what are your thoughts as you look at old photos of yourself?

[Natasha]

i was looking at some old photo albums yesterday & it makes me sad to think that i put myself through all that anguish and despair literally for nothing. i don't even know why i couldn't see who i really was back then....i suppose my reflection was only real to me if it came from someone else's eyes. <sniffles>

[NicholeW.]

Aw, sweetie. Don't cry. *sad*

There is so much we cannot see until our eyes, little by little, open. You see now from a place you were unable to see from then. Like the view west from Pike's Peak and the view west from the base of Pike's Peak.

You had to get up the mountain before you saw the vista.

Hugs,

Nichole

[Elwood]

I'm weirded out.

I had long, golden hair and I always had some stuffed animal in my hand.
And yet I'd play with this stuffed animal in the dirt with the boys and their trucks.
It's confusing for me to look at the past.

[Just Mandy]

i was looking at some old photo albums yesterday & it makes me sad to think that i put myself through all that anguish and despair literally for nothing. i don't even know why i couldn't see who i really was back then....i suppose my reflection was only real to me if it came from someone else's eyes.

I get really sad when I look at pictures from my teens and twenties... becuase I see someone that could have
easily passed without even trying. Hormones would have been overkill ... lol... I was very feminine looking.

Before anyone thinks that I'm bragging please think back to my current pictures and the
results of T for all those years. It's not a pretty sight at all. But back then my nose was reasonable...
I always got complements on my thick hair and perfect complection from girls. I remember the day I realized I did not look
like a lot of boys... it was in English class the first few days of the new year... I was 15 and this older girl sat just in front of me,
she always asked for help on things and we would always talk. She was very pretty and I was really shy so she did most of the
talking. But she said to me one day that she would love to be me, that I had beautiful skin and was very pretty. She did not
say cute or handsome... she said pretty. It makes me really sad... I can still hear her say it.  At 15 when your trying your hardest
to fit in as a boy that is the worst thing you'd ever want to hear. But that comment stuck with me and I did realize after that I did
not look like all the other boys.

But I could not see it fully, just that I was different. At times my hair was to my shoulders and I had NO facial hair even in my
mid twenties. And I remember vividly the times I would look into mirror and close my eyes and see a girl and I'd open them and
see this masculine thing... I'd do it over and over. I did not know what that meant, what it was or what I was feeling I just
knew that things did not match up. And I did not see how feminine and yes even pretty I was at the time... but now I look at
the pictures and think that I really really wasted my life. And all of you have seen what years of T has done... and that just
reinforces those feelings.

I'll pass the Kleenex Natasha

Amanda

[lisagurl]

I disliked photos, my parents did not have a camera, I am listed as camera shy in the year book. The only pictures I have are after transition.

There is a passport and driver ID but they are from years ago.

[tekla]

Up on the white veranda
She wears a necktie and a Panama hat
Her passport shows another face
From another time and place
She looks nothing like that
And all the remnants of her recent past
Are scattered in the wild wind (dylan)

Something like that I guess.

[Sarah Louise]

I don't look at old pictures much.  Most I have since I was married do not have me in them, I was taking the picture.

The last old pictures I did look at were at my mothers funeral, all I saw was a person who never smiled.

Sarah L.

[Lori]

i was looking at some old photo albums yesterday & it makes me sad to think that i put myself through all that anguish and despair literally for nothing. i don't even know why i couldn't see who i really was back then....i suppose my reflection was only real to me if it came from someone else's eyes.

I get really sad when I look at pictures from my teens and twenties... becuase I see someone that could have
easily passed without even trying. Hormones would have been overkill ... lol... I was very feminine looking.

Before anyone thinks that I'm bragging please think back to my current pictures and the
results of T for all those years. It's not a pretty sight at all. But back then my nose was reasonable...
I always got complements on my thick hair and perfect complection from girls. I remember the day I realized I did not look
like a lot of boys... it was in English class the first few days of the new year... I was 15 and this older girl sat just in front of me,
she always asked for help on things and we would always talk. She was very pretty and I was really shy so she did most of the
talking. But she said to me one day that she would love to be me, that I had beautiful skin and was very pretty. She did not
say cute or handsome... she said pretty. It makes me really sad... I can still hear her say it.  At 15 when your trying your hardest
to fit in as a boy that is the worst thing you'd ever want to hear. But that comment stuck with me and I did realize after that I did
not look like all the other boys.

But I could not see it fully, just that I was different. At times my hair was to my shoulders and I had NO facial hair even in my
mid twenties. And I remember vividly the times I would look into mirror and close my eyes and see a girl and I'd open them and
see this masculine thing... I'd do it over and over. I did not know what that meant, what it was or what I was feeling I just
knew that things did not match up. And I did not see how feminine and yes even pretty I was at the time... but now I look at
the pictures and think that I really really wasted my life. And all of you have seen what years of T has done... and that just
reinforces those feelings.

I'll pass the Kleenex Natasha

Amanda

Geez I could have written that same thing. I have almost no pictures but I remember being 21 and not having to shave, being 137 lbs, and not looking anything like a boy. I feel so stupid at times. Always told how pretty my eyes and hair were, how thin I was, how girlfriends would have me model clothes for them so they could take them in or whatever...I just wanted to fit in. If I knew then what I know now.

[Alyssa M.]

Aw, sweetie. Don't cry. *sad*

There is so much we cannot see until our eyes, little by little, open. You see now from a place you were unable to see from then. Like the view west from Pike's Peak and the view west from the base of Pike's Peak.

You had to get up the mountain before you saw the vista.

Hugs,

Nichole

'course most people just take the train or drive up ... but the view's better if you climb. 

(sorry, I couldn't resist)

~Alyssa

[gina]

My family was not into taking many pictures and unfortunately I carried out the tradition also..   even though I always tried to take as many pictures of my daughter (I love her so) other then that I dont have many pictures at all, but my thoughts are more of sorrow and failures when I do see my old photos.

[tinkerbell]

Most of the time when I see pictures of my past life, I grieve for betraying the child and teen.  I want to caress the little girl, nurture the teenager and reassure her that everything is going to turn out alright despite the agony she reflects in her eyes. 


tink

[NicholeW.]

That was beautiful, Tink.

I don't have many pics around of 'before.' Mostly tossed them years ago. Always hated pics of me except when I was very young or a few with the kids.

But, yes, I see the possibility and want to somehow tell the child, the girl, the young woman that they are free.

Only, I think they know that without me telling them.

Nichole

[Natasha]

Most of the time when I see pictures of my past life, I grieve for betraying the child and teen.  I want to caress the little girl, nurture the teenager and reassure her that everything is going to turn out alright despite the agony she reflects in her eyes. 


tink

<sniffles>

[fluffy jorgen]

I don't even associate my old photos with me.
It's an old friend who's gone away.

[NickSister]

I actually really like looking at old pictures - when I was young and innocent and nothing really mattered. Moving on to my early teens I feel sorry for that kid - out of place, uncomprehending. I don't know if he suffered like others have described but he was not happy. It was not a happy time. The all boys school was evil, life at home was almost unbearable with a manic depressive father.

I look back and see him as a boy. Is that weird? I see him as the one that carried me as we grew up, the one who had to muddle it all out and do his best to be a boy. I don't really see me at all, I emerged later and perhaps am still emerging. He was a good kid, full of fantasy and escape, yet awkward (as kids often are), lost and out of place. We were hairy and strong but small and skinny. All I remember is feeling like I did not understand how everyone knew how to behave and being driven by this unquenchable lust.

[Janet_Girl]

Whenever I look at my old pictures ,the one thing that strikes me is, that I look so sad in every one of them.  The only time I have looked happy is when I was going thru a period when I let my feminine side come thru.  And then the male side was buried.

Love,
Janet

[MeghanAndrews]

Natasha,
It depends on the time period of the photo. When I see:

Baby pics I think "Whoa, you are seriously in for a tough road."
Like 5 - 12 I think "It'll get better and seriously, there are people like you out there, you aren't alone, promise!"
13 - 18 I think "Don't take any drastic steps, it will get better. Don't hide your feelings too much either"
19 - 28 I think "Nice try chief. You did what you could do to feel at home in your skin, it didn't work. Move on"
29 - 35 I think "Hmm, what are you going to do now. You look the part but you look & feel misreable and you know it!"
Then from like 36 on I just think "change is coming very soon. Do what you have to do to get by"

I can tell you this, for me, it is what it is (sometimes I hate that saying). I can't change it and I try really hard not to focus too much on things I can't change Meghan

[Kaeren]

I was cute.

[Sephirah]

It's interesting to see pictures of myself even as recently as a year ago, before I finally stopped living in denial and came to terms with who I am. As I do so, I see myself in those pictures, the female me... where I didn't before. Perhaps moreso than when I look in the mirror now, since back then I had really long, lovely hair, and no clue why other than because I thought I just couldn't be bothered to get it cut.

Although I did. *sigh* That's one regret I have; three years of growing it completely wasted by an irrational act.

Surprisingly, though, I don't hate them like I thought I would. Even though I have the photogenic capacity of Quazimodo's acne-infested sister, I look into my eyes and I see... something, something I never saw before. A spark of self-knowledge that couldn't be hidden or repressed.

That actually makes me happy.

[LynnER]

My normal reaction is first ....

DESTROY IT, NOW... WHERE ARE THE NEGATIVES... THE ORIGINALS...

Then when actual looking instead of panicking I kind of stare at them blankly... "Was this really me?  I really don't see how... my gods... I really used to look like that... I was so..... unhappy.... wow....  okay, I'm going to go burn these now."

I do keep a 2 copies of old pictures... One is on my bands website, which really pisses me off... the other was off my old ID....  I use them to shock people and prove what can be done physically in transition.