good friends, we just drive each other up the wall as lovers.  It happens.
But as I'm stood there, thinking about all the changes in my personality, thinking about the fact that my own anger no longer terrifies me and how I let fly from time to time now.  Thinking about how my social anxiety is evaporating off bit by bit as I keep tearing myself open to let the light in and deny shame any refuge within my soul.
I realize, I have changed.
When I first came out to my friends some of them were concerned about how much I'd change.
Would they know or like this new person? I thought at the time their fears were a little overblown, I mean, I was still going to be me.  There would still be something essentially me at the core right?
So wrong.
I hardly remember who I was.
My mind has quite conveniently, and without being asked too, re-written most of my early memories.  I have to correct myself in my own head to remember having ever been male bodied when I was living back in Wales.
My more recent memories, those that took place here in the US, seem like I dreamed them, or like they were a movie I watched and don't really remember.
I don't relate to that guy anymore.
I'm having a hard time remembering him at all.
I watched some video of myself the other day.
That's not me.
Intellectually, I know I'm the person in that video.
But i viscerally KNOW that isn't me.
Every day that passes a little bit more Thom disappears.

Death of the self is a scary prospect.
Teleporters always scared me.
Being disassembled and reassembled that way, would you really be you at the other end?  Or would you just be a copy?  The original person completely destroyed in the process.
I think if Thom had know that this would be a slow motion teleportation into Rowan, that he would be truly destroyed in the process, he would have been terrified.
But I'm not.
I'm fearless.
I have killed myself and lived to tell the tale.
To those of you who were worried I would become a different person, you were right.  I am not the person you knew before.
I'm brand new, and you've only just met me.

[Beth Andrea]

Wow, so very true!

I have a great difficulty remembering myself as a male, also...and my ex (and kids) do treat me like I'm a completely different person...which is why they are so distant.

It hurts me, but only until I realize..."I'm not "him" anymore...not a facade, not a fake, not the person they knew and loved..." ...and I don't know if they will ever love me again, or even like me.

We shall see.

Thanks for sharing your blog thoughts! 

[BunnyBee]

I remember telling my friends that same thing.  That after transition it would be the same driver, different car.  I believed it.

I remember having my metaphorical toes over the metaphorical precipice.  I remember when I chose to live And comforting myself, saying, don't worry I'm gonna find a way to make this work, I'm gonna save you.  Then I turned around, set a little secret fire at my deepest core and razed myself to ash.

The girl (read girl's mind) with the boy's brain and male body became the girl with the girl's brain and, increasingly, female body, and the new person...well it does feel like the same old me, but when I see or hear recordings of myself... I do NOT recognize that person.  Not that that person was a guy, I know better than that, but just I can see how my mind was processing back then, and it is just.. not how my thinking goes now.  I had no idea that would happen, that simply rewiring my brain to match the person I was within would make me unrecognizable to myself.  I don't think it would have changed anything if I knew.   That sad and broken person I used to be wasn't going to survive either way.

[Mollie]

Rowan Rue, your beautifully crafted words have fulfilled a lengthy and elusive quest for insight. A somewhat ethereal search has ended.

Jen "I remember having my metaphorical toes over the metaphorical precipice" That is where I now stand. I fully understand that we will all follow a different road but at least now I feel I have a map.

Thank you so so much for sharing. You have made a deep and lasting impression; and cleared the mist.

[Sammy]

Splendid, Rowan! So sad, yet reaffirming at the same time...

With each new day my memories of him fade out, a small piece by another small piece. Soon, there will be not enough pieces left to complete that puzzle anymore. Though, my feelings are that he has passed away already, but to my shame, I cant recall the exact date of his death...  He was always frightened and absolutely fearless at the same time... His only function was to protect me and he was outperforming himself to the extent that I was almost destroyed in the process. Still, I have to thank him for what I have learned and picked up from him - something of that will have its use in my life, for sure. Maybe, being absolutely fearless whatever I face...
As for you, my old friend, rest in peace.

[BunnyBee]

It's an uncomfortable thing to think about.   I'm going to link one of my favorite posts I've read on susans, just cause it's germane, I feel.

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,135386.msg1082818.html#msg1082818

i was trying to cheer him up with the warmth of opportunity, and ended up blowtorching him.
-transtrender

...dang 

[Edge]

You have a way with words, Rowan. It's beautiful.
If you don't mind me asking, how much would you say has changed?

[Rowan Rue]

Splendid, Rowan! So sad, yet reaffirming at the same time...

With each new day my memories of him fade out, a small piece by another small piece. Soon, there will be not enough pieces left to complete that puzzle anymore. Though, my feelings are that he has passed away already, but to my shame, I cant recall the exact date of his death...  He was always frightened and absolutely fearless at the same time... His only function was to protect me and he was outperforming himself to the extent that I was almost destroyed in the process. Still, I have to thank him for what I have learned and picked up from him - something of that will have its use in my life, for sure. Maybe, being absolutely fearless whatever I face...
As for you, my old friend, rest in peace.

Oh wow, yes.  So much that!
I had a dream once where the characters could travel throughout the universe by joining the consciousness of beings at the destination of travel.  There was a strange moral code that meant the consciousness you joined had the right to stay a part of you should they wish.  I think transition is the reverse of this, and now I wonder if Thom exists elsewhere in some way.  Perhaps my life is an inter-dimensional bleed. 

@ Sentience, I'm so glad to here my writing has helped in some way. 

@ Edge, lordy, how to quantify that?  Some things are easy to observe, I no longer fear getting angry or expressing anger when I feel it is necessary to protect myself, I can remember peoples names on first hearing now where I never could before, I think I'm both more compassionate yet less willing to compromise myself for others. I have emotions again, I'd been stuck with either manic, depressed or flat for the last seven or eight years.  What I find attractive in others has entirely changed.  I still crave attention and fame, but I can give attention to others now.  I no longer like the taste of bacon. I arrive early or on time to appointments.  So much of how I presented myself was a shame filled repression of how I wanted to behave, compensated for with a ostentatious masque.  That has gone, although I'm still more than happy to own the spotlight, I'm now doing it as me.  I am no longer ashamed of anything about who I am.  I make mistakes, I do or say the wrong thing, but now I simply need to offer sincere apology and move on, I don't recriminate against myself as I used to.

[Nov413]

This is such a lovely post and it sums up exactly how I feel. Almost a year into my transition and I cannot believe how much I have changed.

But somehow being put back in this completely unsupportive environment is bringing him back. I know I can fight him off, but he is elusive. Just a couple more months.