Personalities.....

[Aprilnewark]

Hi everyone,
A strange question here, as I have not yet started hrt I want to ask this question.

Did anyone have problems with a dual personality? If so did it fade as you went through hrt?

Let me expand on the first question. Since I was 11 I consciously knew that I am a girl, however I was scared and fooled myself into denial. Due to this I have developed two separate personalities. One I show to the outside world and one I kept in private. The former being a masculine personality. Now this personality of Adam (my birth name) has his own desires and his own person and I used him as a buffer to hide my true self from everyone. Gradually he has become my dominant personality as obviously I am out and about quite alot. Whilst April (my real name as I should be) became a reclusive personality only coming through when I was alone.

Now I am 22 and I am finding it increasingly difficult to flit between the two personalities and, as notany people know my situation, this is causing problems as I am being April more and therefore becoming more efeminate. now o understand this is a good thing and I am pleased, however I hate having to become Adam just to keep up appearances in public, and was basically wondering if anyone else here had had the same happen where they created a fake persona to protect themselves from the world?

Sorry for the length of this post, I found it difficult to explain easily what I meant.
Hugs and Kisses,
April

[FloridaTia]

Sister, you have but a single personality.  You simply applied adapted traits and behaviors to manage in this gender-specific world.  You would find, if gender were not such a big part of this western civlization, that you have a single personality without conflict.  There is nothing wrong with you.  It's just that you feel compelled to conform to the world around you and you do so very well.  If you did not care so much about the world external with respect to your psyche, you would not only realize that you have a singular personality, but that you are very, very special. 

[K8]

My personality as Kate is similar to my old one, but extroverted instead of introverted, and a whole lot more fun, joyful, frisky, talkative.  (And Kate takes less crap than that old guy did. )  I was feeling a bit schizoid for a while as the Kate personality came out, but now I'm integrating the two somehow.

Before I allowed myself to become Kate, I repressed much of what she is.  I showed only one personality to the world and yearned for the other one (Kate's) but didn't know how to let her out of the cage.   That sounds a little different from what you're talking about, April.

So the short answer is no, but I think the longer answer would be: kind of.

- Kate

[justme19]

Hi everyone,
A strange question here, as I have not yet started hrt I want to ask this question.

Did anyone have problems with a dual personality? If so did it fade as you went through hrt?

Let me expand on the first question. Since I was 11 I consciously knew that I am a girl, however I was scared and fooled myself into denial. Due to this I have developed two separate personalities. One I show to the outside world and one I kept in private. The former being a masculine personality. Now this personality of Adam (my birth name) has his own desires and his own person and I used him as a buffer to hide my true self from everyone. Gradually he has become my dominant personality as obviously I am out and about quite alot. Whilst April (my real name as I should be) became a reclusive personality only coming through when I was alone.

Now I am 22 and I am finding it increasingly difficult to flit between the two personalities and, as notany people know my situation, this is causing problems as I am being April more and therefore becoming more efeminate. now o understand this is a good thing and I am pleased, however I hate having to become Adam just to keep up appearances in public, and was basically wondering if anyone else here had had the same happen where they created a fake persona to protect themselves from the world?

Sorry for the length of this post, I found it difficult to explain easily what I meant.
Hugs and Kisses,
April

Sorry only read a few lines in, about to go out so in abit of a rush 

Well I don't have any problems with duel personalitys, i have not yet dressed in female cloths or started HRT or anything, but i get this from ALOT of people (almost everyone i know) "Your not the normal teenage boy, you so much more gentle, loving and sweet. (by the way, i have not come out)

But yea, no seperate personality.

[Aprilnewark]

Thanks for the replies!!
I have noticed that people do comment on the fact I am more feminine than I used to be, and as I have only come out to my close family and friends no-one really knows, however working in the forces has it's downside as now rumour are afloat about me!!!

But yes as I let April replace my Adam persona I feel far more comfortable and to hell with what other people think!! If they don't like it then more for them!!!

I realise now that I am one person, with two sides to one personality, I am glad when I can finally be rid of my Adam traits as I hate trying to be masculine, I mean I hate having to portray false ideals and emotions! Emotions being the main thing, there have been so many times I have just wanted to break down and cry, but I can't because of the people I am around, I hate it!

Anyway enough ranting from me, thanks again for the replies,
Hugs,
April
xxx

[jesse]

hi april i spent 42 years doing that dont let it happen to you what the end result is a male exterier and a bruised and battered soul and people i care about hurt because of my own cowardness at dealing with this issue be true to yourself my mother had told me i didnt now  am
jessica

[K8]

however working in the forces has it's downside as now rumour are afloat about me!!!

April, I spent 24 years in the military.  I was pretty tightly wrapped in the beginning, but about halfway through I figured *screw it* and started letting myself be more effeminate.  I didn't prance about or anything, but I let any pretense of being macho or 'one of the guys' go.  I was still accepted and had no problems.  I was married, which may have helped, but no one seemed to think I was gay - just weird.  (I didn't care if they thought I was gay as long as I could stay in the service.)  I was more relaxed.

But yes as I let April replace my Adam persona I feel far more comfortable and to hell with what other people think!! If they don't like it then more for them!!!

That sounds like where I got to when I finally relaxed.  You're a lot younger than I was, but I've always been slow to develop.

Good luck to you, sweetie.

- Kate

[Asfsd4214]

Hi everyone,
A strange question here, as I have not yet started hrt I want to ask this question.

Did anyone have problems with a dual personality? If so did it fade as you went through hrt?

Let me expand on the first question. Since I was 11 I consciously knew that I am a girl, however I was scared and fooled myself into denial. Due to this I have developed two separate personalities. One I show to the outside world and one I kept in private. The former being a masculine personality. Now this personality of Adam (my birth name) has his own desires and his own person and I used him as a buffer to hide my true self from everyone. Gradually he has become my dominant personality as obviously I am out and about quite alot. Whilst April (my real name as I should be) became a reclusive personality only coming through when I was alone.

Now I am 22 and I am finding it increasingly difficult to flit between the two personalities and, as notany people know my situation, this is causing problems as I am being April more and therefore becoming more efeminate. now o understand this is a good thing and I am pleased, however I hate having to become Adam just to keep up appearances in public, and was basically wondering if anyone else here had had the same happen where they created a fake persona to protect themselves from the world?

Sorry for the length of this post, I found it difficult to explain easily what I meant.
Hugs and Kisses,
April

I think I know exactly what you mean. I'm 21 and your experience sounds similar to mine.

I feel like there are two me's, the real me that I've had in my head my whole life, present in ways that there is no english description for, a sense that I can't begin to describe. And a fake me which is an amalgam of various male personalities that I've adopted to seem normal to everyone else.

Eventually it just got to a point where it's like I woke up, where I realized that the fake me is nothing but a persona, some mixture of male personalities I adopted to try and fit in. The internal me has always existed, but I seemingly never consciously realized what I was doing. Like I knew but didn't know at the same time.

I don't know why I suddenly woke up, but I can remember so many things from my past where I knew I was a girl, but that I was not seen as one. That I had to act like the people I was seen as regardless of my feelings because there was no other choice.

When I realized there was a choice, I became majorly depressed that I hadn't done something sooner, it took about 8 months before I felt like it was possible to do something now, that it wasn't too late, that I came out of my depression.

The more I stop trying to fight myself, the more normal it seems. Everything about my old life persona was artificial, but it's only in not keeping it up that I realize just how artificial it was.

Very hard to describe and explain, but I think I know what you mean.

[K8]

That's an excellent explanation, Jonandelynn.  I think I really understand what you mean.

This week I saw my doctor who is monitoring the effects of HRT.  When I first asked for the hormones I was still unsure of myself, but he said I had the right to be happy and so prescribed them.  I reminded him of that this week, and told him it really wasn't that I was seeking happiness.  I was seeking wholeness.

And that is what has been happening in the last few weeks – integrating in the parts of the old me that were good and useful to the new me, becoming at last complete.

When I was a teenager I went to a friend's house.  There were some kids I didn't know, including a girl who said her grandmother had taught her to read palms.  She read a few.  It was like a parlor game - fun and light-hearted.  But when she read my palm, she became visibly disturbed.

She said she saw a dark-haired woman on a hill, beckoning to me, but I wasn't able to come to her.  (I'm dark-haired.)  The girl finally became so uneasy that she stopped the session and wouldn't read any more palms.  The fun was gone.  Everyone was looking at each other like: What just happened here? 

Gradually the party resumed, but it was hard to pass off what happened as an act – it was too real.  I never talked about it again because I found it disturbing and didn't know what to think of it.  I always figured the dark-haired woman was a potential spouse whose expectations I wouldn't be able to meet.  Now I know that she was me – the real me.

That was in 1959, before the words "transgender" or "transsexual" were even coined.  Most people didn't know that some of us could have a brain gender that was different from our physical sex.  The concept didn't exist in our culture.

Now, 50 years later, the dark-haired woman and the teenage boy and all the various parts in between are combining to become a unified whole.  I'm not quite there yet, but I can see the process and that, given some more time and work, the various parts of me will be unified.

This has been a very long journey.

- Kate

[jesse]

Joandelynn what a wonderful example that is how i feel i couldnt never describe it as eloquently as you did thank you for the insight
jessica

[Dianna]

I have read what everyone has said. My belief is as fairly accepted in main stream journals and research into transgerder/transsexual, hormone treatment will alter aspects of the physical body, it does not alter ones thinking or give one a dural personality.

I  know we all vary, but how can ones core thinking, change?

Sure after my own transition I was able to express myself better, and what the poster said about introvert/extrovert hit the nail on the  head.

Speaking only from my own experience, transitioned late teens/early 20's and am now in my 50's, my only experience was I was able to express myself extrovertly, I was outgoing and my confidence level in most areas of my life doubled.

[kelliBennett]

I can say the same. Now I don't feel I have dual personalities but I do present differently as a man then I do as a woman. My therapist even knows this. I have learned to shut things off. Push things forward, etc to create an image people would accept as I tried to live as a man.

Also I've been a wreck since I read the quote at the end of Joandelynn's post. That is too eerily me and what I have spent my life doing.

[sd]

When I was a teenager I went to a friend's house.  There were some kids I didn't know, including a girl who said her grandmother had taught her to read palms.  She read a few.  It was like a parlor game - fun and light-hearted.  But when she read my palm, she became visibly disturbed.

She said she saw a dark-haired woman on a hill, beckoning to me, but I wasn't able to come to her.  (I'm dark-haired.)  The girl finally became so uneasy that she stopped the session and wouldn't read any more palms.  The fun was gone.  Everyone was looking at each other like: What just happened here? 

Gradually the party resumed, but it was hard to pass off what happened as an act – it was too real.  I never talked about it again because I found it disturbing and didn't know what to think of it.  I always figured the dark-haired woman was a potential spouse whose expectations I wouldn't be able to meet.  Now I know that she was me – the real me.

That was in 1959, before the words "transgender" or "transsexual" were even coined.  Most people didn't know that some of us could have a brain gender that was different from our physical sex.  The concept didn't exist in our culture.

Now, 50 years later, the dark-haired woman and the teenage boy and all the various parts in between are combining to become a unified whole.  I'm not quite there yet, but I can see the process and that, given some more time and work, the various parts of me will be unified.

This has been a very long journey.

- Kate

About a decade ago I had a similar experience with a Baroness who saw auras. She said I was different, she had never seen one like mine. It really intrigued her. She described a few other peoples she saw as well. She sort of understood some of the colors, but not all of them. I didn't think much of it until a couple years ago when I decided to look up what she told me, it said I was looking for something. Some of the others were quite fitting as well. If she only knew. 

I love having people who can "tell the future" and such try and read me. They either rattle off some generic bit or it throws them for a loop.

[sarals]

April, that is a question that I think many of us come to grips with.  I can't say what goes on in your head, but I agree with what many others have already said about their experiences here.  For me (I'm 20 months HRT, almost 1 year full time), there was a period of time where I could see a "him" and a "me".  Most of that had to do with my past.  What it has turned out to be was me asserting myself as a woman (outside and inside) and my coming to grips with the person I used to be and the history that went with that.  I am still the same person, one person.  The history I had as a male is a part of me, it makes me who I am, and it lends a certain richness to my life and character.  It won't and can't go away.  I've now completely "assimilated" myself as a female, I'm in total acceptance of that, and that division that I once saw between my old self and who I am now is gone.  I am but one person, and I am woman.  The confusion, in my case, was part of the coming to grips with that and the acceptance of it.

Hugs! ~~~~ Sara Lynn