As of immediately I am retracting everything I said about if swapping your gender to match your body were possible I would have done it. Here is why:
I had a scary incident yesterday triggered by an organic substance administered through the lungs. I was sitting there and the effects of the stuff were quite scary. The only way I could describe it was waking up after a long sleep. I was horrifed by what had become of my body and what I was wearing. I had, for a few hours, managed to swap genders. It led to the most intense dysphoria I had ever felt in my life and the worst part was I couldn't tell anyone. I was in the more or less right body but no one could know that. Transition was but a distant memory, like the memory of a film of my life. I felt as if someone else's [male] personality had been loaded into my brain. I was still conscious of it and it was still me only I wasn't me. I, driven by this personality, began to wonder how I would live the rest of my life. It would be miserable having to live as a female. It was almost worse than dysphoria. I would be forced to live like this even though I actually had the body, albeit slightly altered, that was meant for how I was supposed to be. I didn't know if I would feel like that forever or for the next few hours and that was the really scary part.
Fortunately I'm back to my normal female self. If anything this incident has led me to say that yes, I am a woman. I don't want to identify as male because I know what it is like and it's literally not me.
Maddie,
What were you smoking? Uh, never mind. Keep off of that stuff! This sounded like those Haight-Ashbury acid trips some members of my generation took!
Joelene
You need to send that substance to me immediately for, um, further testing!
That is why I don't partake of ... ah ... herbal remedies. I do not like to not be in control. OK guys would not care by I do. You have to send that stuff to me for ... ah ... immediate disposal.
The stuff really isn't the point at least it's not supposed to be. That was a really scary few hours and it got me to realize that I don't want to identify as male. It's scary.
Why would you identify as male? Are you thinking you are on of them Transexgimals? FtM?
hehe
Too scary, Maddie. Definitely don't do that stuff again. Be comfortable as the woman you are.
I don't think I ever will again. The odd thing is that it's not the first time I've done it (I did go to college you know). It was a nightmare. It really was like waking up from a long sleep and realizing what had happened to my body while I'd been away. I really don't know how to describe it other than that. I was conscious of everything I'd done and everything that was going on at the moment but I was being someone else, someone [male] who wasn't me. And this male me didn't like what the regular me had done to my body.
I know it sounds confusing but it was and still is scary. And having had that experience, I can definitely say this now: If there were a magical pill that could make your gender match the body you have, don't take it.
Please be careful with any intoxicants Maddie. I have a feeling you may have created something which might not be useful, later.
Cannabis, for example, can create quite astonishing highs which bring a lot of pleasure. But I think I'm absolutely correct in sayiny that, once you have one scarey period, (the horrors, paanoia, whatever you wish), then it is much more likely to come again.
I stopped using any intoxicants, including, (lastly), alcohol, in 1996, because of this. I know that my own experiences are not unusual.
Our brains are not designed to have tricks played upon them. They need stability. And you're such a nice girl, I hate to see a really sad avitar photo.
Don't you find the particular nature of the trip to be oddly specific? Or am I reading too much into it?
I can completely relate to that experience. That experience is part of the reason that I live in a haze for 7 years straight. More often then not that haze would making me feel more "normal". At the time it was a coping mechanism for myself so that i didn't have to face the reality of my inner self. Feb 9 of 2008 was the last time that I "inhaled". Since then I have come to realize that was the time that my transition started to happen, concious or unconcious. But I would like to echo the sentimant of other people. DO NOT SMOKE!
<3 Teagan
I think we naturally develop a persona to fill the gap between our real identity and our physical identity, and by smoking, maybe we disorient our coherient, normal personality, that our mind digs up the one that we left for dead by transitioning...
I remember that when I first finally decided I needed to take care of this, I didn't smoke, but by male side gave resistance before it seemed to die.
Kia Ora,
::) A few years ago there was a report on the effects of ganja [or Jah Herb as some would say]put out by the NZ government... Now the weirdest thing about this report was it stated marijuana had a "feminising" affect upon male brains...
Now how much of this was actually proven, is questionable, but I guess the government was looking at every possible ways of reducing marijuana use especially in "red-bloodied" males and what better way than to tell them they would become effeminate[or worse still impotent] if they continued to smoke it...
However it would seem [from personal experience] that marijuana tends to amplify whatever it is one is feeling at the time, so if one is slightly paranoid then whamo full blown paranoia sets in...
I personally no longer partake in the herb, I've found a better and much safer, healthier, and cheaper kind of high called "meditation"...
Maddie, if you want to understand where things are at try meditation...
Metta Zenda :)
Quote from: Zenda on May 16, 2011, 12:33:49 AM
I personally no longer partake in the herb, I've found a better and much safer, healthier, and cheaper kind of high called "meditation"...
Maddie, if you want to understand where things are at try meditation...
Quoted for truth - I've found that using meditative techniques it is possible to enter just about any chemically induced state - the drugs are just a short cut.
I would be interested to know privately what the intoxicant you were exposed to was though. These things are often quite specific in the brain area that they affect and so knowing what it was might shed some really useful knowledge on how dysphoria arises.
(oh and just to say Maddie that I haven't forgotten our little science project - I've just been rather pre-occupied with builders in my house this week. Hopefully in another two weeks I'll be properly back on stream.)
Quote from: Maddie Secutura on May 15, 2011, 09:42:21 PM
Don't you find the particular nature of the trip to be oddly specific? Or am I reading too much into it?
No, I don't. You took a chance and got hurt.
You have been warned.
Our brains don't like to be fooled with. I've worked with people suffering from various psychoses, where their sense played silly tricks upon them. There was a good reason these people were in hospital.
Now people will tell you, or imply it, that the reason these chemicals are banned is because the government doesn't want you to enjoy them or get the insights that they can deliver.
Rubbish. The reason these substances are banned is because they harm you. They screw with your brain.
OK?
Quote from: spacial on May 16, 2011, 02:51:47 PM
The reason these substances are banned is because they harm you. They screw with your brain.
With respect that doesn't entirely work as an argument when it has been widely publicised that the science of relative harm is frequently being ignored. For example there is very good scientific evidence that Alcohol is vastly more harmful and addictive than many of the chemicals which are banned.
In my opinion, all too frequently, the reason why these things are banned is, at least in part, because far too many humans have not yet learned that they do not have the right or indeed the duty to protect others from their own poor life choices. Basically in an ideal world the law should exist to prevent one person harming another. However when that person is only harming themselves I do not believe the law should be involved.
That's a big ol' can of worms I'm staying about 3000 miles away from.
With regard to the original post, something I'm curious about, is how were your memories and stuff affected, like... the situations from your past you remember yourself as female in, were these also overwritten? Or did they stay the same?
Quote from: Sephirah on May 16, 2011, 03:45:41 PM
That's a big ol' can of worms I'm staying about 3000 miles away from.
With regard to the original post, something I'm curious about, is how were your memories and stuff affected, like... the situations from your past you remember yourself as female in, were these also overwritten? Or did they stay the same?
Thank you. Substance abuse was not the main point of this topic and I am fully aware of harmful side effects.
At the time my memories of my female self were almost like remembering an episode of my life; the memory of watching it happen with no control. Nothing was overwritten, just subdued. My pretransition memories, however became sharper. The funny thing about that is lately my pretransition memories are a blur. I can appreciate the fact that I was there but I don't remember being that way. Once you wholly realize your gender, you can't remember being any other way. That night I was so completely overtaken by this masculinity that I couldn't remember, and could barely believe, I had ever beenn female. It was a mega identity crisis. It mainly got me thinking that maybe there is a part of me that belongs to my original unaltered body.
Quote from: Laura91 on May 16, 2011, 03:09:08 PM
If that were true, then why is alcohol so widely available?
And to others.
Alcohol is a very harmful drug, though claims that it is on a par with most of the illegals substances available are not true.
Most of the illegal substances are created to be quite potent. That is how those who sell them make their money. Along with the lies they associate with them.
But much more importantly is that alcohol has been available and used, for centuaries. In our part of the world, these are widely used as part of the culture. Banning these has been attempted, most notably in the US. It led to widespread disrespect for the law. Law, incidently, any law, can only function when there is general acceptance.
Other drugs, including the ancient ones, such as cannabis, opium and the various folk drugs, magic mushrooms, were never widely available or used, in this part of the world. Hence controlling and banning these was relatively more straightfoward.
As a comparison, some countries in SE Asia have a long tradition of cannabis and opium use. Consequently, it has been much more difficut to supporess their use in those areas.
Now I strongly suggest you forget the hype over alcohol. It is also a very dangerous drug. It happens to work is a different way to opiods and canabinoids.
Its legality is because it is almost impossible to restrict.
The argument that adults should be free to make their own judgements is valid, of course. But the issue here is the effect of these drugs upon the psyche of those using them.
Many people, it is true, do appear to suffer few ill effects from any drug, while some suffer quite terribly. The point is that Maddie has had a seriously distorting experience. This is her wake up call to stop putting dangerous chemicals into her brain.
Quote from: rejennyrated on May 16, 2011, 03:38:51 PM
.......For example there is very good scientific evidence that Alcohol is vastly more harmful and addictive than many of the chemicals which are banned.
There is certainly a case to argue for that. It seems to be a matter of fact that alcohol is at least as dangrous.
But the problem is actually enforcing a ban.
I love how it was the method rather than the message that everyone jumped on here. Pragmaticists to the end I see. Tell me, would you smack a heart monitor when it flatlines because the instrumentation has to be off? [/sarcasm]
Seriously though it was more the implication of what occured rather than how it came to happen. The whole point of this little exercise was that I now know that if switching genders were possible, you shouldn't want to do it. I did for a small stretch of time and it was somewhat frightning. Hence the title: "You Don't Want to Swap Genders."
You might not want to swap genders, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be right for others.
Quote from: Sarah Louise on May 16, 2011, 07:03:47 PM
You might not want to swap genders, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be right for others.
I had pretty much said before that if the means were available to swap genders and make your mind match your given body I would have done it. But having experienced just such a thing, I'm glad it wasn't available. I would have made a huge mistake.
Quote from: spacial on May 16, 2011, 06:19:16 PM
But the problem is actually enforcing a ban.
No, that's not the problem at all. After all, the government spends huge amounts of money trying to control every other drug. One more addictive substance won't put that much more of a burden on the police.
No, enforcement isn't the problem. The problem is the massive revolt that would happen if alcohol were outlawed. Why do you think they made it legal again after alcohol's banned status in the early part of the previous century?
Kia Ora, I suppose it means Hola Chicas
Metta Zenda is right, chronic consumption of marihuana (several joints a day) results in a reduction on sperm count, testosterone, free testosterone, and testicular volume. In addition, an incipient gynecomastia has been documented as well. Add the foul bad bread, and damage to short term memory, and of course the carcinogens present in the smoke, which are twice as many as in tobacco smoke..
Maaddie, pretty girl, "What ever you do, do not smoke!"
Love,
Kate D
Rest assured I'm not a pothead. I just happen to have a few pothead friends who live in the town I was visiting over the weekend.
Next time say NO to your friends. We all care for you here. Hugs.
Joelene
Quote from: VeryGnawty on May 16, 2011, 07:57:44 PM
No, that's not the problem at all. After all, the government spends huge amounts of money trying to control every other drug. One more addictive substance won't put that much more of a burden on the police.
No, enforcement isn't the problem. The problem is the massive revolt that would happen if alcohol were outlawed. Why do you think they made it legal again after alcohol's banned status in the early part of the previous century?
Led by the Anti-Saloon League and the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the dry forces had triumphed by linking Prohibition to a variety of Progressive era social causes. Proponents of Prohibition included many women reformers who were concerned about alcohol's link to wife beating and child abuse and industrialists, such as Henry Ford, who were concerned about the impact of drinking on labor productivity. Advocates of Prohibition argued that outlawing drinking would eliminate corruption, end machine politics, and help Americanize immigrants.
Prohibition failed because it was unenforceable. By 1925, half a dozen states, including New York, passed laws banning local police from investigating violations. Prohibition had little support in the cities of the Northeast and Midwest.
Prohibition quickly produced bootleggers, speakeasies, moonshine, bathtub gin, and rum runners smuggling supplies of alcohol across state lines. In 1927, there were an estimated 30,000 illegal speakeasies--twice the number of legal bars before Prohibition. Many people made beer and wine at home. It was relatively easy finding a doctor to sign a prescription for medicinal whiskey sold at drugstores. Happenning in California and Colorado with the "weed"
Prohibition created a huge consumer market unmet by legitimate means. Organized crime filled that vacuum left by the closure of the legal alcohol industry. Homicides increased in many cities, partly as a result of gang wars, but also because of an increase in drunkenness. It was not until the 1960s that alcohol consumption levels returned to their pre-Prohibition levels. Wht were the levels of "weed" smoking before its prohibition/
That was the whole point of the thread. I never intended for it to be about drugs nor did I ask for an intervention.
Quote from: Maddie Secutura on May 16, 2011, 09:22:02 PM
I never intended for it to be about drugs nor did I ask for an intervention.
Yes, but you mentioned mind-altering substances, which in some circles is known as a "grenade"
Quote from: Flame WarriorsWhen lobbed into a discussion forum Grenade instantly blasts civil discourse into smoking rubble. Grenade's explosive content can be adjusted to the forum's interests. Typical detonating materials can be Bill Clinton, George Bush, gun control, homosexuality, Reagan, abortion, taxes, conspiracy theory, the NEA, welfare reform, etc.
Kia Ora Maddie,
I know this was not intended as a thread on drug use experience, but....
::) The main point I was trying to make re your experience with "Jah Herb", is how ganja tend to amplify what one is experiencing, and if for whatever reason there's a trace of "paranoid" in ones mind at the time, this will increase tenfold...
Metta Zenda :)
Quote from: Maddie Secutura on May 15, 2011, 09:42:21 PM
Don't you find the particular nature of the trip to be oddly specific? Or am I reading too much into it?
I find the whole episode fascinating and the first thing that pops into my mind is to study the incident to find out what was going on in the brain to cause this. It could lead to understanding of where gender resides in the brain and how a chemical or event can induce disphoria. This would be great if you could pass this along to a serious gender research scientist.
Can't say I've ever had that reaction, but it sounds interesting.
It might be nice to just feel better about one's body without any physical changes taking place. However, I think that would take a rather drastic change in personality to really help with dysphoria. I can see many ways how mine has at least partially shaped how I've become who I am. If it suddenly went away, would I still be me?
Quote from: Maddie Secutura on May 15, 2011, 10:42:21 pm
Don't you find the particular nature of the trip to be oddly specific? Or am I reading too much into it?
I would say, yes you are. That idea was probably on your unconscious mind. If you hadn't gotten messed up you probably would have dreamt about it that night. By getting stoned, or whatever, you were in effect experience "lucid dreaming."
By learning meditation techniques you can experience the ability to guide your own dreams.
On the positive note. You are even more sure that your true self is female.
I'm a lucid dreamer, and I have had dreams of being keenly aware of being male. They replaced my nightmares of being burned alive by jet engines and waking up in rotating rooms as the worst dreams ever.
I think it is completely natural for our psyche to play badminton with our identities from time to time, since the cause of this condition (TS) has been hypothesized as being a neural mismatch (parts of the brain are female, others are male, and it is quite possible to have parts of a size in between). A struggle may be expected. As I have stated before, playing with an already volatile brain is not the healthiest way to go.
I concur, don't take the pill. Too many problems with such a half baked solution.
You know the funny thing?
When I was kind of intersex/male being a male bodied female used to upset the crap out of me. However for some strange reason I found out a long time ago that I am totally comfortable with the idea of being a female bodied male. Most of the time I am a female bodied female of course... but just occasionally...
I have often suspected that my "gender", whatever the heck gender is, is somewhat flexible so sometimes that genuinely is how I see myself (as a female bodied man) and it doesn't worry me in the slightest. If anything it just feels "special"!
I know I am female bodied and that I will always present as a woman and that just feels "right" to me irrespective of whether the energising personality is a male or a female one. Maybe that is the intersex in me shining through...
Quote from: Maddie Secutura on May 16, 2011, 09:22:02 PM
That was the whole point of the thread. I never intended for it to be about drugs nor did I ask for an intervention.
Maddie.
Really sorry for missing your point.
Big Hugs. Sorry. :embarrassed:
Well now I obviously don't want to take the Gender Dysphora curing pill. If only because My body is now largely female their is no sense in it. And if I was cured it would be more hassle than it's worth as I'd have to reverse the process and be in a similar position to an FTM.
Before I transitioned however yeah it would have made ALOT of sense and I'd have taken it in a heartbeat.
Most likley Maddie took a drug that wasn't very harmful, as most of the inhaled hallucinogens arn't... The scientific truth about such things upsets governments hence why you will never find a biologist these days on drug panels... more or less all of us say the same thing. Ban Tobbaco restrict alcohol, Legalize 3/4 of the rest as they arn't dangerous.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a2hnHdYMVClw (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a2hnHdYMVClw)
It's about government control, nothing more.
It seems that non-legal drugs are topic that interests many on the board. I will create a separate thread so we can talk about that without sidelining Maddie's thread.
:police: Please be careful as any thread which strayed too far into illegal substances would be violate TOS. :police:
I doubt the existence of a drug that can swap your gender identity.
It sounds to me like a letting out of things buried in the subconscious...
It very well might be. This was the sort of thing I wanted to talk about. Maybe there's some deeply buried male part of me. It's not like I can exactly rule out some male presence within me seeing as that's what was originally in the blueprints. I find myself unable to embrace that aspect. You'd think if I had a male side, I could be happy with what I have. Alas 'tis not the case.
In my opinion, it is fairly common for people to try too hard to mentally eradicate every ounce of masculinity... or rather, they tell themselves that everything they are and do is the essence of femininity and there is no icky masculinity mixed up in there.
That is of course just self-deception, and everyone, even if not biologically born male has some masculine traits. I think lying to oneself about that is pointless and personally like to take the more neutral view that it is a spectrum and I am somewhere in the female threshold.
Perhaps the subconscious element at play is that of, ironically, a repressed masculine side. Note, of course, that wanting to be feminine is not necessarily a feminine trait (how many women do this?), and neither is wanting to not be masculine. Transition blurs the line between what we are and what we want to be, and what we want to not be. And I think that can destroy a healthy balance that is typical of people who don't think about any of these things at all.
Maybe, going off on a limb here, the horror of that masculine side at having to live as a woman was the buried horror of it actually being kept under lock and key to protect the "100% femme" illusion, or the horror of once again pretending to be something that one wants to be, not what one is.
Hi Maddy,
I think I been there with and without "induction".
Gave up "grass" as we call it over here in SA or "zoll" because of such an experience.
It seems to change your blood chemistry (obviously!) i.e. causing a major low blood sugar reaction if gotten too much for your own good i.e. NO GIGGLES for sure.
Should have taken a cup of tea with plenty sugar and re-surfaced (so my last ancient, accidental experience).
The more recent such happening (once or twice) while try to have a relaxing bath, nothing funny in it, caused the GID thing you seem to describe. I got this dry, flat, cold, detached, "unfeeling" male thing come over me that made me wonder: What am I doing here?
It was my old male persona trying to push me (female) out of myself. And again I'm cold sober.
It was THE MOST scary thing that came over me because at the moment, also as you found, I thought that was it!
I now be male for ever and it was really horrible. It didn't last too long thankfully. But whilst in the throws of it, it feels it will now be like that forever. It was just horrible.
So this, during the earlier part of my transition, can happen without getting stoned or what ever.
Now I think it is quite normal. Thankfully not to be repeated!
Thanks you for sharing this,
Axelle
PS: Also what a waste it be to have your pretty face on anything like a male :-) Hey!
Your gender is an integral part of your "self". Of course I do not want to change it! To change such an important part of who I am is to be someone who I am not. To change such an integral part of ones "self" is to run the risk of dropping out of existence and being someone else.
--
As for cannabis I would not have gotten through school let alone university, I would eat even less than I currently do and at under 9 stone at 6ft tall that is not a good thing. It allows me to forget my problems. The dreadful increase in dysphoria during exam periods when I could not afford to enjoy myself and smoke but study all day instead was atrocious.
No one has the right to tell anyone what they can or cannot do with their body, nor the knowledge to say that something is dangerous for everyone. Everyone reacts to these chemicals differently, to say otherwise is naive.
Not that I am advocating drug use, just individual choice and liberty with respect to ones own body.
Something similar happens to me every once in a while when I smoke too. Personally, it doesn't bother me too much because I know it will pass, and it doesn't usually happen. For me it feels sort of like, as Maddie said, that someone had downloaded a female personality into my brain, so my body matched it, but it wasn't me. It went away once I wasn't high anymore. Not that you should ever do it again, but when something unpleasant happens when you're high on a psychedelic substance, it's best to just relax until it passes, which it always does. So, you're not alone, Maddie. :)
drugs don't help anything. by the way, i remember a pretty recent thread where someone was going over this https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,98249.0.html (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,98249.0.html)
really, that thought has never crossed my mind. i've always thought the only thing i want to be is female, and being happy as male is just out of the question, even if i would forget i ever was trans.