So many wonderful people sounding so sad in this thread, Cindy, Nero, Seph. I will repost this, because it is the most optimistic thing I have managed to say on the subject:
"I haven't the faintest idea who or what I'd be if I wasn't born as I am. All the choices, all the best and worst moments of my life would be revoked instantly. The time that I swallowed a few dozen Codeine pills hoping never to wake up, and the time my girlfriend first told me she loved me. I am a composite... and I wouldn't want to risk altering the mix by ditching an ingredient. I wouldn't want to eat a spoonful of salt, but it goes well in a batch of muffins.
A year ago, ask me if I hated being trans and I'd have said yes without a second thought. It's odd that... the way being post-transition has slowly reshaped my perspective. As it starts to just... hurt less all the time. I'm no longer driven by the overriding concern of "OH MY GOD MAKE THE PAIN STOP." There are certainly still experiences, hell, years of my life that I wish I could just forget, erase, redact... but I'm working on that. On learning to accept that I am all one being, made up of all these things. And that what makes me such a damn awesome person includes even some of my most difficult bits."
That is how I try to see it. Try to remind myself that the bad things led to the good things. That I can't take those apart. That if I rewrote my life I would break everything and I wouldn't have what I have now, wouldn't be who I am now.
But there are the times when I don't even like who I am now. Those days are hard. All I can do is try to get through them.
