How do you let go?

[Asfsd4214]

This is ruining my quality of life, or at the very least doing it severe harm. I KNOW fully well I can't do absolutely ANYTHING about it, and I KNOW that nothing good at all comes out of this, and rationally I know it's not really my fault.

I'm talking about letting go of the past. I can't let go of the feeling of having lost 21 years of my life because I was sleepwalking (that's what it feels like to me). I knew I was transgender, but I didn't do anything about it because I didn't think transition was a realistic option, which was my perception because I never bothered finding out. And now in what feels like the blink of an eye, my ENTIRE teenage years are gone.

I was SO close to recognizing my problem MUCH earlier, first at 10, and again at 12. Sure at those ages it would have been difficult to do anything anyway, but I could have started SO much sooner than I did and the only thing that stopped me was my denial of the obvious.

And now I'm utterly fixated on it. It feels so painful every time something reminds me of it. There was something on the tv tonight about misbehaving teenagers, and it made me distressed enough that I had to leave the room.

Anyone else here experienced this? Does it ever go away with time? Or am I going to feel this hurt for the rest of my life?

[jesse]

gid dosnt go away and the longer you try to put off doing something about it the worse it gets try transitioning at 44 or 50 or 60 if it went away surly it would have done so in myself as i knew i was trans at 14 i tried to transition then it almost got me killed then i went into hiding for the next 30 years not a wise move now i have the baggage and the damage t has done to deal with. Do yourself a favor sit down evaluate your options and act on it no matter what your final decission is just make one then procede at your own pace. speak with a therapist if you havnt already they can help you cope if transitioning is not in your future you are only 21 your life has just begun.
jessica

[Cindy]

What Jesse said with spades.
It will never go away. Find a therapist. Talk to a Doctor. There are lots of options now. I'm 5**, I came out to my parents when I was 13. Long time ago. Guess what? I wasn't cured by age. I just got older and missed out on life.

Go and seek help, Ahh to be 21 and change. Honey this might sound silly, you are lucky. There is now help.


Cindy (who is going to bed but keeps getting interrupted)

[Asfsd4214]

Sorry if I wasn't as clear as I could have been, I'm already transitioning. The problem is it STILL hurts. It's not my feelings of gender that I need to deal with, it's my feelings of loss for having ignored it as long as I did.

I just wish it would stop hurting, to a degree it hurt my whole life in the form of gender dysphoria, but now it hurts at what I have already lost and can't ever experience or get back.

What I wish I could do, what I want to know about, is how do you move on? And by move on I don't mean go on and do things with your life now, I more so mean how do you move on from the feelings of loss that still hurt no matter what you do?



For a little extra background, this was something I mentioned 9 months ago when I first joined this forum, I said "I can't help but feeling angry at myself for not doing something sooner".

I'm still feeling it, and even worse as time goes on.

I see a therapist but I don't have a lot of faith in her but am too terrified to change therapists for fear of her trying to stop my access to HRT or something. I'm looking into seeing a 2nd therapist concurrently as a compromise.

I just wish I could let it go, but it hurts every time I think about it, I don't want to have to feel this for the rest of my life.

[Cindy]

Darling,,
The past has gone. We can never change it. The present is what we have to live. The future is unknown. It is our dawn. Please don't worry about the past. It is a totally useless exercise. Just makes wrinkles, and you don't want them

Hugs
Cindy

[Samantha_Peterson]

I know exactly how you feel. For me though it was more of everyone around me thought it was wrong and they made sure I knew that after I said I wanted to be a girl at age 10. That's when I started to bottle up my feelings. Now what I feel is pain and dissapointment as I think of everything that could have happened in those eight years.

I guess the only thing you can do is move forward through life. What I have done constantly and have found works the best is to realize that you can't change the past, but never forget it.

[gothique11]

Eventually, you just learn to look at the present and the future, and not let the past over take you. We all have pasts, and you really can't change it -- you can only go forward and make your own future.

You're 21, and you have plenty of life ahead of you. Be glad that you can start now, and not wait until you're older. There's a lot of people in here who are older and just starting out. The good thing is that things are different now than they used to be... mostly with information and access to doctors who are informed and will do something.

As for my past, I came out when I was 5 or so. I was sent to psych doc who viewed that I could be be cured via forcing me to be a boy and pushing boy-centered activities on me. This was in the early '80s, in a small town. It was very popular back then that if a kid shows signs of GID or being Gay or Lesbian, that those things could be "cured" via activities. Of course, that was proven not to work in countless of cases and not adopted as a method anymore by main-stream psychiatry.

I went through that as a kid. Then as a teen getting beaten up at home and school for it. Then going through church councelling to make me un-transgendered. Then going through ex-gay therapy at 19 via church. Then being really screwed up mentally from all of that. Trying again at 21-22, but flopping 'cause I had no support and had no where to go or information at all, plus my family saying no (my mom sorta supported by then, but wanted me to wait until my grandparents were at least dead, and warned that 99% of the family will ditch me). I then went through a huge depression, then through a lot of counseling and medications to fix that and to work with my past so I could move on. Tried school as a last-ditch attempt to see if "maybe if I got a career and a girlfriend the GID will stop." Of course, school and girl friends didn't make the GID stop, so on my 26th b-day I announced that I was transitioning and that was that. I worked hard to find support, internet connections, friends who were supportive, and doctors. Started FT and HRT 6 months after my b-day, and never looked back.

Most of my family doesn't talk to me. My grandparents aren't dead, but view me as dead. My brother, who I used to be extremely close to, no longer talks to me. My dad, rarely. My mom (dad and mom divorced when I was 2) is the only one in the family who talks to me and accepts me. I'm (ugh!) 31.

It hurts. Even after all of this time. It hurts that my family still refuses to talk to me. It hurts that I went through bad-therapy several times over while growing up, via out-dated psychiatry and church.

It's not easy. I would love to time travel and start earlier, but I can't. The past has many painful moments -- but the only thing I can do is hold my head up high and choose my future. I don't think the pain of the past will ever completely go away. I'm sure that I'll still wonder what it would have been like if at 5 my GID was taken care of correctly. But, I can't live off what-if's, and I can't let the pain from the past drag down my future. It's not easy, but you just needa keep marching on in the direction that is right for you.

Anyway, good luck with everything. *hugs*

[rejennyrated]

Very difficult.

Truth is none of us does it right. Take me - I even managed to, at least partly do, what you dreamed of doing and transition in childhood... and that was back in the 60's when people were even less enlightened.

I was also the TOTAL IDIOT! - there is no other word - who allowed my first therapist to convince me to de-transition in my late teens, and even take a small supplement of T. !!!! (why did I agree to that) whilst attempting to live as a male (which up until then I had never actually properly done).

It's only by the grace of God that my first university degree, which I graduated with just at the end of that period of cross living, actaully bears my female name and therfeor matches my school exam certs and indeed my recent MA.

Point is we all make mistakes - (as the Dalek said to Dr Who while climbing off the dustbin )

As I have proved you can do everything right and still comprehensively mess it all up at the last hurdle.

But it's pointless to speculate about what might have been, particularly if by doing so all you do is stop yourself from enjoying what you have now.

I may have wasted my late teens and early twenties, but I still enjoyed more of my youth in the correct gender than perhaps 90% of trans people! - and you will too. I know it's difficult but please don't beat yourself up. You did your best. Now enjoy the reward.

Jenny x.

[Northern Jane]

I struggled through my teens, not sure if it was the right thing, but there was nothing that could be done at the time aside from hormones because it was only the 1960's.

In 1974 SRS became possible - I was 24 - and I was GONE!

36 years have come and gone and they have been wonderful years but I will always feel "short changed" at loosing the first 24.

Nobody said life would be fair or easy but the best philosophy is "Do the best you can with today."

I make up for lost time - ask my boyfriend  )

[pebbles]

I feel the exact same thing ashley I don't know if it gets easier I hope in time I will forgive myself and feel less guilt about it.

[rejennyrated]

I feel the exact same thing ashley I don't know if it gets easier I hope in time I will forgive myself and feel less guilt about it.

It does and you will...

[Katelyn-W]

I know it may sound silly but this "my ENTIRE teenage years are gone", was hard for me to get over too. I wish I could look back and have happy memories. Oh well I should be thankful that I'm still sorta young . I'm finally moving in the direction I wanted to all along though, there's a lot to look forward too.

[Teknoir]

Deep down I think a lot of us have at least a little resentment. I know I do. How young you start has no bearing on that.

Grieving over the lost time is natural - but try not to let it go on for too long (ie, don't let it stop you doing what you want NOW).

I deal with it by trying to see that time in a productive light. I may not have been happy back then, but I learnt what I don't want out of life. I learnt what it's like to be a walking zombie, and I learnt what it's like to live in a hell of my own making.

Most of all, I learnt what want, and what makes me happy. I learnt about myself, and I learnt what gives my life value.

With everything I've learnt, I'm in a better position than most to go on to lead a happy and productive life. To make the most of everything that comes along, and to appreciate what matters.

I've come to (mostly ) accept those years by seeing them as part of the path to where I am now.

I see many people wandering around like zombies for decades, never really knowing themselves or what they want, and never really being 100% happy with that they've worked towards. Sometimes I look around and wonder which of us has really lost the most time.

[Nero]

I go through the similar feelings sometimes. We all do. I know it doesn't help to know that you're still starting earlier than most because that doesn't make up for losing your teenage years as a girl - the most hyped time in a female's life. So all the knowledge that you have the rest of your life ahead of you as a woman does not erase the pain.

At a time when you should've been wearing bras and changing tampons, you were wearing boxers and shaving unwelcome hair. When you should've been picking your dress for the prom and worrying about your date, you were stuck in a tuxedo (if you even went).
You should have had the freedom to experiment with makeup and hair and clothes everyday and what ever else young girls do. You should have had all the firsts and rites of passage girls go through.
It is a huge loss. And any young woman would be outraged at being robbed of it all.
It's like being a rosebud told the time to bloom has already passed. All the other roses are full out. Done. The party's over and you missed it.
It is something you should grieve. You deserve to recognize your loss and grieve it.

But where it seems you're going wrong with that is in blaming yourself. It's like blaming yourself because you should have run faster in the two seconds you had before being robbed, raped, etc. Like any tragedy, instead of focusing on the loss itself, we focus on blaming ourselves. When we're grieving a loss no matter if it's a person or anything else, we murder our souls with blame. If we had just known, if we had just gotten there at the right time, run faster, if we had just said this or done that, if we had been smarter, nicer, better - which ultimately culminates in the belief that if we were a good person, if we were worthy, this would not have happened.

I mean, what was the alternative Ashley? Tell your parents at the 'right time' whatever that was and then magically transition at the 'right time'? A million things would probably have to fall into place perfectly for that to have happened. Sure, there's the lucky girl in a million like Kim Petras that it worked out for.  As someone once said, "The point a person is at in pursuit of his goals means nothing if I don't consider where he started and all the factors that have played into his progress." There's no sense in indicting yourself because you were not the one in a million born at the right time, in the right place, with the right circumstances for it to work out for. That would not hold up in a court of law. I'd say there's reasonable doubt that you could have foreseen and prevented this tragedy.

Don't try to ignore or run from your feelings about this. Honor them. Let them be. You lost something of incredible importance to you. And you're angry about it. And you're hurt. Let that stay in the room with you for awhile. Maybe write about it. Write down all the things you would have done and experienced as a teenage girl. All the dreams you had for that time. Then look at it and grieve the loss of those dreams. Then rip it up when you are ready.
However you choose to do it, you have to let this breathe so it doesn't come to the surface gasping for air with every news broadcast.

[rejennyrated]

Thank you nero, for putting that all into words so elegantly.

Apart from anything else it made me realise just how lucky I really was.

[Just Kate]

I used to feel that way, up to the point I transitioned.  While I was transitioning I saw many people who either were transitioning too or had transitioned and totally hung up on what they lost.  I looked at my own life and saw that I was doing the same thing - in fact it was my primary hurt my GID was using against me back then.  The solution?  I stopped focusing on what I didn't have and started focusing on what I did have or will have.

Simple?  Sure, but hard to do.  We like to look at what we don't have in a kind of sado-masochistic way, but if we stop, change our focus, and look at the blessings we have in our lives, we will find ourselves much happier people, transition or no.  Otherwise you will be 50+, fully transitioned, telling people you are "happy," but still crying and bemoaning that you can't have children despite ALL you have accomplished.  That isn't a happy sight - trust me, I've seen it.

[jesse]

thanks nero that helped me and i dont even know why??
jessica

[rejennyrated]

I used to feel that way, up to the point I transitioned.  While I was transitioning I saw many people who either were transitioning too or had transitioned and totally hung up on what they lost.  I looked at my own life and saw that I was doing the same thing - in fact it was my primary hurt my GID was using against me back then.  The solution?  I stopped focusing on what I didn't have and started focusing on what I did have or will have.

Simple?  Sure, but hard to do.  We like to look at what we don't have in a kind of sado-masochistic way, but if we stop, change our focus, and look at the blessings we have in our lives, we will find ourselves much happier people, transition or no.  Otherwise you will be 50+, fully transitioned, telling people you are "happy," but still crying and bemoaning that you can't have children despite ALL you have accomplished.  That isn't a happy sight - trust me, I've seen it.

Some of us adopt. I know it isn't quite the same, and I won't pretend that I wouldn't like to have been able to have born a child of my own, but you won't find me crying at 50 when I know that my adoptive son is a fine fellow who will carry many of my ideas and priciples with him though his life.

I suppose it is wise to consider the balance of gain and loss. In my case however there is no doubt that the gain hugely outway the tiny losses that I suffered. What is 3 or 4 years from a lifetime? and as it turns out fate was even kind enough to give me a second go at University last year, so now I have even managed to heal the memory of those lost years when I did my mistaken reparative therapy.

But yes you are right. It's a question of focus. This isn't a perfect world, so you can either look at the glass and see it half empty and be miserable or you can look at the same glass and see that it is still half full and be happy. The seond point of view is much more helpful.

[kimberrrly]

Nero that is so wonderfully put.
xx

[Nero]

Thanks ladies.