As I sitting here transitioning these last 23 months and looking back on my life from the age of 4 when I had my first experience with who I really was, I realize that what I had done was to create a male self image to protect me from the harm from the outside world . I was wrongly brought up as a male(not the fault of my parents) . I had to learn to live in a hostile environment as far as being an oddity . I was a mute who wouldn't or couldn't talk to anyone not even my parents . This lasted into high school. I was harassed all through grade school because I cried instead of talk. Honestly I hated my early life because I didn't belong. The only way I survived was to create a male persona .The male friend of mine saved my life so many times. When I started to transition because this male was my protector and my buddy I had a very hard time letting go . When I physically started to look female I saw him dying and I cried. I kept trying  to not think of his passing and I kept questioning whether it was right for him to pass away . I think I finally have come to terms with the fact he was my creation and my  protector, but I know now that I am who I am and there is absolutely no turning back. Have others had a hard time letting go when they see him slipping away.

It wasn't a persona for me.

I lived and breathed as a man for 30+ years, before I began to understand that I had gender issues.

He wasn't protecting me. He *was* me. But a much more awkward and restrained version.

He isn't gone either. He is still part of me. It is just that, he represented only the tip of the iceberg.

Very much so. Peter looked after me. He fought to keep me safe. Oh Goddess he suffered, tried to cope and kept his arms around me.

One day I looked in the mirror, Cindy was looking at me and I watched Peter fade. Such a brave man.

He gave up his life so that I could be the woman I am.

No greater love has any man than to give up his life to be her.

It shows we are all unique in are paths. I remember in high school I was in a discussion group for a psych class and we were asked to describe ourselves in drawing. I drew a semicircle with a point in the center. I explained to the class that I was at the center and the outside shell was what I projected to others. Looking at my life that's exactly how it was for me . My true self deep within with this projected image. It's weird when things start to make sense. Steve was his name.

Yes, my male persona was there to protect me. This has been so since as a child, I was regularly beaten up for being a "->-bleeped-<-got". So he learnt martial arts, became a soldier, fierce debater, a father, started a business; he was a very "male" guy you wouldn't even dream of crossing. He felt he had to prove he wasn't a "weakling". On some level he protected me, but he was prejudiced and repressive as well.

I'm 44 now and lived as a man for all these years. Some aspects of my character will stay the way they are and will have to re-integrate them in some way.

Nong Toom sets an example for me

I have known I am trans for so long and did nothing. I don't really see it as a separate persona because I have not changed much at all. Sometimes it is easiest to explain things in that way but to be truthful I never tried terribly hard to act male I let people think what they would think. I had a few friends who where concerned when I came out to them, they seemed to think I was going to be this totally changed person. Instead I tell the same jokes, watch the same shows, complain about the same things, kill my players just like before (roleplaying games :-P) I suppose if anything it has just made me freer to feel and act as myself. I don't have to hide it when I hurt I tell people when I am sad, I tell some jokes that I would have avoided before for fear someone might suspect something given what I know. also I sometimes joke about my transision as a whole. "where am I, who am I? where are my pants?...ohh right I haven't worn pants in like 3 months". Like jokes I have become more opened about what I know, before talking about female or LGBT subjects was something I avoided afraid someone might ask too many questions and I am terrible at lying ask me a direct question and I am almost compelled to answer directly.

So I don't think I really created anything to protect myself I just spent alot of time stopping myself from being fully me now thats over.

Serena

I was merely responding to sensual input. Now my feedback is compatible with know parameters 



Paula, <3 X

Quite the spectrum.

It is funny you ask this question. Within the last two weeks I had told my therapist that one of the difficult things for me at work is returning to our busy time. I feel different but am so early that no one sees anything different(I am wearing women's clothing that is no different than I used to wear-I am not out there). I mentioned I was apprehensive because everyone will expect me to behave like I always have. They will expect me to grow a handle bar moustache that I always cut in June and grow in September, expect the fast acerbic wit, the saturated sarcasm, and the slick hard edges). I told her that I very knowingly created the persona that most people see at work. It was a way to be less internal and create a bit of harder shell. My wife works with me and knows that I am  a little different at work than when we are home(and this is before coming out to her). However, she works in communications and conflict resolution and has always sort of known what I was doing.

I had not accepted myself as female till recently. So, while I created these personas to protect I never really recognized who/what I was protecting. I never fit in and was bullied, like many of us. It took me till my sophomore year at high school till I had had enough and made a shell. From then on, when I would go somewhere new, college, first moves from home, new jobs or working out of town, I would experiment with a slightly different shell. While I have always tried to be myself, it was always with a veneer covering.

In answer to your question, yes, my persona  was created and morphed to protect me. I don't know that I was fully aware why I needed protection. I don't know that I accepted that there was a girl in there. I was just a kid who's Mom would call the other kids Mom's and ask if they could talk to their son because, " He is a very sensitive child...", no matter how I begged her not to. It is weird to me that I never really thought of myself as female or male, just me. For years this seems to have left me vulnerable. So much like my realization that I am transgender, it took a while to figure out how to protect myself. I did learn how to pretend to be a boy by watching my friends, my brother and his friends and guidance from my somewhat frustrated father(not that he knew why he had to guide me-but that is part of being a father anyway).

Now, with where I am, I am at the point where the shell is becoming a problem. I have realized I can't grow my moustache again(even though that in itself is a mask-I started to and had to get rid of it), I can't keep all that hair on all my body anymore, I can't even really wear male clothes 100% anymore. Not that I am presenting publicly yet. I am sure I will hold on to some of the wit and sarcasm but I am just so tired of the expected negativity. Added up this is all so exhausting(funny I read a post the other day about how tiring transition is. It truly is but this other is exhausting to my soul).

I too am grateful for the protection he has provided. I very much identify with the dot in the center of the circle. I never really recognized myself in the mirror, so it is like he was a mask the whole time. However, at this point I am only saddened by how others will be saddened to see him go.

Joanna

yea, there is sadness for me too in the fact that I had to disconnect from the friends I grew up with in grade school and high school because I didn't want to present that self and being with them It would be all that I would see that self that was and wasn't. I needed a clean break . The good thing though is that they know why because I posted my picture on my high schools web page and I've seen their names on the list of who visited my picture. The high school was a catholic all boys school. I'm the only female I've seen on that web page.

I'm the only female I've seen on that web page.

Pretty good ratio for you.

Joanna

Quote from: Joanna50 on September 16, 2015, 12:45:38 PM
I'm the only female I've seen on that web page.

Pretty good ratio for you.

Joanna

yea , pretty cool

The he appeared as a thick skin around the real me. That sounds like protection. You nailed it.

Same for me I think,  the he was there as a barrier, but also as a distraction and stopped me focusing on the larger issue at hand until a few years ago since I had a "part" to play.

Having him around allowed me to pretend nothing was wrong for far too long.

 My masculinity protected my femininity from life's iniquities. Tranquility was tragically  fleeting from many  bullies beating.

the thing for me is I grew up with an older and younger sister , My older sister had a group of guys around all the time . they were the big jock kind of guys so I had to have a shield or I'd be ridiculed by my sisters friends as much as the bullies I had to deal with in grade school . It would of been a nightmare if they saw who I was.

My transition has been slow, painfully slow. I've been trying to hold off the masculizing of my body for three years and it hasn't been an easy task. When I look back on my early years I'm filled with nothing but anger and sorrow. My male persona wasn't there to protect her, he was there to impress my parents and suppress her. Like my surroundings taught him, he shunned her and kept her inside as long as he could through any means. He lashed out, he was vicious, and he was cruel. He and her fought at ends constantly, she wanted a protector and to come out.. whereas he wanted her to fade away and be in total control.

My male persona was developed through fear and the hateful environment I was raised in, so by any means he was not a protector of any sort. It took him being betrayed to give her the chance to come out, by that I mean in my teens I rejected who I was and tried to prove to my parents I was simply just gay by his instruction. Even though deep inside I knew that was a horrible and dangerous lie. He may have shielded her with his body but it wasn't to protect her, it was to  protect himself as she and him shared quite a lot in common. He was picked on for being weak and a "->-bleeped-<-got." It probably wasn't until everything around him turned on him that he became weak enough for her to take over. It led to me losing the few people I had around me and basically descending into a very dangerous state of temporary madness I thankfully escaped from.

As time passed he started to fade away, he lost all will to survive or even care. She took the reins and was basically a little girl in a young man's body. His voice faded and her's tookover. The real me has been out for at least 7 years.. whereas she's only been on a journey of being herself for the past three. I don't expect my story to be the only one of where my male persona didn't protect, but rather harmed.

I don't really have multiple personalities. There's just one me. The female me is just much more free to express herself and act more natural.

I'm with Zoe on this one.  Guy me had a great time being a guy.  Then, gender issue issues happened.  Now, non-guy me has a great time being a guy or a non-guy when the situation suits.  This is all a part of what it means to be me.  I'm a multifauceted person of many spigots.

 i dont like thinking like that; ive always been the same person but i just learned more about myself. I've always been a girl but i didn't know it. I didn't become another person when I came out, and my true self was never "hiding"
gender just really isnt that important to me in my life