I've thought a great deal about my childhood this summer and have been recalling my imaginary friend, who started coming around when I was four or five and who left for good when I was in my teens.

I don't know much about the psychology of imaginary friends, but I thought it would be interesting to see what trans/HBS people have to say about their experiences and how they related to their imaginary friends, especially with regard to gender identity. If you had such a companion--or perhaps more than one--did s/he have the same sex as you? The same gender? Was s/he androgynous? How did you view this character?

I have no idea whether anyone will bite, but I'll start. For the record, I am male but female-bodied, and I have been male-identified for as long as I can remember.

My imaginary friend was part cowboy, part extraterrestrial. His name was Billy, and he was from Venus (funny, that, now that I think about it). He was nineteen years old and never aged. He had blond hair and blue eyes, like me. He was tough but understanding.

At first, he was a playmate--a bit like an older brother or a favorite older cousin--but still very much my equal. Sometimes I played with him, sometimes I pretended to be him, and sometimes the two overlapped. I suppose he was the adult that I longed to be--a figure who reassured me that I would indeed grow up to be a young man someday.

He could ride and shoot and figure things out. Nobody messed with him. He could travel from Venus to Earth in nothing flat--I suppose he teleported. His parents were dead, so he had sole responsibility for caring for his nine younger brothers. I had names for all of them, but they were really only backstory.

When I was six or seven, his role deepened and he became a bit more like a mentor who started giving me advice and encouragement. I talked to him about my problems. He kept me company when I tried to fall asleep--I used to be wakeful at night. He continued very strongly in this capacity until I was about ten or eleven, when he started subtly fading out of my life.

It took a long time for him to go away completely. I struggled against it. He was still there while I was in junior high school, but only occasionally. At night, I used to whisper his name and ask for him to come visit me, but he often ignored me. This caused me great distress. By the time I reached high school, I realized that it had been a long time since we had spoken, and he never did come back.

Sometimes I still miss him.

What is weird about me is that I never had imaginary friends. The imaginary adventures I'd have is when I was imagining I was someone else, with imaginary companions on an imaginary mission of some kind... I was obsessed with sh*t like Star Wars and Indiana Jones when I was little, so I'd go through those sorts of adventures.

Later I started writing stories and drawing comics. I created characters, but they never really were my imaginary friends. They were people I felt like I was directing in a play, or sometimes playing in a play. My imagination, now that I look back on it, was somewhat unusual.

I wasn't male-identified since I can remember. I was null-gendered when I was younger; I didn't even think about gender. But what was interesting is that in all of my "adventures" I was a guy, with the exception of sometimes wanting to be very much like Lara Croft.

I do not recall ever having an imaginary friend. But, I did have the most horrible want for a sister till oh roughly age 10 or so. Perhaps interestingly one I call friend now was born at around that time. One of those fun little mysteries we may never know, well, in this context anyway.  Regardless apart from that I've always been pretty comfortable being solitary, although always longing for that VERY strong family link. Probably why at 33 I still live at home and don't want to leave. ^*shrug*

Never really had a true imaginary friend.  In early teens I realized I never had one and tried to make one up, didn't work to good and they decided I was delusional and added it to some diagnoses which don;t have grr...  sent me to hospital and all. 

But he was male and a sort of caveman/alien. 

I guess really closest really ever had to it was in my dreams a tiger showed up every once in a while, and I got the sense he was a friend and guardian.

The tiger was male too lol.

This is all very interesting. I wasn't expecting a barrage of replies, but I have read that lots of kids have imaginary friends, and so I was expecting the few respondents to have such friends.

A desire for a sister, a dream-tiger, and...what boils down to an imaginary imaginary friend. Wow.

Elwood, I cut my teeth on really old TV shows, particularly Star Trek (TOS) and...wait for it...The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Shows with a lot of male bonding. I constructed elaborate imaginary scenarios around these shows. The other kids on the block weren't too interested in playing, so I had most of my adventures in my head, too.

Like you, I started creating my own characters a few years later. In various forms, those characters stayed in my head all the rest of my life, until this summer. So I guess I've had variations on imaginary friends even into adulthood.

I wish they would come back, but my subconscious seems determined to make me live in the real world now.

I'm not sure how to do that. I miss them so much... 

I can't ever recall having imaginary friends either but much of my childhood is fuzzy so who knows if I had some at some point? Like Dan though, I had a lot of imaginary adventures pretending I was someone else.

Despite my dislike for it, I would have to play with my younger cousin to keep him company (even though he was a spoiled brat) and being that his father was the intensely macho, near-redneck type, a lot of that rubbed off on my cousin so he ALWAYS insisted on 'rescuing' me just because I was a girl. But I was bigger than him then so I either ignored him and talked over his part of the story or indulged him but then when the evil guy/dragon/monster/whatever came after us, I was the one who killed it.

I didn't often desire to play a female character or else if I did, she was just as strong, brave, daring, gutsy as her male counterparts because I never ever had the desire to play a damsel in distress.

Oh, and Batman. Yes, the old campy TV show. But I like the Batman in most of his personifications...

I did create my own culture in my head and was a member of them in my imagination.  And today I role play online (writting based simms) and play all sorts of characters, mostly Klingons but still male klingons of many varieties.

Quote from: Aiden on September 14, 2008, 02:33:55 PM
I did create my own culture in my head and was a member of them in my imagination.  And today I role play online (writting based simms) and play all sorts of characters, mostly Klingons but still male klingons of many varieties.

Cool. Do you speak the language fluently?

Quote from: Arch on September 14, 2008, 04:41:32 PM

Quote from: Aiden on September 14, 2008, 02:33:55 PM
I did create my own culture in my head and was a member of them in my imagination.  And today I role play online (writting based simms) and play all sorts of characters, mostly Klingons but still male klingons of many varieties.

Cool. Do you speak the language fluently?

No lol.  Just a few words here and there, and I misspronounce some of them.  Not surprising since I misspronouce words in English too lol and English is my only language lol other than few words in Klingon

I did have one when I was a little kid. Although She hid her real name from me but I called her Shasha. I believe Shasha was me. Well me that I buried deep. Is that weird or what.

I think to order to survive in this redneck town I live in. I had to create a way to still be me without being me. I don't know. It just how I've see my past now. It makes sense to me.

I had several imaginary friends and they appear as quite real to me. Two girls and one boy, the boy a little shorter and younger than the two girls. He was one of the girl's brother as it turned out.

I would spend most of the day in the woods behind the house playing with my imaginary friends. Mom would ask me what I had been doing all day, of course I just up and told her the truth that I was playing with my friends in the woods. Now my mother was one that didn't shock much over strange things but she certainly took a double take that day. The closest neighbor was five miles away and they didn't have kids!

Well, as you say, my imaginary friends kind of vanished at around the age of 8. But by the time I was 9 years old I ran into a ghost girl and she kind of became my playmate for a while, then she, too, kind of just vanished.

But through the years she kept coming back for a time then would leave again. I gave her a name,  Cassandra. She always showed up when I got into some type of trouble or another. She came to bail me out from my downfalls. Well now, would you believe that about twenty years ago I was into story-writing, stories for kids, and it was around this time that one of my childhood imaginary friends showed up. I named her Gertrude.

Gertrude was a lot of fun to be with. She was kind of like the witchy type, she could actually fly. I would only see her for short periods of time then she would disappear just before dark.

Well, one night I went and followed her, I got kind of curious and followed her. "Wow!" We came out of what was either a dust storm or fog and below us was this very large canyon! "Yikes!!" I held onto Gertrude even harder, then she flew down to the canyon floor and indicated for me to get off.

I followed her wishes, then she took off again with this realy large butterfly net chasing this winged critter that looked like a smaller version of a pterodactyl, ooooh, really scary-looking things! She would whoop and holler and she swooped down and swung that big old butterfly net and caught herself one of those danged ugly critters.

From the floor of the canyon it was kind of neat. What I thought were fireflies turned out to be tiny sparkly flakes which appeared to have life of their own. They flew down toward me and just swirled around and around me. This place was like something enchanted out of some kind of fantasy with a large silver moon that appeared to be big enough to touch the ground. and all around the moon there were billions of tiny silver stars which were dotted here and there with larger spheres of various sizes and colors

Gertrude is still here. She kind of looks after Critter when she is around the house through the day.



Well beleive it or not, take it or leave it. Don't forget, Gertrude is watching you.

Cindy     

Posted on: September 15, 2008, 04:18:23 AM

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Hi Arch, sorry to see that this thread didn't take off, it could at least have been a good source to use as an escape from the usual daily crap just for a little while playing with imaginary friends. I done it for a good many years and I believe that was what saved me from going insane, also gave me an opportunity to dream and plan my future. Well it's been tried before I guess folk just aren't interested in using their imaginations and having fun doing so. My imagination is still quite alive and well, and if I killed the thread then I truly am sorry, hadn't meant to.

By the way, congrats on your new position.

Cindy

Cindy!!! You didn't kill the thread; it just didn't catch on, for whatever reason. I immensely enjoyed your post and was wondering whether you'd published any stories about Gertrude in particular, since you talked about writing for children. With good illustrations, you could write some terrific storybooks if you haven't already.

I once tried to write a mystery story about my imaginary friend, but I didn't get very far (I guess I was about ten at the time). Later, I realized that I wanted to keep him to myself, so I never tried again.

I did wonder whether a lot of people on this site found this particular way of playing out gender fantasies, as I did. Since only a few people have responded, I suppose that my question will remain unanswered. But it might make an interesting dissertation project for some graduate student somewhere, don't you think?

When I was a child, I tended to ignore gender completely. It wasn't something I consciously thought about (other than "Okay, I have two brothers, why aren't I like them or interested in any of the things they're doing?").

I didn't really have any imaginary friends as such, other than the ones out of books. Although that wasn't really the same thing, I guess. I spent a large portion of my time alone as a kid, mostly through choice, since I felt disconnected from most of the people around me. But I used to read voraciously. I learned to read at a very early age, and appreciated the worlds that my imagination brought to life through the various books I read.

I guess the closest I came to having something like an imaginary friend would be after I read the Pern novels by Anne McCaffrey. All those dragonriders, the bond between the dragon and rider... I lapped it up. Anyway, I would have 'phase out' moments sometimes where I would envision that world and myself in it. I never really saw myself with any solidity, though. If I was asked who I was in these 'daydreams' I honestly would not be able to answer. I was just 'someone'. Neither male nor female.

But I remember vividly that I was bonded to a female dragon, I called her Tiranth. She was shimmering gold and fast as the wind. I would create entire plotlines in my mind where the two of us would soar through the sky, burning up the thread that threatened Pern... screaming through icy ravines and burning deserts... it was such a sense of freedom. All the while we would be having entire telepathic conversations (which is how dragons and their riders communicate in the novels) about things that were going on in my life. And then we'd land and I'd take care of her.

That, I think, was the closest I came to having an imaginary friend. Lol, silly I know.

Hi, Arch, Leiandra, thanks for coming back with a response. I very much appreciate that.

Arch, hon, I tried on a couple of different occasions to bring something up on spirituality and imagination and fantasy, of which any one of those three I also thought would have been a wonderful tool to help someone through transition. Maybe they just thought it was too dumb to even consider. My imaginary friends are what actually helped me get through my childhood without burning out before I got to the age of ten, a happening like wheel, cogs, belts, and springs flying in all directions and radio tubes falling out on the floor. Aaaaaak!! I'm nothing more than an assortment of electrical and mechanical components that had been slapped together to make me into a robot to do the stuff I didn't want to do....huh??. Who is me?

Well, growing up through childhood, I never thought much one way or another about genders. Like Leiandra said, whatever the main character was in a story I was reading, that is who I became in imagination and I would play out the role of this character in my mind as I read the story.

I read pretty well anything I could get my hands on that was interesting to read, from anything like magazines, comic books, to pocket novels. For instance, The Little Mermaid was my favorite and there were a couple of times my sister and I argued about who was going to play Little Mermaid when we were down at the lake. 

By the time I got into my early teens I knew what was wrong with me but back in the sixties information on the subject was nonexistant so I kept it to myself. I was a loner in public school until I met Helen, another misfit like myself, two birds of a feather, flew together for nearly ten years until we parted company. That was a memorable time, two very mischievous girls who nearly ended up in the cell at the police station on a few different occasions if it hadn't been for this really nice police man. You see, we dressed pretty close to alike, a top and shorts and a baseball cap which we kept mostly for frog catching. I also had long hair then as well, being the rebel I was then, no one was going to touch my hair unless they hog tied me to a barbers chair, so no one bothered to try.

As for writing stories, I have written 6 children's stories but never got them published. I could never find an editor I could afford to pay to get them edited. A project for some graduate student ? Of course I would even go along with that and let that student have the credit. I think it would just be nice to read some of my own ideas in someone else's writing. Heck, I would even settle in getting my name in the National Enquirer in the alien section!

And Leiandra, about the dragon, maybe we are psychic, eh? I also have had an imaginary dragon for a pet, for that matter I also have a pterodactyl for a pet. The darn thing, I have to keep an eye on that one or she will fly off and go dig up the neighbors' gardens when I ain't watching. Anyway, yes, I have a pet dragon actually. Gertrude is my dragon handler. She uses the dragon to go out in the magical canyon to capture wingbats. You ever fly on the back of a dragon? Quite exciting, you know.

In an earlier post here on another thread, I talked about how I used my imagination which eventually helped me to come out full-time. Well it's a shame because it could make transitioning much more fun and less intimidating. I don't much scare for anything except those one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eating aliens.  I still love playing imagination, it keeps this old bat feeling younger.



Cindy

Was interesting.  I told my therapist about the tiger in my dreams as a kid.  For one she was surprised I even remembered dreams from that age lol.  I can remember some dreams have had when was 4 years old.

But she asked me what I thought the tiger was in myself.   I figured he was my guardian, someone I could look to for protection.  And she didn't seem to think I was crazy when I said perhaps even a part of my self in future.  She suggested I try to reconnect with him as a part of myself to help me through the conflict of emotions and fear have been going through.

Haven't tried it yet though.

Hi Aiden hon, and there you go, I knew there had to be more then just me that had an imagination. I wish I could hug your therapist. Sounds to me that you have a therapist who probably already knows about utilising imagination for therapy. The wonderful thing about imagination where everything goes bump in the dark or "pop" a bouquet of flowers for the fairy princes with her magic wand appearing out of nowhere. There are no limits in Shangri La, the land of dreams, where anything and everything is possible.

See the thing is I think we all start out like that in early child hood, but then by the time we get to age 10 it's "Puff goes the magic dragon" for most of us unfortunately it appears. All of our childhood dreams sublimate into a small cloud of dust that is blown away on the dry desert wind into none existence then we put all the toys, whether that be dolls, stuffies of Tonka trucks and those neat little Dinky toy cars, and my goodness that little wind up army tank with the rubber tracks that could practically climb a wall and "geeeee!" that electric train set. We also don't want to forget all those different glass marbles with those swirly colored thingies inside. And oh my! Those neat tinted glass ones I use to hold up to the sunlight and pretend they were planets. Well for some the Never Ending Story does end unfortunatly.

As for remembering from an early age, I beleive it was from all the way back when I was three years old I remember I had long hair until just before starting grade school. My mom on different occasion would dress me up like a little girl and show me off to some of her friends, I use to be as proud as a pee-cock over the fussing I would receive. I played dress up and played house occasionally with my sister and my girl friend next door, her name was Christine. She was my best buddy until I got to the age of 8 and we moved to the town where I grew up.

Well anyway that's enough of that. For a good many years after that I had a good many imaginary friends but my Casandra was always there when I needed her. She was as close to a real life friend as one could hope to have. I believe I already mentioned her in a previous post. But yea, I know what you mean about keeping those childhood memories alive even after all the years of crap and I lived through I do remember my own personal Never Ending Story. I believe that is probably a good reason why I clung to my childhood imagination right up to this day, it's a good place to go visit, like the female version of Peter Pan. 

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=R6wJqdnMUEk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAjt5q_UI6c&feature=related

Cindy

   

I don't think I ever had imaginary friends. At least, not until I actually heard of the term, and thought that maybe I should have one. So I tried it out. But it was forced so it didn't really stick. I did however, have imaginary pets. Tons of them. Mostly dogs since I was obsessed with dogs when I was a kid, and never had one. Somehow they all fit under my bed. When I came home from school and there was no one home, I would greet them. I even had a dream once, where I found a toothbrush in my desk drawer, and when I opened it (it somehow came apart), a dog would magically appear. Of course, I went and checked my drawer in the morning, and there was no toothbrush there. I was pretty disappointed.

In the end, I grew out of it somewhere around junior high. Probably got too distracted with other things. I don't think my parents ever knew. Then again if they did, maybe they would have worried about my mental health and actually bought me a dog. Haha.

Hi Shion hon.
Hmmm yea, maybe they would have got you one of those sheep dogs, I use to think they were the neatest thing on four legs. "Hee, hee," I realy wanted one of those to after watching a Walt Disney movie named, *Shaggy Dog.* If you remember where that kids dad got turned into a shaggy dog?  I had lots of dog pets, well my sister and I shared the first one, a Pekingese, how we loved that little dog and cried our eye balls out when he dies. My mom's two poodles and goodness don't remember how many stray cats came around to stay with us for keeps. I even had a couple of pet raccoons, well actually they kind of adopted us see, they would sneak in through the screen door at the back of the house and we would find them lying on the couch in the morning. Wasn't uncommon back then either to see deer grazing in the front yard, and sometimes a bear in the garbage can that mom would shoo away with the straw broom. Wolves howling in the woods behind the house.

Then I got a Samoyed Husky, complete with the blue eyes. A German Shepard, a hound dog, then the last one was a Lassie type collie. How I loved that dog, she died of old age, she was 20 years old. Then just 9 years ago, just a years before I started full time, I got myself a cat, Angora with grey and black stripes. I rescued him one night from someones back yard, the poor thing was starving and his fur was all mated and full of flees. I nursed him back to health and he was my best buddy for five years, well outside of a friends kids I had in my care during the first two years of being full time. Then my best buddy died five years later of feline aids. I never bothered with another pet after that, I just couldn't take the hurt of loosing them anymore.

So now I got my stuffies and my dolls and in my imagination, To me these stuffies through imagination take to be like living things, Just as much as my imaginary friends Gertrude, Cassandra, my dragon, and my pterodactyl, and oh I mustn't forget my muskrat friends, and of course the fairies who sleep in the glasses in the kitchen cupboard. Well it was my mom who taught me about imaginary friends. A person needed all the friends she could get living way back in the woods like we did.

But then I have friends, real friends who are denizens of the forest. if I sit in one place long enough, I'll have all kinds of little visitors come to me, squirrels, birds, and ya, even skunks, and raccoons. Even other peoples animals, some times even someones kid drop by to visit.  Just last weekend while siting on a park bench talking to Wing Walker, I had this squirrel come right up to us, and Wing Walker, big chicken, got scared and backed away from the little fury beast. After Wing Walker had backed off the squirrel proceeded to perch itself on my shoulder. So, anyway, I still have lots of pets see, all I need to do is step into any wooded area and they come ta visitin. 

Thanks for visitin the imaginary friends/Playmates thread hon.

Cindy     

i had a whole imaginary country called Igren.