Reconciling or accepting the past

[Kate T]

Something I would like to try and understand better is how as an individual when you have transitioned you reconcile this with your past. Are you proud of your past and your past achievements? How do you view accolades that may have been given to you in a role that you feel was a facade, a show? Did you sever all your ties to a previous life? How does it make you feel if you meet someone who knew you before you transitioned? Do you mind if people ask you about your life and if they know you have transitioned about your life before you transitioned? Do you think people ask those (or these!) questions out of genuine interest or do you think they are just gossiping?

I'm not trying to be rude or attacking, just questions that I had thought of.

[arbon]

Its really rather tricky and complicated I find. Quick answer I did not sever ties with everyone, I live in a place where most people knew me as a man. So past and present are always colliding - between the guy people remember me as and the woman I am trying to be. Its not easy.

[kerrianna]

I transitioned in a small community I have lived in for 25 years so I run into people who know my past ALL the time. When I transitioned I sent a mass email to as many people from my work and social life as I could think of and most were cool with it. The ones that weren't... well some came around after awhile, and some, well I don't miss them.

People generally don't ask me anything. I usually just blab about it. Then they will ask me more if I start it first. I dunno. People have been pretty much amazing and respectful and very supportive and kind. It's not the reaction I expected or feared and it's blown me away actually. It helps I live in a liberal open minded community. And I think it helps people can see how happy and at ease I am in my body now. People like me better in some ways I think. I'm more vivacious, relaxed, outgoing, generous and caring.

My past is something I tried to disown at first. Like... NO THAT WAS NOT ME!!! But it was. And I have the mementos to remind me. It's taken awhile to get comfortable with where I came from. When I look at pictures of my old self I genuinely feel like I'm looking at someone else. Like... I dunno, a brother or something. Someone I kind of knew and liked and was intimate with in a way but still is quite different and unknowable to me. It is a very odd sensation.

But inside my head and heart a lot hasn't changed. I'm still with my partner of almost 30 years. Lately she has been very ill from a cancer recurrence and thoughts of losing her have come to mind, upsetting me terribly because I remember all our times together. But when I remember those times, I remember them as ME being with her, not some guy. It feels very much like it was me, because it was. So I am still as connected to my past and who I was, internally, as ever.

My family and friends sometimes get pronouns wrong esp if they talk in the past. I find people often get confused doing that. Reporters of trans articles often do it - she in the present, he in the past. I hate that , it's a pet peeve of mine because it is NOT accurate to me... but I have gotten over taking it personally. People just slip up because unlike me, when they see old pics of me they KNOW it is me still. I just have this disconnect in me about some things, but not others.

I must admit that when I am in a place where no one knows my past I feel happiest and free and full of promise. When I am home I feel kind of anchored to a past that isn't that useful to me anymore or accurate. Or put another way, when I am in a place where no one knows my past I feel simply female, when I am home I feel like a trans woman.

[Angela Campbell]

Doesn't bother me much. At work they All know but no one makes a big deal of it. I am me now, if someone asks I have no problem discussing. Most like me better now.

[arbon]

kerrianna - you said it very well and I relate to most of what you said.

[I Am Paula]

Those that knew me before well... know all about my past. If I have met someone new, and we a being social, I just re-gender my past, until I have decided to just tell them the truth.

[Kathryn Martin]

I have never found reconciling with my past a matter that has anything to do with how I am perceived by others. I transitioned in place in a somewhat high profile profession and there are few in this town and around who do not know about my transition. Almost everyone felt that who I was a person was incongruent with how presented before my transition and and are comforted by the fact that I transitioned.

Reconciling with my past for me has much more to do with the resolving the scars left from crises that a young woman experiences when she realizes that some things are physically impossible when you are born with a defective body. I have, over the last few years lived again through those (somewhat ancient) events and crises to be able to overcome the injuries and scars left behind. It is an intensely intimate process and opens the door complete integration.

[vikki2020]

Good question---but, what's done is done! I'm all about what's happening NOW! So, I've reconciled, and accepted--- what choice do you have? Move forward, and aim high,girlfriend! But, yes---as I come out to people--they all know me in "past tense", and have seemed to accepted me as is, for the most part. The things I accomplished were not a facade,or a show--- I did all those things, and I'm still quite capable of more---no matter what kind of shoes I'm wearing! :)