simply be true to yourself

[Anne Elizabeth]

“That is simply to be true to yourself.”

I mean absolutely no disrespect to the person that told me this. I am trying to figure out my life.:sad:

How does one be true to their self? I have spent all my life wondering, thinking wanting and needing to be a woman. Those/these feelings surpass all logic. Why? Why when I was in first grade did I have feelings that I should have been a girl? Why did I enjoy playing dress up when I was 5 or 6 years old that one time? That I believe was pivot-able as I tried to do it many times. I remember one time my mother told me that I was too old to be doing that. Something, somehow, I really don't know what but I felt good dressing as a girl. I know a few times I tried to come out to others. Many times I would try to start conversations with others about “how being a girl would be better” in order to get a conversation started. I think I was looking for confirmation from peers. Yet in all this for some reason I also knew or felt that this was something to keep hidden. I would sneak around, hiding, lying to those that loved me, cheating them, doing things a normal male would not do. Yet, in all reality I wasn't just doing that to others I was doing that to myself also. I lied to myself over and over and over. I lied so much that I convinced myself, or maybe I should say deluded myself. I spent a lot of my life trying to figure out what was wrong with myself, trying to figure out why I would feel this way. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to become a woman, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the differences between male and female. I spent a lot of time so to say lusting not over woman but over their lives, wishing I could have been them instead of me. (is this wrong? Is this significant? I mean haven't a lot of people wished they could be someone else). I went through many buy, dress, purge cycles tormenting myself, telling myself it is only a phase, telling myself that I would grow out of it, telling myself that I would quit, telling myself that when I turned 30, turned 40, turned 50 that I would not be doing this. I have tried to be a male for myself, I have tried to be male for my wife, I have tried to be a male for my kids, I have tried to be a male for my family, for my friends, I have acted, overacted, reacted overreacted. God it seems as I have done it all tried it all and have never found a solution.
So my question growing up all screwed up trying to please others, be there for others, hiding my inside, lying to myself over and over “How in the heck or maybe what is it, what does it mean “Be true to myself?”

[noeleena]

Hi,

This is were i dont understand males in wonting to dressup in womens clothes, reason being im not male ,& some people will say but but.....i was percived as a male , i did not try to be one fact is i tryed to keep away from them, i never had thoughts of as many do , wonting to be like female / woman or live as one this is were its different i am one just not compleate thats all.

I will say age about 11 -12. i wondered why i did not have long hair or look like a few of the other girls 5 min;s worth.

Yet i knew at age 10 i was female just not quite right though there were many other things about my self that wernt ether at that time , what was different was the fact i knew i would become a woman at a later date / time. when that was to come.

One detail was i was content in myself i was still quite a happy person just prefered being by myself,

How does one be true to them selfs .

by being who you are not putting on an act or masqurading around in womens clothes trying to be what your not, acting in a way thats not you, i did not hide myself though i did not express myself as i should have other reasons are part of that,going back to my birth, others did see in myself something that was different and when they saw me said they knew, thats going back to the 60's,

Had i not been surpressed and i could have expressed myself then maybe more would have seen more of who i was, bit late now they all know . What little i did express of myself was in line as a female just i could not do that, fully

The difference's between male & female , i only know what iv been told & some things i have seen when your wired allmost completly as female , i find it very hard to understand males hey as iv said iv tryed and failed, i just dont know,

I see youv said you tryed to be a male could not did not know the meaning or how to,That is strange to me i never thought to wear female clothes did not have a need to , though i ...HATED... any thing to do with male clothes,

My time came over 20 years ago to say i am a female who will live as a woman first i had to grow into one i did not just become a woman over night that does not happen ever, ,

Iv grown into a woman because im female now had i not been female i dought id be were i am now its that simple as i said im different plus i have advantages so was in many ways easyer, yet i still had to go through a lot of issues, to get there,

Dont fight your self thats a part of your issue , plus you dont know who you are, you fight your self you take your self down & then try getting back up ........yes i know what thats like ,

Being true to your self is about knowing who you are, & accepting your self for being that way,

...noeleena...

[Paula_56]

I don't have an answer because you have wrote EXACTLY what is in my mind!

[Renee_E]

I too am one who has the habit of trying to please others and it makes it hard to be true to yourself. I think that is just the way we are. We are always looking for approval from someone other than ourselves and afraid of rejection.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

"“That is simply to be true to yourself.”
I mean absolutely no disrespect to the person that told me this. I am trying to figure out my life."


you have to change your mindset (at least for now..and NOW is the point) to focus on the day to day..no disrespect but you can't "figure out your life" by living inside your head.

you have to let go of all the bad and confused feelings that surround you...thinking of your past, wondering "why me?", wishing it was different, feelings guilty about decisions...they are all valid thoughts...
but they need to take a back seat or you will be stuck here and those thoughts will be your crazy glue.

you have to stop living your entire life inside your head, and start doing things that "in the moment" validate your true nature... that means expressing your femaleness...that means taking chances and being uncomfortable..that means possibly causing hurt to other people that matter to you.....

there are lots of specifics that can be discussed and debated..but this change in mindset is neccessary...

There is no other way... you can't "think" your way out of it..
none of us (or any type of therapy) can gloss over what may be your truth (Assuming you are a transsexual woman)...only by doing, and learning from what you do can you move forward..

it's not fair. it's a very high bar I am setting for you.. but you can do it..

the good news is that for some people as you get out of the past and into the present, the clouds lift, and opportunities for a better quality of life emerge..

I am not saying anything like go start transition !!! i'm saying live for today... live through your female self in any way can...small steps are fine....and then see what happens... that's how you answer an unanswerable question..you just do it..

[Badtranny]

...furthering Kait's excellent post.

Being 'true to yourself' isn't just what you should do, it's what we ALL need to do. If everyone would embrace their true nature, the world would be a much better place. Now the simple minded folks will immediately resist this idea and then go on about how everyone isn't able to "come out", but being true to yourself doesn't have to mean coming out to the world as anything other than a compassionate person.

Do you pretend to like football around a certain group of friends? Stop it. When your buddies see an obviously gay dude on the street do they start talking about him using pejorative terms? Does it bother you? Do you say something?

Being true to yourself has nothing to do with being gender variant, or gay, or anything other than what you happen to be. Do you like a certain kind of music? Do you like to dance? Let's take the clothes out of the equation and what are we left with? Are you still a cross-dresser? Or are you just a guy who enjoys a bit of feminine expression.

Being true to yourself is about following your heart instead of your head. What makes you feel good about being alive? What makes you proud to be you? Following your heart also means accepting yourself for who you are. You have to stop fighting the eternal/internal battle against what you want to do and what others will think about it. Following your heart requires a strength of character that you cannot have without self acceptance.

If you accept yourself, you will no longer fear or hate yourself, or others like you. This acceptance will begin to manifest in courage and soon you will have little tolerance for character flaws like bigotry and cowardice. Self acceptance will soon beget self respect and then self confidence and before you know it, you will finally be true to yourself.

[kimdl93]

Talk about really great advice. Truth is in the doing. Long ago, my psychologist explained that it is much easier to "act your way into new ways of thinking than it is to think your way into new ways of acting." Sounds like BS but it's true. Your mind will follow your actions, if you act consistently. It's a bit like practicing the piano...you don't learn by thinking about it...you learn by practicing, repetition. It's true of pretty much every area of life.

[Angela Campbell]

Your story is much like the story of many here, including myself. I have no answers for you, as I found no one had any answers for me. I can tell you that you are not the only one with these same feelings and experiences and that there is no shame in experiencing them. For me it was just about being honest. Honest with myself and others. Stopping with the pretending, stopping the denial and guilt. For me it wasn't about being someone else, I was already doing that.

[Kimberly Kael]

How does one be true to their self?

That's a tough one. There's a simplistic answer that goes something like "stop worrying about what other people think." While it's a useful thought exercise, it's rather simplistic because in practice we're social creatures. It's important to have the support and respect of people we interact with in our day-to-day lives. The more complicated reality is that you need to learn to trust yourself. Do you know whose support and respect matters to you? And are you prepared to stand up for yourself during the inevitable misunderstandings and lack of understanding? And can you do so in a manner that's positive enough to strengthen those relationships as a result?

The skills required to assert a different gender identity are similar to those required a few decades back to live openly with a non-traditional sexual identity. A lot of people struggle to figure it out and there aren't obvious ways to get better at it. Most people get through life without really challenging conventional thinking, even if it means pretending to be someone they're not. It's one thing when it amounts to laughing at lame jokes, or pretending you care about the Kardashians, but it's a whole lot more damaging when you're suppressing something about your fundamental identity. If it's important to you, there's a lot you'll need to learn to go against the grain and not burn too many bridges along the way.


I have spent all my life wondering, thinking wanting and needing to be a woman. Those/these feelings surpass all logic. Why?

I've never read a satisfactory answer to that question and I'm not sure it really matters. Would knowing why really change anything?

[Rianna Humble]

So my question growing up all screwed up trying to please others, be there for others, hiding my inside, lying to myself over and over “How in the heck or maybe what is it, what does it mean “Be true to myself?”

Hi Anne,

You might notice from my signature block, that this is one of my principles, but I admit it is not very easy to articulate what that means to me personally let alone how it might apply to you. The answers that have suggested that you stop trying to over-think this are fine in as far as they go, but to me being true to myself is not just about getting on with living.

At the heart of things, I have a core set of principles that guide what I do and who I am. I may not always be able to articulate them very cogently, but they are there and I can tell when something I do goes against those core principles. If I go ahead nonetheless and act against them, I am being false to myself.

I will try to illustrate what I am talking about although I do not know how well this will come across. One of my principles involves treating others as fairly as I am able. When I was portraying as a man that affected the way that I acted as an elected politician. Now that I am no longer pretending to be a man, my best chance of being elected to Parliament would come in a constituency that had decided only to accept women candidates. I was extremely unsure whether it was fair for me to have previously benefited from male privilege and still go through this process. Those with whom I discussed the question saw my dilemma, but eventually showed me that I was not being unfair to the other women just because of my past experience. They all also commented that to them, my concern was typical of what they would have expected from me either previously or now and that it was one of the things that makes me a nice person.

On a different level, being true to myself involved giving up the pretence of being a man - including the advantages that this gave me - to live as the woman I have always known myself to be. This involved no longer hiding behind excuses of why it might be easier for me not to go down this road.

If I know that I am a woman - despite appearances - then pretending I am something else is a form of being false to myself.

I don't know how well I have answered your question, but I at least wanted to try.

[vikki2020]

All very good observations on the subject! True to yourself can only come from you,though, and each observation is an individual expression. Unfortunately, no one can help you, truly, with this answer,Anne, except yourself. And, I think the key to being happy as a transgendered person is being true to yourself---but achieving this is the thing that may be the hardest.

""To be independent of public opinion, is the first formal condition of achieving anything great!"----Hegel"

[melissaK]

Hmmm. Well, Ziggy Marley figured out the importance of being true to himself, http://youtu.be/ikzQmC3S-mE , and you should too Anne Elizabeth. If its too hard to figure out right now, at least be true to your school. http://youtu.be/-ijkYkJfg0s and whatever you do, don't be cruel to a heart that's true. http://youtu.be/YUWMSVDPdGQ .

For me, when I decided to transition and started telling people that (like my wife, then my kids) I found it hugely liberating. I thought it was all about just getting out of my gender closet - and that I knew what I would do, and how I would act, and I was way off the mark.

Giving myself permission to be me, then just waking up each day and deciding to be me, has led me to some non-gender places I didn't expect. Turns out I haven't been very authentic in areas besides gender. I followed my heart into what ever music I wanted to - and its edgy and fun. I followed my heart into art that I like, and almost nothing changed. I followed my heart into my dress and appearance, and WOW. I am not at all the uptight carbon copy GQ attorney - I am way more Rolling Stone. All of this is hardly earthshaking, but instead of the uptight attorney so obsessed with fitting in, I am a person who's likes and dislikes are way more obvious - and its obvious I am not running with the herd anymore.

Sure I still make compromises, I still have boundaries for work dress and manners that I follow, but they are more so boundaries that I have chosen to accept, than they are boundaries I have felt forced to accept. And my boundaries vary, they are very fixed in some areas, and they're pretty fluid in some other areas. And in some new boundary areas my wife accuses me of having the same lack of sense a 14 year old girl has - - and my wife's point is well taken, and in those areas I am learning and finding new boundaries, but again they are mine.

I am closer than I have ever been to just being "me."