Folks I an disappointed in myself in that I can focus on nothing else.  I have built these imaginary walls that are thicker than barriers placed by society.  I find it easier to make absolutely no decisions than to make any decisions.  It is as if one were traveling to a place they seem to be going and say they are not going.  Journey is so slow and consumes so much energy that nothing is left and little is traveled.

Has anyone else just become consumed?

I also find a sense of paranoia in that I feel everyone talks about me.  They really don't but they do notice and then go back to their busy lives.

Many people on site have their feelings hurt by innocent comments.  Wow if someone has a very positive thing happen then it seems appropriate to be happy for them.  It is not meant as a put down to someone less fortunate.

Anyone get trapped in their mind and find a way to again be productive?

Have you found a way to reinvent yourself while you are noticeably different?

Have you once again been about to laugh at yourselves?

People in trans community that I most admire are very giving and are not focused on themselves.

I am at fault for being too self absorbed.  Are you currently self absorbed?  Thoughts?

There's a tendency of all human beings to self-absorbed. When we are struggling with our issues, it's quite natural. As we soon realize, self-absorption is quite smothering.                                                                                         

Life goes on despite our struggles. I embraced whatever feelings I had. There were questions, struggles, and yearnings. The journey was slow but everything has its own time. Itms best when we are prepared to face whatever is before us.                                                                       

Gennee

  YES!
  Self absorption is common here and with myself.  It is one of the things that kept me awake at night, but it also enhanced my work performance.  by stifling it at work, I did more, but with the cost of my health.  Lack of proper help and certain threats from my insurance company and my employer if I did seek help in this area did not help here.  After taking HRT, the self absorption ceased probably not from the effects, but from something actually is getting done after a half of a century!   I am concentrating on other things now despite not really being out of the woods when it comes to prostate cancer.  This from an old transition-er.
  Joelene

After suffering a total mental melt-down I found myself without any idea of my self-identity.    I had to go through a period of total self-absorbtion to get a sense of just who I was.
 
Once I had discarded all the ideas that I had tried on throughout my life, I was left with the fact that I could only be happy by living as the woman I realised I should have been all along.  From that point I started to come out of my cave and back into the light of day.  It took a lot of introspection and meditation to reach that point.

You can do it, but it does take work.  Is there any alternative though? That is the question that I had to answer.  Life is too good to go back to what it was like before.

Karen.

Self-absorption is the only thing that prevented me from committing suicide back when I was in school.  I had my learning, and my retreat into fantasy, and that was it.  Everything else was dysphoria.

Frankly, I don't care how self-absorbed I am.  I owe my life to selfishness.  The least I could do is give selfishness the credit it deserves.  If people think that makes me foolish or vain, that's their business.

Thanks for replying.  It is difficult to be objective for oneself. 

Quote from: justmeinoz on August 04, 2011, 05:33:47 AM
After suffering a total mental melt-down I found myself without any idea of my self-identity.    I had to go through a period of total self-absorbtion to get a sense of just who I was.
  Karen.

It has caused a meltdown a number of times for me.  Nero fiddled as Rome burned is an old expression

.............................

Quote from: VeryGnawty on August 04, 2011, 07:17:59 AM
Frankly, I don't care how self-absorbed I am.  I owe my life to selfishness.  The least I could do is give selfishness the credit it deserves.  If people think that makes me foolish or vain, that's their business.

You certainly are not foolish.  Just honest.  I feel a strong sense of commitment and obligation to my family but feel as if a ping pong ball goes back and forth.

...............................

Quote from: Joelene9 on August 03, 2011, 09:55:33 PM
  YES!
  Self absorption is common here and with myself.  It is one of the things that kept me awake at night, but it also enhanced my work performance.
  Joelene

Sorry you have prostate cancer.  I hope it is cured and you can feel better.  I did use work to suppress feelings.  Lack of work gives me time to think which sends me into a logic loop which I can not escape.

............................
Gennee, nice blog.  Somehow you seem to have found comfort and be yourself.

...............................
CB sorry you lost your partner.   My very best friend for three decades finds me unattractive.  This I can understand but it hurts all same.  I do things at a snail's rate but now is a crossroad and I diligently work on this issue.  This issue is consuming my life instead of being a part of my life.

......................................................

It is therapy to write.  I have done my homework and studied.  My feelings are very real to me even though no one else sees them.  I have not found why they are that way but they are.  It has become a mathematical problem for me in which I do things which should be illogical but feel better by doing illogical.   I describe it as a negative times a negative equals a positive.  (TG issues x TG solutions = Feel better).

A goal would be to make how I feel a part of my life instead of my life.  I am heading on a course of not working, homeless, without friend or family, surgically complete, and male mannerisms.  I am so focused on this one issue that nothing else matters.  I know this philosophy is wrong so that I can not do anything.

If I could do little things for gender issue and little things to get life on track that would be O.K. Suppressing how I feel is not good option.  In group meetings many once productive people seem to have fallen into this abyss.  I want to balance my life and am failing miserably.

Quote from: wendy on August 04, 2011, 09:05:59 AMYou certainly are not foolish.  Just honest.

I try to be.  If there is anything worse than being selfish, it is being dishonest.  I try to be honest whenever possible.  The greatest lie ever told is "A little white lie never hurt anyone."

Quote from: VeryGnawty on August 04, 2011, 09:48:46 AM
I try to be.  If there is anything worse than being selfish, it is being dishonest.  I try to be honest whenever possible.  The greatest lie ever told is "A little white lie never hurt anyone."

Sent parents on a trip to Europe decade ago and told dad it was "frequent flyer" otherwise he would not have gone if thought I paid for trip.

Never shared how I fell with parents or my sister or my relatives.  Did share with my immediate family three years ago.  I self administered hormones for three years before sharing it with them.  HRT makes me feel better.  It does not solve many issues but I feel better.  I will take HRT for rest of my days.

I try to be reasonably honest but I see nothing gained by sharing things.  My parents are old and dying. What would I prove?

It might be nice for rest of world to know so that I could stop hiding. They are either very polite or very uninformed.  However I do look in between.

Quote from: wendy on August 04, 2011, 10:14:36 AM
I try to be reasonably honest but I see nothing gained by sharing things.

You are mistaking honesty for being boorish.  Have you ever heard of the phrase, Too Much Information?  Yeah.  Don't do it.

My general rule is Don't Ask Don't Tell (not to be confused with a terrible legal policy of the same name).  If people don't ask, I don't tell.  If they ask, I tell.  If they get mad at me for telling, I tell them that they should have never asked the question if they didn't want to know the answer.

Quote from: VeryGnawty on August 04, 2011, 10:18:13 AM
You are mistaking honesty for being boorish.  Have you ever heard of the phrase, Too Much Information?  Yeah.  Don't do it.

My general rule is Don't Ask Don't Tell (not to be confused with a terrible legal policy of the same name).  If people don't ask, I don't tell.  If they ask, I tell.  If they get mad at me for telling, I tell them that they should have never asked the question if they didn't want to know the answer.

QFT.

I just said this to my therapist yesterday.  I was tired of the "lies of ommission".  I'd made the decision to start discussing my TG status, when and where appropriate, that I wasn't going to take out full page ads or anything, but that I was going to make a point to be more open about it.

Enthusiastically, yes!

It's so disturbing to me how self-centered I've become, and that I have to remind myself constantly to think about and listen to the people around me, and to use language that confirms THEM, not talking back at them about my own experiences.  It used to be so natural for me to do that, but then again, I spent my entire life trying to please other people and fervently denying myself so that I could do what made others happy.  The decision to transition was a big step toward reclaiming my life, but the pendulum of self-centeredness has gone too far and I need balance now.

I think such a profound change in our lives puts us in a position to be more self-centered then usual.  In changing our outward genders, we're potentially changing every other aspect of our lives as well.

If nothing else, show me a teenager that isn't, maybe its the hormones then. 

Quote from: Zoë Natasha on August 04, 2011, 10:31:09 AM
Enthusiastically, yes!

It's so disturbing to me how self-centered I've become, and that I have to remind myself constantly to think about and listen to the people around me, and to use language that confirms THEM, not talking back at them about my own experiences.  It used to be so natural for me to do that, but then again, I spent my entire life trying to please other people and fervently denying myself so that I could do what made others happy.  The decision to transition was a big step toward reclaiming my life, but the pendulum of self-centeredness has gone too far and I need balance now.

I never expected young people to enter my thread.  I am a person of numbers and statistics reduced to simple question of does solution make sense to you.

Answer is no it does not!  I am amazed that young people feel their must be a balance.

Tonight my wife brought home 3 pairs of shoes that are female 11E.  One was closed toe 2" heels, one was closed toe 1" heels and one was open toe 1" heels.  Can I give applaud for wife?  However she is complaining , "Are you on Susan's again?"  Shoes were beautiful but I wear a male 9.5 E.  That is close to 11EE for female. 

Another "bag" of clothes came to house today from "big" lady on-line store.  I had 2 pairs of 11EE and they fit.  They were as androgynous as I could find.  Of course they fit as being self-absorbed I study every detail.  I asked my wife if I could go with her to church with "my" shoes that fit.  She said not with me.

Only 1 in 20 women stay with their husband and they either knew from start or found out many years into relationship.  I am later.  My sexuality is unexplored and ambivalent.  Not sure where it would go if I lifted filters but I do know my wife has endured a person that loved her and failed to meet her expectations.  I am so sorry but I no longer function.  Maybe I can emerge one more time and maybe not.  Maybe if someone just overlooked my differences I could continue.  They have not and I am tired of putting on charade.   I am now stuck in a circle in my mind.  What if I do more could I again emerge?  What if I have waited too long and no solution will work?  Have others just withered away?

I truly fear facing myself.  What have I overlooked?  Why does my mind see me frozen in time of forty years ago?

Why are these surgeons very unresponsive.  I will not be reduced to begging. 

Days and eventually decades run  together and no change.  Why does something with such little significance gain my undivided attention?   Why am I transparent to world?

I pay a huge amount of attention to myself these days but is it too much-NO, I am not too self absorbed. Rather I am learning how to enjoy myself without being afraid to just do it!

Randi

Quote from: wendy on August 04, 2011, 06:37:58 PM
I truly fear facing myself.  What have I overlooked?  Why does my mind see me frozen in time of forty years ago?

Maybe because it's the last time you felt that things were okay?  Maybe you put your life on hold that long ago?

I was commenting to a friend of mine the other day (who's nearly half my age) about how I feel like a 15-year old.  Though I struggled with gender identity issues as early as 4, I was about 15 when I packed my expressiveness and my essential self into a little box and put her on a shelf to be opened later.  Years of emptiness and suicide attempts almost left that box unopened.  One of the thoughts that went through my head when I decided to transition (over a year before I started HRT) was that I couldn't let myself die without knowing what was in that little box.  I couldn't die without letting all those goodies out into the world and seeing what kind of person I was.  Not only that, but I couldn't die without showing everyone else what kind of person I was too, because everyone knew a hermit.  Everyone knew a defeated and empty shell that didn't let anyone into her heart.

Now that box is open and I feel like I'm 15 again.  My friend is 17, so she's like having a big sister and I love her as dearly as my biological sister.  I'm seeing the world through eyes that are almost 19 years younger than their physical age.

And by the way, I do believe in balance in all things, which is why I have such a burning desire to to help and pay attention to others right now.  Dwelling on myself is only making me crazy and I never feel more alive than when I've genuinely touched somebody else's life.  I knew I was becoming too selfish, so I've started volunteering at my local gender identity center while I look for a job (and will continue after I've found one).  I just want to be out in the world and living life with other people.  Selfishness is a lonely place to be, but it's invaluable at times.  There has to be a balance.

Zoe, you certainly have a way with words. They bring back vague memories of days long ago also stuffed into a box. I have also decided to let my true nature run free and just see where it goes instead of going thru the motions of day to day drudgery and mental anguish.

Thanks girlfriend,
Randi

I'd agree to self-centred - I see things very clearly from my own perspective and have to make an effort to see it from other peoples.

I would even agree to selfish - For every time I've trecked across town to help a friend in need is another time I hid from a friend who just wanted company.

But I wouldn't say I was self-absorbed - True, on this website we often talk about ourselves, have questions asked about us and (in the androgyne forums certainly) there being very little consensual or independent data, we have to talk about ourselves to understand the androgyne 'thing'.

Indeed it would seem to be very hard work to be self-absorbed, so much of the world is other than self... for example.

This morning I wrote a short biography of Oliver Goldsmith - where I was absorbed in him and his works, checking facts and just reading bits for the flavour.
I also cooked dinner for my landlord/landlady (who live in Tunisia, but came to remove their things) - I cooked because they were working hard removing things and hadn't considered dinner.
Most of this evening into the night I read and proof-read my Dad's manuscript he has written. The book is about Jesus' healing miracles (which is not something I believe in a great deal) but he is my Dad and I love him even if Jesus doesn't do it for me. I did it into the night (it's qtr past one in the morning now) because I want to give it to him tomorrow so he can take it on a retreat with him.
I am then going to finish a chapter of my book, 900-odd words before bed. I'm not sure whether this is self-absorbed or not because it is about other people, but they are other people I made up...

....Now, I would say I am very self centred and rather selfish, but self centred, sounds like too much hard work and too boring.

I can say that I've definitely become more self-interested and more assertive.  It seems a total 180 for someone who was rather passive and disinterested previously.  For years, my sense of self has been weak and fragile-- a stage set built of cardboard and paper mache.  Now that I've begun to say yes to myself, I feel like my new identity has become very strong.

Naturally, all people are apt to become self-absorbed to negation of all other considerations.  For me, I've always tried to be on guard against falling into pure delusion or narcissism, whether living as male or en femme.

Quote from: wendy on August 03, 2011, 05:21:06 PM
Folks I an disappointed in myself in that I can focus on nothing else.  I have built these imaginary walls that are thicker than barriers placed by society.  I find it easier to make absolutely no decisions than to make any decisions.  It is as if one were traveling to a place they seem to be going and say they are not going.  Journey is so slow and consumes so much energy that nothing is left and little is traveled.

If that is the case... it sounds like you need more energy I work off of smile power, and I can tell you it takes you miles further than those other brands

QuoteHas anyone else just become consumed?

Mauled by bears? Maybe. Consumed? Heck no: I stabbed those bears dead before they got a single bite!

(jk)

QuoteI also find a sense of paranoia in that I feel everyone talks about me.  They really don't but they do notice and then go back to their busy lives.

Paranoia makes sense considering the situation... you want to be seen as you so much that when people don't: it hurts. It's kind of cruel really, but I'm no better in many senses. Every time I see an asian I wonder if they were born here or came visiting from their country. Even though I hardly mean to judge people on such grounds, it remains one of those things I do. Hard to get irritated at others for mistaking my gender and having their own thoughts about it

QuoteMany people on site have their feelings hurt by innocent comments.  Wow if someone has a very positive thing happen then it seems appropriate to be happy for them.  It is not meant as a put down to someone less fortunate.

I get my feelings hurt by children all the time. I pay them back by being even more fun. I simply love it when happy things happen for others... it's just silly to be put out by someone else's happiness. I even got a neutral rep recently from someone at my main forum: "Neutral (0): Im gonna be honest, your 'always overly-positive attitude' truly bugs me."... it seems so senseless to rain on someone's parade when one could instead be throwing confetti and celebrating with them

The only reason the above neutral rep hurts my feelers is that it was previously a positive one and I lost a point out of the deal (not such a big deal since I sit at 66 now, the next down at 59, and the rest of the competition is in the 40s ).

QuoteAnyone get trapped in their mind and find a way to again be productive?

I get trapped in my mind often enough. I rationalize that it could be worse, imagine it being worse, and carry on working to avoid that with a goal in mind of something 'better' if I see it.

QuoteHave you found a way to reinvent yourself while you are noticeably different?

Don't need to... my tolerance of sameness is very low indeed. Me an my clones would kill each other on meeting for being so similar, and we'd do it for our own protection since we know what goes on in that head of ours

Seriously: I'm dying my hair a vibrant lively electric purple first chance I see. I enjoyed how many heads I turned when I went to anchorage to see my shrink and practiced my woman walk. My shrink hadn't marked me the appointment when I thought she did, but she let me come back at a later time that day since someone else cancelled. I used this time to go shopping at a nearby mall, and dressed myself in fitting clothes (that hat is awesome). There are few things quite as rewarding as knowing I looked that sexy from behind... as is evidenced most strongly by the guy in a car that had his head turned 90 degrees and as he saw my face swerved hard and busted up.

Made my day. There were so many people looking at me curiously (one lass had a 'what is this I don't even' together with a 'that's hilarious!' on her face... I made a cute snap and wiggle and she about OD on laughter).

Difference, especially when it is noticeable, is not a bad thing in and of itself. It's what you make of it that counts.

QuoteHave you once again been about to laugh at yourselves?

I laugh at myself at least twice before I eat something, without forcing it.

QuotePeople in trans community that I most admire are very giving and are not focused on themselves.

How about the people that are very focused on themselves... but donate copious amounts of money and give away their possessions to random people?

QuoteI am at fault for being too self absorbed.  Are you currently self absorbed?  Thoughts?

I'm always self absorbed. I question how that is a bad thing. You'll notice I internalized these suggestions and responded as they relate to me? I think that's a fine quality to posses

Quote from: gennee on August 03, 2011, 08:55:58 PM
There's a tendency of all human beings to self-absorbed. When we are struggling with our issues, it's quite natural. As we soon realize, self-absorption is quite smothering.                                                                                          Life goes on despite our struggles. I embraced whatever feelings I had. There were questions, struggles, and yearnings. The journey was slow but everything has its own time. Itms best when we are prepared to face whatever is before us.                                                                         Gennee

Gennee,

You stated very well what I would say. My feeling and experience is the same.

My wife understands and accepts my queer habit as long as I sustain my family. My colleagues accepts my unique appearance as long as I perform my duty.

Barbie~~