Hi everybody. And here's a question.?

Is there anything you regret doing or not doing at any point in your journey.? Maybe something you would have done differently.?
Or even some things that you don't regret, and are glad you did the way you did.? 

I've felt a few regrets tonight.
I wish I would have been able to make friends and others outside this forum understand me better when I came out and tried to explain my feelings recently.
I also regret not discovering my true gender identity earlier, I feel I've missed out on what could have been some of my most special years to be me.
And I regret not having kids. I would have been a great Dad, espesh to a trans teen..

I hope this isn't a depressing topic, but just an honest one, as we all have regrets of some kind.? Sometimes its good to talk about them.?

Like you, I wish I had discovered my non-binary identity much earlier. It would have saved me from trying to subscribe to a male binary when I really wanted to just remove my female parts and simply exist as who I am, a sexless person.

I regret that I didn't discover my identity before my voice had changed to a deep male voice on testosterone because now I must modify my voice with voice therapy and it is extremely distressing. But I don't regret having discovered my identity as a whole, I am glad I discovered it now rather than much later. I do regret having not found Susan's later but I don't regret coming when I did - if that makes sense xD

It's not a depressing topic, maybe include what you don't regret as well? Just a thought! It's a great topic, gives one lots to think about!

Quote from: EchelonHunt on October 10, 2014, 12:49:03 AM
It's not a depressing topic, maybe include what you don't regret as well? Just a thought! It's a great topic, gives one lots to think about!

Thank you Jacey, that's a good idea. I'm I'll try and change the question to show that. 

A hard question.  I am not sure that this is a regret but if I had understood that I was non binary  earlier in my journey i.e. when I was diagnosed as trans I would have:

-   Avoided or at least delayed and reduced the ffs and rapid breast growth which would have in turn avoided further surgery. 

-   Found emotional balance much earlier than I did.

However I think that the journey has in itself been extremely valuable, it has made being non binary just that much more meaningful, satisfying and joyous.  I feel immensely lucky that my endocrinologist and therapist worked with me to help me find the appropriate treatment and to discover and to express my identity as a non binary rather than try to simply convince me that I only had a binary choice, ie to live and to identify as a male or as a female.

Aisla

I don't spend much time with regrets but recognize that familiar refrain of wishing my fears had been faced earlier and understanding that successful transition includes non binary trans people.

i don't think i'll ever regret listening to my own doubts when i was considering ftm transition.
i will fotever be glad i had the wits about me to seek out information that isn't readily available on any info websites.
i came here looking for a bigender experience, one that could confirm my suspicions that this feeling i had of not really being either or, is actually real and not just a confusion or wishful thinking.
i found so much more than just that though, i found encouragement to be who i am, and acknowledge myself what i know is true, even if other people may not want to believe it.
i learned that reality looks different to different people, on a more conscious level than the inkling i had before. i find this very valuable to know, it means my own world will expand for each other person's world view i can get a glimpse of.

there's only one regret i do have though, and that is not realizing i most definitely am trans, when my daughter was still under 3. would have been easier for her if she knew me just the way i am, so she wouldn't have any fear of her mother suddenly disappearing.
and i have to come out to someone today, in order to not regret having kept quiet about it for too long.

Oddly, I don't have regrets.  Maybe some bitterness, but not regret.  Everything happened in perfect timing for me.

Why?

Maybe being wired into the God of my Understanding, of having 30 years of AA and a powerful message to them and watching so many lives saved, maybe of having a terrific shrink that got the diagnosis right, maybe realizing that everything happens in its own time for the blessings of us and others, all things can be turned into something positive, an opportunity is always present in it.

Dunno.  I wish however that Mark's experience had been better.  It was timing Mark, you came here in a turbulent season and got caught in the crossfire, hopefully unconditional love in this forum can heal.  And better communications, I do regret that I couldn't do that very well with you and I triggered you, for which I appologize to you and this entire forum, it was unintentional to say the least, and I am glad we aired it out in pms and I think that was very good.

And I love your forest posts.

Nonetheless, I appologize for not getting it right and the resulting pain it caused you.  Publically appologize.

Blessings

Satinjoy

Regrets? Oh yeah. I have plenty of them. I wish I could be 21 again and know then what I know now but not 21 in my time but 21 today. I would definitely go about things way different. But that is spilled milk though.

No regrets, just wonderment of what ifs.

Looking back at my life, there were certain points in time where decisions made were critical to what happened to my life.  One can't help but wonder how ones life would have turned out had the other door been opened instead.

In any case my life has been fruitful and successful, and I've managed to keep dysphoria at bay without transition to date.  The question is of course, will it continue, and it's an interesting ride to say the least. 

I regret that my daughter felt hurt and abandoned. I feel like there was probably some way I could have kept the lines of communication open with her. I didn't realize she was feeling that way until she told me much later.

I regret that I castigated friends for outing me. I'm a lot more laid back about my trans identity now, and I realize that my secret is not theirs to keep.

 Things have happened for me mostly at the time and in the order they needed too.

If at twenty-four I had known what dysphoria was, I might have not have spent ten more years drunk. In that case I wouldn't have gotten to experience the resurrection of my soul in recovery.  I'm not sure I would be willing to sacrifice that revelation. 

If I had felt able to be more open with my wife once I finally understood what was true, maybe things wouldn't have gotten so ugly.  But maybe she would have killed me, that was my fear.

Nope, I am the best Julie I know how to be, right here, right now.  That is all I can and ought to wish for, and all I need. "We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it...We will know peace."  Written eighty years ago, and still applicable to my life today.

Peace,
Julie

I never got a chance to write what I "Don't" regret..

I don't regret other experiences during the past few years that seemed to create a deep desire, a call echoing louder and louder inside me to discover myself on a much higher and truer level, to where I feel I am moving towards now.
Even though there was a lot of pain and frustration involved, it was necessary to push me to where I am now.

I especially have no regrets about coming here, and getting to know all of you. I honestly have never had friends before that I could feel safe telling my secrets to, and not fear them pushing me away. That really is a perfect description of what "family" should be, and it is in no short supply here anywhere in the community.

I don't regret any of the turbulence in the past days SatinJoy, it's often the stormy times that bring us all closer in the end, and I certainly feel that way very strongly. You have been always been so supportive and understanding with so much wisdom towards me, public & private, and like everyone else here, I feel so privileged and special to be able to share in all of the good times, as well as uncertain times here, and to experience a part of your lives with you every day.

Much love and care to everyone. 

My only regret is that I wasted some time as MtF pretending to be something that I would have hated being, when now I find myself laying in tall clover in a NB world that is getting bigger every day.

Had I known of non-binary possibilities earlier, things would have been different...that's not to say they would've been better...I currently am liking how things ended up, so I have no regrets...

I went almost 25 years before really figuring out my GD.

But I feel lucky all the same.

I knew I was mentally androgynous, and at 21 made the correct decision to not pursue MTF transition.

Perhaps knowing myself that well saved me from making any mistakes with alcohol, witch is all too common.  I never have let myself drink when I was angry or sad, I knew it could destroy me.

I found a great wife who loves me for who I am, and did not choose one who only loved the false male persona.

And I have a job that at least on paper has strong gender identity discrimination protections.

Now I have figured out myself, and my wife was impossibly cool about it all.

I might be 39, but I am healthy, on my way to my ideal weight, and still have a full head of hair.

In an ideal world I would have figured it all out at 13, but in the world time and place I've lived in, I've done almost as well as possible.  And I fell very, very lucky.

I regret that time though, and that the world is not as it ought to be.
But I hope to in small ways make it better for those that come after me
As those before me did for me.

I regret and dread telling my conservative parents and pastor father.
As non-binary maybe I can avoid it?  Maybe not?
But if I can should I?


The path ahead might be clear, but that is not to say there is no fog at all.


- Jaded Jade

The problem with trying to lay out any regrets is that I would equivocate all over the place.  When I was arguably too cautious, I also had the benefit of taking more time to research and hone my thoughts.  When I was arguably too bold (less often), I came to a quicker realization who my friends and enemies were.  I lied when I felt I had to (more often than not "correctly" towards someone who would have been heavy-handed, particularly when I was younger and still intellectually-fragile), and I've had to undo a lot of values-based "brainwashing" that really got in the way of me accepting and having an appropriate confidence in myself.

The second part of the last sentence is an important one, and it requires a little elaboration to properly explain.  While my parents were more or less appropriately firm with my sister and me (albeit sometimes strict at the wrong times), they were passive when it came to what others did or said.  If other people apologized for deliberately damaging their property, they accepted it without compensation.  If the priest at the church proclaimed that the priesthood is for men only, it took me expressing my disagreement on the car ride home to find out my parents disagreed as well (a sentiment they offered in the most passive voice possible).  If an uncle disrespected the property of others (like after someone opened their christmas gift), there was never word about it, never mind any warning about staying away from this same person who threatened his kids and wife with violence on a regular basis (fortunately I had the instincts to stay the hell away from him).  All of this can seem innocuous in the moment, but it ultimately instills the value of cowardice, to crawl up into a ball or at most express contrary opinions under hushed whispers.  It's dangerous, because instead of developing a respect for reason and open discourse and riding that energy towards accomplishing something, you're worried about being "safe" -- you let monsters walk over you, you seek whatever satisfaction you can on impulse with little regard of the consequences to yourself or others (and given my parents' inconsistency with being "firm," I wasn't about to learn how to act in a more sensible manner), and you avoid taking responsibility when screwing up because you're afraid of taking the heat (even when it would be a simple "teachable moment").  You may be successful in presenting passable appearances, but you're not going to be happy.  Mind, I had a wonderful talent with math that helped provide me with a productive escape, but even that could turn me insufferable (and given all the adults who tried pumping me up to irrational levels on that front, I was basically playing to expectations... just like a coward needing solace should).

I've definitely made mistakes that I regret committing, but I feel that most of it comes with the territory of living in that wretched era of my life.  I had a lot of things going for me that gave me something to live for, but (mostly) extricating myself from that situation and mentality has made me a lot happier, even as I'm still navigating my detachment from about anything binary.

I do regret not getting gender counciling when I had the chance in the mid 80's, a lot of pain would have been avoided, but the question of the life and loves I led would then come into play, for if I had fully transitioned where would my daughters and  beautiful wife be now....

Kaelin that was a very powerful post from you dear

there's a whole lot i could answer kaelin's post with, but... none of it has to do with trans.
i have learned one thing from my mother, and that is being fearless in any fight against injustice.
but that's as far as it goes.
anything else that i have learned is fear of never being seen, not even being reflected in the mirror.
and even social services helped my parents increase my fear of losing everything that matters to me byt the hands of others, while i myself am unable to do a single thing to prevent it.

my sole reason for being alive still, might be that first i had siblings that my parents took no more care of than me.
and before they could grow up, i had a daughter to take responsibility for myself.
i don't think i have ever lived my life for my own sake, until barely a year ago.

being non-binary might have saved me, because that brought me to this place where i learned to be.
before that, i was as good as nonexistent.
a shell full of worldly knowledge, but no purpose. other than seeing my girl grow up.

Quote from: Taka on October 16, 2014, 01:55:03 PM

i don't think i have ever lived my life for my own sake, until barely a year ago.

being non-binary might have saved me, because that brought me to this place where i learned to be.
before that, i was as good as nonexistent.
a shell full of worldly knowledge, but no purpose. other than seeing my girl grow up.

I totally relate! My dad was a seaman in the merchant marine, he was never home, I had a younger brother that I protected from bullies who seemed to single him out for torture. Mom and Pop got divorced and since mom was a very attractive vivacious woman she attracted no end of predatory males. I beat two of them senseless and sent one down the basement stairs backwards head over heels and thought I had killed him. I never had time to have a normal childhood. Eventually Mom and Pop reconciled and remarried. I volunteered for the Army, the paratroops and Vietnam just to escape dysfunction Junction. Now I'm finally enjoying being me, having fun and being as immature as I wish because I'm just catching up on a lost childhood.