Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Holy crow it isnt. Sorry for this rant but what is up with me? Since begining my jounrey on my womanhood I have be FORCED by my ownself to deal with my past truamas. I know that being Ashley brings me great joy, but that great joy doesnt negate my issue from the past, my insecurites, my negative thinking patterns from childhood. infact those issues have hindered me at times with being at total peace with transtion. Being Ashley, its nuts at times. She/me is MAKING me deal with all the things i repressed and negated for so long. I hated beign male a lot, but it was easier then being Ashley. Especially being on HRT, my emotions are coming out more and it has been harder to suppress like I could before. I could repress my issues, get drunk and pretend nothing bothered me. I didnt have to look to the past and deal with my issues and i had no future to look towards. I did a meditation on wednesday nigth, a soul healing thing.. the next day I saw a dog get dragged from its owner, normally i would be a bit peeved or even pretend it didnt happen or it meant nothing. But i felt so sad i could cry. For her. I felt something i havent felt since childhood and probabaly before pubery even. Pure empathy for something other then myself. It was scary and made me think.... If i was going to bawl over a dog being dragged a foot or so, what will happen when I have to face my truamas, sexual abuse, emotinal manipulation, bullying and insecurities? Why is Ashley basically making me re-live feelings i could push down for years. I tell you, besides the doubt that i am not a real woman these feelings kinda make me feel maybe i shouldnt go further at times. I hated being male bt it was so much easier to be aloof to everything. I dont think i will be going back as i was super miserable and i love being a woman, but why is this new spirit i found named Ashley kicking my arse all the time?

Tho i will keep moving forward I will leave one last thing:

It was so much easier to be Ashton the coward then Ashley the brave.  I aint going back as it would probably kill me, but its true omg

I'm coming to find the same is true for me in my journey. It was so much easier just not caring, having no plan for the future, and just being very numb in general.
I look back though and I really put myself in that position again. The one positive thing that I extract from it all was that the life I am living now was something I didn't even think possible back then.
I think it could help if maybe you try and look at your life from a place of gratitude rather than it having to be perfect?
I'm coming to find this. My life may very well never be "perfect," but I can be ok with that. I can just surrender to where I am right here right now and have faith that will take me where I want to go.

Thanks you. That was just mainly a rant but it is true. It is hard to let yourself come out!

Fortunately or unfortunately,  it has been pretty well quantified that transsexuals have a markedly higher IQ than the general population.  Unfortunately or fortunately this means you tend to think about things. You know.... get all introspective and crap. Ponder things other than your naval.  As Socrates said, "the unexamined life isn't worth living".  Well, sometimes thinking sucks. Because when you're bright, questions manifest into more questions and not merely glib answers. So the more you delve, the more you expose. The more you expose the deeper you goes.....right......down....that....rabbit...hole.  Damned introspection is like the black hole of calcutta. So congratulations,  you can think. Thinking is hard and hurts. I fear none of our journey gets easier ....0r even as some think...ends. We'll grow till we die and doubt our decisions to the grave. So I say, enjoy the ride, settle in, make the most of it. Get some popcorn and stand outside yourself and view your own show. It's not going to get easier so we might as well enjoy the ride.

Quote from: jentay1367 on April 01, 2017, 09:01:12 PM
Fortunately or unfortunately,  it has been pretty well quantified that transsexuals have a markedly higher IQ than the general population.  Unfortunately or fortunately this means you tend to think about things. You know.... get all introspective and crap. Ponder things other than your naval.  As Socrates said, "the unexamined life isn't worth living".  Well, sometimes thinking sucks. Because when you're bright, questions manifest into more questions and not merely glib answers. So the more you delve, the more you expose. The more you expose the deeper you goes.....right......down....that....rabbit...hole.  Damned introspection is like the black hole of calcutta. So congratulations,  you can think. Thinking is hard and hurts. I fear none of our journey gets easier ....0r even as some think...ends. We'll grow till we die and doubt our decisions to the grave. So I say, enjoy the ride, settle in, make the most of it. Get some popcorn and stand outside yourself and view your own show. It's not going to get easier so we might as well enjoy the ride.

Well thank you for putting it bluntly lol!, Its still just the fact that when I began this jounrey. I didnt really think it would go like it has. Not being a Nancy about it, i mean it is good still. Its just, i hadnt  a clue that being the real me would take me to litterly needing or even thinking about EMDR for my issues and pushing me to do something productive (career wise) with my life. I had fantasies that maybe I could make it as a male kinda, but as my female self these day dreams actually started to become real!. See I do over think but i seem to fall into patterns. I am autistic (super mild). I can list you everything about Presidents of America and Prime Ministers of Canada and anything poltical before I was able to tie my own shoes properly... I am great with numbers too and dates too apprently. So I know how to overthink ;), but this journey as I said is an arse kicker. What things have you done JenTay to make it easier may I inquire :)?

Well sweetie, I got 40 years or so of thinking about this stuff longer than you have. So there's that. I don't know when you arrive here...and by here I mean resignation, but if you're trans, you get here. Some sooner.....the thick ones like me? Well....later. I fought the fight for many years. You're young.....So your lizard brain still hopes god is right and your supposed to be a boy. Course, look around, if god is perfect? Well, just sayin. She appears to have had some pretty bad days. I mean some doozy's! So god messed up. At this point (late in the game), I've decided to be happy and not try to justify gods f up.  You? You're still back and forth. It'll be like that for you till you change or die.  You have a chance to live a long life in congruence.  You're on the path. My ship sailed. All I can be is an old broad. But I'm gonna do it. Cuz' I can and I know the screaming in my head wont stop till I do. Your Autistic, I'm OCD and were both women. Women with penises. We can both fix that and live our lives as who were meant to be. You can have a complete life of that...and me? In a perfect world I get 15 years as myself. You have a lifetime to create a life. Consider that and see just how blessed you really are.

Quote from: jentay1367 on April 01, 2017, 09:33:40 PM
Well sweetie, I got 40 years or so of thinking about this stuff longer than you have. So there's that. I don't know when you arrive here...and by here I mean resignation, but if you're trans, you get here. Some sooner.....the thick ones like me? Well....later. I fought the fight for many years. You're young.....So your lizard brain still hopes god is right and your supposed to be a boy. Course, look around, if god is perfect? Well, just sayin. She appears to have had some pretty bad days. I mean some doozy's! So god messed up. At this point (late in the game), I've decided to be happy and not try to justify gods f up.  You? You're still back and forth. It'll be like that for you till you change or die.  You have a chance to live a long life in congruence.  You're on the path. My ship sailed. All I can be is an old broad. But I'm gonna do it. Cuz' I can and I know the screaming in my head wont stop till I do. Your Autistic, I'm OCD and were both women. Women with penises. We can both fix that and live our lives as who were meant to be. You can have a complete life of that...and me? In a perfect world I get 15 years as myself. You have a lifetime to create a life. Consider that and see just how blessed you really are.

LOL lizard brain xD. Well thanks again for not beating around the bush. That does help. I know i am scared but i also know i gotta do what i gotta do. It just kinda sucks having to wait till summer to get my noggin checked but i really do want to get on and have that life that EVERYONE (spiritual people, counsllors, a doctor from a while ago) around sees for me (except the few in my family). But I mean I want that for myself first before anyone told me that what they want to. So the dream is wtill in me. But everyone was right, transiton is not for the weak or cowardly. If I knew that I would have done more to fix myself and prepare myself then procrastinate until I just felt too miserable in the male life like i did this time 3 years ago.

Not to brown nose JenTay but i hope you live longer then another 15 years!! The world needs more of ya <3

 Thanks, Honey. Just keep pushing toward your goal, it will all fall together. Whenever someone comes to me wondering how they got to the place they find themselves in? I tell em'....you drove.  We all get where were driving. Whether we consciously choose the destination, or not.  Keep your eye on the prize and attain what you want. Cuz' if you don't drive where you want, go where others lead you,  you're still going to land somewhere. And you may just hate it.

My motto is "Just do it."

Never over-think or over-analyze it.

barbie~~

Quote from: SailorMars1994 on April 01, 2017, 07:08:00 PM
Holy crow it isnt. Sorry for this rant but what is up with me? Since begining my jounrey on my womanhood I have be FORCED by my ownself to deal with my past truamas. I know that being Ashley brings me great joy, but that great joy doesnt negate my issue from the past, my insecurites, my negative thinking patterns from childhood. infact those issues have hindered me at times with being at total peace with transtion. Being Ashley, its nuts at times. She/me is MAKING me deal with all the things i repressed and negated for so long. I hated beign male a lot, but it was easier then being Ashley. Especially being on HRT, my emotions are coming out more and it has been harder to suppress like I could before. I could repress my issues, get drunk and pretend nothing bothered me. I didnt have to look to the past and deal with my issues and i had no future to look towards. I did a meditation on wednesday nigth, a soul healing thing.. the next day I saw a dog get dragged from its owner, normally i would be a bit peeved or even pretend it didnt happen or it meant nothing. But i felt so sad i could cry. For her. I felt something i havent felt since childhood and probabaly before pubery even. Pure empathy for something other then myself. It was scary and made me think.... If i was going to bawl over a dog being dragged a foot or so, what will happen when I have to face my truamas, sexual abuse, emotinal manipulation, bullying and insecurities? Why is Ashley basically making me re-live feelings i could push down for years. I tell you, besides the doubt that i am not a real woman these feelings kinda make me feel maybe i shouldnt go further at times. I hated being male bt it was so much easier to be aloof to everything. I dont think i will be going back as i was super miserable and i love being a woman, but why is this new spirit i found named Ashley kicking my arse all the time?

Tho i will keep moving forward I will leave one last thing:

It was so much easier to be Ashton the coward then Ashley the brave.  I aint going back as it would probably kill me, but its true omg

No worries Sailor ... being who you are can add stress, but denying who you are can be much worse. I stress all the time if I look right, good enough, etc as Sinclair. But, It's who I am. I can't go back. I don't want to go back. Though my brain may try and tell me the easy route is to go back, I can't. I love who I am ... I love being the the best woman I can, because since age 10 I have always been a girl.  :icon_chick:

I was expressing the same feelings for the past few months.   I felt like my highschool years being all emotional,  a lot of memories brings me back to my... family who mentally abused me as a child.  Your situation is different from mine.   Because I can't hide from myself.  I love being sensitive and being caring its always who I am.  Before my hrt yeah i was a bit off an ass and kinda brush things off.   Bit deep down I still cared about people.  Not saying being a male means not caring about people.  I love my femienme side.  I am not ashamed of it.  Its who I am. 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

I always tell myself... I can cry,  and i may be weak. But I can be s strong confident women

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Wrong!

It Isn't Easy Being the Real You. It is far easier to do what is expected vs facing your fears. It is not easy to learn and the real you after a lifetime of training to be something else. Not when having to face a lifetime of accumulated Shame & Guilt about the real you hidden deep inside the darkest dankest dungeon of your soul. You needed to live up to an image in order to survive. The image of an "Ideal Man". An unthinking, unfeeling (except anger) person, fueled by testosterone.

Finally coming to the point of actually doing something, for real, about being trans besides beating it down, is also going to lead to a lot of self examination. An inspection of the past is the only way to know what wounds need healing, to know what negative, often self defeating/destructive patterns need to be changed. I spent a good year plus intensely examining myself, learning and starting the healing. There were gallons of tears and sleepless nights. Still some today.

Oh... and my wife will gladly add "Hormones messes with your head", and she is right. I relied on my on/off low dose several times over the decades for a brain reset, allowing me to continue on as a normalish guy. Full dose with an AA helped free me from myself.

well its not cheap either

Quote from: SailorMars1994 on April 01, 2017, 07:08:00 PM
Since begining my jounrey on my womanhood I have be FORCED by my ownself to deal with my past truamas. I know that being Ashley brings me great joy, but that great joy doesnt negate my issue from the past, my insecurites, my negative thinking patterns from childhood. infact those issues have hindered me at times with being at total peace with transtion. Being Ashley, its nuts at times. She/me is MAKING me deal with all the things i repressed and negated for so long. I hated beign male a lot, but it was easier then being Ashley. Especially being on HRT, my emotions are coming out more and it has been harder to suppress like I could before.

Yeah, I'm going through this, too.  It started like a baseball bat to the side of the head at the beginning of last June, and it's been up and down (mostly down) ever since.  The ups are really up, but the downs are really down (though the downs were pretty bad even before, like even 15 years ago, before I started on this journey.)  I've wanted to deal with the issues from my past, but it's like starting transition pulled the cork out of Pandora's bottle.  On the one hand, I feel more alive than I ever have before, but on the other, the, ah, "fertilizer" from the past hurts a lot sharper.  It's like the morphine is gone, and I've learned that what hurts is this big bowl of glass shards that I swallowed way back when and which I now have to vomit up again (with no pain-killer.)

On the plus side, I no longer get into these really suicidal funks any more.  Maybe because my emotions are too volatile for me to get there.

On the negative side, I'm in so much emotional chaos that there's a lot of stuff that isn't getting done.

FWIW, when I describe what I'm feeling to my female friends, they all simply say, "welcome to womanhood!"  So I guess I'm just going to have to learn how to live with this never-ending emotional tempest.  Other women do it, so I guess I'll learn, too.

Quote from: SailorMars1994 on April 01, 2017, 07:08:00 PM
It was so much easier to be Ashton the coward then Ashley the brave.  I aint going back as it would probably kill me, but its true omg

Yeah, people keep telling me how brave I am, but I don't feel like I have a choice.  There's no going back any more.  There might have been some 15 years ago when I had to decide whether to extricate myself from my toxic marriage or let it kill me, but by the time I realized I was trans (3.5 years ago), I was already in too deep.  It's like I  started down the ski slope and only when it was impossible to go back I realized it was a double diamond slope.  Live or die, there's nowhere to go but forward.

Quote from: JoanneB on April 02, 2017, 09:38:01 AM
Oh... and my wife will gladly add "Hormones messes with your head", and she is right. I relied on my on/off low dose several times over the decades for a brain reset, allowing me to continue on as a normalish guy. Full dose with an AA helped free me from myself.

What do you mean allow you to continue as a normalish guy?


Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

I tried for 40 or more years just to blend in, be a "Normal" guy, bury the GD as best as I can. After 2 failed transitioning experiments I reckoned there was no other choice. Life sucks and then you die. You can never be anything more then just a CD that once had a dream.

Over the years, keeping the corks under water and dealing with other life BS sometimes got to be too much. The GD became almost totally consuming for me. After 2 utter failed tries I knew any sort of transitioning was off the table. But..... HRT was a godsend for me emotionally. So start up on low dose and wait for the magic to happen, which usually wasn't too long. A few months later while on low dose other "magic" began to happen which was in direct conflict with the "Prime Directive", so I stopped. The brain reset worked, the rest was fooling myself into a chance of a dream long ago given up on. I had only one fate, one life ahead.  Well for a another 3-5 years untill I needed it again

That sounds painful. Yeah in addition to what I already wrote i still get that ''fake'' feeling. Like i dot belong in the female camp, even though every says they see a happier girl out of me then i ever was as some dude. How does one get that ''fake'' feeling or a fraud feeling to go away?

What is a "real" woman?
Many think it is a social construct.
I look like a bio female and have 40% female behavior traits, but, in general, I don't have a clue how to be a typical cisfemale. A high percentage of Asians are androgynous.

You can always adopt the Thai Buddhist "Third Gender" concept and just think of yourself as neither gender, or, as my daughter does, think of yourself as bigender with female leanings.

If you want to be totally cisfemale in behavior, remember that studies show that even the most femme females and macho males average only 80% of their bio gender behavior traits.

We are all on a gender sliding scale and since a recent study, which assured anonymity, showed that 85% of US adults sometimes felt same-sex attraction, we can pretty much rule out the gender binary/gay or straight myths.

US Christians seem to be the ones most determined to stuff everyone into a particular gender box and obsess the most about sexual orientation, because of their ISIS-like Old Testament religious beliefs.

Emotion is hard. I don't think that's just limited to being male or female. It's just hard, period. When you care, you can care too much. But on the flip side it shows you things you never would have dreamed.

A depth of perspective you just can't get any other way.

Allowing yourself to feel is one of the toughest things you can probably ever do in your life, if you're used to pushing everything down and waiting for it to go away. I spent a great many years doing that.

I don't envy the position you're in, sweetie. And I wish I could say it gets easier. What I can say though... is that you learn more about yourself, and others, than you ever would have thought. And in the end, if you embrace it, it will make you so much more than you ever thought possible. :) Empathy, understanding, insight and intuition... I would not give that up for anything. Even with the... side effects it can cause.

Keep going, okay? I know you've been through a hell that would make most people run and hide, and you have to work through that... whatever strength I have, I give to you in the hopes that you come out the other side so much stronger and determined.

It is worth it. Trust me.

*hugs*

I guess so. I just want to be a woman. If I had my chance to restart life as a female and have a uterous and even the nitty gritty like the XX chromosome (not that I lose much sleep over my 99% chance likely xy) i just wish i could change that all. Though, being more reasonable I just wish I could live as a girl and not be bombarded with all my insecutires. I am they will always be there but they are much worse because they creep in during my happiest of times and destroy me. I am a woman I would say, YES! But i still wana do things like camp, fish and such.. I just waa do the female stuff without all the added shame and those notious ''wtf am i doing moments''

Like I said it seems life would be eiaser to live as that male coward I had for so long, but on the flip side I cant even look at like my old male clothing that is still in a garbage bag without having a thuderous stomach and twitchy muscles and at times will cry if my automatic voice of ''Its not too bad'' doesnt kick in.. but that voice has lessend over time and the male-relating stuff is hurting even more. If were to go back I would fear I may die, so in many ways I gotta go forward.

Quote from: SailorMars1994 on April 03, 2017, 09:21:01 PM
I guess so. I just want to be a woman. If I had my chance to restart life as a female and have a uterous and even the nitty gritty like the XX chromosome (not that I lose much sleep over my 99% chance likely xy) i just wish i could change that all.

If it helps at all, I was born with a uterus and the XX chromosomes and all that... and none of that stuff helped me figure out how to be a woman. I just couldn't do it, even though I tried for 40 years. Organs and chromosomes do not a woman make. You're already doing a better job of figuring it out than I ever could. And those overwhelming emotions? Ugh, I hated them. I felt I was being held hostage to my hormones & I had no choice about when I could be emotional, nor how strongly I could react. It was humiliating for me; I used to cry when watching TV adverts for Pete's sake. Contrast that with last night when I cried whilst watching a documentary: it was about a stepfather who murdered his wife & her four children. Now that was appropriate, justified crying... and I didn't feel ashamed about that at all.

Of course I'd give anything to have the right equipment, but it wouldn't make me any more a man. And whilst it would be wonderful if you could have the parts you want, they wouldn't make you any more a woman than you already are.

Quote from: FTMDiaries on April 04, 2017, 09:57:56 AM
If it helps at all, I was born with a uterus and the XX chromosomes and all that... and none of that stuff helped me figure out how to be a woman. I just couldn't do it, even though I tried for 40 years. Organs and chromosomes do not a woman make. You're already doing a better job of figuring it out than I ever could. And those overwhelming emotions? Ugh, I hated them. I felt I was being held hostage to my hormones & I had no choice about when I could be emotional, nor how strongly I could react. It was humiliating for me; I used to cry when watching TV adverts for Pete's sake. Contrast that with last night when I cried whilst watching a documentary: it was about a stepfather who murdered his wife & her four children. Now that was appropriate, justified crying... and I didn't feel ashamed about that at all.

Of course I'd give anything to have the right equipment, but it wouldn't make me any more a man. And whilst it would be wonderful if you could have the parts you want, they wouldn't make you any more a woman than you already are.

Oh I understand that having both the normally assigned chromosomes and a utuerus doesn't make one female per say. In your case it didn't make you a woman, its just it would have been nice to have myself been born into those things :), alas, that is life and I don't lose sleep over those things but just dream of how great it would be :D! I am also sorry if what I said came across as ungreatful or snarkyish against others. That wasn't my intent. I am greatful for estrogen and how I am getting softer skin, less intrusive body hair it would seem and boobage!! and yes, even the senstitive emotions even if they can be a bit freaky at times lol.

Thanks for that FTMDiaries. You are cool guy :)