Once you know who you are, how do you know what to do?

[elizabethamy]

Hi Everyone,

My life has felt like an epic struggle to understand the cause of my late-life transgenderishness. Tonight I ask: now that I know that I am deeply transgendered, possibly TS, and I accept it (though my wife doesn't and no one else has a clue), what do I do?

Throughout this journey, numerous threads on this forum and elsewhere, as well as in my mind and heart, have separated the "who/what are you?" from the "what do you have to do about it?"

I think I have known for a while that this was big, known in my heart though I threw every realistic, psychological and even physiological excuse in the way of that knowledge until it finally became clear. But I don't think my heart has known or does know what I should do. Is knowledge enough? Is transition unavoidable? What has it been/is it like for others? Does the action automatically match the knowledge?

elizabethamy

[Jorja]

You ask a tough question. Ok, you have determined you are TS. You believe you have accepted it. The best answer I can give you is; You are the only one that can answer that question. Where is it your heart and mind lead you? Down the path of transition? Or do you remain in limbo in your male state of being for the rest of your life? I know which way I would go if I had to do it all over again. I would chose to transition. Simply beacuse I know my GID was so bad that I needed a resolution to the problem or .......

[Kaz]

I have struggled with this for years... and the real TS people will tell me I am not really TS because I still struggle with it... action is about understanding what you want to do (beliefs, aims and objectives), what you can do (physically and operationally), and what you feel you can do (acknowledgement of broader stakeholders).... and this is where I struggle, sadly...

But I guess this is where you are... knowledge can be enough. It is a decision choice to transition or not. I know and struggle but choose not to - I suffer as a result but I also don't lose certain things that are precious to me. For others, the choice is more straightforward (although the implications will not be)...

[Inna]

LOL, it seems so clear to me now but then........OMG!

Do absolutely NOTHING!!!! quiet down your intellectual jargon, turn down the volume of ever so relentless thought radio and just breath, following the most beautiful rhythm of life, your heart beat, within it the Morse code of truth, one beat after other, the steps of your path painted as a road-map for you to just follow, unfolding effortlessly in front of every step.
But don't dwell on the meaning of each of those steps, some will make no sense, but you will know within that they are as necessary as those which do make sense.
After a while you will be mesmerized by the beauty within, simplicity in plan and direction unfolded. Trust in truth, such shall turn to love, perhaps you will feel for the first time in your life, your love, selfish beautiful love of self, as we have been bestowed yet not many had privilege to embrace.

[Kristy_K]

Once I accepted who I was then I just followed my feelings.

So far there have been no regrets.

[pamela_a]

I'm reminded of something I read early in my journey.

"Don't transition unless you NEED to transition. But if you NEED to transition don't let anything stop you."

The answer to your question is entirely up to you. What do you NEED to do about it?

[Bree-asaurus]

I'm reminded of something I read early in my journey.

"Don't transition unless you NEED to transition. But if you NEED to transition don't let anything stop you."

The answer to your question is entirely up to you. What do you NEED to do about it?

This is basically how it was for me... I was going to kill myself... and I thought: "What can I do to NOT kill myself?"

The answer was to be myself. And that was where my transition started. Once you decide that you need to transition, it gets easier... because then you can start figuring out what you can do in your current situation to begin transition.

But until you get to the point where you KNOW you need to transition, there's not much to do.

(I'm not saying you need to get to the point of suicide... just that you need to get to the point where you KNOW you NEED to transition)


"Is knowledge enough? Is transition unavoidable?"

You have to figure that out for yourself.

[Kathryn Martin]

Much of what I would have said has been said, however there are a few things I would like to add. A good friend of mine who is unequivocally TS and who was diagnosed many, many years ago determined for herself, that she could not transition for a variety of reasons. The adage that you either transition or kill yourself is in my view nonsense, because if your are a human being in control of your faculties and your life, then sometimes a personal sacrifice we make can show a way to live with the condition without transitioning. However, that is not easy, and is in many ways a constant struggle.

If you have made the determination that transition is your path to go, then you start planning. So many of us, stumble through their transition like a child on a rough cobblestone street, ending up with faceplants etc, which is not really something you would like to do. Just yesterday, I think I read a post from someone whose impending transition plans were discussed at the local Nappa store and now she wonders how to get the genie back in the bottle. Having gone through transition between August 2010 and now (from the first visit to the psychologist to SRS) I would leave you with a couple of guiding principles:

1. Do not come out to anyone until you are ready to; I spend almost seven months drafting my coming out letter, reworking it many times. When the time came I sent this letter with some info on transexualism to over 450 people which formed my social and professional circle. Keep control of your message so that it is your positive and confident message not what other people speculate and giggle about that gets out there. I cannot stress enough how important I believe it is to be extremely discreet with this. Once you are out, who cares but if the first message gets out the wrong way, you will forever struggle to recover from that.

2. Recruit some allies and friends early on to monitor the situation with you, help you dress appropriately (not so much what you like but what women your age and circumstances would wear = cannot stress this enough because your clothing will either be a distraction from or a support of who you are, there is no in between). We are all emotional during this time, so someone keeping the pulse is important. I preferred non TS persons for this because I wanted an entirely sober and non partisan assessment.

3. Always, and this is ALWAYS keep your head high your shoulders back and smile. People are desperately looking for clues to follow. Understand that this is very strange and unknown territory for everyone in your surrounding. People find it hard to know how to behave so they are looking for clues. Smile again, and again, forget about your struggling past, you can scowl and be sad when you are on your own, but when you are in public with others you smile. They will take this as positive as you mean it and they will follow your lead. My success in transition hung on this.

4. Plan A, B, C, D, E have all to be in place. Make sure you have your resources lined up, both human and financial, be prepared for things to go sideways at any time and have a plan in place to deal with that. I spent a lot of time working out how and what could fail, and was able to deal with much because I had at least thought about it once. For instance, someone found my blog and somehow put two and two together (I was writing under a pseudonym at the time) and told my professional partners. It led to bringing my time table forward by six months to deal with it. It meant coming out six months earlier and transitioning personally and starting a new office all at the same time.

For me, I knew that all plans are bound to fail, but having spent the time to develop them and thinking about possible outcomes and how to approach those, I was able to be very flexible and easily adaptable to whatever came my way.

I wish you all the best for your path whichever it may be.

[Pamela Kay]

Yes, that was me Kathryn. (The parts store? really?)

Elizabethamy, It's not just that you're telling those you really, really, trust but your trusting everyone they trust too. Some of whom you would probably not trust even though they do. It's definitely true that once the genie is out there is no putting it back in the bottle.

As far as transitioning, only you can decide how bad you need it or if you need it. I had never felt right about myself and it had tormented me all my life because I never felt I was good enough as a man and couldn't or wouldn't admit who or what I was. When I did admit it, it was like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders and I started therapy to verify my own feelings and to try and understand them. I have since came out to my wife and a few trusted family memers, and started hormones and transition as soon as I could. I realized there are fewer days ahead than there are behind in my life and I want to be happy and myself for the rest of my life. I've lived too many years unhappy to go on that way any longer.

I look at it as having something medically wrong with me for nearly all my life and never being able to get it diagnosed. Then one day you find out what is wrong with you and there is a way to heal it but with a few side effects. I chose the healing instead of living with my pain any longer. This will lead to my wife and I seperating and then divorcing, probably loosing family and friends, and more drama for awhile in my life. I will be myself from now on though and I won't have to live with being someone I'm not. That is worth it to me, it may not be worth it for you.

Not everyone can chose to transition, or are able too. Only you can make that decision.

[morgan51]

A very dear friend said to me don't do anymore than you have to. This is entirely your decision if you are indecisive talk with somone with expierience and perhaps a therapist can help you work thru it. Best of luck to you on your journey. I know first hand these are difficult decisions that affect many.

[Diane Elizabeth]

I reiterate what the others have said. I have been going thru my transition since 10 Jan 2010. Thats when I faced the facrs that I was TG and had to transition. It took me over 16 months of planning and growing to come out to my family. My SO knew way back when I started. I just came out to my mother and sisters. My next step is to come out at work. I am tying it in with a planned vacation in July. However, that may have to be stepped up sooner than later. After you have your planned schedule of events be prepared for time schedules to change. Life happens and sometimes we have to work our plans around others to accomplish what we set out to do. Good luck. someone is always here for you. As they say in the Motel 6 commercial. "We'll leave the light on for you".

[Kaitlyn Michele]

For people that "need to transition", its often transition or wishing to die...
I don't think that's nonsense at all Kathryn...there are WAY to many suicides and attempts to just brush it off.
Some of us don't have that depth of despair, but others clearly do...

Otherwise your advice is terrific and your tips are very achievable in the real world

my only addition would be....... MEET SOME TS WOMEN....MEET SOME TS WOMEN.... this is sooooo helpful.....there is nothing like eye contact..looking at someone and experiencing the reality of this...

+++++++++++++++
in the end, there is no rule that you must transition...

But understand the GID is not going away, and in my experience the more you invest in maleness the worse it gets...
Although that's a stark concept, many people do suck it up and somehow get through it..whether its gonna "get you" in the end is something to fear as well...the feeling that its too late is common among many of us as we grow older..

Many of us say "i wouldn't wish this feeling on my worst enemy"...if you've suffered the bad dysphoria you know exactly what i'm talking about....Why this feeling hits, why it hits when it does i have no idea...

I have found if you really really really feel you can't transition...you need to do anything you can to avoid this feeling.....the problem is i don't how or i would have done it myself!

[Nigella]

Look within yourself and you will find the answer, what you do, when you do it, how you do it will be revealed when YOU are ready.

[Raynefall]

As most everyone else has said only you can figure out what is next! There are multiple things you can do which is why this is tough. Having the knowledge of what is to come should you decide to start the transition process is key. You should learn the costs, the surgeons and everything that will happen to you during the process. I can stand here and firmly say that I have a good grasp on what I am expecting. I feel that the knowledge of what is to come helped me to make an educated decision on my part. While I have not even started the process (for monetary reasons) I am ready to.

Now the first step is deciding if you HAVE to transition. Others have mentioned the thought and possible actions of suicide due to this. That is a serious situation and needs to be dealt with. But if you are fine with who you are then transition may not be needed. I personally feel I need it. The fact that when I think about not being able to transition I truly get depressed over it. So that is up for you to find out in your own time.

Best of luck to you no matter what you decide!

[Traci Elizabeth]

The best thing you can do for yourself is to find a Psychiatrist in your area and start therapy.

[Julia_in_Pa]

Elizabeth,

I always knew something was wrong and medical tests confirmed that long ago.
For me it was a driving and panicked feeling of death unless I took action to correct how I was living.

Once you have worked out in your mind who and what you are you begin the process of making decisions to either sit on the sidelines or move forward in correcting what needs to be corrected.
There is no clear cut answer because everyone is different and will follow their own path.
For those that must transition I will quote Yoda " Do or do not, there is no try ".


Julia

[Kaz]

For those that must transition I will quote Yoda " Do or do not, there is no try ".
Julia

I have just got to point out that wasn't this 'fiction'? Love the Yoda character as I do, to quote him in a discussion about really understanding who you are seems a little... well wrong, unless it is a metaphor... and I can accept that... maybe I have got the post wrong...

There is substantial psychological evidence of the benefits of slow transition and 'trying'... committing to life changing things is a big event not to be undergone lightly... :battingeyelashes:

Just want to present a balanced view...

[KellyJameson]

Being TS confronts a person with a paradox because what you choose to do is in many ways not a choice at all but a recogniton of being TS and reaction to the recognition instead of a reaction to the forces of GID without recognition. It is a movement from being a puppet to being the puppet master.

Instead of thinking about being TS as an all or nothing, black or white experience where you are TS or you are not TS, approach it like you would the volume control on your television where the intensity of GID is different for each person like the different possible settings on the volume control

If you have ever entered a room where the television was blaring and you had to cover your ears and yell at someone to turn the damn thing down now or you are going to through it out the window this would be GID at it's worse and you are on your way to transition to save what is left of your sanity.

For others it is an annoying hum in the background that leaves them irritable but not suicidal and they find coping mechanisms without surgery.

The tragedy is when someone should transition to save what is left of their mind and life but cannot and they spiral into deeper and deeper despair, many not even realizing they have gender dysphoria

There is a thing called the happiness index and I try to think in these terms to measure where my own " volume control " is set at, how badly am I suffering and what do I need to do about it. How far do I have to change my body to quiet the noise in my head.

I have known some who dress 24/7 and are happy and others who have transitioned. You will have to test the waters to learn where you are at and what works for you. If you can afford therapy that in my opinion is the first place to start.

I personally believe we are born predisposed to having and adopting a female identity and within every crossdresser is a little bit of TS so like a volume control it depends where you fall on this continuum and this will decide how you are shaped by it and how you shape it.

It is a dance between you and yourself because you are trying to learn who you are beyond the appearances of physical reality while changing and building a new physical reality for yourself.

Even though for myself I'm beginning to form strong opinions about GID these are of course only my opinions, each person must find their own words to describe their internal world.

Happiness is not a constant, it must be searched for and as soon as it is aquired it begins to slip away. GID is an obstacle to happiness that must be overcome just as we would fight a disease to once again gain happiness.

The difference is that GID is not a sickness or disease but what we are and so can be much more difficult to contend with than if our bodies were sick. A disease imposes itself on us just as GID has in that we did not choose it but it is us and not separate like a cancer that can be cut out. We must transform ourselves to the degree that our identity demands of us.

Hope my words do not cause confusion, this has been an incredibly difficult experience to understand myself and I often feel like I do not have a clue to what I'm talking about, I give myself headaches sometimes trying to understand what has and is happening to me.

[Julia_in_Pa]

The time frame it took me to transition from the first attempt to the 2nd and successful attempt was five years.
That is what one calls taking it slowly,
Because of that I went into panic mode because I had to transition.

Remember as I again quote Yoda that for those that MUST transition it is do or do not there is no try.
To try and fail to those that MUST transition is for the majority of us a death sentence.

To those that believe that transitioning is an option that they might do or possibly will happen in the future needs to take a very long sober look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are really TS.

One transitions because they are out of options to not transition.

Remember this.


Julia





I have just got to point out that wasn't this 'fiction'? Love the Yoda character as I do, to quote him in a discussion about really understanding who you are seems a little... well wrong, unless it is a metaphor... and I can accept that... maybe I have got the post wrong...

There is substantial psychological evidence of the benefits of slow transition and 'trying'... committing to life changing things is a big event not to be undergone lightly... :battingeyelashes:

Just want to present a balanced view...

[LeaP]

Tonight I ask: now that I know that I am TS, and I accept it (though my wife doesn't and no one else has a clue), what do I do?

Throughout this journey, numerous threads on this forum and elsewhere, as well as in my mind and heart, have separated the "who/what are you?" from the "what do you have to do about it?"

... I don't think my heart has known or does know what I should do. Is knowledge enough? Is transition unavoidable? What has it been/is it like for others? Does the action automatically match the knowledge?


I value the self-knowledge. For me it provides no help in answering the question. My therapist thinks - and I agree - that it's of worth to have someone else know you, however. I have come out to a few people and it does help. It feels like clinging to a rather small branch, though, or holding someone's hand when you're really sick. It's comforting to have them there, but it doesn't necessarily help you heal.

If anything, the knowledge makes a decision more difficult. That is, should you decide not to transition, it will be in the face of that knowledge. So it's that much more important that you drive the decision (i.e., not your wife) and that you really are prepared to accept the consequences either way.

I'm gauging how I feel day-by-day. For me there are exactly three questions: Can I stand to remain as-is? Do I transition (perhaps with no-one believing in me)? Or do I take the final option by choice, which is a little different than the "driven to it" conception.

Unfortunately, your wife's ultimatums are making things very difficult, as if you do not transition and remain with her, you will have no coping outlets at all. That situation does not sound sustainable. I wonder if she understands all the possible outcomes.

[elizabethamy]

pro-wife response. We have talked all weekend. Life must be based on hope and love. If I have some control over my life, and a wife who loves me and wants to go forward with me, then forward we shall go, and I owe it to her to understand just how shocking and difficult this is for her. On the other hand, if I am deluded and am instead clinging to a raft in a river that's heading to a waterfall, then I owe it to her to say that I am helpless in its face.

This is the point of this thread and of my OP question, which I realize might not be answerable ... but I value all your responses and am thinking very hard about all this right now (and seeing therapist...)

e.

[Kathryn Martin]

On the other hand, if I am deluded and am instead clinging to a raft in a river that's heading to a waterfall, then I owe it to her to say that I am helpless in its face.e.

If you are anywhere close to this point then you need a counselor or therapist. I must have misunderstood your OP because I thought that you had moved past this point and were confident in who you are.

For my spouse the ultimate question was whether I was the human being whom she married or if I had changed as person. Understanding that Kathryn was whom she had married under a different name she affirmed for herself that I was the person she wanted to grow old with. Given your comment you have a great start to now go down a common road, if rough at times but it is also beautiful.

[elizabethamy]

kathryn, thanks. I've reached the point (thanks to a TON of therapy) where I know a great deal, perhaps what I need to know, about WHO I am. I've always considered the question of what to do about it separate -- that is, there are TS people who haven't transitioned, don't transitioned (I know some think those folks are not truly TS, but...). So am I one of those, or am I, like others who have posted here, someone who will clearly NEED to transition (that's the raft in the river) and therefore am just deluding myself and my wife? I know your wife stayed with you all the way. Mine might, but who knows? Thus my wish to know now. But -- and I really respect so much of what you've written on the forum --- are you saying that for a TS, transition is simply inevitable?

elizabethamy

[Bree-asaurus]

kathryn, thanks. I've reached the point (thanks to a TON of therapy) where I know a great deal, perhaps what I need to know, about WHO I am. I've always considered the question of what to do about it separate -- that is, there are TS people who haven't transitioned, don't transitioned (I know some think those folks are not truly TS, but...). So am I one of those, or am I, like others who have posted here, someone who will clearly NEED to transition (that's the raft in the river) and therefore am just deluding myself and my wife? I know your wife stayed with you all the way. Mine might, but I'd wager against that prospect if indeed I'm headed for transition. Thus my wish to know now. But -- and I really respect so much of what you've written on the forum --- are you saying that for a TS, transition is simply inevitable?

elizabethamy

You are asking questions that only you have the answer to. No one here can tell you what you are or what you need to do.

You need to take things one step at a time... keep looking within and finding out what you need to do to make it through to the next day. In time you will find out if you need to transition or not.

[Inna]

Hi Elizabethamy, what you are describing within your feelings is quite familiar of a state of mind transsexauls do experience. Not all will fall under this condition but many will, and everyone despite the approach is seeking to KNOW what future will bring, :), but such shall remain an enigma for future is not here yet and past have gone into oblivion.

You are here and now! Your heart speaks loudly yet it is up to you to listen and follow. Mind shall do absolutely everything to explain, maneuver and position for the best scenario available for calculation, however, these are not truths but mere conditions of state of understanding.

If I reasoned my transsexuality I would still be the unthinkable male avatar of days gone by, manikin, marionette in the hands of conformity and reason.

I am not saying to forgo the intellect entirely, yet what I have experienced was to walk blindly into the inferno of inevitability, scared but eager to see her emerge despite all the price I would need to bear. And price I have paid, pain oozing from every pore of my body, emotions so deep and scary, equal to stories of hell and eternal damnation, yet I am here, more complete then ever, capable of loving unconditionally.

And now I know as fact, that I have been awakened into reality of truth, and pain and joy, a dynamic duo in a dance of life, fulfill my spirit which soars high celebrating freedom.

But, your life, remains yours, and you not anyone else, can walk along the path.

Your sis, Inna

[Kathryn Martin]

Elizabethamy

I actually do not believe that every TS inevitably transitions. As I mentioned above I have a friend who decided for herself not to transition despite the enormous burden this placed on her. The alternative to transition or die is a false alternative. Human beings have the capacity to sacrifice even their innermost needs to other aspirations they have in their life. It is hard to live such a life but it is possible and can be done. Part of your life will be pure unadulterated survival and sometimes it is touch and go whether you succeed. Until I decided to transition until age 56 this was my life. Many will disagree and say that you might not be TS if you can stand it not to transition. What can I say:Peace:

[elizabethamy]

I am tortured by one simple fact: that I have to move in a month. And I either move with my wife across the country to a new life in our old town with jobs and kids and relatives and friends and the whole scenario, or I walk away from it all.

If I had another six months, a year, I would simply wait and see what my heart is saying, stop all the questioning and the anxiety and the endless "elizabethamywantstoknow" threads...it would be lovely and natural just to let it come.

But that's not my fate. Decision is now. Therapist says, listen to your heart (sounds familiar!); if you don't know, your move across the country is only a move, a job is only a job, nothing is a life sentence or a death sentence. Just try to keep head and heart in alignment...I know I'm pushing too hard too soon for someone to show me the dramatic revelation. And Bree, you're right, no one can do that for me. As quickly as things have moved in the past six months, I might know what to do even in a few days or weeks. It might become clear in time for this decision, or not. Regardless, I glean much from all your comments and insights. Each perspective helps me piece together the mystery just a little more. Keep those cards and letters coming! You are wonderful!

elizabethamy

[Bree-asaurus]

I am tortured by one simple fact: that I have to move in a month. And I either move with my wife across the country to a new life in our old town with jobs and kids and relatives and friends and the whole scenario, or I walk away from it all and say I need to transition.

If I had another six months, a year, I would simply wait and see what my heart is saying, stop all the questioning and the anxiety and the endless "elizabethamywantstoknow" threads...it would be lovely and natural just to let it come.

But that's not my fate. Decision is now. Therapist says, listen to your heart (sounds familiar!); if you don't know, your move across the country is only a move, a job is only a job, nothing is a life sentence or a death sentence. Just try to keep head and heart in alignment...I know I'm pushing too hard too soon for someone to show me the dramatic revelation. And Bree, you're right, no one can do that for me. As quickly as things have moved in the past six months, I might know what to do even in a few days or weeks. It might become clear in time for this decision, or not. Regardless, I glean much from all your comments and insights. Each perspective helps me piece together the mystery just a little more. Keep those cards and letters coming! You are wonderful!

elizabethamy

Ok... well you can't make a decision to move out on your own and leave your family behind when you don't have all the information yourself.

If you're not ready to begin transition, you're not ready. If you move with your wife and kids and job, maybe things will work out in the future if you decide to transition with them. If not, there's always another apartment, another house, another job and as callus as it sounds, there is always someone else out there who will love you for who you REALLY are.

[Inna]

I don't quite know if I truly should, but then, I am blonde now so don't hold me to it, :o

As I read your responses, I can't dismiss the main theme and loud connotation it carries. You are not asking of weather you should, but you ask so that you hope to hear someone tell you: "You do it exactly this way and as a result, this is exactly what is going to happen" does it sound familiar?

I may be totally wrong, but then, I may be right, if later feels true, then You are already in Transition Babe, weather you move, stay put, dwell or not, you already answered the question at hand! Moving will not make you different, deciding to halt hormones or further quest will not make you forget what you already know. And hesitation to take the stride forward is sooooo normal and scary as hell, as everyone who had gone before you can attest to such.

And transition does not have to be as grave as sometimes I put it, as you can read Kathryns account of her own transition, she had fortune of handling transition with feet firmly planted in reality of daily life.


This Is Important:

During my therapy, with phd, psychologist of 35 years and transgender specialty at that, she answered one of my questions I needed to know. I asked of what is the percentage of success of those who decided NOT to transition and remained fixed within their own life as it were. Her response was rather direct, she said, that out of hundreds of patients along her entire span of practice, those who had decided to remain status quo for family, job, etc, those who kept in contact with her, NON were ever truly satisfied by their decission and happiness, what ever it is, seemed illusive at best.

[elizabethamy]

Inna...smartest blonde ever...along with Bree...there goes the stereotype!

something else I want to say...all my life I have tried to demonstrate control, mastery of my own fate. Yet after a string of adventures that ended badly, I began to ask that question: what is wrong with me? I'm not just a little weird, there's something really not right. And I sank and sank and sank. Depression, suicidal thoughts, porn, then crossdressing...for the first time ever I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, why I was doing it, or what was happening to me. So I gave myself over to letting the path just flow, and it flowed to constant crossdressing, then to this site, then to therapy and the quest to find answers about myself, finally to the revelation/acceptance that I am -- I still find it hard to say -- transgendered. transsexual, a woman inside.

and I have traveled all this way by essentially giving up control, and now I must take control again of the steering wheel (sewing machine? clothing store? appropriate feminine metaphor?)...take control and make this decision, at this moment...so in writing this thread, and others like it, am I looking for someone to tell me what to do? Looking for a map or a plan?

I am happier now than I have been since this "crash" began...there is a part of me that wants so badly to believe there is a plan for me that someone can just say...and then there's the other part that knows it doesn't work that way...and the old male part that so decisively drove the train off the tracks last time it was time for big decisions...this is where I am...Inna...

...now who's the blonde?

elizabethamy

[Inna]

Ahhhhh, I breath sigh of relief, as I was almost sure I got you, but thanks for affirming what I felt.

As you have experienced beauty in the path unfolding in front of you when you did give up control, such should be the eye opener and pursuit of control should had been a distant memory. But as humans, and our over-sized and overemphasized cerebral cortex loves to get in between all things considered and does its own dance of ownership.

Let go once again, and let the truth unfold trough path you are already familiar with. Ask what is next, and if you hear nothing, then simply you are not ready to hear it, but then when response is clear, however weird or unfitting, such is the path you should embrace.

I do not speak of this from some scholastic point of view, but as a humble girl who listens to her heart, and follows (almost always :facepalm: you know I am still just a human) the faint dialog of the universe keeping miracles unfold in front of her feet.

I BELIEVE!

[Pink Person]

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You can't always get what you want, unless you always want what you get. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Don't buy the cow when you can get the milk for free, unless you want hamburger. Hamburger is never free.

In my opinion, transgender people are born with bodies that are sufficiently good. If you want or need improvements then you should do what you can to get them. However, you should never think that you are not good enough the way you are because that is a self-destructive lie. You are always good enough the way that you are.

[elizabethamy]

well, pink person, thanks for the series of cliches that appear to be in the form of insults which, in my (temporary) blondeness, I am not smart enough to understand. If I thought I was "good enough the way I am," I sure wouldn't be here posting this kind of stuff, right?

[Aprilrain]

The, "what to do" part is rather simple if not cheep. Transition. My therapist said its not so much about knowing you have made the right decisions as it is being able to live with the decisions you make.

[Pink Person]

Oh FFS. Insults? Really? I advised you to temper your discontent. Have it your way.
Maximize your drama. That will probably work better.

Transgender people who conceptualize themselves as being bad and needing improvement are flirting with disaster. I merely suggested that you should think of yourself as being good and perhaps wanting or needing improvement. It's a healthier perspective.

[elizabethamy]

my apologies for misunderstanding.

[AmandaM]

Thanks for this thread. I'm confused by the whole thing. I am extremely jealous of beautiful women, I wish I was one. I wish I could turn into them when I see them. When I dress I must do everything possible to look like a woman. I believe I should have been one. I do suffer from depression, and have for 25 years. But I don't feel like I'll commit suicide if I don't transition. I'd like too, but don't want to look like a man in a dress. I always kick myself for not having the guts to try when I was young. But I can't see myself as an old woman either. It's like my TS feelings come and go. They're not pounding on me 100% all the time. And I think stress makes them go up. I guess that places me somewhere between TV and TS. I've always known I've been different than regular CDers, this thread is showing me, maybe, I'm a little different from TS's too.

[ReineD]

Elizabethamy, you only have one month, you say.

You should take 30-60 minutes every day in total solitude, empty your mind, and meditate. During this time, focus on your breath and if any thought enters your mind, acknowledge it, then let it pass, and start again on the business of having no thoughts.

[elizabethamy]

Reine,
I think that's wonderful advice and I wil try to abide by it. It's just going to take some time.

Thank you all for so much help, even the flippant pink person, whose wit I appreciate no matter where it might be directed...

e.

[Inna]

Hi hon, step by step you are getting closer! As you point out the details, and speak of letting go control in place of wife taking such over, I can see how hard it is to understand what letting go really means. And it isn't CONTROL of relationship in respect of others, that is way too easy!!!!!!!!! Giving up control is much deeper and even scarier then superficial interaction with others, it is simply "How You Perceive YOU in YOU! It really has nothing to do with outside world. It is letting go of all the wisdom we tool, and following the faint yet true whisper of the heart, which speaks the language of SELF.

I know it can not be done in a day, nor week nor month, quite honestly most will never get there, but few who were able to give up them selves to the controll of the universe can dwell in this realm. To Know You Stride with every once of natural truthful yOU, is woderful, and others who like to reposition you to their standard, quickly realize that your truth is much grander then the needs of your ego.

Now, said that, your love towards your wife and family will not change in the light of getting truthful about your self, it is their view of you, the Body of a man and texture of a father the man, will certainly do.
Your wife when suggesting a more masculine bracelet, sees a struggling transgender person in the body of masculine man and wants to help with every bit of love she has for you, listen to her, listen to her heart, and most importantly, talk, talk, talk, and don't be afraid to share your true self with her entirely.

I remember the therapy sessions, and my surprise to therapists question when I talked about my fathers cold and non-supportive stance, she asked; "did you cry as you do when letting all your truths come out, do you share with him in your pain and anguish", I did not!!!!!! and quickly realized that for some people they have a hard time understanding our pain when looking at a resolute, and intellectual explanations of who we are instead of who we really are, broken, painful, guilt ridden, angry women within the prison of masculine entrapment.