I don't know if this has been discussed here before, if so I certainly apologize...
When I first started my journey about who I wanted to wanted to be, and live as, then via HRT crossover to female there was a journal made about it.
My Mother started it when I was 12-13 years old. Why she did this, was because she wanted me to have it later when I was an adult.
It was at that time, a cross between scrap book, photo album and a diary. She did something like this for all her kids. When they got married, it was given to them as a gift. (an old family tradition as it were )
She has strictly a photo album of me, as a youngster, which she still has. She could see I was not a typical male teenager, and decided to make note of it. Thus she wrote notes about my, quote-unquote, growing up.
It is sort of embarrassing in a way, because it visceral in places, frank and blunt in others. There is also her hurt and dismay about who I wasn't, and what I tried to be so disparately.
When, she gave it to me later in life, she told me to continue a journal as I began to figure out who I was. At first, I blew it off as a waste of my time... yet, later when I began talking to my Psychiatrist about gender dysfunction...he too told me to keep a dairy...or journal about it. I did what he asked of me.
I turns out, that it was a very useful tool that recorded everything I was thinking, going through, and hoped for. I had lots of pictures of women that I liked the images of. I had to then write short notes about what it was, that I liked so much about her image. I had catalog pictures cut and pasted into the journal of clothes I liked.
I was also asked to include images of men that I thought were nice..there was only about 1/4 as many of them, than those of girls.
Every session when I visited him, and later her..I had to show my journal. My sessions lasted on average of 1 1/2 hrs. to 2 hours.
Both were mostly interested in what I wrote down. They told me it was a look at my path, progress, development as a female.
It turns out, that it was useful in the end. The letters written to approve my SRS, were based in part on it, as well their own notes and final analysis.
I feel that journal/dairy keeping is a good thing to do. As you begin to awaken and deal with the inner being in you, all the thoughts and feelings you experience along the way you will not be able to remember later. Especially after you start full on hormone therapy.
You'll be amused, amazed, and probably saddened a little, as you look back at your transitioning history. I was.
This is only a soft suggestion...ignore it all if you so wish.
