Poll
Question:
*Read post* Do you feel like you are two people?
Option 1: Yes
votes: 6
Option 2: No
votes: 33
Option 3: Sometimes
votes: 18
Lately I sometimes feel like i'm two different people. Not pre versus post transition or passing and not passing. For insistence i'm usually vary calm and peaceful around people. I've even had people tell me its like i give off a motherly vibe. Then I suddenly, and I feel myself do it, a 180 and become a complete bitch.
Its not mood swings, and I recognize the mood. Its me, or how I was as a guy. It feels like I have two personalities that get switched. If it weren't me i'd find it facinating, as it feels almost like split personalities except i'm aware and myself. Best theory I have is i'm skitzo except i'm told that i'm not.
*shrugs* Maybe a side effect of transition?
that's lovely, Jenny.
I guess I feel similar. 'She' was always a phantom and now she is a ghost.
Quote from: Nero on December 13, 2009, 10:16:46 AM
that's lovely, Jenny.
I guess I feel similar. 'She' was always a phantom and now she is a ghost.
Glad it resonates with someone.
I guess the only difference between you and I is that price of her becoming a ghost was that we had to fuse.
We are now her, but a part of me once was him, and unlike some, now that I am her, I find I can embrace that part and allow it to give me hidden depths and inner strength.
Quote from: rejennyrated on December 13, 2009, 10:24:34 AM
Glad it resonates with someone.
The only difference between you and I is that price of her becoming a ghost was that we had to fuse.
We are now her, but a part of me once was him, and unlike some, now that I am her, I find I can embrace that part and allow it to give me hidden depths and inner strength.
I hope I someday get to that point. For now, it's almost as if she has died and I am grieving. I miss her, or at least, other people's relationships to her.
It's actually one of the great ancient mystical quests. Janet, and others from the wiccan and/or pagan tradition will understand it.
The mystical union between the Animus and the Anima! That has been the spiritual work of my life.
Without wanting to sound too weird I believe that when they are truly one you evolve spiritually to become something quite different, and maybe in time you can eventually move onto another plain of existance.
I don't quite know what it is that one becomes yet. But whatever it is, I'm an infant one of them and I'm here for (hopefully) one last time to learn and mature.
I'm absoluetly sure you'll get there too. It does say "seek and ye shall find" after all...
Quote from: Janet Lynn on December 13, 2009, 10:49:01 AM
Many nations of my people know very well the two-spirited person, and many still revere them.
And your words speak volumes to many of us, Jenny.
Blessed Be
Janet
Ah yes indeed - but in my experience so few seem to understand that the deepest quest for a two spirit is to conjoin the two sides of their person into something magical and new - for so it is said that in the end is my beginning - as one. I was two spirit. Now we two are one again.
That is at least a part of the meaning of the Ouroboros as I undertsand it. The two fuse and in so doing swallow each other up leaving the one again. The same only also different.
Sorry if that's gone a bit weird for anyone but it's something I feel is important to me.
[we now return you to the normal thead] :)
Loved the poem.
Again I am the odd duck for there were never two, only one, but that was something I couldn't see until afterwards. That was what made it so difficult to pass for what everyone thought I should be; I didn't pass because it wasn't in me. But it made integration and assimilation easy because there was nothing that didn't fit, didn't belong.
We are all unique, all different.
No, I dont feel like two people. And I cant understand those that talk about themselves like they are/were two persons.
Like when someone says, "she" did that but "he" wanted another thing. Or like some others posted here. That they missed their "other" self the one past transition. I just dont get it but thats me.
I don't feel like "different people" I feel like a disco ball.
I just choose which facets are pointing forward at any given time.
Over the last few months, I've noticed I feel as two people, that my emotions carry the essence of one of two identities. There's several examples I could bring up, but the following is the most recent straight-forward one.
Near the end of October, I unexpectedly ran into my grandmother at the grocery store. I already have problems with unexpected social situations involving people I know. (I'm not a fan of surprise visits, either.) She went through the normal motions of asking how I've been and what have I been doing, when out of nowhere she asks "What's wrong with your eyebrows?" A few days prior, I'd had them shaped for the first time. She stares at them confused, knowing they're different but not grasping how, while I'm standing there uneasily. We were standing in the middle of the store's foyer, so people darting to and fro all around me heightened my anxiety.
I finally told her I had them shaped, that they looked "thick" only because they were more defined, that they were actually narrower. She just shrugs with an "oh" and, noticing me looking around at the many passers-by nervously, suggests we talk outside and out of the way. The conversion continues as normal, but all I can think about is how she responded to my eyebrows. . .I'm not out to any family members yet.
When the chat finally ended and I got to my car, I felt a few things. First, I felt a "male-tinged" frustration over thinking again about how I'll eventually have to tell her and the rest of my family about all of this. I guess it felt like that to me because it involved the relationships between Ash (using this as a substitute for my real male name) and my family. After this, though, I felt "female-tinged" sadness and disappointment over the way she responded to my eyebrows. I guess those emotions felt like they came from a female place because they involved one of the few outward expressions of Ashley I have available to me in public right now, along with my long nails, shaved arms, and ever-growing hair. Basically, my grandmother's reaction really hurt her (Ashley's) feelings. . .my feelings. Both sets of emotions combined had me in tears by the time I got home.
I don't ever feel like I have two distinct identities housed within me, but with Ash and Ashley living lives exclusive of one another, I can't help but feel my internal responses to external stimuli are greatly affected by whichever life is more sensitive or relevant to them.
To clarify: It's not really that I ever felt like I was two people, however for most of my life there was this pretty woman people saw and reacted to who was not me. I didn't pass as male no matter what I did, so inescapably there was this woman people saw. And now she has vanished in a puff of smoke. I have always behaved the same and been the same - however people saw a pretty woman behaving a certain way and now they see a strange, short, teenage boy looking thing doing the same things. To me it's the same; to others, not so much.
I used to have a tendency to split myself up into various people or aspects before transition, most of them vehemently opposed to the others. This dis-integration was due I think now to PTSD (according to my therapist). With life experience, learning to trust my own intuitions, a bit of therapy, and mainly finally acknowledging who I've really been all along, that tendency has all but gone away, and I do understand that we are all one.
At one point my former "male" self wrote me a farewell letter of sorts, basically thanking me for saving our life and handing over the reigns so to speak, while bowing out and fading away. This was not however because I actually saw myself as two people at all, but it was a symbolic gesture on my part of putting that old life to rest, once and for all. I'm not ashamed of nor do I deny the fact that life once existed; what's done is done, but I acknowledged somewhat ceremoniously that it was passed and gone. Similar to a funeral I suppose- funerals are ceremonies for the living; the dead don't care one way or the other.
Quote from: Zelane on December 13, 2009, 04:28:25 PM
No, I dont feel like two people. And I cant understand those that talk about themselves like they are/were two persons.
Like when someone says, "she" did that but "he" wanted another thing. Or like some others posted here. That they missed their "other" self the one past transition. I just dont get it but thats me.
I never have felt like two people per se, just two personalities. How to put it better...like different masks I guess. The actor or 'me' stays the same. I know who I am and remember everything, but the mask presented to the world is different. I guess if it sounds like slipping back to pre transition, maybe it is. Dunno, and telling therapists this kind of stuff always gets me odd looks. They have no clue how to handle a 'normal' transsexual, much less an over analytical one like me. :P
Actually, I thought about it more and especially after reading some of the other posts. It kinda feels like my soul is dragging around a dead weight. I kinda had an instance with suicide like Janet's but afterward it always felt like half of me was dead. Like it had lost the will to live. Yet I
do wish to live and am quite ambitious towards my future goals. Gah, i'm starting to cross the line between science and spiritual again. :eusa_wall:
No, I've always just been me - confused, troubled, weird, unsure - but me. I was him. He became me, but I am no longer him. Kate is the new improved version of him. I sometimes tell people that "he is in a better place now" but I know that he became Kate, which is who I am now.
- Kate, previously known by another name but really just the same person but far happier :)
no, I've always just been me. Just one.
2 people? 2 personalities? 2 entities?
Isn't that called Dissociative identity disorder?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder)
2 souls 1 body. 2 mind sets 1 brain. 2 sexualities only 1 is fulfilled. Yes I feel there are 2 souls in me but definatly not 2 separate well formed personalities. I am 1 person that is always of 2 minds on any subject. My coping mechanism is simple. The man part had his 41 years, now I want mine.
I don't feel like two people in the sense you mean, but I'm certain that there is something more than one cohesive personality floating around inside my brain.
If you plotted it on paper, it would look like a set of axes. One the left you have all the positions associated with one personality, and one the right all the positions associated with the other. And all the positions are independent of each other.
Yeah, it sounds weird.
Some aspects of myself do seem to work on a dichotomy. I have a female sexuality, for instance, but every now and then that ugly male alternative creeps in. But the two aren't equivilent; its as if the female version lives in my brain and the male version lives only in the gonads.
If I thought of it in another way, I would have one fully-formed female personality, and a half-formed male personality parasitising off it.
(And on an entirely unrelated note: Yay! Fifteenth post!)
No. Never have & never will.
I've never felt like two people and wouldn't ever want to. That must be horrendous to feel that way?
Quote from: Naturally Blonde on December 19, 2009, 12:12:52 PM
I've never felt like two people and wouldn't ever want to. That must be horrendous to feel that way?
What she said.
As one of the early contributors who actually voted no, but who does have (I hope) some level of comprehension of this I can't help but feel that some people are taking the phase "two people" a bit literally.
It may be me missing the point of course, but I don't think that anyone is seriously suggesting that they are literally two separate entities.
I certainly wasn't anyway - hence the no vote. Merely that because of the dysphoria there is a mystical work to be done in repairing the fracture which has occurred between the outward apparent gender and the inner reality - that is certainly what I was talking about in my poem anyway. Expressing this in terms of two mythical opposite sexed persona's is merely a metaphor to allow someone with no understanding of the fracture we feel between our appearance and our indentity to have some grasp of the real pain that this causes.
Quote from: rejennyrated on December 19, 2009, 01:56:10 PM
As one of the early contributors who actually voted no, but who does have (I hope) some level of comprehension of this I can't help but feel that some people are taking the phase "two people" a bit literally.
Yes, but don't ->-bleeped-<-s live a duel life or role? they are happy to live as a man for most of the time but are also equally happy to split this with going out as a woman also?
This may have been how the original post was presented? a person living in a duel role and feeling like they are two people?
Quote from: Naturally Blonde on December 20, 2009, 10:46:51 AM
Yes, but don't ->-bleeped-<-s live a duel life or role? they are happy to live as a man for most of the time but are also equally happy to split this with going out as a woman also?
This may have been how the original post was presented? a person living in a duel role and feeling like they are two people?
Fair point! - it may be me that misunderstood it then. I always assumed it was a figurative reflection of the mind/body dysmorphic split, and therefore something that one would want to repair... but I can see you may be right. Some people may not - in which case count me out! :embarrassed:
Quote from: Janet Lynn on December 20, 2009, 11:28:49 AM
The only problem that I see with threads like this and others, is that those who have searched for decades to come to terms with their GID, use terms like two-spirited and if we so think that we are not correct in our thinking, by others views.
But we were not blessed by the ability to change the body at a young age. I am 55 and have know for years who I was, but I never could find the help I needed to become that person. Just because I am unemployed, live in a country where it costs thousands of dollars to change things. I try my best to go forward and then threads like this, that begin innocently enough, become a young vs. older transitioners. I am sorry that I was not blessed with money or skills. May be it would have been better if I have succeeded in my last attempt.
I tired of trying to speak my mind and then to feel like I am wrong because I speak my mind. The rules state that ...
But it is hard when just because I was cursed to be an underclass person. I am here for support and some of the statements seem to be directed at us lower class people. I am sorry that I was born in a country that does not pay for my treatment and that I am not lucky enough to be given a chance to be a better person. I did what I thought was best for parents and family.
In tears,
Janet
Hi Janet,
You do seem to feel sorry for yourself because you are a later transitioner. I could equally say the same thing or anyone who started their transition over the age of 39.
I also wish I transtioned in the 1970's as a teenager but but it was a lot harder in those days and the information and contacts were not available in the same way as they are these days. The internet didn't exist either.
I am also finacially poor (I have no heating for my flat) and have to pay for my treatment as and when I have the money. So please remember a lot of us are in the same boat hon!
Hey Janet
The last thing I want to do is have you of all people in tears.
I was speaking only for myself in ALL my posts - and as I have frequently observed in other threads and will willingly do so in this one, my experience is NOT the only one, nor is it the only RIGHT one.
All I was trying to do was clarify my own position. If others then extended that into something which felt like an attack I am of course mortified and have no wish to be publically associated with that.
You are CERTAINLY no less a person than anyone - in fact I think it is said somewhere in scripture that those who suffer greatest are to be honoured the highest.
So please - I can't speak for anyone else of course but I personally am certainly not trying to denigrate in ANY way your feelings. that would be quite wrong - and if have ever given that impression I appologise absolutely unreservedly. :embarrassed: I would also like any others who may have inadvertantly been party to this unfortunate incident to do likewise.
Please do not feel un-valued. For me you, and others like you are the heart and soul of the place. As I have said in other threads you always seem to know what to say to help others and Susans is made the richer for your presence.
I for one would miss you greatly if you were not here, and I count you as a true friend.
Jenny.
Thank You Jenny.
I also apologize and will not be posting for a while. I need to reevaluate my contributions here. I never meant to hurt anyone in all the time I have been here.
But I feel I am not welcomed any more.
Quote from: Janet Lynn on December 20, 2009, 02:06:53 PM
Thank You Jenny.
I also apologize and will not be posting for a while. I need to reevaluate my contributions here. I never meant to hurt anyone in all the time I have been here.
But I feel I am not welcomed any more.
Please Janet
I beg you to reconsider that.
Many of us value your posts most highly and basically if you go silent we are all made the poorer by that.
We need to voice of calm reason and sanity that you provide.
J.
I feel like two different people: There is the me, who is me (girl). And the me who works in the work force (boy).
At work I feel like a completely different person. Its kinda odd. I have to keep my mind focused some times as not to slip into `myself'.
It kinda weirds me out changing presentations for people on a daily basis (unless i don't work that day). But hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. C'est la vie.
~Lisa
I don't feel like two people per se but I understood your post as if you were talking about shedding the old habits/moods but sometimes going back to them? I'd say that's common if you're in the first stages of transition. You're getting used to the real you whilst at the same time undoing what they inculcated in you. I dunno if that makes sense to you, but I would talk to my gender clinician about it. If they give you weird looks when you talk to them about it, maybe it's time to find somebody else. They're supposed to be there to help you & not to make you feel uncomfortable when you open up to them.
Hmm. At first the male aspect of me was just an outward persona created by social pressures... I really wanted to please my parents, teachers, peers. As time went on (high school & early college) it invaded me more deeply due to playing this role all the time, increased pressure to be masculine, and probably testosterone.
My hope from the beginning of transition was not to kill my male aspect, but to integrate insightful experiences of this role with my actual self, rather than have 'split thoughts'. So ironically, in bringing out my actual personality, I allowed faked male traits to become slightly genuine. Well, the ones I like anyway.
I may have lost something precious, my childhood as a girl, yet the way I see it I may as well become a stronger person for the pain.
I honestly don't feel like anyone right now.
I voted no, but sometimes I feel like one and a half person. The one person me, and the half person I've created for interacting with other people. I'm working on it though, so maybe now it's more like one and a third person. I'm not sure any of us is really just one person in the end.
ABSOLUTELY.
I definitely feel as though there is, what I have been calling my "center"... or "core"... who is this person that's a true representation of how I really am... and feel, and then there's this shell of a thing that is made up of coping mechanisms that have become habits that has become this personality that is not me what-so-ever.
That core was buried underneath the bad habits and coping mechanisms, and it was when I realized that they were two separate things, that I was really able to take hold of my fate and push forward with getting to a place of peace with myself.
In a more plain manner, I can put it like this : Growing up playing the role of a boy, I got into a lot of things, like computers and such, because they were an escape from the hell I was living. If I hadn't had to escape, I know I would have been much more into art, dance, and drama as a child.
So here I am all grown up with a big part of me that loves geek stuff, but it's not a true love of mine... just something I got into the habit of turning to.
Then there's that true-core-self that wants to be an actress and dance and put on costumes and doesn't care about technology and video games!
So yeah... it's weird, I can actually _feel_ both sides of me within me, but one feels more true than the other, and in some situations they meet at a place that is at peace (for instance, the idea of the internet as a medium to convey art and drama!)... but yeah, at the end of the day, two separate things, with the old-habits and coping mechanisms slowly shedding away from the core.
:-\
Nope. But defining that single person who inhabits the body is, and probably will always be my challenge. Humans are so self-contradictory.
Add to it that we run on imagination, and we have an unsolvable puzzle.
I imagine that given situations one hasn't faced, or faced often, since being fulltime, it would be very easy to revert to well practiced behavior. This is especially something I could see often in MtF transsexuals when handling confrontation, or FtM transsexuals when handling grief. It's simply how society trains the different gender roles.