Quote from: gennee on May 25, 2011, 10:37:50 AM
For me it's expressing a part of me that never was expressed. I always was comfortable about myself but didn't know that I was trans for years. It's been a wonderful revelation because I feel so much more comfortable.

Gennee

I could not have said it better myself.

Kia Ora Valerie,

Somewhat deep but...............

Peeling away the layers of the socially constructed [but "self" generated] illusion that "I" misguidedly allowed to accumulate over the years, to expose the truth that lies within/beneath...

Metta Zenda

It is hard to measure someone's dysphoria,but I can say mine for sure hit me like a train. I held up for years hidding myself in a person who wans't me, and when I couldn't take it anymore, I developed panic disorder AND depression major at the same time in the course of a month.

So for me, when I say I became myself  it is totally literal. I'm sure I was going to die pretty quick if I continued to follow that path, because in the attempt to block my feminine self I almost destroyed myself.

I always had an image in my mind of who I really was. As I grew up my body changed in ways that made it nothing like my self image. Transitioning has meant realizing my original self image as closely as possible. It's funny this topic should come up because lately I often think of where I'm at in life right now and how astonishing it is that the person here now is the same person who ten years ago was lost and misguided, living in an incongruent male shell with a male name.

I'm busy unpacking the emotional baggage of the past two decades of hiding. Every time I rediscover something, it seems new to those around me. But I can't do it all at once, even if I wanted to, so it's still a becoming process rather than just I am.

Quote from: Helena on May 24, 2011, 04:20:41 PM
To become one's self, first you must know one's self. transition is the artful journey of knowing and accepting one's self rather than hiding it, denying it or shouting at it until you think it's gone away.

But seriously, every one of us has transitioned multiple times through our lives...we become ourselves multiple times throughout our lives because who we are now is always who we are.

Beautifully said, Helena.  Absolutely agree.

   Lacey