Looking at old pictures of yourself (doesn't it feel WEIRD?)

[pianoforte]

Lately, every time I look back at old pictures of myself, I find that my perceptions have changed.

I see a long-haired rocker guy trying to figure out why everyone kept calling him a girl. I see a young man wearing girl's makeup. A guy desperately trying to gain the acceptance of society by dressing up as a woman.

And I remember how much I shopped in the young men's section (as I do today) and how I had to stop because my grandmother made me give away all my clothes and bought me new ones that she approved of...

Anyway it's a weird kind of nostalgia, but it's also weird because what I physically see looks like a boy to me. Even though others look at the pictures and they say "oh, that's a picture of a girl." I SEE a boy.

I feel like Pinocchio. I'm a real boy!

...except I'm 25 and still haven't publicly acknowledged my gender identity.

Anyway does anyone else have weird feelings looking at old pictures of yourself?

Dysphoria? Nostalgia? Seeing your true self with your wiser eyes?

[Kyler]

It makes me want to barf when I see old pictures of myself. I just wish I would have been born cis or realized I was trans sooner... Sometimes I just think about how people used to call me "she" during the time the picture was taken... Or how I used to be treated in relation to the people in the picture. I don't look at old pictures and luckily I don't have that many.

[Lady_Oracle]

Yeah I found some old pics of myself and it's just surreal looking at them. It doesn't trigger me like I thought it would since I don't even look like that person anymore. However anyone saying my old name makes me cringe...

[Contravene]

I came across some pictures of myself not too long ago. One of the pictures was from when I was about 9 or 10. I had a baseball hat on (with my hair pulled back so you couldn't see it), a jersey and my baseball glove, just a typical, happy, little boy. Looking at the picture you would never know that was biologically a girl under the slightly-too-big big baseball hat.

Another picture I came across was from when I started college, it was a group picture with other guys and girls who were in my class. I had a nice button down shirt on, no makeup and long rocker hair too . I looked so confident and the only thing in the picture that could make someone possibly question my gender was my chest.

I love finding pictures that show my true self like that. I even showed them to my girlfriend and she agreed that she would have just recognized me as male in both. Unfortunately in a lot of my pictures I just look awkward and self conscious but there are a few gems where I'm just being myself as a guy and I look confident and happy.

[makipu]

I have the dysphoria you're describing but not from looking at my pictures because my physical presentation is still somewhat similar to now (for being nonbinary) but rather hearing my past voice.

[FTMax]

I've only kept a few old pictures of myself, and I don't like to look at them at all. It just makes me sad to think I wasted so much of my life pretending to be someone that I wasn't, because I was afraid of not being accepted. Like you, I'm 25 and it just makes me feel sick to think of so much time that went by when I could've been myself and been comfortable.

On a lighter note, I've been told that while I look good in girl mode, I make a much cuter boy. 

[Ayden]

I like my old pictures. It's still my life and I've had a pretty happy one over all. I don't know that my perception has changed when I look at them though. I don't see a guy, I just see me.

[aleon515]

Oddly they are rather affirming for me. I only figured out I was trans a few years ago. Seeing how androgynous I looked after my mother stopped completely controlling my dress shows that I had a sense of who I was early on.

--Jay

[Joelene9]

I found some old pictures of me from the mid-1970's in my ship's cruisebooks photos online. I was that thin! I could've passed then if I transitioned when I got out.

Joelene

[captains]

Yes, oh my god, I was just thinking about this. Old, high school/early college era pictures of me look like an entirely different person. For me, it's not that I see myself-as-boy (although that is true of some of my childhood pictures, and certainly true of some recent shots), it's that I see a stranger. Intellectually, I know this is me. Emotionally, all I can think is "?? ?!?!? Who the everloving HELL is that??"

This is me, a slightly girly-faced, fartlord of a guy: [recent pic]
This is me, a boy in bad drag: [recent pic, all gussied up]
This is ? ?? some teenage girl, I guess?? Probably? WTF: [a high school pic of me in a dress]*

Friggin bizarre.

* actual pics redacted for privacy reasons now that y'all know what I mean!

[pianoforte]

Oddly they are rather affirming for me. I only figured out I was trans a few years ago. Seeing how androgynous I looked after my mother stopped completely controlling my dress shows that I had a sense of who I was early on.

--Jay

Yes, that! I definitely see androgyny/masculinity in the pictures of me that were taken when I was briefly allowed to choose my own clothes.

captains, I love that first picture. Just like, you know, chillin, puttin your foot up on the counter XD

[captains]

Hey man, I had to show off my $5 boots somehow. They were the star of that outfit. 

Had to trawl through so much crap to find all those old pics. It was funny as hell, watching the reverse progression. I'm 22 now, 21 in that second pic, and 15 or something in that last one. Christ. Not to get all gender roles-y, but I can't believe I was even able to find a shot of me in a dress. I bought that one first for my 8th grade graduation, iirc, and it was the only one I owned for years.

[AdamMLP]

Someone tagged me in a photograph of me in 2004, which must have been when I was about eight.  I didn't recognise it was me until I realised I was the only one tagged in it, and forced myself to acknowledge that the body in that image was me.

It's the only old photo I have of myself, all others are either entirely lost, or at my parent's and thus entirely lost to me, so it's not an experience I have regularly.

[FriendsCallMeChris]

For me, it's not that I see myself-as-boy (although that is true of some of my childhood pictures, and certainly true of some recent shots), it's that I see a stranger. Intellectually, I know this is me. Emotionally, all I can think is "?? ?!?!? Who the everloving HELL is that??"

YES, this!  So glad to be here where others understand this!

Chris

[Julia-Madrid]

It's kind of weird, I admit, to see old pics of me as a guy, but I'm in my 40s; I don't wish to obliterate my past, since much of it was good; and it's inevitable that pictures pop up from time to time.  I don't have a viscerally negative reaction; I just see him and realise how much I have gained in all parts of my life as a girl.

But if I was in my early 20s there's no doubt that I would make an active effort to start from a photographic blank slate!

Julia

[kittylover]

for me it just sort of feels like the pictures are of someone else and not of me....even though I don't even look that different I just have shorter hair and wear more boyish clothes

[Alexthecat]

I see the happy me pre puberty then the miserable me when puberty hit. I think it was around puberty that I hated getting my picture taken and I still hate it to this day, probably because my mom was a dick when I said 'no'.

[blink]

I hate looking at most pictures of me. It's uncomfortable. Pre-puberty photos I can see and remember how awkward I felt. During/post-puberty, there aren't many photos (avoided them as much as possible) but I can see how it went from awkward to miserable.

I looked like a happy baby and toddler, though, so aside from the pink crap they dressed me in those photos are good. I was such a fat baby too, like Stay-Puft.

[Tessa James]

The best aspect of old pictures has been when newer friends come over, see an old picture and ask me if that is my brother or refuse to believe it was me.  What is harder to acknowledge was the pain behind those eyes that did not then see herself looking back.  I felt a feminine shadow was within me and now rejoice in having become more real and living in full color.

[Hex]

I never was a fan of looking at my pictures. I don't have a ton of myself really and I never really cared to look at the ones I did have. More thought of, omg what was I thinking more than anything.
Sometimes I get twinges of guilt that my new self isn't in my past. That does kind of make me sad.
Now odd case in point, my grandmother is trying her hardest to persuade me that I am just mentally unstable and that my fantasies of being a boy are just all in my head and I'm apparently hurting everyone around me so she randomly sends me old pictures of my self from years ago. That stings. Like if I'm looking at my self of my own will it doesn't bother me too much but when she sends it, I feel bitter and angry, mostly at her.

Though it really is super fun for me to look back a few years than look at pictures of my self now and see the changes and see I'm finally looking like the person I wanted to for so long. That part of it makes me feel kinda warm and fuzzy inside.