There is no solution to this.....or maybe there is!

[JoanneB]

I just saw my therapist this morning. She confirmed what I always knew but didn't really know how to explain.

I cannot make decisions that are based on emotions. I have trouble reading my own emotions. I am very good at intellectual/analytical based decisions, which is why I am very good at my job. But when it comes down to deciding whether I am trans or not, it's all a mystery to me because that is an emotional decision. It is about whether I "feel" trans or "feel" like a woman on the inside. At the moment, I am unable to figure it out because my feelings and emotions are not that easy for me to understand.

It probably explains why I keep going round in circles and keep looking for some definite proof or a test to determine if I am trans. It's my analytical brain trying to take over and decide something that is based on emotions. It is never going to work that way.

So even though I made no progress on working out whether I am trans or not, let alone what to do about it, I made progress in finding the root cause of why I don't trust my own judgement. Pretty good result for today I think.

I was very much like you. Give me a problem, any problem, and a bit of time to play out every which, And, But, What If, and I'll have THE mitigation. It pays well. It is a fearsome talent, except when it came to ME. To which there was only one answer, Doom & Gloom. No Hope. Just keep plodding along and hope no one notices.

Today I am not much better, but better I am. The steps you take to solve every other problem in the universe is the same. The hard part is disassociating your emotions from the answer(s). As well as always keeping in mind there is no perfect solution. Everything in life is a comprise, even your own

[jayne01]

The hard part is disassociating your emotions from the answer(s).

I don't have trouble disassociating my emotions. I have trouble associating my emotions.......with anything. If my emotions are "speaking" to me, it is in a language I don't understand.

[JoanneB]

I don't have trouble disassociating my emotions. I have trouble associating my emotions.......with anything. If my emotions are "speaking" to me, it is in a language I don't understand.

Fear, Shame, Guilt are insidious in how they manifest themselves

[jayne01]

Fear, Shame, Guilt are insidious in how they manifest themselves

I'm sorry, I don't understand. What do you mean?

[Dena]

I'm sorry, I don't understand. What do you mean?

I never thought of it that way but those would be the emotions that prevent us from accepting ourself as transgender. I suspect you are feeling at least one and most likely more than one of those emotions.

[jayne01]

From everything I hear it is women that are in touch with their emotions and it is the men who are not not in touch with them. That sounds like I must be a guy. I couldn't be any more out of touch with my emotions. So much so that I think I have more in common with a robot than a human. If I was trans and identified as a woman, wouldn't I be in touch with my emotions? This is totally doing my head in. How can I not know what I am feeling? I have no description for anything other than happy or sad. I feel so stupid.

[Cindy]

No you are in no way stupid.

I had very little emotion beyond depression and sadness prior to HRT. Then when I was on HRT I was an emotional time bomb, a walking box of kleenex!

Funny, years after transitioning I had a coffee with my original therapist and I asked him when he knew I was trans, I was looking for the diagnostic sign.

His response?

"As soon as you walked into my office."

I asked how did you know?

"Why else would you have come to see me? You just needed guidance."

[JoanneB]

I would say Depression/Sadness and Anger were the only two emotions I ALLOWED myself to recognize. But there was plenty of other corks in the ocean my subconscious was trying to hold down before I began the Herculean task of beginning to accept myself or resign myself to the simple facts of I am trans and what I've been trying to do about for the last 40 years was absolutely not working.

So, as in Sienfeld, I adopted the Opposite George way of doing things. 

[Deborah]

This might or might not be helpful but have you ever taken a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test?  You can find them free on the Internet. 

I have found the test to be uncannily accurate in describing me and it did unlock some doors to understanding myself, the way I think, and the way I interact with others.  It did help with coming to peace with myself amidst all the turmoil of being trans.  FWIW, the test tells me I'm an INFP.  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/INFP


Sapere Aude

[Dena]

Pre transition I tried to decide which character I was most like on Star trek and while I disliked the answer, it was Spock. I had years of suppressing emotions just so I could get through the day and just like Spock, enough leaked out to cause me depression. After you come to terms with your self and allow yourself to feel everything, your view of your emotions will change.

Stupid you are not. You are facing a difficult problem that no CIS has ever face. Some transgender people never face it because they have always known. Those of us who discover it latter have a much more difficult time coming to terms with it because we understand at every level the impact it might have on our life. You are still trying to fight an impossible battle avoiding the issue and returning to a CIS existence. You might be able to avoid the transition but to be happy with yourself, something will need to change.

[jayne01]

I just tried that Myers-Briggs test. I tried 5 tests from 5 different websites and came up with 4 different results. I don't think it could accurately describe me. I found the test very difficult and at least half the questions I didn't know how to answer. I guess I'm just an oddball.

[jayne01]

I'm really regretting ever starting therapy and trying to find out what is wrong with me. All it has achieved is highlight a whole bunch of new problems to make me feel even worse about myself. Over the past 8 months I have felt more consistently bad about myself than I ever had throughout my entire life. They say ignorance is bliss. And now that I have uncovered all this new crap, I don't see anyway to ignore it.

I function like a robot. I am. It equipped to deal with emotions, and all this trans stuff is bringing up all these emotions that I am ill equipped to deal with. I would like to know what I did that was so wrong to deserve this punishment. I could go out and murder someone and get less punishment. Where is the justice in that?

The worse thing I ever did was to think that I might be trans.

[Dena]

You did nothing wrong. Much like a child born with a birth defect, you were born different than most people. The current numbers are about 1 in 600 are born this way. Strange and it may sound is I look at it as a blessing. Instead of being just like everybody else, I have looked at the world through two different sets of eyes and have experienced many thing that most people would find hard to imagine. Yes, there were may years of coming to terms with myself but like a piece of steel, proper fire and quenching will result in a metal that's much stronger and more useful than before. Right now you are in the worst of it but it passes and went it does, you will start to have real happiness.
"That which does not kill us, makes us stronger."  Friedrich Nietzsche

[lil_red]

When I was trying to figure myself out someone online told me that cisgender people generally do not question their gender. After giving this statement some serious thought I realized how true it is and that is when I came to terms with being transgender, although I still can't tell if I'm transsexual or not.

[Jestwacked]

I have read through every reply you have given to the answers, and all the replies themselves.

At the end of the day, this topic could go on for 500 more pages of circular back and forth talking but none of us here are qualified psychologist's, therapists or gender specialists (as far as I know). So that means our advice can only go so far in helping you. 

The most important thing is that only you can decide what to do, none of us can make you do anything, in the end that decision comes from yourself and yourself alone.

Instead of posting paragraph after paragraph about how much you hate it, it would be a realistic, mature and adult thing to go to a therapist, a doctor or a psychologist and discuss these feelings. If you are too lazy or afraid to even do that then there is nothing anyone can do to help you.

Also your comments about ''thinking you were trans is the worst thing to happen to you'' is demeaning to trans people.

[Lynne]

Pre transition I tried to decide which character I was most like on Star trek and while I disliked the answer, it was Spock. I had years of suppressing emotions just so I could get through the day and just like Spock, enough leaked out to cause me depression. After you come to terms with your self and allow yourself to feel everything, your view of your emotions will change.

...

I was the same way years ago, the difference was that I did not have to find the Star Trek character myself because one of my friends actually said that I'm like Spock...
Even the psychologist who wrote my first letter said that I show very little emotion on my face which is very true as I suppressed my emotions so long I forgot how to even show them.
As I am allowing myself to feel more and more I realize that there is a lot more to my emotions than what I experienced in the past and that I have to spend a lot of time to connect to them but I'm getting closer every day.

[jayne01]

I have read through every reply you have given to the answers, and all the replies themselves.

At the end of the day, this topic could go on for 500 more pages of circular back and forth talking but none of us here are qualified psychologist's, therapists or gender specialists (as far as I know). So that means our advice can only go so far in helping you. 

The most important thing is that only you can decide what to do, none of us can make you do anything, in the end that decision comes from yourself and yourself alone.

Instead of posting paragraph after paragraph about how much you hate it, it would be a realistic, mature and adult thing to go to a therapist, a doctor or a psychologist and discuss these feelings. If you are too lazy or afraid to even do that then there is nothing anyone can do to help you.

Also your comments about ''thinking you were trans is the worst thing to happen to you'' is demeaning to trans people.

I'm sorry I have offended you. If you had read through all the replies as you have stated, you would know that I have been seeing a therapist for over 8 months now. 4 different therapists in fact. 3 which specialise in gender stuff and 2 of which I am still seeing regularly on a weekly basis as my work schedule permits. I am not too lazy or afraid to see a therapist.

Also, me saying that thinking I might be trans is the worst thing to ever happen to me is a true statement. That statement applies to me and me alone. I do not have any prejudice or discriminatory feelings towards anybody whether it be based on sex, race, gender identity or anything else. It is not the possibility of being trans that I consider to be the worse thing to happen to me. It is the struggle that I am going through and the difficulties I am having (due to me questioning my gender) that is the worse thing to happen to me.

If I worded my statement in such a way that my message wasn't clear, and I have offended you, then I apologise. It is not my intention to offend anybody.

J

[JoanneB]

In my HS years mom shanghaied me. I wound up in a psychs office having to "explain" why she (mom) found my stash (of clothes) a few times. "I was sloppy" was not the right answer.

Somehow this idiot teenager was able to convince a learned person of letters "It was a phase"

Humans have an uncanny ability to convince themselves of all sorts of things. Especially when you throw in the "What Answer DO they expect" or "What Answer Will Give..." factors.

Which.... As much as I hate to say it, or admit to it, IS where and what a therapist is for. To ask you the hard questions you won't ask yourself and especially, won't let you weasel your way around the answer. If you don't really know, it's fine. You never thought about it before being put on the spot.

Of course, this per-supposes you are as forth right and honest as you can be, At That TIme. Answers to such questions usually do change over time in my case. In both directions 

[Rebecca]

The clincher for me came in a long hot bubble bath having my usual thought of "If a genie appeared right now and offered to transform me into an attractive female for the rest of my life just how many heartbeats would I wait before screaming yes".

Lamenting the lack of a genie a new thought entered my mind

"If I would accept such a gift via magic would I accept it from the hands of man?"

This led to me thinking about how far would I go to get the body I have always wanted.

That question was the last, removing all other doubts I was officially a transsexual female.

Note - I am admittedly a bit shallow attractiveness is important to me. I have been a machine, an animal and even a monster in this life but like many girls I want to be pretty someday.

Sent from my GT-I9195I using Tapatalk

[Gemini]

Hey jayne, I think I can relate to some of the things you've said, and to me it sounds like you have a lot of anxiety. And I don't mean the natural kind of anxiety anyone would have from contemplating these issues. It sounds like the kind of anxiety I've dealt with--a deep, crushing, pointless anxiety that attaches itself to anything you think about.

For me, the anxiety was so omnipresent and I was so used to it that it didn't occur to me that it was a problem. I thought all of the things that I was anxious about were the problems, when the problem was the fact that I was always so anxious about everything. Maybe something like this is keeping you from getting clarity on your gender identity?

And maybe you could bring this up with a therapist? Lots of people will tell you that starting HRT helps with anxiety (and I'm one of them) but there are other things you can do to help with anxiety, and a therapist could help you go over your options. Then with a clearer state of mind, maybe you can make some progress on sorting out your gender confusion.