the experience

[GabbiSophia]

Normally Kelly i get do lost in your posts that i have to stop reading them. Just over my head I guess. Though this post of yours is great. It really kinda sums things up

[LeaP]

Kelly, sometimes you describe my inner experience so closely that it is spooky.

Avoidance and searching are not mutually exclusive, as you point out. The searching soul will inevitably investigate any number of theories on the nature of their existence, many of which are difficult to reconcile. Herein lies one of the sources and some of some of the details of the crazy making. One approach is layers or hierarchies of understanding. Another is unifying theories. A third is smorgasbord. And then there is religion. Metaphysics. Mysticism. Philosophy. The physical sciences. Psychology. Etc. All of this endless search and self-examination is absurdly overwrought to those who can look inward and simply say "boy" or "girl." But oh so familiar to those of us who pressed down the path of nonexistence.

I am one such, and it has taken many forms, from psychological issues like depression and suicidality, to social avoidance, even to the philosophies to which I am attracted (like solipsism) and the attitudes which I've adopted (like pragmatism). All have an aspect of removing the personal from the equation. I am one who has command of many answers and who has committed to none. This despite years of effort into trying to make some of them real (e.g. religion). I set myself up to distrust any attempt at self explanation because I rejected myself. Instead, I've looked at answers dispassionately and analytically. Things to be used for the benefit of others… but not for me.

Going through a dysphoria crisis with this mindset wasn't fun! If you can't accept self truth as such to begin with, except as a working proposition at best, the idea of working toward something like gender as an absolute is far-fetched. But it gets worse! For the first advice you come across is to approach solving the problem not rationally, but experientially. And though incredibly cynical about reason as a way to find truth, however committed to it I've been as an approach, that's nothing compared with the dismissiveness with which I viewed the notion of truth through experience. But find it that way I did, and in the process unwound a lot of things I thought I knew about myself besides.

But on to OCD…. I not only agree with your comment about the tie between OCD and gender dysphoria, but thought of including a comment along those lines in one of my earlier responses. I did not because I thought it would detract from the point. OCD is straightforward to diagnose. OCD from physical causes is relatively straightforward to treat with medication. And OCD as a fundamental psychological condition is relatively straightforward to deal with as it applies to patterned behaviors and focused obsessions. But thinking further, I need to revisit my agreement because the inability to get something out of your head doesn't make it OCD by definition. Granted, someone with gender dysphoria may also truly have OCD, but they may simply be unable to escape themselves any longer. Lots of trans people are preoccupied. That is no more obsessive in a pathological sense than someone who is trapped preoccupied with being free.

This, in turn, returns me to experience as well as toward hormones. Experience – experimentation – works like a switch in transsexuals. What once seemed obsessive, incessant, lifelong, inborn, melts away so quickly when experience is validating! OCD doesn't work that way, and it is easy to test for the difference early in therapy. A good (and common) is example is dressing. How many times have you read that the preoccupation, angst, and psychological pressure to dress simply vanishes when a transsexual starts down the right path? Hormones have this effect on seeming obsessions, too. In a transsexual, the obsession with expression is typically replaced by a normal drive toward self actualization.

So, is moving beyond the barriers that blind you truly difficult? Yes and no. Yes because the fear that paralyzes people holds them back from the experience that will validate them (or not). No because once you do start taking action, having gotten by the fear one way or another, the barriers fade away on their own. They have no substance. This is also the point at which you realize how deep and wide your personal responsibility is for having created your own problems.

[GabbiSophia]

Sometimes you think you are intelligent till you actually meet or hear someone intelligent. I find myself having to realize how many others are way more intelligent than i am. Thanx Lea... i have not been able to put into words exactly what i have been going through over the last two years of therapy but you nailed square slap in the middle. I have tried everything to avoid coming to terms with the truth. Fear is part of that, actually it is a huge part of that.

I have had some serious long discussions in the past few days since writing my op. I have spent so much time tring to rationalize this that i have actually dug myself into a deeper hole. I find myself really tring to just live day to day but really i have been tring to ignore myself. I see that i am not alone in this. Though i have been told about it and yet still did it. I found what you said about dressing so true Lea. Once i start hormones, at the proper dosage, I didn't want anything to do with dressing. I actually almost purged everything because I felt like my old self or what i thought was normal. It was only a promise to my wife that i would never do it again that stopped me. Since then I went to a group meeting and for the first time I knew what it was like to relax. It's this rrealization that scared the pee out me. This one event caused me to fight even more against myself. It only when I truely let my guard down and admit things that I get a break from the noise. I find this hard still but true.

I know what i need to do to but I feel like i am a failure or that I am giving up if i do what I must. This is really where I am at in my transition and actually admitting it is part of the process. This whole experience blows what little logical mind i have and makes me confused about my beliefs. Though one thing I know for sure now.. no matter how i believe doesn't stop or change the fact of what i need to do. I am just not ready to do it this day. I guess when you realize it then you truely see all that is needed to be done to make it work.life is over whelming and then you add this...sheesh..