When I was younger I tried to tell myself that it was a test from god and that it was my duty to just learn how to live as a woman. I thought that not being a proper female was a failure of faith on my part. Thinking like that didn't work, of course.

Quote from: Felix on September 15, 2012, 06:06:06 PM
When I was younger I tried to tell myself that it was a test from god and that it was my duty to just learn how to live as a woman. I thought that not being a proper female was a failure of faith on my part. Thinking like that didn't work, of course.

  I don't believe in god so I never had anyone to curse but myself.  It sure was tons o' fun feeling completely alone in the entire universe for 35 years.  Most of you can understand my relief upon joining this site and discovering so many people with common experiences.

I was never a "macho" guy and preferred to try acting tough on the exterior. I did sports in school, did weight lifting, tried to act like a guy to be one of the guys, and that never worked. I don't know that I could be described as "fem" back then or even now, just a sort of regular everyday person. My crowd was always the alternate scene like hanging with the goths, hippies, metal heads, and stoners. I was always one of the girls in my social crowd. The guys accepted me in that crowd, but I think I was more "queer"in their eyes and some of them even said so, and they didn't say it in a demeaning way or anything...they stated it in more of a thought or opinion that would come up in conversation.

I suppose I always saw myself as queer in a gender queer sort of way.

My avoidance was and sort of still is to keep myself busy with all sorts of meaningful, constructive activities. Still, the whole mental and emotional female identity is there. I look at other women and as always, my mind says "that is how I was supposed to be made, that is how I am supposed to look, that is how I WANT to look".

I tried pushing it out of my mind, tried ignoring it, tried listening to that negative voice in my mind that said it was dumb / stupid and that I was stupid for engaging that sort of thought and feeling. I tried to find my true identity, and at first thought I might be gay, then when I noticed I liked both males and females (at a very young age) I thought I might be bi but still felt female. Years passed, and I realized again that my female side was still there, it was creeping back. I couldn't ignore it, and had to confront myself privately with it. I have been with females sexually while only being able to perform in bed while thinking of myself as a female over the course of my life, and then realized sex with women felt wrong. It felt wrong because I was not in the body I thought I was supposed to be in.

I find if I'm attracted to a guy, it will only be after I have known him for a long time and know that I can trust him, that he will not hurt me or abuse me. Yet, I still feel attraction to women as well. I'm not sure if my attraction to females is more emotional than sexual, more social as one of the girls or just my resentment of my own physical appearance. Maybe it can be all of the above?

I've always felt safer with women than men, and have always been able to trust a woman more than a man and more quickly than I would trust a male. Marriage? Tried it, and it fell apart. I'm at a place now where I am trying to get my life together so it becomes something I recognize once again.

The reality is that I am who I am. I need to find a way to embrace it and love myself, I need to like myself, and I need to focus on me. 

Quote from: Violet Bloom on September 15, 2012, 06:37:45 PM
  I don't believe in god so I never had anyone to curse but myself.  It sure was tons o' fun feeling completely alone in the entire universe for 35 years.  Most of you can understand my relief upon joining this site and discovering so many people with common experiences.

I'm glad you're here. It's really easy to forget how many people are like you. In my everyday life I'm usually the only one like me and it's helpful to surf through susan's for a reminder that there are lots of people in similar situations.

Thanks everybody for sharing. I won't start commenting or it would take all day. My own things that I did to avoid who I am:
1) Gave myself a job: understand every person and every thing in the world
2) Gave myself a job: make people stop fighting and start laughing
3) Gave myself a job: make daddy not be so sad any more
4) Gave myself a job: keep mommy from being crazy and wanting to die
5) Gave myself a job: take care of all my own needs so that I'm not a burden on anyone; deny any needs that I can't take care of myself
6) Gave myself a job: take care of my sisters; keep them safe, loved, fed, clothed, educated, entertained, guided, encouraged, protected, accepted.
7) Gave myself a job: always do perfect in school
Gave myself a job: never cry
9) Gave myself a job: never complain
10) Gave myself a job: never ask for anything; never take anything that anyone else has or needs
11) Gave myself a job: make God not hate me
12) Gave myself a job: make people not hate me
13) Gave myself a job: don't attract attention
14) Gave myself a job: don't have an ego
15) Gave myself a job: don't hurt anyone ever
16) Gave myself a job: don't fight
17) Gave myself a job: don't make people think I'm smarter than they are
18) Gave myself a job: become a great artist
19) Gave myself a job: become a great writer
20) Gave myself a job: don't kill myself ever
21) Gave myself a job: don't think about things I cannot change
22) Gave myself a job: take care of my friends
23) Gave myself a job: date girls
24) Forgot 17 years of my life and my entire identity
25) Moved across the country to go to school all alone
26) Gave myself a job: graduate from an ivy league university
27) Gave myself a job: be a perfect Mormon
28) Worked three jobs while going to school full time and serving in church callings and doing volunteer work at school
29) Served an LDS mission
29) Gave myself a job: learn all world religions
30) Learned Spanish, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese.
31) Worked my way through college and sent money home
32) Read at least a book a day
33) Put myself into dangerous situations where my life was on the edge and then saved myself
34) Gave myself a job: figure out how to become wealthy enough to solve the world's problems LOL
35) Gave myself a job: reconcile faith with science with humanity
36) Dropped out of school, moved to a cabin in the woods, and worked in a Mennonite wellness center.
37) Moved home to save my mother's house and business and help my sisters graduate.
38) Taught repressed Mormon girls to believe in themselves and their potential.
38) Helped 26 Mormon girls in a row to find the man they married, immediately after dating me.
39) Taught myself gourmet cooking and flower arranging. Convinced every woman I dated that I was gay! Oops.
40) Taught myself woodworking, car repair, home repairs, astronomy, cosmology, art and music and drama appreciation, classic movies, classic literature, gardening, hiking, nature appreciation, dabble dabble dabble, massage, acupressure, tai chi
41) practiced medication, mindfulness, zen, tantra, running, swimming, climbing, shopping, walking backwards, walking with eyes closed, holding my breathe, fasting, tolerating cold, tolerating pain, tolerating all things
42) collected books, quotes, ideas, tools, experiences, and interesting people
43) tried having sex while staying a virgin
44) discovered sex
45) discovered alcohol
46) nannied for two years for my infant nephew so my sister could finish college
47) worked multiple jobs
48) taught myself computers and all things information technology
49) married; took care of my wife and her every need and whim
50) was a foster parent to two wonderful kids
51) converted recurring depression to an increasingly severe panic disorder instead
52) got therapy to deal with the destructive tapes in my head so that I could keep functioning in all of my roles a while longer
53) ended one marriage and immediately began another
54) always told myself that I was different, that dreams and wishes were for other people, never for me, and focused my whole life on setting stuck people free and helping others to live their dreams.
55) covered my face with moustache and goatee for 25 years; shaved my growing bald patch; wore drab, ill fitting masculine clothes; went from 170 to 290 lbs, and avoided mirrors and looking at or touching myself.
56) monitored myself constantly to masculinize my voice, my language, my expressed interests, my looks, my body language, my walk, my gestures, my touches, my thoughts.
57) literally wiped the idea of crossdressing from my mind for 30 years, telling myself that I had to have GRS in order to wear women's clothing.
58) developed an allergic reaction to men's underwear, so that I had a 'health reason' to underdress.

That's a few of my favorite ones! So glad I don't have to try to maintain all of that any more. Still cleaning up the wreckage from a lifetime of self-neglect.

Vast quantities of drugs and alcohol, a lot of casual sex - mostly fuelled by the drugs and alcohol. Tried to be a gay guy..

None of it worked, just kept me too wasted to think.

Quote from: Felix on September 15, 2012, 07:28:01 PM
I'm glad you're here. It's really easy to forget how many people are like you. In my everyday life I'm usually the only one like me and it's helpful to surf through susan's for a reminder that there are lots of people in similar situations.

I'm glad You're here also.  It seems you are a decent human being and possibly even remotely sane.  You may have travelled from the 'opposite pole' but I greatly appreciate there is common ground to be found in the experience.  The existence of both lends credibility to all and the value of just being yourself.

Oh boy....many of the ones already mentioned...I think soon after I got married and started a family and went back into a "suppression relapse" for a while.

Also went through a hyper-religious phase....ROTC phase.....even smoked a pipe for a few years (off and on)......

all seems so stupid now....glad these days I'm just focusing on being me.  Although, there are days that I'm certain I'd have coped better had I just been born female....

I'm doing this in snippets here, as they come to me... I did the beard thing, but not for reasons of looking manly - I'd noticed early on that men who shaved every day ended up with coarse-looking skin on their faces, so my beard-growing was a secret ploy to keep my face soft underneath . One of the first things I did when I decided it was finally time I could transition was to get some really good blades and shave - it was such a relief!

In my late teens I became a North London Hippy (we were an 80s thing) just so I could have long hair and wear colourful clothes (I spent 3 years dressed entirely in shades of lilac) and still pretend to be a straight boy (with a pretty dyke concealed under the patchouli...)

Then I tried to be a gay man (because they didn't have to be macho, and I liked some men, and again with the androgynous clothing, hennaed hair and that). then I tried for the blokey Buddhist chic, with the crew cut and the black outfits.

Enough trying now, enough.

Quote from: MadelineB on September 15, 2012, 09:37:48 PM
Thanks everybody for sharing. I won't start commenting or it would take all day. My own things that I did to avoid who I am:
1) ...
24) Forgot 17 years of my life and my entire identity
25) ...

OMG I forgot this one!

My wife often remarks now how when we first started going out how my response to "What was your childhood like?" was "Normal"; end of conversation. OK, not first started going, some 30 years of going out and then some. I am so glad she looked past the Warning Warning Will Robinson alarms going off in her head. Now, some 30 years later and a fair ammount of pain and tears, she gets to hear the details, both good and painful, when they come up.

Hopefully my luck will hold as a new set of Warning Warning Will Robinson alarms are going off in her head as we both, in our own ways, wrestle with the genie let out of the bottle.

Quote from: Padma on September 15, 2012, 11:57:22 PM
In my late teens I became a North London Hippy (we were an 80s thing) just so I could have long hair and wear colourful clothes (I spent 3 years dressed entirely in shades of lilac) and still pretend to be a straight boy (with a pretty dyke concealed under the patchouli...)

I don't think I knew many North London hippies, but NW10 was my universe for many years.

Quote from: Felicitá on September 16, 2012, 04:02:19 AM
I don't think I knew many North London hippies, but NW10 was my universe for many years.

I was an NW11 gal - Golders Green, innit. I had mates in Harlesden though (and chowed down in Willesden a lot - mmm, Sabras).

Quote from: Padma on September 16, 2012, 05:00:04 AM
I was an NW11 gal - Golders Green, innit. I had mates in Harlesden though (and chowed down in Willesden a lot - mmm, Sabras).

Carmelli bagles and...hamentashen, yum. Willesden will always feel like home. But I'm a little further up north now.

Quote from: Felicitá on September 16, 2012, 05:23:57 AM
Carmelli bagles and...hamentashen, yum. Willesden will always feel like home. But I'm a little further up north now.

...and I'm way south west, escaped London when I was 21. I've always felt safest in the south west - I didn't know I was moving here to transition until as soon as I'd actually found somewhere to move into - then bam! (to get back on topic )

As a teenager I gave GID a complete swerve and went straight into pretty severe Depression that lasted for about 40 years off and on. 
Joined the Police.
Got married and fathered two children.
None worked as I now realise that I was aware I wasn't a guy from 11 or 12, just didn't have a way to express it, or any way to tackle it that didn't likely involve a Psych Hospital. 

Quote from: Padma on September 14, 2012, 11:01:41 AM
I tried really, really hard to be a gay man.

LOL! Same here!

Quote from: Felix on September 15, 2012, 06:06:06 PM
When I was younger I tried to tell myself that it was a test from god and that it was my duty to just learn how to live as a woman.

I hear this a lot from religious folk when bad things happen to them.

Every once in a while I catch myself wondering what kind of sick pup would get jollies from testing people with awful circumstances to see how they bear up.

Just remembered something else I did. In high school, I went to the gym and lifted weights with a friend. I figured if I looked buff then the bullies would leave me alone. I also joined the Army Cadets but that lasted only a few weeks. I got into a fight with another kid who, surprise surprise, thought I was gay. I was shocked at my strength that day because they said it took 4 people to peel me off of him.

Looking back, I can't help but wonder if my long hair at that age along with my apparently feminine mannerisms only served to enhance what made me appear to be gay.

I did the weightlifting thing too, because people would bully me. At my strongest I weighed 135 lbs but was able to benchpress 300 lbs. Nobody bullied me then. But it destroyed my naturally slim physique

Wow, A lot of what you guys have said resonates within me strongly...  Too strongly for my current mental state actually.  I like everything in my life as it is (with the exception of being male).  Only common thing that has been tried that I havent is the drugs/drinking and sleeping with lots of women/ watching porn.  Never tried being gay, but I have hung out with some gay guys, really really not me...

Working out to look manly: check
Pretending I'm just a crossdresser: check (interesting sidenote, its easier for me to accept being transgender now than trying to convince myself I am a crossdresser)
Hanging out with "Hyper-male" friends: check
Got married: check  (didnt do this to prove my manliness, but out of love and respect to my wife.  I seriously desire the marriage to survive all this)
REPRESSED MEMORIES : well, dont know, but I dont remember anything before 14, but remember almost everything thereafter... Not a good sign on the repressed memories front.  I do know I crossdressed from 10 years old, or at least that was when I was caught by my parents.
Difficult studies : check (taught myself a fair amount of quantum theory, even started trying to mathematically state and prove my own theorems)
ROTC: check (really hated it, refused to call classmates sir/maa'm lol)

I had a lot of bouts with depression and would not even admit to why I was so depressed.