A realization

[Anna Lorree]

As many of you know, I have waffled over transition for the last year. I have done so because of the implications transitioning would have on my family and my marriage. A few minutes ago, I realized something. I have no future plans for my life as a man. Every single plan I am making right now is focused on the goal of living as a woman.

I feel as though I could continue to get up, go to work, come home and go to bed as a man. I could exist as a man. But I also feel as though there is nothing but emptiness there. Every plan that excites me, every dream that interests me, every thing that I look forward to involves being a woman.

Did you ever come to such a moment? What did it mean to you?

Anna

[Saffron]

All my future plans have nothing to do with being a woman or a man. Of course I'm planning my transition, but I don't see it as a goal in my life, to me it's like getting rid of a tumour, so I can return to my life.

[Elizabeth]

Hi Anna,

Life is not something that is happening in the future. It's happening right now. In the moment, who you are is who you are. There can be no future Anna if there is not a current Anna. Stop waiting for some time in the future when life is supposed to happen. Your life is happening right now and every second you waste are seconds you can't get back. The future gets here every moment and it can only be better if you change what you are doing in the now.

Love always,
Elizabeth

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Anna your post is very interesting.

I totally get where you are coming from.
I've always thought of gender dysphoria as kind of the absence of something..basically the absence of having a life...

My own personal situation has a similar moment after i read the article i posted by anne vitale... it made me look at what i was doing and what i was going through instead of just living in my own little headspace...
I "realized" that i basically had no feeling that i had a life...

Its good that you can look at your own actions and see them clearly for what they are... I hope that it helps you make good decisions about your future..

[Pamela Kay]

Hey Anna,

I had been the good guy, had the family, the good job, the big house, and I was still empty. It got to the point I thought I was going crazy and was stressed enough I was having chest pains and sent to a cardiologist. Thankfully they didn't find anything physical and I finally gave in and went to a therapist. Since then I have seperated from my wife, sold the big house, moved to an apartment, and spent nearly all of my part of the marital assets on FFS surgery. I made a transition plan and so far have been able to follow it pretty well and have been living full time for about 3 weeks.

My soon to be ex-wife asked me the other day if I was happy now. I told her I didn't know but I wasn't stressed anymore and could concentrate again. I have had family and friends that I weren't really close that have stepped up and supported me and become close, had close friends and family that have remained close, and have family and friends that were close before and have drifted away since I came out to them. If you talk to those that have know me for very long they will tell you that I am happier and more comfortable with myself now than I was before and I agree with them because I am.

Today I'm taking it one day at a time and my only plan for the future right now is to be myself and be the best me I can be. Since I'm living as the person I am now I see those plans through the eyes of a woman. The person I had lived as for most of my life is slowly fading away a little bit more every day and I'm happy with the person I see in the mirror now.

You are the only one who can make the decision whether to transition or not. I'm here to support you whatever you decide.

[STACY B]

I see what your saying . I just look at it like this ,,How does your wife fit into it ,,It your Transsexual an you want to be all woman maybe she does not fit any where an that's why you feel like that ? You just came to the realaztion of living a total lie all along ? An have to move on without her an start all over ? If you can't see the man moving forward you most likely will transition all the way . An I know it's almost impossable to do what you want an live how you want day to day with a family to take care of ,,I know all to well the walls you hit an the things that trip you up with a family ,,The whole deal of transition is a Real Big thing an not just a dress up session . We pull the trigger an lose it all ,,There is A LOT of prep before you ever get to the Dress up party ,,LOL,,,, That little tid bit comes all the way at the end ,, Thats why 99% just CD to get to the Play time part first an don't do the dirty part in between ? An you as Trans knows full well it's not about the clothes it's about the inside not outside ,,When you can no longer sleep with your self know full well what an who you are no matter what you wear then you know it's time .

[Shapeshiffter]

I also understand what you mean. Before I admitted to myself I was trans. I was just exsisting. Nothing more. I was never excited about anything. My mind was pretty much shut down. And I never saw any future, just another day to get through.
Now, 2 years (almost) on hrt, and living full time for 10 months now. I am excited about life everytime I wake up. I truly enjoy living just for the gift it is. Nothing else has really changed, same job I have had for 30 years. Same friends, minus a few. Still no money, of course. But none of that maters as I can see a future for Brighid where there was nothing before. I don't know what it is but I am ready to find out.

[kimdl93]

I'm glad you've come to this point of clarity and hope it helps you face the challenges in making your plans reality.

I haven't reached quite that level of certainty. Some time ago I came to the conclusion that I wanted, in fact needed to live a large part of my life as a woman. However, I'm still balancing the male obligations against my female life. Gradually, the scale is tipping.

[ChelseaErtel]

Oh, thank you for posting. I'm in a very confused state now. I thought I was as happy as possible, which was I realize now just existing. My happiness truly came when I dressed fully as a woman and the image in the mirror was a women looking back at me, not the man me which I fund kind of ugly.

What that means now that I have pulled my head out of my #@&$ I don't know. I do know what you mean, but I have a wife (who knows nothing of this, but I'm sure suspects there has been something wrong with me for a long time - said as much), two wonderful children that I don't want to destroy. So, for me it's just going to be a slow road to discovery with me and my psychologist and once I know what and who I am, I'll share that with my wife.

Then the fireworks will begin and I'll just have to be ready to take what is coming. Doing anything permanent at my age may, at least for me, not be a good idea. But, I've made no plans, no decisions....just exploring and I hope to have a similar revelation (which way who knows?) some point in the future.

Enjoy knowing where you are going, it isn't that simple for some.

[~Seana~]

aLooking at the future and examinining what you find there is as important as looking at the past.

I started to transition 15 years ago. I'm still at it.That's why you have a therapist.

15 years ago I started shaving my legs every week. Hell I knew why, but I hadn't yet accepted it and to transition at that time would have been foolish at best. about 10 years ago I started to study my life and also transgenderism.I looked at the typical transgender journey. As many have stated, we all tend to have similar stories, and I compared that with my life and saw alot of matches. Mentally, I knew then what I know now, I was TG. I wasnt ready to accept it though and that self study, of both future and past, is as important to the process as is hormones, attire or SRS.
7-8 years ago I started to change my appearance more permanently, telling myself at the time it was to make me more passable as a CD. I knew the truth then , but I wasnt admitting it to myself.Grew out my hair, plucked my brows, started working more everyday female clothes into my wardrobe. Even then I told myself I wouldn't go on hormones, or do SRS.
Fast forward to now. I'm 2 months on HRT. There came a point where I had to admit I wasnt fooling anyone, and least of all myself. I think you are close to that point. Keep examining, keep talking to the therapist, and maybe it wont be 15 years from now for you.

Seana

[Anna Lorree]

Oh, thank you for posting. I'm in a very confused state now. I thought I was as happy as possible, which was I realize now just existing. My happiness truly came when I dressed fully as a woman and the image in the mirror was a women looking back at me, not the man me which I fund kind of ugly.

What that means now that I have pulled my head out of my #@&$ I don't know. I do know what you mean, but I have a wife (who knows nothing of this, but I'm sure suspects there has been something wrong with me for a long time - said as much), two wonderful children that I don't want to destroy. So, for me it's just going to be a slow road to discovery with me and my psychologist and once I know what and who I am, I'll share that with my wife.

Then the fireworks will begin and I'll just have to be ready to take what is coming. Doing anything permanent at my age may, at least for me, not be a good idea. But, I've made no plans, no decisions....just exploring and I hope to have a similar revelation (which way who knows?) some point in the future.

Enjoy knowing where you are going, it isn't that simple for some.

I have a wife, an 11 year old son and a 10 year old daughter. My wife knows, our kids don't.

Anna

[josee]

I found myself at a similar point to what you describe a year and a half ago. After weeks and months of self examination I came to the realization that I am Transsexual, that I always have been and always will have a female brain. I also have been convinced that I will never be truly happy, never feel like I have much to continue to exist for unless I continue to take steps to transition to living and appearing as my female self.
I also feel that living authentically is the only way that I will ever truly be able to be there for my family.
Just wish my wife could accept me as such.

[KellyJameson]

I am someone who believes gender identity is innate and your mind is shaped by its brain structure which strongly influences your ability to adopt the social gender identity that is "put upon you and into you"

For many people (possibly most) they do not have to hold a fixed gender identity because there is no tension between their brain and the social environment they live in so their is no fight for life but it is the extreme differences between brain gender and social gender expectations that creates the tension and like a rubber band we continue to be stretched from who we are to who we are not.

For some people their rubber band can be stretched farther so they may marry and start families but feel a dissonance that something is "off" in them but because they are now invested socially in others must resist by ignoring this feeling.

This can create a tension between two identities, the one you are and the one you are told you are.

Only those who experience a conflict between who they know they are and who they have been told they are will have a problem with identity and so two things will happen.

They will be at war with themselves because of others and they will be at war with others because of themselves which is the experience of being trapped between truth and deception but not knowing who is telling the lie and who is telling the truth.

For myself I assumed everybody else was correct and I was the one doing the lying so refused to believe what my mind was insisting to be true so I must be mentally ill and living a subconscious delusion that I consciously was aware of.

I did not see the paradox that a insane person does not know they are insane and think they are sane so by thinking I must be delusional I could not be because if I was delusional I would not be able to guestion it because I would be in the sickness looking out instead of out looking at the sickness.

For me acceptance was trusting my mind that it was not trying to trick me into "experiencing my birth gender" instead of "adopting my social gender" as an expression of sickness so the more I went against society the sicker I was when the truth was the opposite.

Experiencing my gender meant giving up conscious control of acting like I was expected to act and following a deeper calling which I than consciously would follow by taking this calling and making it real.

My tension between biological gender identity and social gender identity was so extreme that I could only for brief periods adopt the role of male social identity but everytime I did this I would feel like I was placing myself in severe psychological danger which felt like I was indentionally inviting death because I was utterly unable to go against my subconscious biological (brain) identity.

Any social situation that expected me to identify as male I avoided or responded to with fear and this has always been the theme of my life.

Once I gave up the conscious fight against myself the image of male disappeared because I always had to will this image into existence where seeing myself as female takes no effort at all.

For me the future was not so much what I may do in the future but the giving up of an identity (image as self concept) that was not mine for the one that is and of course the more I did this the more I wanted (and want) external reality to reflect my internal reality.

Your words remind me of someone who has lost and given up a false identity for the one that you did not consciously adopt but always had.

False identity has a two diamensional unreal aspect to it where your genuine identity will have the three diamensional weight of reality.

Truth is effortless but falsehood requires effort to sustain because it contradicts reality so does not exist except through force of conscious will power.