Do you trust your memories to be accurate?

[Shads]

I trust my memories because that is all I have.  Although I have relatives, we haven't spoken in 12 years.

I've been digging back as far as I can and remember things that I think are important (otherwise I wouldn't have remembered them).  I just can't remember what I did last week though.

[Northern Jane]

Perspective is subject to change.

I noticed, a few years after SRS (1974) that 'feeling' of my childhood memories had shifted considerably. I saw myself as having always been a girl and dealing with the problems of my parents trying to raise me as a boy.

[captains]

No, not at all. I have an exceptional head for facts, but my personal memory is extremely poor and always has been. I file my memories away within months of living them -- lock 'em in the drawer, then lock the door to the office. I'm like the world's shortest book.

I've got maybe a handful of memories from my childhood (if I try really hard, I can remember maybe 15 discrete scenes from 4-17 years old), and while there are a few I always look to wrt my trans history, I've got such a dearth of memories that I'm completely unconvinced it's not all fabrication and reconstruction error. Emotions and desires always cloud recollections, and I know that I want a simple and logical path with which I can trace my gender identity. There's no reason for me to believe I actually have one. Surely, there's some distortion.

[stephaniec]

Totally off topic. Sorry.

Cindi Jones, I love your new avatar photo.

Joanna

ditto

[catchingtunes]

Honestly I do trust some of my memories (after all my memories compose a huge part of me), but I recognize things can be repressed, forgotten, maybe misinterpreted. It's all part of figuring everything out. I remember bits and pieces from childhood to do with my gender, and I trust how I felt at that time, but things still come back to me periodically. Like I said, I think many of my memories from before have been pushed down, and I can only hope that some more important ones resurface soon.