As being male became familiar to me, and was the way that would keep people, in particular my family, happy. On reflection, it now feels like a separate entity, a close twin brother who I knew everything and anything about, as much as I knew about myself. I knew the only way I could find resolution was to part with this male part of my psychology, and it was this that many people did not understand. Many people would suggest that I could still do masculine things and that it didn't mean I had to be a typical woman, but this was not the crux of the matter at all. It was about letting go of that deep rooted psychology of who I used to be, and it was 'him' that was scared of transition, scared of dying, and yes, he had to die. Over several painful years I had to deconstruct him as my true self grew, it was as if he had taken care of me, would take care of me until he was gone and was wishing me well in my future, and was sad that he would never see it. I had to bereave him, grieve for him, and I cried on many nights over him. It may sound peculiar to talk about myself in the third person, but it is one way to illustrate how my limited human mind was able to come to terms with my gender. But was it a case of a complete loss of the male psychology and the transition into a female psychology? It wasn't, and I realised that the spirit of my old male self still exists within me as a memory, and that deep male psychology still swims around as a part of me from a distance, but how 'he' had been in his former form, as the dominant force, and being who I was, that part had to die.
What I have to say though also is that post op, even though my memories of course have not change, I think my perception of them has and now the memories of being physically male and embracing that psychology feel so distant that sometimes I question whether it happened at all. I can't "feel it" the way I used to but I can still remember, but from a more detached perspective as if it was the memory of a close friend.
