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Thread: Complete Suppression

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    Complete Suppression

    I've been wondering why identity issues have had such urgency over the last year. Why now? Why not 10 or 20 years ago? A recent response in another thread from Bree perhaps hints at an answer:


    Quote Originally Posted by Bree_K View Post
    I didn't know I was transexual from a young age, but I did know a lot of other things.

    I knew I didn't know how to be a boy. Being a boy didn't seem to fit right and I was ALWAYS studying other boys and mimicking how they would act. I hated this acting and would be alone as much as possible so I didn't have to pretend.

    I crossdressed from a young age. I think with all the repression, it was the only outlet my inner-self could find.

    I envied girls. I hated that they were able to be girls and I wasn't.

    I knew I was hiding who I really was. I knew I would lose my friends if they found out.

    I just didn't know WHAT I was hiding from until I got a reality check a couple years ago and had to face the facts.
    What this triggered in me was the memory of envying girls, of hiding from my friends. I had totally forgotten what it felt like to look at girls like that, and it happened over decades from my earliest years. I STILL do it without consciously realizing it. How can you NOT remember something like that? That, plus other emerging, forgotten or suppressed memories makes me wonder if one starts having identity emergence problems at the point when you lose control of the memories, when, as a result, you can no longer actively track and channel your responses. In other words, when you lose control of your false front. I feel like a leaky vessel. Perversely, suppression may be the key to identity for some.

    Just random thoughts.

    Lea

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    What is normal anyway? Rianna Humble's Avatar
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    I cannot speak for others, but my Gender Identity Disorder was not triggered by losing control of memories from my youth. It is possible that the dysphoria escalated in part due to depression that was also linked to other elements in my life, but the fact is that I had been increasingly unable to live with being perceived as the man I have never been.

    In the past, when the need to express my true self had become acute, I would "reason" with myself that no-one would want to know an ugly woman. Over time I changed that to ugly old woman. I would then hide behind that lie to try to suppress the knowledge of who I am. Luckily for my sanity, the lie wore too thin.

    I didn't so much lose control of my false front as lose faith in it's ability to keep me alive.
    Last edited by Rianna Humble; 02-25-2012 at 01:30 AM.
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    Gold Member Kaitlyn Michele's Avatar
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    Lea,

    You totally get it. Once the wall starts coming down, your ability to cope by repressing, supressing, lying to yourself just goes away.. I've posted before that I can't believe the crazy thoughts I had...how did I make it?

    What Bree described is almost exactly how I experienced this, but I was in my mid forties...

    Fwiw, I asked my therapist, who has exclusively seen tg patients for twenty years,about this exact thing

    Her answer was she didn't know for sure, but it was very common in her ts patients. She said that our "arcs" are incredibly similar, with only the life details being different.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaitlyn Michele View Post
    Her answer was she didn't know for sure, but it was very common in her ts patients. She said that our "arcs" are incredibly similar, with only the life details being different.
    I wonder why this happens to only some people (who previously thought they were CDers) and not others. And why, according to the distribution of posts in this forum, it seemingly happens to a small percentage?

    And as Lea asked, why now and not when she was a child or a teenager? There are people who always knew?

    I'd like to understand more about this too.
    Reine

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    Quote Originally Posted by ReineD View Post
    I wonder why this happens to only some people (who previously thought they were CDers) and not others. And why, according to the distribution of posts in this forum, it seemingly happens to a small percentage?
    Most people on this site are not transsexual, that's why.

    As to your other question, entire books could be written on that subject! And probably have.
    Last edited by EnglishRose; 02-25-2012 at 02:56 AM.

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    Point taken. I should know better.

    I always have a million questions in my head and this time I just typed them out.
    Reine

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    Senior Member KellyJameson's Avatar
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    The mind must become strong enough to accept the consequences of truth and wise enough to recognize truth when it finds it. Before this there must be the discovery that there is value in truth to make the effort of searching for it worthwhile. Suffering fuels the search but the mind is trapped between muliple and opposing forms of suffering with apathy and confusion the result.

    Life is lived between a rock and a hard place and thinking is just so much static. Suppresion buys time and quiets the mind so the immediate task of survival can be met. The walk from sickness to health( movement toward truth) must be done within the limits of a minds capacity to survive (not become more sick, continued movement toward falsehood)
    while being confronted with the paradox that much of what is called health is actually sickness and vice versa, (lies are truths and truths are lies) a confused mind is surrounded by other confused minds but each in its own way and all fighting to defend their idea of reality/truth even when it is based on falsehood.

    Insanity (falsehood/sickness) and sanity(truth/health) are only opinions because there is a measure of both in everyone. The closer our opinions/behavior are representative of truth (reality) the healthier we become.

    Great tension exists between those who live closer to truth/reality as opposed to those who live closer to falsehood because both defend their ideas of truth to protect their sensation of reality/sanity for them. To discover truth you must give up the need for argument and move beyond others, the individual must stand alone. Life is a search for and movement toward truth.

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    Silver Member noeleena's Avatar
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    Hi,

    Im one of those who did not have a identity problem or issues, as far as knowing what & who i was, as to clothes that did not factor in .

    I did have a lot of other issues to work through as a person & that had nothing at all to do with wether i ...was ....or.... am.... male or female .
    Being both is really what keeped me sane,

    The ? & i dont know, this is what bugged me i was not quite like the boys & not quite like the girls that i did not understand, thats the problem yet when your nether or both you come to the ? im different yet quite happy being that way. i dont have the answer ,

    So being different just means iv accepted that & just get on being who i am.
    what has been so fantastic & lovely is i can express my self as being a female / woman in a way i was not able to years ago.
    So being supressed or closed down would be a detail for many depending on the person.

    We can get through that just takes time,

    ...noeleena...

  9. #9
    Senior Member Kelsy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kristin A View Post
    Most people on this site are not transsexual, that's why.

    As to your other question, entire books could be written on that subject! And probably have.
    Quote Originally Posted by ReineD View Post
    Point taken. I should know better.

    I always have a million questions in my head and this time I just typed them out.
    An unresolved Identity struggle from a young age through life seems to be a transsexual marker. It basically has nothing to do with sex or clothing etc.

    Being careful with exclusionary language that tends to stifle those who are trying desperately to find answers to their own personal struggles might be construed as supportive!
    Born female intended

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    What I believe happened

    I believe that I know why I didn't figure this out until I was fifty eight years old. First of all, being a transsexual doesn't come with instructions. I was two when my only sister was born. By the time I was four I knew that I wanted to be treated like her. She had long hair. She wore dresses. She was treated like a girl and I wanted that as well. When I was four my mother caught me wearing a hand-me-down dress intended for my sister. As my mother removed my dress she told me that, " boys don't wear dresses." When I asked her "why", she just said," because." So I learned that it was wrong for boys to wear dresses. And from then on I had to sneak to dress up in private, because I had to wear dresses. In grade school I died with envy watching the girls in my class wearing their full skirts and petticoats. As I got older I learned that some people were gay. So I decided that I must be gay as well. But there was a problem with that theory. I was attracted to girls, not boys. That ruled out my gay theory. In my early twenty's I decided that I must be a hetero transvestite. I hated the sound of that word, transvestite. It sounded like a bad thing to me. So I declared myself to be a cross-dresser. Yes, that must be it. Over the years I did all of the "male" things. I married a wonderful woman; became a father; and then grandfather. But still, something wasn't right. What was I searching for? Then the internet was invented. For the first time a wealth of information was open to me and I couldn't soak it up fast enough. Eventually I realized that I was a M to F transsexual but my wires were crossed. I was attracted to women. If I had been attracted to men I would have believed that I was gay. I would not have married a woman and lived a hetero life. If that had happened then my path to transition would have been so much easier. But I wasn't recognized as transgender as a child so my horribly disfiguring puberty happened. I am bitter about that but not mad at my mother. The world wasn't aware of these possibilities sixty two years ago. Today a child can be diagnosed as transgender and given drugs to delay puberty until they can decide for sure what they are. I know what my decision would have been; to live my life as the woman that I am. I'm sorry that this is so long. This thread struck a nerve so I had to vent. Thank you, Leanne

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    Style Icon Sara Jessica's Avatar
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    Great points. There is suppression and there is also repression which is pretty much what happened to me. I have always had amazing awareness as to my true being but I grew up and came of age actively repressing this knowledge. Not so much by indulging in too many hyper-masculine pursuits (although I was a pretty good skateboarder & surfer while growing up). Rather, it was that feeling of aloneness that led me to run through some of the check-downs that Leanne described. Mostly, it was that classic "CD'er" phase because that is what kind of made sense at the time. I was alone with this struggle, right? Might as well medicate the issue with clothing. But even in my youth, I was open with girls that I dated about the dressing part and absent an internet to learn of others like us, I found myself "out & about" in my early-20's with zero thought as to why I felt compelled to do so (along with very little fear). My story then merges with many others in that my own self-awareness came to a head as I approached middle age. This is where I am now, in a daily struggle to find balance between the life I have built and the desire to be who I am.
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    Gold Member Kaitlyn Michele's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ReineD View Post
    I wonder why this happens to only some people (who previously thought they were CDers) and not others. And why, according to the distribution of posts in this forum, it seemingly happens to a small percentage?

    And as Lea asked, why now and not when she was a child or a teenager? There are people who always knew?

    I'd like to understand more about this too.
    Right..Great question...
    and Kristin's answer is the right one...

    of course, that doesn't help you with the question you always ask, which is how do you know which is which??

    What are the best "tells" that a husbands dressing is a manifestation of her transsexuality. I don't think we can really ever know as Kristen points out.

    That all being said, if someone is dressing up for "identity" and wanting to do it all the time, goes by a female name, socializes with friends as a woman, takes risks with being outed publicly, etc etc...no matter what he(she) says, there is a chance he(she) is going to leave the barn.

    Lea's title for this thread is very wise.

    COMPLETE suppression. I always called my suppression brutal because it tore me up so badly. I like the word Lea used....it implies that one little chink in the armor (sorry Jeremy) can have a big impact

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    Aspiring Member Kristy_K's Avatar
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    That is almost my same story Leanne.

    I always thought I had to like men to be a woman. Then as I grew older I figure I was to tall or had to big of feet or anything else I could come up with in my mind to keep me from transitioning.

    Then the internet came along. What a blessing that was to me. It might have even save my life.

    The internet gave me my life back and a reason to live. I have never been happier in my life.

    Kristy

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    Aspiring Member morgan51's Avatar
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    Leanne described my life perfectly I couldn't have written it any better. Nice to have others here who know what I have gone thru day to day. Thankyou!

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    Aspiring Member elizabethamy's Avatar
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    What makes this question much more difficult for many of us is the idea that we have identity issues in ways other than gender. In living a good chunk of my life as an artist/writer, one almost cultivates this "outsiderness" so that one can observe and understand the world and make sense of it in an artistic/writerly way. That's essentially what the work is. However, feeling outside the gender norms is a different kind of outsiderism, and I have found it very hard to sort and separate the two. I'm sure there are other forms of outsiderness which can help keep a repressive/suppressive CD/TG/TS confused for many years.

    e.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lea Paine View Post
    What this triggered in me was the memory of envying girls, of hiding from my friends. I had totally forgotten what it felt like to look at girls like that, and it happened over decades from my earliest years. I STILL do it without consciously realizing it. How can you NOT remember something like that?
    Dont we all?
    I used to be extremely angry at Transmen because they were ruining the body that I wanted and taking for granted they were a woman.
    Boiled my blood to just under the point of loosing control. but i kept my cool long enough to relize they were in the same damn boat as me.

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    Lea,

    I knew since age four that things were not what they seemed.
    Once transition has commenced in earnest and the excuses as to why one can't have been stripped away, it becomes a truly life saving process.
    After five years of full time I have had difficulty remembering what I had to be for so long.
    You would think that this would be a good thing and in many ways it is but in ways it disturbed me deeply.
    Attempting to remember things and everyday life prior to December of 2006 was, for a while, a serious issue with me so much so that I had to seek therapy for it.
    Having this "amnesia " of sorts caused me a great deal of panic due to not being able to remember my life very well before transition.
    Now I'm able to remember what my life was with all the good and bad that went with it.

    My point is that you have to know where you have been in order to know where your going.


    Julia

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    Quote Originally Posted by ReineD View Post
    I wonder why this happens to only some people (who previously thought they were CDers) and not others. And why, according to the distribution of posts in this forum, it seemingly happens to a small percentage?

    And as Lea asked, why now and not when she was a child or a teenager? There are people who always knew?

    I'd like to understand more about this too.
    I was in an amazing state of repression and denial. It wasn't until a friend of mine found out that I was a crossdresser that I was basically forced to look at myself in the mirror. Once someone else caught a hint of what was going on, it's like it became real. There really was something going on with me. I could no longer convince myself that I was normal.

    "OMG I'm a crossdresser!!!!! ........ WHHHYYY?!?!?!?!?!?!"

    And that very first question about why I am the way I am lead to another. And another... and another.

    As Kaitlyn said:

    Quote Originally Posted by Kaitlyn Michele View Post
    Once the wall starts coming down, your ability to cope by repressing, supressing, lying to yourself just goes away..
    Last edited by Bree-asaurus; 02-25-2012 at 11:08 AM.

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    The nature of these memories is strange. They sometimes pop in like a normal memory - the typical "I never would have remembered that if you hadn't said ..."

    Some feel like they were suppressed. My therapist had me reading "True Selves" and there was a story about a TS whose father would give her crew cuts as a child. That happened to me, too, and I always retained that memory, hating the experience. What I had forgotten, though, and what the story brought back was how desperately I wanted long hair. I would beg to be allowed to have long hair. And it was off to the back yard for the crew cut. That long hair memory feels like it was pushed away.

    The particular memories triggered by Bree's post are different again. These are memories coming into focus, slowly returning. I can bring up scenes and feelings that include specific timeperiods and groups of girls. Childhood, High School, etc. Me observing, the girls typically in groups. I envied their closeness, laughing, touch, appearance, play, their relationships and felt completely outside - sometimes sad, but mostly chilled by the exclusion.

    I may have been set up or more receptive to remembering this because of recent experiences. I've had the repeated experience over the last couple of months where I would pass a woman in a hallway at work, on the street, or at the mall (my office building opens into one), greet them and see their defenses go up. What I realized last week that *I* was doing that was different was looking at them as myself openly and to connect, rather than through my usual front, which would be cursory and cold (maybe formal would be a better word). Their reactions are completely normal, of course. My state of mind in these episodes is such that it triggers that same playground chill and subsequent sadness. Kudos to my therapist for telling me to look for times when I felt "connection." I subsequently wrote to her that I didn't have a clue what she meant, but I'm beginning to, and it was on my mind.

    I never believed in real suppression except in psychosis cases. To find it in yourself is, as several of you put it (Julia directly) deeply disturbing. I'm also starting to get quite angry. Great - just what I needed ...

    Lea

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    Senior Member Ally 2112's Avatar
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    I have struggled with this this question off and on for about 30 yrs before i was a teenager i wanted to feel what it was like to be a girl .In the 70's and 80's and living in a small community i repressed and supressed fought and clawed to try and stop these feelings .It was not until about 5 yrs ago when my wife and i split (yes the cding had plenty to do with it ) i was able to freely go on the net and to let Ally sort of out of the closet and on the road to self accepptance
    I feel much better about myself and most of my self destuctive behavior has stopped .I knew this behavior was caused by my hiding and repression to me when i hid it was shameful and the x did not help either. Now im free at least in my own home to be me and eventually to go to a cd friendly group is my next goal !
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    Gold Member Marleena's Avatar
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    Lea I can really relate to this due to my recent "awakening". As a child we gravitate towards things we like, in my case girlie stuff. Then parental guidance due to gender concerns puts a stop to it. We are moulded into our birth gender by parents and society. So in my case I just snuck around when the urges were too strong. I always knew I was different as a child, I always remember feeling like being on the outside looking in. I never put 2 & 2 together.

    This went on through most of my life with the usual dressing fix that I knew needed to be hidden from everybody. I was always attracted to women, but if they dressed feminine I noticed their clothes was more important to me. I just loved girls that wore pantyhose and short skirts. I wonder if anybody noticed me staring at them each day in class?

    The human mind is a powerful and complex thing. In my case things got buried away probably as a form of self protection. I also overcompensated unknowingly as a male so as not to show the girl within. Everything is now making sense since I let the genie out of the bottle. Memories are coming back, and things are now making sense.

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    Senior Member Kelsy's Avatar
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    I hid my secret for my whole life not knowing who I was and how I fit from nursery school days. It wasn' until a girlfriend of mine
    discovered my crossdressing and I was confronted with myself in 2006. The failure of a 25year marriage, the death of a close friend, the death of my father, the death of my brother and the total loss of eveything I owned through divorce and bankruptsy pushed my identity crisis over the edge! To top it off I was sure that I had always been and was some perverted freak! It has taken six years, the failure of numerous relationships, and some heavy introspection and counseling
    to get to a place where I could accept myself as I am and to admit and understand just what was going on with me. I was a fraud my whole life and now my coping mechanisms are gone and lies are useless.

    I was told not to long ago by a wise person that this condition can be treated but if you treat it you're probably going to want the cure!!

    Kelsy
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    Senior Member KellyJameson's Avatar
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    The crew cut is a good example of adults being insensitive to the boundaries and emotional needs of the child, this was done to me only once when I was eight and I felt so ugly and violated I ran away from home sleeping in the woods for three days until found by a neighbor.

    It is rare that a child is respected enough to be allowed to express who they naturally want to be as an extension of who they already are.

    Connectivity is a wonderful word, for me connectivity is the same experience as love, it is love experienced (felt). It makes you want to shout for joy, give a little dance,skip,clap,good shivers and chills, spine tingling happiness,happy tears or just looking into the mirror at the person staring back and realizing how much you like that person.

    So much of connectivity is dependant on rejecting the worlds rejection of us, rejecting the cruelty,hate and fear directed at us. Realizing that the sickness in us (self loathing)was put there by others particularly when we were small and defenseless, the mind becomes more sensitive as it becomes stronger (heals) from past wounds by letting go of beliefs that were formed that we think belong to us but were really created by others and than the doors to old memories open helping to maintain the momentum of healing. We no longer defend our minds by closing our mind from our own awareness but we open our minds out of necessity because the cost of denial (suppresion of awareness of self) becomes to great.

    Everything starts in childhood.

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    Member SusanMarie's Avatar
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    To 'Know Thyself' is a lifelong journey...
    I too, suppressed for a long, long time...
    Always new I felt 'different'...
    Finally...enough...
    I let go...was honest with myself...truly honest...
    Life got better...much better....
    Now I 'Know Myself'...but still work on learning everyday.
    No closet is big enough!

  25. #25
    Silver Member Jonianne's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lea Paine View Post
    .....I never believed in real suppression except in psychosis cases. To find it in yourself is, as several of you put it (Julia directly) deeply disturbing. I'm also starting to get quite angry. Great - just what I needed .....
    Lea, I believe that life opens doors at the right times of our lives. Maybe we were not ready before. Maybe others were not ready. Sort of a spiritual/karma thing. Being angry about the way things should have been is normal, but maybe life meant for us to become who we are now, at this time of our life, instead of earlier.
    Joni

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