Face of Transition

[Inna]

As I am transitioning I find two distinct yet overlapping dimensions. One, of the physical transition, body morphing into that of female, and the other, spiritual dimension of becoming.

Everyone knows the first, all the ingredients that come into play, but the spiritual seems very individual, it is the essence of who she is.

As I have read another thread titled "What does change", I thought of how my perception of life and the world had changed and grown.

In fact when I look back at life gone by in darkness, pretended life, corrupted life, I find hard to relate to the person once driving this avatar while occupying her territory.
I have a hard time comprehending the facets of his motives, his blind and fearful assumptions, his outlook on life and connections with all that surrounded him.

In the essence, "I DON'T KNOW HIM" I am completely and utterly different. Loving life despite the hiccups on the way.

I was truly born again, not once more, but born into the world rightfully and with pure anew heart.

So, WHAT DOES CHANGE? well.............simply Everything!

[melissaK]

Thoughtful and introspective as always Inna.

But why the third person references to two selves - her and his? Wouldn't 'me' and a reference to the past you and the present you be more accurate? Are the his and her pronouns just a convenience to shorten-up the discussion, or was there a time you really had some inner split going on? You do close it up with declarations of "I" so that sounds like what ever internal dissonance you had is over.

[Inna]

Great observation and pointient question, yes, I have experienced lie as HE with Her in denial, He, was the realm of survival, the more I went on with life the more HE became overbearing. Even when She was surfacing for brief moments in front of the mirror, He was the Baron.
Then when my subconscious exploded with gazers of immense proportion when HIS resolve to keep HER at bay gave way, SHE took over in gradual becoming.

He was a lie, a pigment of forced existence, now like a bad nightmare, over and only faint memory of his dictatorial rule remains.

She is for once free and whole, one gender, one body, one soul, all at once.............such is what I got to know Happiness, simply being ONE!

[Rianna Humble]

I would not dream of pretending to speak for other members, but I too sometimes make the distinction between what he did and what she does. For me, the male self was a persona that I adopted to try to cope with the world around me, it was not the real me.

[ColleenA]

Melissa,
When my BFF refers to her prior life (which itself is rare), she avoids pronouns as much as possible and does talk as if it is someone else entirely.

She also tries to avoid referencing her prior name, almost as if it were "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." And she shared that name with her mother's brother -- she avoids the name so much, he only gets called "Uncle."

[Barbara Ella]

I do not know yet how many have had the same experience in that I grew up all male with no thoughts given to a female presence in any way whatsoever, so I lived a male life for 65 years with no regrets during that time. In the past 17 months I have grown into the woman I am. WHY? I have not a clue why, but a lot or introspection and self analysis have shown glimpses of this leaning. I harbor no ill will to this previous life. It was still me. Now I have gone from one complete me, into a dual hell, into a final one me. I am happier than I have ever been, but i still recall this male with fond regards. He did well in life, with his family, and himself. But it is best not to dwell on the past. I have enough difficulty standing up to the rigors of this new face, which you call transition. I still do not know whether I can face it. As Melissa pointed out, there are things that just need to be taken care of before myself, regardless of the pain. I have only suffered this for a short time relative to so many, but it is no less daunting to face.

Barbara

[KellyJameson]

There is an interesting historical relationship between spirituality and transsexuality.

I see in my own life how my spirituality clearly came out of my transsexuality and who I am spiritually would not have been possible without the transsexuality so the most precious gift given to me because of my transsexuality is my spirituality and I was born spiritual just as I was born transsexual.

The two are synonymous with each other.

It has given me a "knowing" that is completely absent in cisgenders. I look at them and realize they just do not "get it" but now I realize their brain structure makes it impossible.

The dichotomy between the outside and the experienced inside shaped me into a truth seeker and my spiritual growth paralleled my deepening understanding of transsexuality.

Our brains are designed to perform many tasks and have many potentialities and I think the transsexual brain has a unique potential to experience the spiritual and it is this unique sensitivity "as ability" that deepens the suffering.

We do not only suffer from the gender dysphoria but also because we have a capacity to suffer in ways foreign to others and it is in this capacity to suffer uniquely that the spirituality grows out of and makes the gender dysphoria much worse.

There is a relationship between the capacity to suffer in this specific way and gender dysphoria.

There is a form of callousness and obtuseness to cisgenders that is innate to being cisgendered that comes out of the design of their brain and it is also in this callousness and obtuseness that they do not suffer.

It took me a long time to understand this and I think it is felt subconsciously by those with the brain of a cisgender so adds to their fear of transsexuals.

They feel that transsexuals are spiritually different from them so foreign.

For me transsexuality is a spiritual quest toward and driven by the need to align external truth with internal truth that places you on the path to and opens you up to spiritual experiences.

It was seeing how my spirituality aligned so closely with other transsexuals across time that I came to accept that what I am is designed into me.

It was both science and the spiritual that confirmed for me that I was born this way.

In my opinion the spiritual diamension of becoming aligned with the external changes to the body is natural.

They may happen in different proportions or stages but it is difficult to imagine not experiencing transsexuality as a spiritual experience.

I think one reason I have survived it as well as I have comes from this.

For me they are completely interdependant.

[melissaK]

I find the split self references more interesting than you might realize.

Buried in my posts are accounts if my 2005-2006 mental health breakdown when I split into quite distinct disdociated personalities, multiple personality disorder. The split was much along lines you all probably find very understandable. A female who wanted to transition and in fact started me on HRT, and a male who wanted nothing to do with it. And a couple others. A messy difficult time in my life. Took a lot of work to be "me" again.

And I'm quite afraid of ever being that split again. I refer to myself as me, and don't indulge discussing myself any other way. During the stress of coming out I have been really cognizant of every self comment of mine that's dissociative. I am sure I've over reacted to some of my ordinary behaviors out of that vigilance.

Being TS minded and short on self acceptance has given me some interesting side trips on the road to transition. :)

And Kelly. I agree about the spirituality. I think Dallas Denny said something similar once too.

[Inna]

I must say, "brilliantly eloquent" Kelly, as it resonates with my experience...

[noeleena]

Hi,

What would happen then , with out the him , there would be no her, why seperate the two. why even think there is two .

my name's express's myself , funny or strange as that may be , you see there is no male or female as far as im concerned, never was or will be, though for practical reasons there were noel express's my maleness & noeleena express's my femaleness, though noel is female any way. or expressed differently .

You see with out that male / female detail going on & they both complimete each other help each other yet are both the same & the one together, now you try & seperate them it just cant happen, one can not live with out the other ,

The bottom line is one with out the other both are ...dead.... you see even within our bodys Testosterone & Estogen our bodys need them both, yes at different levels, & theres many other details we need, the male side can not get away from the female , no matter what we do or think,.......something to think about, or maybe ...not...

...noeleena...

[Inna]

Hi Noeleena, I hear your thoughts, and by all means you feel and know who you are. Serenity is a state when all aspects come to one point of single expression and for you gender really seems not present or at least its expression not important to who you are.

My point however is that within societal perspective most if not all see us ( the Avatar we occupy) as a particular gender and my own observation as well as intrinsic feeling was and is of one dominant gender.

As a little boy, I felt entirely female within and all my hopes and dreams were based on one day becoming a WOMAN, little did I know how tough it will turn out to be.

As science points to the brain being gender coded at birth so does the nature of gender role within human species.

I truly believe that most who can not get to the passable reality of full visual transition, will excuse their inability with genderfluid markings. This however, is my own take and observation and please don't take it the wrong way, it is perfectly OK, that path is yours to walk.

But if you look at your avatar picture here at the forum all I see is the female presentation, why would you want to present female if you feel entirely in between with gender markings non existent??????

[GabbiSophia]

Inna your OP is true in a sense everything does change.. in ones own mind.. in life we do nothing but influence the things around us. We can gain a desired result the more we influence those things. So in others transitions I do see everything changing but clearly they did not change. They are still them just preseption of them have changed.. as you say there avatar changed.. but to be honest did they change or just truelly understand what they actually liked or enjoyed?? I have to relate this to my own life from this point because everyone exp is their own and as I try to understand myself I look at others and try to understand their exp through only their words (tough to do but we all do it to a point)

So as I examine my life and understand it I have already been on a journey of likes and loves. I got rid of things in my life I didn't like ..i.e. friends who weren't friends, jobs I hated showing up to, people who I just didn't want to be around. The one thing in my life though that I couldn't get a grip on has come out as a gender question. I didn't even know that it really was a question till a few months ago but I opened pandora's box and now I have to deal with it. I am seeing a therapist for this because I could no longer understand it or work through it on my own. SOOOO ( long winded to answer your question sorry) The avatar that I use is the one I thought that everyone here would want to see of me. I read the exp of others and grabed only pieces of their exp and made them my own. I found a peice here and there and related to it and made me think I was x. When really I am x because of all me own exp. I do not hate where I have been it has made me who I am. I don't regrete a dang thing as I have had a lot of fun on the trip and figure I will have tons more going forward. Though the avatar could change maybe to a duck or a fish (as they are the two things I love) I just haven't changed it from what I though this society would want to see. Plus at the time I wanted justification to present something and I liked that people liked it. The avatar is just a reflection of what I want people to see. I have come to terms though with the fact that I don't care what society says ..to a point.. I acknowledge what I like but I chose not to do anything ... I like to chew tobacco but it will kill me so I chose not to do it.. I use that for the thought process.. some people a quick to judge and label me but I just over look them. I would hope that if anywhere this would be a place labels don't get put ... but then again society dictates that they do .. I just don't care .. what I see in the mirror and what i go through is mine.. and people will say but why show that in your avatar if you don't want society to judge .. because I don't care if I did I would have nothing there .. just my three cents..

[morgan51]

Inna Thankyou for your beautiful insight and words you speak my heart so often. m