Life before transition seems like another person's life

[Natalia]

Do any of you feels like your old life, with your old self and all the rest looks so distant now...that it seems like anybody else's life, not yours?

It is a strange feeling that have been getting me recently.

When I look at one year ago, just when I was about to start my HRT and I was still trying to find who I was...everything was so different.

With myself, things were indeed very different. I still had my mother alive, I was at her side mainly all the time, my routine was totally different...I was busy with studies, I was still on the closet, had shorter hair, virtually no feminine clothes, had never been out as the real me before...that looks like another person! I was sad, downed in depression, no friends, no life...a ghost of who I am today.

Then, when I look even back, 4-5 years ago...things were even more different. I look back and...no...that's not me...that can't be me!

I think the changes were so great and happened in time so short...it was so abrupt, things changed so fast that I ended with this detachment feel...like it was another life.

And this remembers me of my favorite quote from Ranma ½ manga/anime:

How do I explain it? It feels like I've just awakened from a long, refreshing sleep, as if I've experienced an amazingly long dream. I don't know quite how to describe it. It's as if my experiences until now aren't mine. It seems so unreal, as if I have another person's memories.

[Jessica Merriman]

I honestly can't remember much about my old life. It does seem like a dream of some kind. I am so comfortable now I feel I have been this way all my life. I do thank him for protecting me and keeping me safe all those years. I don't resent him at all, I kind of love him for sacrificing his life so I could live safe and happy. 

[Eva Marie]

I am in the middle of transitioning (my name change happens on Monday) and even now "he" is slipping away. And even at this early point in my transition it is a strange feeling to know that I used to be a different person with a different life.

[Mariah]

Congrats for the milestone your going to reach Monday Eva. Even with my having gone full time only 2 and half month ago seems like a lifetime ago. My having gone full time before the name change made getting the paperwork notarized a bit more interesting because of the ID clearly didn't match me at all anymore. It brought the point of the old me being a different person truly to the for front for me. My doctor's visit on the Endo will be the beginning of the next step for me. Just another step in leaving the past behind.

[Ms Grace]

Yeah, I dunno. It kind of feels like I'm going through at least the fourth, maybe fifth iteration of my life at the moment. There is undoubtedly continuity in that I have memories of those events, I'm the same person but still different.

[androgynouspainter26]

For me, absolutely!

It's surreal looking back at old photographs.  This might just be my skills with a makeup brush, but the boy I see in those pictures looks like a stranger...and I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I used to be him.  It's almost like he was, in fact, a separate person.  Of course that's not true, but the record of him that remains: the way he used to look, his god-aweful haircut, the emotionless way he spoke and wrote, his immature way of seeing the world, his sassy persona-all of them are dead and gone now.  The facade that he was is gone, and it's so amazing to finally be rid of him.  He was an obnoxious little prick!

[Ashey]

I've most definitely been feeling this lately. I'm still under a year through my transition, 7+ months full-time, and have a long way to go... but my life and I have changed so drastically. I think about who I used to be, and I'm so different now that 'he' seems to be a separate person altogether. Curious how that is..

[suzifrommd]

I feel exactly the opposite. That I'm the same person as before. I've learned to talk differently, wear different clothes, use different mannerisms, make-up, wig, etc. But these are all superficial. Inside I feel like the same person so it surprises me when people treat me so differently.

[Erica_Y]

I just went back to my hometown where I grew up for 18 years and my extended family still lives there recently which is nowhere close to where I am living now. I felt exactly like I was looking back into a strangers past that I could not relate to anymore.  it was a little weird and eerie not to mention unsettling for a while. I then realized how much I have changed and progressed which has been lot's apparently

[Zumbagirl]

I know for myself that over the years I have literally become a different person from where I started. My old life to me now would seem completely alien to the outcome of who I am today, yet i know i lived it. To be completely honest it's been so long now that I hardly remember much from those bleak days. This is not blocked out memories, more like a blur. They don't really have an effect on the present anymore except that I had to fuse two different lives to make one whole person. So there might be a few threads that keep me tied to the past but it's not much.

[Shantel]

It does seem like another person's life, that's why I always refer to it as, "In an earlier lifetime...." It's not that I'm actually so old in years, but because I've been this new creation beginning just a little over 20 years ago, and like they say in the bible referring a spiritual rebirth, "Behold a new creation, the old has passed away."

[2fish]

I haven't started T yet (October I should be starting), but I do feel like a new person since coming out to myself a few years ago.

Growing up I avoided looking into mirrors and photos of me. If someone was to show me a picture they had of me, I'd pretend to look at it and say something like, yeah I remember that time, and quickly hand back the photo. I didn't understand why I did this. It's only until I realized I was trans that I can now stand to look at the photos.

With therapy I was able to backtrack my childhood and we talked about the some of the photos I had brought with me (kinda like a release therapy session). It went well. I was able to talk about them and express how I was feeling in each photo. My therapist loved backtracking with me.

Now when I see myself in the pictures I see this strange girl looking back at me. It's like I don't know who she is but I lived in her body. It's an eerie feeling. Kinda like a ghost story movie. Very weird.

But I do feel much happier now that I understand myself. I don't hate myself when I look at myself in the mirror. I see a happy young guy who is ready to live life.

I'm also more at ease knowing that I will begin T sometime next month.

[Amathy]

Also pre-t but since starting living full time as a guy, my life has been very different.  My memories of who I used to be don't seem real.  Apart from looking and acting different, the way I think about things has changed.  My direct approach to a problem a few days ago made this very clear to me.

[sneakersjay]

6 years post transition and I can't think of myself as anything other than being male.  I've forgotten what's it was like; I see pictures and I'm like who is/was that?  Not me! I dislike being reminded of it.  Just yesterday someone asked me if when I got married (in the past) if I had taken my husband's name.  It was like cueing twilight zone music, LOL.  Almost like WTF is she talking about??

Jay

[Misato]

Who I was before had no life. I think that's the biggest reason why I feel disconnected to who I was for almost 35 years. That and he was a big meanie, I'm much happier.

Looking at old photos it's like I can trace a dotted line back to him. When the light and angle hit me just right I can even believe that I blend in as the woman I am and I can even forget I'm trans for a little while. Those are blessed spaces between the dots. Then, seems like about every four months or so... WHAM! A nice... thick... solid... part of the line connecting me right back to where I came from smacks me in the jaw.

[GnomeKid]

Some things have faded like with all memories, but I feel still attached to who I was in many ways. 

One thing I appreciate about my life is that even when I was still living in female form I never made compromises for the sake of fitting in better.  Sure sometimes I was forced into the female dress code at jobs or separated into the girls side.  The physical form was the worst part.   Other than that I was fairly lucky to be able to really be myself.  I think I was a pretty cool kid   

Sometimes I almost feel more connected to who I was then than who I am now.  Not for any gender related reasons... but I've sort of lost myself in that weird mid 20's age range... trying to figure it all out again... I suppose.

[Felix]

I feel like this happens faster with mtf people, but I've definitely felt it. I moved to a new city and started my life over a few years before I transitioned, and it feels bizarre when the people who've known me as anything other than Felix bring up details about my old self. I'm at the point now where it's hard to manage old issues because it feels so strange to acknowledge any public identity but the current one.

[Julia-Madrid]

Yeah, I dunno. It kind of feels like I'm going through at least the fourth, maybe fifth iteration of my life at the moment. There is undoubtedly continuity in that I have memories of those events, I'm the same person but still different.

I can fully relate to this, Grace.  My friends are gently bemused by my iterations...

    Straight-but-fem boy
        Bi boy
           Married-to-a-girl boy
                Divorced gay boy
                    Hetero transgender girl

Sometimes I wonder if they see me as this poor tortured soul who has finally found her place.  Can't say that I've ever really felt tortured, but The Girl was always the Big Thing to be avoided.   I guess that, due to my age and that I'm not changing my real (genderless) name, I'm not abandoning any of my previous iterations.  Don't want to see photos of him, though - he was uuuugy!! 

[calico]

I agree,  to me looking back at my past it doesn't seem like it was really my life and feels like "when looking back"  like I'm looking an an alternate reality.  Or as if I'm watching a movie.  It seemed a lil odd but at the same time I never really was living my life,  I was merely existing.  But even so because it also feels like I have lived 2 lives I feel like I am much older then my actual age......