What if...?

[beth]

   That's a great attitude Gina.  I'm proud of you, I know I could use a more positive outlook sometimes.





beth

[Sarah Louise]

What if's and looking back only lead to depression and thoughts of suicide.

[Terri-Gene]

looking back only lead to depression and thoughts of suicide.

I don't know about that one, I would think it's a matter of going over regrets or of self improvement.  I know there are things in my past that I really can't bear to fully face, but I must go back into them in order to reach closure on why certain things happened and deal with the problems in order to eliminate thier power over me, in which case it prevents suicide, or at the least, discomfort with myself.

[Sarah Louise]

Each of us come with different levels of background.  For me dwelling on what if's and generally dwelling on the past can (and has been) dangerous sometimes.  You can't change anything that has already happened (unfortunately), so I try to move on and not try to look at the past to "reach closure".

Sarah

[DawnL]

For me, the "what ifs" are not a case of looking back, but accepting and dealing with loss--the loss of my teen years as a girl and much of my adult life as a woman.  Those years can never be replaced and are somewhat like a friend who has died, in that something dear is lost forever.  With this loss--as any--must come a period of mourning.  Some people need closure, some don't, in time, I'll come to accept this loss philosopically.  Right now, it is too new to simply say "what if" and move on.  In a sense, I--as a woman--have been in prison for over thirty years and having just been released, am still somewhat bewildered by the world and everything I've missed. 

Dawn

[Cassandra]

I can't see any good coming from looking back and saying what if I had done this or done that. No good can come of it. I hate to go biblical but I believe there is great wisdom in the passage. "He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not worthy of the kingdom of god." Take it for what it's worth.

Cassie

[gina_taylor]

Thanks for throwing me a line if I'm going down Cassie. It's nice to know that I can depend on my sisters.  Pressure only causes stress, and stress is one thing I don't need. 

My attitude is slowly improving Beth and without the support of my friends and sisters of Susan's I don't know wheere I'd be. 

Gina

[JenniferElizabeth]

Just to add my 2 cents here. I don't think I could deal
with this another time. But, then maybe I would know to face it sooner rather than going through years of denial and
torture.Iwould start in my late teens or early 20s.
    Then again, maybe I could be born in the RIGHT gender
this time. But, like some here saying that you cant relive the past just live what you have left, the best you can, very good advice.

[Jillieann Rose]

Rather than What if or What Now I'm look at life and saying What Next. Always looking forward I can change the pass. 
As you think you are.  So be as young as you want to be JenniferElizabeth. Today is a new day to live to your fullest.
Jillieann 

[Victoria L.]

I know what you're talking about.

Everyday I wake up and am not a girl, I think "Great, another day wasted."

I really do wish I could have had the chance to do all of those things young girls do and take for granted... I suppose we all do...

[Peggiann]

1.) I have to say this to Dawn and any other that looks back so often mourning a past they didn't have. Mourning I always thought came from loosing something you had or knew. If it's a past and bunch of experience you didn't get then you shouldn't be mourning what you didn't have.

2.) Anytime you spend in the frame of mind makes you miss out on what should have been happening during that time you are loosing. You have truely lost the time, that memory that could have been being made. Now in that time frame no memory was made and nothing to look back on fawndly. To me it feels empty and pointless to mourn something that never was or never happened. Time does not stand still for no man or woman... you lost it... it's gone... Why be doublely loosing it? If you feel your loosing it agian because you lost it before when you didn't have it to loose in the first place. But the second time around choosing to loose it again is really putting yourself through imagining to much hurt and pain. Your suposed to be fair, firm and freindly to yourself... Why is it ok to make yourself hurt over dweling on something that didn't take place? It's not very freindly to cause yourself more grief. It's not fair to take away precious time thinking of what might have been in stead of what is and can be now and making a memory from it. It's not being firm to allow yourself to chuck moment after moment out the window and never be able to get it back to live it over again. It just doesn't happen that way. You would be alot better off learning to accept what you can change and forget all that you can't and don't let it come trying to creep back in and take away more of what you deserve, your womanly experiances.

Smiles,
Peggiann

[Teri Anne]

If you look at worst-case scenarios, it can help...

Frank Lloyd Wright, America's most famous architect, had a few hundred designs that were never built.  You look at most of them and they are so obviously the work of genius but they didn't go beyond the paper stage.  When Mr. Wright was asked, late in his life, what his favorite design was, he would respond, "the one I'm working on now."  He didn't lament, as his followers have, that some of his most incredible designs were not built.  He looked to the present and the future.

If Van Gogh had tortured himself with the fact that he didn't sell any paintings (except one, to his brother), he probably would have stopped painting.  He found joy and satisfaction in it and kept on. 

If Frank Lloyd Wright and Van Gogh could keep doing what they were doing despite regrets of the past, I figure that my not going to the prom or dating boys or getting married and having babies is insignificant compared to their losses.

Or, taking a cue from the "road not taken" idea...  So many of us have made mistakes in the flash of an instant.  Think of the person who drifts asleep while driving and ends up killing someone.  Again, their angst of that is far more horrible than my lament of not having a female past. 

I know it's extreme to think of such comparisons, but it helps me get through the day.

Some of you mention being childlike....  My best friend (who is 3 years older) is someone who helped me go through transition, clueing me into female things.  She became a mother to me in many respects.  There is a pseudo-game we play almost all the time wherein she treats me like I'm her daughter.  It gives me the freedom to act as a girl-kid.  It helps me not lament the past because this game affords me the chance to LIVE today as a girl-kid.  It's fun and it also gets me through the day.

Teri Anne

[Kimberly]

Also is the "not crying over spilt milk" line of thought...

[Dennis]

Yep, I sometimes regret that I didn't do this earlier, but my experiences have shaped who I am. I wouldn't be the same person if I'd transitioned earlier.

Dennis