Dual personality.

[Lilo]

I cant fully understand the dual personality that I seem to see frequently expressed in posts. Sometimes this refers to a past 'boy' or 'man' who no longer exists or is being 'killed'. I never felt this. To me this has been a gender transition but not much of a personality transition. A remolding of the same person. I feel like the same person but with a key difference. Is it because I am transitioning in place? I am curious about how others feel or have felt because it seems (from posts) that some did a 180 turn or pushed the 'restart' or 'format' button. I am honestly just curious of its origin.

[mariehart]

I don't really understand it either because I am one and the same inside. I think it's quite common in CDs. I came across it early on when I first met 'other' CDs, as I saw myself at the time. They often spoke of 'her' in the third person. Seemed odd to me at the time.

I think perhaps it's merely a means of expressing the difference, the change that occurred. We all have our own way of seeing ourselves. Perhaps it's a way of leaving the old you behind?

[Angela Campbell]

For me I want to wipe away or erase the life I had before because mostly it was a lie. And yes I do see that no longer living the lie appears to be somewhat of a personality change as perceived by others. I still like the same movies, foods, music and books I always did, but I am much less aggressive and more understanding than I was. Not a different person but growing.

[arbon]

I had a male identity to the world, now a female identity. It makes talking about the past more complicated, because back then I was "he", and it is sort of talking about him in the third person when I do, even though he is me, now a she.

[Jorja]

We all have our own way of mentally dealing with our Transsexuality. If believing “he” died off or just disappeared works for some people then great. They are at peace with their decision to transition. It is what works for them. In the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter. They have transitioned to the gender they feel they need to be. Most are happy productive people and that is all that should really matter.

[mary something]

I think there is an emotional, social, and physical aspect of transitioning. People experience these three aspects of growths at different times, ways, and from different perspectives but all are valid.

[Rachelakld]

Often a dual personality will develop in stressful or conflicting situation. In most normal situation it's only termed a sub personality as it's function is normally temporary (ie on the football field) and is a copping mechanism to protect the main personality. Humans have normally 6 to 12 of these. If the situation continues for a prolonged period, the sub personality starts taking a leading role.
I suspect for some TG, during their early years a male sub personality developed due to society expectations and hides the inner girl until it's safe for her to come out. If the male personality was abused or abusive, then it would be freeing to kill off that personality

[LeaP]

Sometimes it comes across as just semantics. That doesn't bother me, though I, too, find it odd. Other times it seems integral to the person's self-understanding. I don't understand that at all. It seems like they inhabit one persona and then another. I agree with the prior comment that this seems common among CDs. TS are more likely to speak in terms of their true selves vs the false front they have to maintain to cope.

[Kathryn Martin]

I am curious about how others feel or have felt because it seems (from posts) that some did a 180 turn or pushed the 'restart' or 'format' button. I am honestly just curious of its origin.

I am with you on your confusion about this phenomenon.

Some of the research done by Blanchard (and he is one that I disagree with almost all of the time) points to self reporting by older gynephilic transitioners that "discover" their transgender nature after years of crossdressing because the sexualized aspect of crossdressing has waned as a comfort need. Essentially, after years of enjoying a male life with all of it's trappings it is a retreat into what is perceived as a less demanding life style. The subjects reported this as a discovery of their transgender nature which results in a 180 degree turn away from their former life. Often this is reported in connection with retirement.

I consider this a gender variance issue.

[Badtranny]

None of my TS friends have this problem.

But then again, I'm pretty particular about who I call a friend.

[Lilo]

I have never felt a dual persona and I think it may be related to not viciously hating my old life. I am doing this to greatly improve my life by living a genuine existence but I am also proud of all I built before getting to this stage. So I personally find it hard to completely reset my life. I struggled even with finding my new name for this reason and chose an old nickname of mine as a kid that is female or at least gender neutral. I have seen cases of apparent dual personalities (old and new) in several posts and honestly just wanted to compare to my experience. Thanks for your posts.

[KellyJameson]

In general there seems to be two paths transsexuals walk as a reaction to being female but in the wrong vessel.

One path is forcing oneself to bend to the shape of the vessel and the life you can live in this vessel as a "man" so it is a stuffing down and walking away from the self that keeps trying to assert itself.

You can try to do this by getting married and playing the husband and daddy role. You can try this by doing extreme jobs that are considered masculine so by forcing yourself to live and work in a masculine environment you "fix the problem"

You can do this by having a hyper heterosexuality with countless female lovers similar to how some men repress homosexual desires but instead you are repressing your gender identity.

Usually this is going to require drugs and alcohol or some other form of escapism because you cannot live against yourself without experiencing cracks in the facade.

I think those that try this experience a split between the male and female because they have created a false gender identity to live alongside the actual gender identity resulting in the dual personality as the woman on the inside.

I never even came close to being able to do this but I did try to "fix myself" "change myself" "stuff or push myself down" but I could only do it for brief periods and than I would have a emotional crisis, so trashed whatever I built to be free again so there was "less" triggering the gender dysphoria as an attack on my female identity.

I was never able to develop a false male identity to name but instead lived identiless so like in a perpetual limbo between genders avoiding anything gender related while having my female identify influence my behavior but not naming that this was what was influencing me.

Examples would be body hair removal and wearing my hair long but giving other excuses as to why I wanted to do this because I did not have the courage to face the problem squarely.

In my opinion the more a person is able to "man up" the greater the chance they will hold both identites until they are able to bring cohesion between the double life they have been living.

I was never able to live a double life because it would make me to neurotic taking me deeper into the sickness of being wrong bodied and not understanding that this was the problem so I have never identified as a man.

[Rachel Smith]

Like others I have no desire to "kill" off my former self. That life has given me a wonderful daughter and granddaughter and many beautiful memories and I am glad to have had it. Dual personalities only exist for me in the fact that transition has given me peace on the inside and that makes for different actions and reactions. Does Rachel act differently then Randy? Sure she does but only because the constant inner struggle is gone. Thank God for that!

I sent y Christmas picture to my daughter, her reaction was well Dad I can see the happiness this has brought you in that pic.

[Angela Campbell]

Sometimes it is just using certain figures of speech due to the lack of having the right words to describe something so complex. It does not mean there is a dual personality but more often just terminology that is easier to use. You cannot always take this literally as some are attempting to describe something they and possibly none of us really completely understand.

[mary something]

Our language really doesn't provide enough good words to describe the experience of being trans. That's probably also a reason that people have a hard time grasping what it is.

The "when I was he/him" thing doesn't fly well in conversations with others it seems. I've noticed a funny look before when I've said that kind of phrase and you learn quickly to not do that to avoid the confusion in others.

[Marleena]

I don't know me and my other personalities are kinda insulted here.lol. j/k

I agree that it's just TS women shedding the male disguise or personna that was necessary to survive over the years. Many of us are early in transition so it may seem like shedding the disguise or whatever you wanna call it. I only see it as a figure of speech and nothing to be alarmed about unless more personalities are hidden in there. :eek: I have a hard enough time just dealing with me, I'm a handful.

[mary something]

I agree that it's just TS women shedding the male disguise or personna that was necessary to survive over the years.

That feels authentic to my experiences Marleena. When I was living my life and trying to fit into the male role I made decisions by a different set of criteria than I do now. Still exactly the same person, but I was trying desperately to fit into a male role and subsequently it affected my perspective on matters at times.

When I first started to realize that transition was inevitable, I began to re-examine my values and bias's that I had assumed were true and necessary to fit into society as a male. I felt empty inside and that my life was not very fulfilling. As I allowed my new realization to effect more aspects of how I perceive myself I found my values and priorities changed in a way that made my life much better.

It's probably easiest to just say that as I became more authentic to who i am emotionally, I became happier and felt more at peace with myself. This made such a difference in my life that when looking back it, for me, is a pivotal moment.

I don't tend to think of those old experiences as "that guy" so much anymore, I see it as a period of time when a misunderstanding about myself tended to make me act in ways that wasn't natural to me at times.

It took a couple years of really processing my feelings (something I had very little experience doing) and learning who I was in order to come to terms with how to be comfortable with the fact that I tried really hard to live my life in the male role, although I still don't like old pictures very much sometimes. My goal is to eventually be at peace with the entirety of my life, and find meaning in the experiences that I've had. Like Lilo said, I certainly don't want to lose the good things I've gained from it, or forget the wisdom that the bad experiences gave me.

I think that the words that we use to describe this process aren't nearly as important as doing whatever it takes to live a life that gives us the ability to truly savor the moment without living in the past or future too much.

[Marleena]

Well I'm an old timer Mary. Everybody expected me to act as a male because I sure looked like one and my birth certificate was supposed to be gospel. So it was forced on me. It was always WTF is wrong with me in my head throughout my life though. That's the outside looking in feeling that still hasn't gone away. It is better than it was though. It's pretty sad when others knew I was TS before I did but all the clues were there and I just chose to ignore them.

I think that we as a group spend a lot of time analyzing other members posts looking for flaws in the TS logic or narratives we expect to see. There's a lot of pressure here to prove yourself too by your actions. I know I'm not that great at explaining my experiences on paper or through media. My wife and ex-wife have seen me experience GD first hand so they could sure tell you what's going on with me is real. I really don't feel the need to prove anything here to anybody anymore but I'm also a victim of my circumstances.

I've always felt I was just me but different from the world. Thank goodness for the internet and modern science!

[mary something]

I agree!