I'm coming up on one year of RLE, and as of late I'm coming across people who haven't seen me post transition. One of the most common comments I get is
"You seem so happy!"
In the past few weeks I've gotten this a few times within minutes, sometimes within 60 seconds. Obviously that's not enough time to tell them what I'm up to and how things are. So I am curious as to what prompts the happiness comment.
As its gotten more and more common, I started wondering what my body language was saying for all of these years or if it was something else.
Anyone here experience anything like this? If so what do you chop it up to?
~Brooke~
Hi Brooke,
I have one comment.... Just look at your avatar picture and you will see what illicits that comment.
You look so happy!
Hugs,
Jeanette
Quote from: JeanetteLW on April 21, 2017, 07:28:32 PM
Hi Brooke,
I have one comment.... Just look at your avatar picture and you will see what illicits that comment.
You look so happy!
Hugs,
Jeanette
ROFL! You just cracked me up. Thank you'
~Brooke~
My therapist showed me something very interesting about this.
After I had been on HRT for a couple of months, and was effectively full-time when away from the house (long story...), I felt happy. Really happy. Like I hadn't felt in my entire adult life. I asked my therapist if this was normal, or some odd reaction to HRT.
She had been 'scoring' me, for the level of depression and anxiety I was showing, since my first visit. She told me that what I felt was not euphoria, but simply the normal state that most well-adjusted human beings live in. My 'euphoria' was just my depression and anxiety being reduced to the levels most mentally healthy people have. I just had not experienced that state before, so it was very new to me.
And, yes, other people definitely noticed the change in me.
That makes sense Michelle. I've been depressed before, but not recently. Though I have been in a long term recovery of a misdiagnosed seizure disorder. I started my transition in the beginning of the recovery, now towards the end. I wonder if just pure mental and physical exhaustion stopped me from emoting much, and it's a situation of me getting closer to my normal.
One thing my best friend said is that my energy is very different, more positive, and less anxiety driven, even from before I was sick. Perhaps people are picking up on that along with just "normal" emoting.
~Brooke~
One of the things that people pick up on subconsciously is whether or not your body seems to be in tune with your reactions, whether it all moves "together", in the same way a smile is probably fake if it's not involving the eyes and the rest of the face. So if your general body language and movement seems to be positive and sings along with your words and facial expressions, it comes across as genuinely "happy". It's hard to fake this sort of ensemble - unless you're an actor - so maybe you are just exuding a happier healthier sort of vibe all round.
Not a body language expert myself, but I started looking into the subject and found that the opposite of this is probably what me made me appear very unhappy or even intimidating to people in the past - a stiff way of holding myself, and verbal reactions that seemed disembodied from my general body language. This unnerves people. They probably aren't thinking analytically when they see it, but their subconscious is picking up on it. Came from years of feeling awkward in my skin and holding myself carefully together around others... even my therapist commented on it last time I saw him, how stiffly composed and distant I seemed to him, and my body really was not "singing" with my words, it was what they call 'guarded' or 'gated' body language. It's quite normal for me, but for the average person, it seems odd to them and suggests someone ill at ease or extremely aloof, possibly even someone hiding something or being dishonest (because when analyzing people's body language, stiffness of the body while speaking tends to indicate lying, as does lack of eye contact - except with me, I maintain eye contact almost all the time, which unnerves people even more).
Anyway, I imagine you're just feeling more comfortable on multiple levels and your body will broadcast the fact.
Quote from: Brooke on April 21, 2017, 07:13:36 PM
I'm coming up on one year of RLE, and as of late I'm coming across people who haven't seen me post transition. One of the most common comments I get is
"You seem so happy!"
In the past few weeks I've gotten this a few times within minutes, sometimes within 60 seconds. Obviously that's not enough time to tell them what I'm up to and how things are. So I am curious as to what prompts the happiness comment.
As its gotten more and more common, I started wondering what my body language was saying for all of these years or if it was something else.
Anyone here experience anything like this? If so what do you chop it up to?
~Brooke~
Hi Brooke,
I get the same comments, and for good reason. I am much happier! I have friends who have known me for years who can't believe I am the same person. I guess I was unaware how grim and joyless I was at times. Maybe most of the time.
Viktor: I think your analysis is spot on.
~Terri
My father once said "You get angry faster now, and act more aggresively. I like seeing you react to things now".
Maybe it because I'm experiencing the adolescence I didn't have when I was 14, maybe it's because of the hormones. I don't know the cause, but I feel happier, and I care about things now.
People say I seem much happier now. My brother says I'm happier but also more bitchy. When I asked him what he meant he said I have permanent PMS because of hrt. That's so not true! I'm a nice person. At least I think I am.
Julia