Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Over the last few years I have been finding it increasingly difficult to remember that I was ever anything other than I am now. I think back to my past and I know that things where different but it seems like something that I am reading in a book rather than part of my life.

Has anyone else had this experience?

Ann

Yeah, well i have never really even thought of my past as being someone else. Every time my parents bring it up i was shocked to believe that it was me we were talking about. I have lived in stealth for so long even pre-surgery that there is nothing in my every day life that would ever make me think i am different from the people around me. I don't focus on the trans community, was never a part of it really, i did work for GLAAD but it was a part of any volunteer work i did so it wasnt anything special. I come here to remind myself that my issues are still very real and other people are going through it too. It makes the pain less severe i suppose.

Quote from: Anonymouse on January 16, 2011, 02:12:00 PM
but it seems like something that I am reading in a book rather than part of my life.

When I review my previous life, it's like remembering a comic strip I once saw. Even the people seem 'cartoony' in my memories now and my actions as a male appear so corny and stereotypical, as though they were scripted by a pulp author for a cheap buck.
When I look in the mirror, I can't see any vestiges of my old face and I need to look at pictures to remind myself of what I looked like before. Contemplating the differences in behaviour leaves an...alien feeling. I can comprehend WHY I behaved like that in my past life (to fit in, to stay safe), but I'm at a loss as to HOW I managed to do it. As I said, those male behaviours are so utterly alien now that I'm quite disturbed by the fact that they were performed by this body.
I'm not certain that I'd be able to replicate them if circumstances somehow forced me to detransition - it's like a one way door; once the female behaviour has been let out, it can't be caged again.
I guess part of this is due to being stealth. It means that I've edited all my stories and anecdotes from my past so that I'm female in them when I relate them to other people. This has become so routine and so comfortable that I actually remember being female in a few of my childhood memories and even when talking to people who know I'm trans, I inadvertently refer to myself as female when discussing my childhood (i.e. "When I was a little girl, we had these toys that were shaped like...")
Everything fits perfectly now, so it's really no surprise that my mind rejects a lot of my past.

Not an unusual phenomenon as having kids is like that in that you remember your life without them, but it is like someone else's life or maybe a repressed and/or irrelevant memory.

A lot probably depends on your life pre-transition and the age at which you transitioned.

I noticed that within a few years of surgery (age 24) my pre-transition life took on a completely different colour - that of a young girl dealing with a horrific problem - it was all from a girl's perspective. As I learned more about the psychological and emotional development of boys and girls I saw that my own development was very much that of a girl. It made it very hard to believe that I ever had been "male".

Yes...i feel like that since its been 2 years since i came out nd told my family..its like i dont know the person who hled everything it

for ME, my biggest fear was waking up from surgery and feeling amputated.  now i NEVER used it before and no MAN has EVER seen it BUT to lose something that has been attached to you for all of your life, was frightening prior to.  CHILD, i woke up from surgery and didnt remember that thang even existed.  i have TOTALLY forgotten that it was there and what it looked like and i am 8 mths post.

Thanks for the replies. Its nice to know I'm not alone on feeling this way.

I guess it just seems like some fantastic story that happened to someone else now.

It was traumatizing for me, so I cannot forget.  It stays with me.  But I am rudely awakened whenever I am reminded of the past, like in an old photo, or memory, and I'm like, "I cannot BELIEVE it was like that."  I remember the events but what dulls is the texture and detail of everyday existence, that hated everyday existence.