The mental block

[Marleena]

I've read quite a few posts from members where they seem to remember early childhood memories even back to the age of 3. I guess I'm not one of the lucky ones (or maybe I am lucky in a different way). You see I've blocked out so much and it's only begun to come back in bits and pieces. I guess it was "survival mode" for me. Some memories ( not gender related) I thought were just dreams and I had to ask my older sister (when she was alive) if they were real. Most of the gender related memories that are coming back were triggered when I was told I was in denial and I started searching for answers.

Do you have the block, or are your memories clear?

[kimdl93]

I have fairly vivid recollections,from early childhood...most positive, but some not. I do tend to distrust my distant past recollections to some extent because memories are demonstrably unreliable.

[Ceri Anne]

I can't speak for your memories, but it sounds like you had a somewhat traumatic childhood. That could be whats responcible for the block. I have memories that go back to around 4, some are vague and others are very vivid. As for CD related memories, I was about 12 the first time I tried things on, and remember everything to the last detail. I only dressed every once in a while until about a year and a half ago when I was trying on one of my wifes dresses and something clicked. Been hooked ever since.

[Angela Campbell]

I can recall pretty well back to about 3 or 4 but before that I can only remember small instances, and not many. I can remember before I even went to kindergarden when my Mom used to babysit two girls from across the street and sometimes their mom would babysit me. I can remember wanting to wear the clothes they had and to have longer hair like they did. I remember asking when I was about 4 or 5 if I could be a girl and that is when I found out there was a problem.

[sandra-leigh]

I have never had a good "episodic memory". I remember concepts far far better than I remember events. If something was more than a couple of days ago, I have likely lost reference to it; I might remember more if reminded of it, or I might not. What happens does shape me, but I'm more likely to flash back to an impression than to be able to visualize it.

I think this is related to why I concentrate on "living through the experience" rather than on getting pictures.

[KellyJameson]

It can be very difficult to uncover the events of early childhood and for those whose parents are still alive they usually do not want to admit any behavior that could be considered non gender performing.

I think many people live without much thought or concern for their gender identity and it does not become an issue unless your emotional experiencing stands in such contrast to those you are told you are that you reject the label.

A transsexual must be born with the temperament to be a transsexual which is to say a female not aligned with the body they live in.

It is this mind, this brain that than lives in the world relating to others and in this relating forming an identity of who and what they are.

The mind is like a piece of glass that has the identity etched into it and once this is written onto the walls of the mind it is very difficult to erase.

Forcing the child to separate from this identity pushes the child into a dissociative state which I lived in for most of my childhood and early adult life.

I cannot intellectually point to my identity, you cannot find it intellectually with words but must access your emotional memory as feelings. Identity lives in emotions and feelings.

This is why dissociation works perfectly as a solution because it leaves the intellect intact but closes down the emotions so you live in a state of emotional numbness separate from identity as the emotional self.

The problem is the identity is there making its presence know, often in very eccentric,bizzare or destructive behavior.

The mind is set against itself as it comes from a intellectual dissociative unfeeling state to kill the emotions and feelings of identity that keep trying to be expressed.

You end up as two people living in one body at war with each other but it feels like one person because the other as identity is invisible to the intellectual mind so the person intellectually labels themself as sick,perverted,mentally ill ect..

They are labelling this emotional identity as something dangerous, corrupt and unhealthy setting up the patterns of self hate so common in the transsexual world.

The only way to unlock identity is to unlock your emotions and feelings.

Testosterone adds to the problem because it creates anxiety from the female brain structure not designed to utilize it in the amounts that wash over it.

You live with several forms of anxiety all twisted together but in a dissociative state of emotional numbness created by the original violation to identity that never stops but continues to be a trauma inducing and continuing violation.

A person does not have to remember wanting to be a girl because in their mind they are a girl so look in your childhood for eccentric or maladaptive behavior caused by this.

You may have played with boys because they were the only ones available but reflect back on how you related to them.

Did you feel like you belonged or were always an outsider?

If you were the leader did you make sure they were younger and smaller?

If you were a follower how did you follow?


Boys travel like pack animals in a tribe much like how wolfs create a hierarchy, but each memember still feels as part of that pack.

I would bet that there is not one person here that has ever felt like they were part of a boy wolf pack on the hunt for adventure. You may have travelled with them but you did not "bond" to the pack as group identity and association.

It is impossible for the transsexual brain to do this psychologically. You are you and boys are boys.

You see the evidence of this splashed all over the forum by reading how similar the childhoods are between most people here. Once I saw how similar my childhood has been to others I knew something was up.

I thought the childhood is what caused it but the childhood is what revealed the truth.

I was harmed by my childhood because of what preceeded my childhood which is being born not in alignment with my body as a brain not created as male but remaining female structured.

When you are born you immediately start to learn that you are "different" from boys and more like "girls" but not exactly like them either. You are something in-between and this has nothing to do with culture but is"felt" like a different energy in you compared to them.

Hormones and the brain create the emotional energy of behavior and relating.

It is very difficult to relate to boys as your equals and contemporaries. You would feel like you were never on an equal footing with other boys.

This comes from identity and also creates identity as female but the seeds were planted in the womb before you were born.

You must throw away the idea that all transsexual children what to play with dolls or identify as girls. It is actually possible for a transsexual child to avoid at all costs revealing to the world what they know to be true inside them. I know because I did this exact thing.

Toys do not automatically make the transsexual, it is much more nuanced than that.

Adults were extremely dangerous in my mind and I kept this hidden from them.

They will hide their identity if they think it is dangerous to reveal their feelings and beliefs.

Look at the emotional theme of your childhood, how you "felt" in relation to your world.

Imagine living your childhood over as a girl but having the exact same experinces you did. How would you feel about that? Because that is bascially what happened.

You live your childhood as an outsider which causes the dissociation because children are designed to belong to the group where there is safety but the identity requires that you withdraw from life to protect identity.

You may not withdraw physically but forming attachments with others is extraordinarily difficult unless they emotionally relate to you as female where they treat you like they treat other "girls" which is not in words but their behavior and treatment of and toward you.

Here is a question for you.

Ask yourself if you do not trust woman who treat you as a "boy/man" but you seem to gravitate toward woman who relate to you as a woman. This is the force that killed every relationship I have ever had with woman.

The more they related to me as male the more I pulled away and I would actually experience panic attacks and than end the relationship. I really thought I was crazy but it was just this identity asserting itself.

I am much more relaxed around women now that I do not have to protect my identity from them because I have brought this identity up into my conscious awareness.

Look in your childhood for this from friends of mothers or female teachers or any other female who related and treated you emotionally like the "girl" you were where they did not treat or relate to you emotionally as a boy.

It is in this treatment that you see the truth.

The evidence with be a thread woven through your life. It really is an amazing trip to discover this thing that has always been there.

I totally get this whole transsexul thing now and it makes perfect sense why people transition, how could they not ?

Those outside see transsexuals as sick and irrational but only those who have lived this identity will understand how very rational transitioning is.

There are many irrational reasons to transition but only one rational reason and it is called identity.

Each must discover what this means and where it is at inside them and how it has shaped their lives.

You will have to be willing to re experience the terror of childhood to uncover identity because gender dysphoria is terrifying to the childs mind.

Any child that lived this experience without adult assistance will need therapy as an adult because it seriously F..ks you up.

[sandra-leigh]

If you were the leader did you make sure they were younger and smaller?


I do not quite see how that fits ? Making sure your followers were younger and smaller would be associated with the male trait of finding ways to practice superiority.

When I was in elementary school, I played with younger kids; my teachers noticed and remarked on it in my report cards as my having poor social adjustment. (It appears I was passed over skipping grade 5 because of this very issue.) But I remember still why I did it: kids my age and older would often not play with me, and I knew kids often yearned to play with someone older, so I said to myself that I could be that older kid, willing to play with the younger ones. I didn't lead them, I invited them to indicate what they would like to do, and played with them, helping teach them and practice their skills. If my father, and my (older) sister and her friends were willing to play with me, then I could "pass that on" to younger kids. It was better to be useful and make myself available to other people rather than to be moping around about about how other people wouldn't make themselves available to me. Empathy, or The Golden Rule -- treating others the way I would have liked to have been treated myself.

[Marleena]

Interesting replies. What I am finding is that one memory leads to another and the missing pieces of the puzzle are beginning to fill up. Still anything before age 8 is still pretty much buried, gender related or not. I guess it could have been worse though, I could have been a Cybil with multiple personality disorder or even another Carrie.:D

On a side note.... my posting frenzy seems to feed off my GD. They seem to be directly related.

[KellyJameson]

Gender dysphoria is the conflict between identity and conflicting evidence that contradicts this identity as self experiencing and self image

The child will seek to control the environment to protect identity by dominating others who threaten them as "self"

Adults become dangerous if they do not support the childs identity where smaller children either will not behave in ways that challenges the childs identity or they wiil "respect" the childs need and acceptance of this identity. They will not attack the child for being the child.

Children tend to be more accepting than adults so allow for more psychological freedom for the child that is experiencing gender dysphoria and in this freedom the child can exist as identity so "be themselves" as the expression of gender.

Freedom becomes intensely important when you have an identity no one agrees with or tries to suppress and or change.

Also the brain is different from cis-gendered boys so each experiences the other as foreign or "different" but this is a very primal experience that provokes the flight or fight response in children.

It is also important to take note that there are different levels of attachment to identity where it is possible to change gender identity for some and not others. For some gender identity and the body they reside in is meaningless.

The level of attachment is decided by the brain so in these children identity is not a choice but a given. For them there is only one possible outcome.

It was very difficult for me to accept that some people did not think or care about identity because for me it has been everything.

This level of attachment is the critical problem and the determining factor in transitioning.

If you are not completely attached to your gender identity than you are not threatened by that which challenges it. Whether this is social relations or the reminders of your own body and image.

The power of attachment to identity is critical to understanding why there is so much variation between transsexuals regarding their need to transition.

Attachment to identity is everything. It is this attachment that makes people risk their lives.

The sickness of gender dysphoria has caused me incredible psychological instability because I was so attached to my identity as "self" while trying to push this identity outside of my head.

This experience is why I get scared for others when I think they may be going through what I have survived.

I see now exactly why people commit suicide to escape their own minds. There is a limit to how long a person can survive living this way unless they are able to consciously see what is happening inside their minds.

In my opinion transitioning is physical therapy for the transsexual. It repairs the problem of identity. This is why crossdressing works up to a point but also increases the gender dysphoria.

The mind finally sees the representation of reality as identity in the image reflected back to them in the mirror that they carried inside their mind since the first years of life.

Identity is not a want but an expression. You do not want to become something but want to bring that which already exists out into the world.

This is not about a man playing with fantasy and escapism but identity as self.

But the crossdressing is extremely painful because it is an illusion that actually attacks identity by driving home the message that the person is not in alignment with their "external reality" whether body or anything else. It is not just the body but all of physical reality.

Crossdressing makes the body even more foreign than it already is.

The transsexual has a love hate relationship with the clothes because the clothes caress and slap the face (identity) at the same time so you are given relief but also pain.

Crossdressing is risky in the face of pre existing gender dyshoria.

I needed the crossdressing to strip away the suppression and allow my identity to emerge but this of course increased the gender dyshoria because you are now faced with the very truth you have been trying to suppress.

Crossdressing removes the intellectual control and takes you right into identity as the emotional center of the brain.

Crossdressing knocks down the defenses that the mind had built to survive gender dysphoria so in a sense you have opened pandoras box.

Crossdressing is dangerous to transsexuals and in my opinion should be done only in a theraputic environment because you could take yourself right into depression and suicide.

Intuitively I knew crossdressing was extremely dangerous to myself but not for the usual reasons of shame or exposure but that I was "fu..king" with my mind.

It was less dangerous to get electrolysis, plastic surgery and wear my hair long because my rational mind would find some crazy excuse to justify the behavior but the clothes confronted me with identity that destroyed my intellectual control over the gender dysphoria.

Once you present to the world as a woman and are accepted as such and you have this extreme attachment to identity as female you are not coming back from that experience.

People dress up as woman all the time without problems but it is this attachment to identity since early childhood that crashes into the presentation that is so explosive.

This is why dressing in drag always scared me but I did not know why. It was one of many emotional triggers that provoked the gender dysphoria that I was constantly trying to suppress.

I was trying to not lose the false sense of self as male that dressing would strip away to reveal the true self.

[LeaP]

The memories I HAVE are clear, except THE earliest. My very earliest memory is of birth, which I remember in the briefest flashest of impressions - an overhead light as I was held up, a vague figure of a doctor's face, paralysis, fright, noise. I had repetitive nightmares of this several times per year well into my 30s. I've run into only a couple of people in my life with birth memory. I have a few memories of my first year, a fall and hospitalization at about 18 months (I remember both in detail), more in my twos and threes. I was reading simple children's books by 3 and remember specific scenarios quite well. I have clear memories of dressing in my mother's slips and shoes pre-school - not sure of my age - as well as hiding in the closet to do it. I remember my sisters wanting to dress me as well as secretly playing with their toys, again pre-school.

No block and the early memories I have are pretty clear, but they are spotty.

[Marleena]

Lea that is impressive if you can remember back that far. I'm also impressed by people that have a photographic memory as I can't understand it and think of it as a gift they must have.

@Kelly that's an interesting concept on CDing and it's effects. When I joined here I identified as TG. That was brought on by CDing however so maybe I tempted fate by introducing it into my life. My GID was triggered by it, no doubt. Since the TS diagnosis and the start of HRT the clothes have lost their importance and Cding is now guy mode.

[EnglishRose]

A vast amount of my childhood memories have simply disappeared. However I blame mine on the heavy, heavy drinking that pretty much was everything my late teens and twenties encompassed.

Perhaps quite a few have come back since I started searching for answers on my own coming-out-to-myself journey before.

[noeleena]

Hi,

Memory from being born till age 7 & even though i have a photograpic memory there is nothing mind blank i only know what my Mother told me & even that is very little, at age 10 my mind woke up, though still no memory of my early life,

There have been things & very little iv only found out in the last 4 years, im age 65, being in hoispital did not help no idear of why & still cant find out why,

There are details that happened to my Mom & i do know some of that from what Mom has told me about, & i have writen about that else where horific, to say the least,

...noeleena...

[Marleena]

Noeleena I have some questions then regarding photographic memory. Are your memories selective, meaning can you choose to memorize certain pictures, scenery or text from a book? I can see this as being great for writing exams or doing public speaking and presentations. I guess you would also get a clear mental image of things. I rather hear it from you than Googling it. Thanks.

[josee]

I can clearly remember certain moments of my childhood pre-K and other parts are a complete blank. I lived on a dead end street that was full of kids in my age group. Who did I spend most of my time playing with? The boys a few houses down? No, the little girl across the street and the one next door to her.
We'd play house, play with their dolls, have tea parties. I fondly remember spending lots of time playing with the girls. The boys never wanted to play with me. They would be playing stick ball or war and even if I tried to join them I never felt part of the group.
This continued to my time in school and and even family gatherings where I would always hang out with the girls until my mom would make me go play with my boy cousins.
Then there are a ton of events and things that my brothers remember that I have no recollection of.

[melissaK]

My memories are mixed - the childhood memories I described in your "when did I know" thread are clear. But others are not.

Somewhere in my childhood my mind learned dissociative coping - and I have some serious blank spots, most on non gender trauma, but by high school and into college the blank spots were swallowing gender driven events too. Years of therapy. Years.

But no, most of my life I don't remember. Few do. And that's the tricky part of memory. What was genuinely blocked vs what was just not worth remembering vs what do I want to make up? I'm real careful with the blank spots - repressed trauma leaves me clues - fragments, feelings but no images or images with no feelings - - -

[ReineD]

Just a little blurb about repressed/blocked memories. My SO is a scientist and nothing bugs her more than bad science, no matter the field. She told me that a few decades ago it was widely believed that people have the capacity to block traumatic childhood experiences, and they may uncover them in psychotherapy. This has become highly controversial except in very rare cases, I'm guessing as the result of extreme abuse. The controversy in recovering blocked memories is that recovered memories can be false memories that incorporate outside influences, such as suggestions from a therapist ... or a desire for a certain outcome.

http://www.science20.com/news_articles/are_repressed_memories_real_debate_flares_again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory

Unless a child is beaten and abused for having crossed gender boundaries, he or she would not lose the sense that he or she did not fit in with others of the same sex, even if the decision was made to not show others internal feelings of mismatch?

Sorry for talking about this at length in both your threads, Marleena, but I'm hoping that the resources I found might help. Or, they can give you a starting point to look further into it. :hugs:

And if I can be allowed to answer about childhood memories, I haven't suffered trauma but still I can only remember a few events here and there (my earliest is at age two or three). But, the vast majority of childhood events are forgotten, other than the events that survived in photographs. I think this is natural for everyone.

So although I don't remember the bulk of the details of school days, playing with friends, hanging out at home, birthdays, Christmases year after year, I do have memories of the things that hurt me. I also remember the things that caused me shame. I remember the things that caused me deep shame most of all.

[LilSissyStevie]

Maybe it's a blessing you can't remember stuff. I have lots of vivid memories of my childhood and that's not a good thing. Even now at 58 memories come flooding back and I cry uncontrollably. I know it will pass in a moment or two so it doesn't rule my life like it used to.

Yeah, I wanted to be a girl by the time I was 4 but it wasn't to be. It turns out I was just girly.

[PaulaQ]

I've read quite a few posts from members where they seem to remember early childhood memories even back to the age of 3. I guess I'm not one of the lucky ones (or maybe I am lucky in a different way).

I guess it depends on the memory whether or not you are lucky. :)

From my perspective, you are lucky. I have memories from age 3. (My earliest memory, is of really terrible agony. It is possible that this was a little before I was three, because I don't remember my sister, but it is very vague - I think had the pain not been so sharp, I'd not remember it at all. I can recall nothing before this, agony, and then just haze until months later.)

I have many memories from early childhood that I'd give anything to forget. Therapy helped - I don't have nightmares about those experiences anymore. But I remember most of it.

I have a few that are merely funny. I remember attending my mother's highschool graduation. (She had me at age 14). I was very upset that she was too busy to see me - but of course she was, but I couldn't understand why!

I remember a lot, although of course my memory is imperfect.

I can certainly remember the day the female part of me came to life - or that I became aware of her in some sense.

I really believe I was about 5-6, and in the hospital. I realized, finally, that there were lots of kids in way worse shape than I was in. I also realized, and this was a terrible realization, that some of them were not going to make it. I looked at my own attitude and pain, and realized that I simply HAD to try to help others, cheer them up, ANYTHING. I felt if I focused on myself, I'd die. If I helped others, and didn't think about my pain, I'd live. I think this is a defining characteristic of Paula - I still feel this way. I didn't understand, at this point, that I was female - but hey, I was pretty distracted. :) This realization was surprising - it was a moment of clarity in my life. But there was something inside of me that told me what I had to to do live.

The male side of my personality's hallmark is hiding stuff, most especially how I feel. I learned that I was a lot better off in that hospital ward if I did NOT express pain. The kids who were in a lot of pain did worse. (And they got shots, which really scared me.) So if I didn't let myself feel anything, I'd do better. (Yes, I was real hazy on cause and effect.) So I built a shell, and simply decided not to feel anything. At one point they tested me to see if I actually was able to feel any physical pain. (I was.) This has been a hallmark of my male personality for my entire life.

This is the first recollection I have of a split in my personality that I can now recognize in myself today. The side of me that loved and reached out to others is female. The side that denied my pain and hid it is the male side that the world perceives.

[Marleena]

@ Reine You are always welcome to post in any of my threads, as is everybody else. You keep people thinking and posting which is the whole purpose of any threads I start. You always manage to keep things interesting.

Thanks to everybody for the replies so far.:)

[Beverley Sims]

Marleena,
As far as this forum is concerned I have had so many memory jogging experiences I have had to look back and realise I was out more than what I originally thought.
If you asked me four years ago what my experiences were I would have related to two friends who transitioned, living in a share house with some girls and the odd outing I had with friends.
There have been a lot of other incidents and times I had forgotten.
Other aspects of my life have emerged along with finding about other school chums.
What is sad is some of them have passed on already they never made it to forty.
Staying in this forum I hope tounlock or remember other less significant times in my life.
My four trips around the world are well documented on film and videotape.
The first trip of three months comprises eighty hours of video.
It is astounding how much of that I have forgotten.
That is in fifteen years.

[Marleena]

Maybe that's the key Beverley, documenting everything.:) I think some of us tend to block selectively what causes pain or discomfort. For others those memories can be the most vivid. Open an old photo album or watch a home video and it will cause you to remember other events in your life.

[melissaK]

Memory is a hot area of study and theory. Facts and universal one size fits all rules are tough to come by. And ANY of us who are trying to revisit old memories to validate something we want to do now, need to be real careful about it. There is plenty of info about how we make stuff up, or warp a memory to our current need.

Science journals and papers aren't above everyone's head and there's no actual PhD requirement before a regular gurl can track one down and read it and learn from it.

http://psycnet.apa.org/?fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0003-066X.54.3.182

I didn't begin to unravel my dissociative issues (repressed memories; black outs; emotional numbness) until age 37-38. But they surround past events in my life that I knew were bad events. I had lead in memories, I had exit memories, I had splintered memories. And they needed to be dealt with because they were interfering with my current life.

For two past events I was able to verify events by asking other people in my life who were there, about the events - - - so I know the event was real and memorable by others. And I pieced together what my mind did for me to cope - and to spare me actual memories like PaulaQ talks about. And because I had independent verification on two events, I think I can trust my limited recollections in other areas I think are blacked out. And there are only a few.

And FWIW I have never recovered a single blacked out memory - - - though I have recovered feelings - gut wrenching emotional pain. Not pleasant. So, I tend to agree there's issues with feasibility of recovering past memories.

Go find Anne's thread on 2 years going by, and my last post, and the link I cited, the link talks about how emotional events alter our brains chemistry and thus alter our brains ability to perceive time. I don't think its a stretch to say that if you alter our brains ability to perceive time, you're altering its ability to remember as well. Right?

The events I repressed or which I "stopped feeling" for, weren't trivial events, or simple feelings about liking to do an activity primarily associated with the opposite gender. They were events that turned my world upside down, and events which I was powerless to stop or control. That seems to be a hallmark of genuine repressed memories. There seems to be a LOT of overlap with PTSD.

And IMHO, because a TS's gender role change is HUGELY traumatic to our lives, I think it lands us smack in PTSD land.

Thus, I can theorize that some of us have these issues over cross gender events and feelings in our past, and we could see the disruption coming if we dared act on the cross-gender feeling, and I can see where our brain would start employing defense mechanisms - including blocking out feelings and even memories of some events.

But what do I know. My PhD is in law, not psychology. ;^)

Nice thread Marleena. Thought provoking. :)

[Marleena]

Thanks Melissa that's a great point! Sometimes it is healthier in not knowing. Food for thought there.

[Ally 2112]

Im not sure if it had anything to do with who i am today but i can clearly remember things before i even went to kindergarten at 4 years of age .I even still remember dreams i had .The one i remeber the most clearly is me in a plaid skirt white blouse and maryjanes with a pink sweater .40 something years later im still trying to figure that one out as i was only about 3 or 4 years of age .This was also about 8 years before i even started cding

[Kaitlyn Michele]

i remember hitting my head on a swingset when i was 4...it hit so hard that it stuck!!!!...just for a moment...i recall having to jog it loose...

at the time, everyone around was very upset... but i got stitches and it healed up nicely... unfortunately, we didnt realize it at the time, but it had turned me into a girl!!!!

[JessicaM1985]

I've read quite a few posts from members where they seem to remember early childhood memories even back to the age of 3. I guess I'm not one of the lucky ones (or maybe I am lucky in a different way). You see I've blocked out so much and it's only begun to come back in bits and pieces. I guess it was "survival mode" for me. Some memories ( not gender related) I thought were just dreams and I had to ask my older sister (when she was alive) if they were real. Most of the gender related memories that are coming back were triggered when I was told I was in denial and I started searching for answers.

Do you have the block, or are your memories clear?

I always thought my memories were clear until recently. My older sister dropped a bombshell on me when she saw me en femme for the first time. She said that I looked pretty much as I did when her and I played dress up all the time when I was 3. I remember none of it.
So that's something that I am trying to work out in my head.