TS Reality Episode 10 - The Incredible Journey

[LeaP]

Drill Sergeant: Gump! What's your sole purpose in this army?

Forrest Gump: To do whatever you tell me, drill sergeant!

Drill Sergeant: Goddammit, Gump! You're a goddamned genius! Thats the most outstanding answer I have ever heard. You must have a goddamn I.Q. of 160. You are goddamned gifted, Private Gump. Listen up, people...


Surely, SURELY there's a logical reason to harkening to the advice of those who have gone before? Why then, oh why, do so few have any appetite at all for the advice of those post-transition? Wait ... ESPECIALLY from those post-transition! Why do they protest, fight, and get spittin' mad? Accuse the transitioned of being bitter, elitist harpies? Especially when they post about being lost and forsaken on one hand, yet adamant about being right and the exception on the other?

That sounds bad, you exclaim! And indeed, it is. But it gets worse! You see, if the posties are the target for the pitchforks and axes mob, anyone else merely along the path simply gets to experience being told how wrong they are - about everything! All the time! I'm tellin' ya, it's a GD problem.

That's not to say that everything actually does make sense, of course. Or that you will understand or agree when it's all said and done! I sure didn't think it made a lot of sense to polish the plumbing behind the washing machines in the Navy, despite the fact that the Lieutenant thought it quite brilliant. And I doubt Forrest every really latched on to the rationale for the things he was ordered to do, either.

But what the hell. Let's assume the posties are mostly right and the others on the path are useful to the limits of their (our) sad and sorry incredible journeys! How is a poor T-Girl to sort it all out?

What a great question! ... so listen up, people!

Loving, as I do, to reduce things by abstracting them, I can tell you that all of this is a simple matter of perspective! Wasn't that easy? 'Cause I can tell you that the posties aren't necessarily any smarter than anyone else! (Though we are blessed with a few bright pebbles.) Nor do those of us on the path get any smarter as we blithely [-]stumble[/-], um, step along from stone to stone.

Let me share a few of these keen insights, some gained from recent collisions between pathway stepping stone and head! Ka-pow! This is fun!

You are not you. That's right, Bunkie, one of the first realizations on the path isn't going to be about the ravening wolves out there - though hopefully someone told you about them. (They did, right? RIGHT? OMG!). Nope, it's going to be that something ... something, is wrong inside you, like Ripley in Alien! Except that the alien that is going to ultimately pop out is you! Don't worry, though, because the other aliens have an uncanny way of knowing what's going on. They will like and gravitate toward you, even if you hate them and try to kill them! ... And you will be assimilated.

Reason is not reality. LOL, do we like to reason and argue! I know, therefore I am, or something like that. I can do this - gimme the checklist. I am in control. I know something therefore what will happen is ... And everyone's favorite, you have no idea what my life is all about, and here's why I'm the exception! All I can say is that I wish I had as much certainty about the stock market going forward as I have about what the poor souls on the path behind me have coming! By the way, all you posties are definitely wrong about a bunch of stuff. But you probably knew I'd say that ...

Remember how big the 6th graders looked? Oh, you've gotta love perspective! They were big and INTIMIDATING! On one escape from first grade, I made it all the way to the bike rack before one of them, dispatched by the assistant principal (whom I bit, and scarred, in a later incident that year, but I digress) caught and carried me back to captivity! I thought he'd kill me! I avoided walking by his classroom door for the rest of the year ... just like the CDs avoid the TS forum, come to think of it! In any event, once you GET to tranny 6th grade, you find that things are pretty hospitable! Oh, Kathryn knows German philosophers better (what a surprise), Kaitlyn can run circles around me mathematically, Theresa is even nicer, I can actually understand Kelly, Frances now seems merely exotic (plain name notwithstanding) and not otherworldly, April is a gentle rain, and so on. In the spirit of confirming the elitist hierarchy, though, I would like to point out that *I* am not on the bottom of the pile. No, that would Anne, especially as she isn't reading this. Even the hall monitors (Rianna, Nigella, et al) are comprehensible! We are all afraid of Badtranny, of course, and even SHE is afraid that Katesback will COME back ... So some things you fear are actually true! But don't worry about that! You already have plenty to worry about!

The Importance of (not) Being Earnest. Also known as being yourself and not something else, reality is a bitch (and so will be you), truth is a trial, blah, blah, blah. Remember Show and Tell? Quick! What was the lesson? What? You mean there WAS a point to that? LOL! Well yeah - did you think the teacher liked hearing about lizard fingerprinting using fingerpaints? Ah ... NO. One of the little points is that the grand intersection of life itself and all that is in it, is between what you know and what you do with what you know! Oh. My. God. If they had only EXPLAINED that to me, I wouldn't have had to DO anything! Sigh. Go and do. Good! Now you *really* "know" something. And not a blessed thing beyond it.

Pity the poor transitioners. No-one told us that this was hard. Oh, wait, yes they did! I just didn't believe them! It musta been them. They shoulda told me differently. Then I would have gotten it! I know what I need!

Get used to disappointment. Things aren't what they seem.

[Angela Campbell]

OoooooooooH.......NOW you tell me!

[GabbiSophia]

To funny... but you know your wrong on a few things...lol...maybe

[arbon]

That was rather entertaining, in a good way. I like what you write.
But I'm nicer? I feel like I keep getting meaner. Though i think I am a bit saner then I used to be maybe

Perspective, well so much has changed. I finally start understanding a little of what everyone used to say to me

[Aprilrain]

.....a gentle rain......:dom: if only I could get the CDers to see it:devil:

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Wow Lea!!!! I was smiling the whole read....you may be a serial abstracter but you are darn entertaining in the way you express it!!!!

lots of good points...too many to mention..

"you will be assimilated"....I can't believe how true it is... there is no doubt a ts intuition... in my own life, I have met 100's of cds in my "party" days.... over the years I recall 5 times meeting a cd and within minutes thinking to myself ...that's not a cd...I recall all five because I tried to get to know them (as you say, we flock to each other)

5 years later...4 have transitioned and one is clinging to the middle path but is starting to fail at that...I can't think of any other cd's where I had that feeling...maybe its just me but I bet other ts women have experienced this as well..
you can kind of tell here too although its just based on the words on the screen.. it takes one to know one can be very true..

it goes the opposite way too..it's weird because many people have told me they "think they are ts" or they "someday will go all the way" and I think..."ummm.....no"....

that's just my own experience perhaps but I don't think so..

[Nigella]

I think that many will only pick the points that they want to happen, and forget the rest. I also think that there is no enough diversity given in some responses, and I for one do fail in that respect.

As with everything in life there are many ways to do something, a lot of the TS community struggle with being TS, but a minority have a breeze. I read all the posts on this side of the forum, but fail to respond because a lot of the time I cannot equate to what is happening, my journey was a breeze. The pain and anguish, a lot of which is posted on here, is so alien to me.

The majority who are going through transition do not understand the sacrifices that they are likely to face to reach the goal of womanhood and would rather not face it through the medium of their peers who have gone before.

I took exception to some of the comments directed towards me and others during my transition, simply because of the lack of balance of good and bad.

But in the end it is down to the individual to make the choices. Those who have gone before, been their, done that, should still post their experiences, offer sage words of advice but we can't do anymore for those who do not want to listen.

[Angela Campbell]

Yes i have had that same experience. The ones who will likely transition are fewer and harder to pinpoint, but the ones who just are not (at least not like what i experienced) are usually pretty obvious. Problem is they will get insulted if you try to tell them they are heading into a train wreck. As much as it would be good to help them it just isn't easy.

[KellyJameson]

The current TS section is a much more gentler version now than it was five years ago. You can barely recognized it now compared to than.

I read but did not participate back than simply from not wanting to be attacked and now it is fairly simple to ignore those who attack and read the words of those who are couragous enough to share their pain and hard won advice.

Self defensive mechanisms have given away for the most part to respect. Recently the thread "Hope I belong" gave me a twinge of sadness that someone may feel like they will be rejected, judged and ostracized.

For those who have ever been parents you know the good parents from the bad from how much thought goes into creating and bringing life into this world and the awesome responsibility that goes with it.

Love matched with responsibility has a certain flavor that makes it stand apart from all other forms of love and it changes you.

To live with a gender identity opposite your body and to change the body is to be both parent and child to yourself. To be both creator and the object that is created.

Anyone not entralled and absorbed by their own narcissistic ego is sensitive to the suffering of others so reflects on the advice they give from the understanding of the harm they could cause.

Someone who has or is well on their way to transitioning is in the position of being the parent who is creating life by the advice they give others who may or may not go on to transition. Those that are not full of themselves understand the awesome responsibility of giving advice and those who are full of themselves do not care.

Sometimes being a parent is understanding that the pain you give now could save a life later and you have to be willing to be hated in that moment.

Never accept advice from anybody if the advice they are giving is clearly about them as their ego and not from the love of them sincerely wanting the best for you. They are missing their humanity and are not coming from a place of moral health.

There is an element in the transgender community that is highly needy emotionally and egocentric and it is this that drives transitioning,not gender identity. I have never met one that leaves me feeling like I have met a woman.

There is a difference between those who transition and exit the transsexual community even while doing what they can to help others, versus those who make their whole lives this community.

Never define whether you are transsexual or not based on what you find in the transgendered community because you could become even more lost.

Look for those with heart and not ego when choosing your guides because many stay broken even after transitioning.

[Kathryn Martin]

Dear Whitty,

I have mentioned to you on numerous occasions that I never crossdressed. While this entirely true I did try on a dress at age 38 and was appalled because all I saw was the ugliness in that moment of who I am, was. There were and are no trans support groups where I live. I have known and did communicate to my mother that I am a girl when I was nine. I wanted to premise what I want to say by these facts.

Between age nine and the date on which I had to transition some 45 years later I spent a very large proportion of my time either coming to terms with my body (as disabled as it was) and with the question what it meant to be a man or a woman. While living as a man (pretty much devoid of manly interests) I experienced my humanity as female, and I cultivated this in my thoughts, my feelings, how I viewed the world and more importantly how I worked into the world. I was never uncertain about this one thing. It was not a journey to discover myself but in essence a journey of actualization of that which I knew to be true within the confines of the world which inhabited.

The emotional and spiritual impact of living in a defective body left me bereft of contentment, and so like so many one eye and one foot were always on the road out of town. Several times I was half a mile down the road before someone called me back. The clinical impact was called depression and eventually after a breakdown I was medicated for this until some years ago post transition. During all those years resignation characterized my existence, even fatalism with respect to who I was.

The work to become the best human being I could muster continued through all of this. I do not think that having a defective body entitles us to anything extraordinary in terms of special considerations, much like others disabled. We are like so many others just another branch of diverse human existence.

Eventually, I realized that I liked who I had become. That I had and was on the path fulfilling my potential as a human being. And in that moment the doors flew open and I saw the bridge that would take me to where I belonged. And in truth it was short and bumpy. I made sure I had all of my supplies, made sure those impacted most knew and appreciated what I was about to do. Crossing that bridge was one step, transition (with three substeps, hormones, RLE required for surgery and surgery) and living my life. That’s it, it’s nothing more.


In the light of this would address the headings as follows:


You are not you: Is there really an alien growing in me that is me? My experience was exactly the opposite, I developed inside and alien.



Reason is not reality: Reason is never reality, but reason is the roadmap for reality. The sooner you figure that out the better it is.



Remember how big the 6th graders looked: 6th graders are actually bigger so the metaphor limps a bit. But Posties as we apparently are so loving called now, or even elitist posties have one advantage over you, they been there done that. Interestingly there little or no variations in the classic one two three transition and so while I can empathize with your plight before it and know nothing about your life after except I wished you well both before and after, I did grade one and I know into how much trouble you can get doing that.



The Importance of (not) Being Earnest: Earnestly, transitioning is one of most humorous things I have ever done, funny? NO, but I could hear the universe belly laugh all the way across the bridge.

[SassySal]

....I cannot equate to what is happening, my journey was a breeze. The pain and anguish, a lot of which is posted on here, is so alien to me.

I can identify with this quote.


.

Someone who has or is well on their way to transitioning is in the position of being the parent who is creating life by the advice they give others who may or may not go on to transition....
Sometimes being a parent is understanding that the pain you give now could save a life later and you have to be willing to be hated in that moment...There is a difference between those who transition and exit the transsexual community even while doing what they can to help others, versus those who make their whole lives this community.

Never define whether you are transsexual or not based on what you find in the transgendered community because you could become even more lost.

Look for those with heart and not ego when choosing your guides because many stay broken even after transitioning.

Wise words to be taken to heart.

[Edyta_C]

Some of us do get it!! You all are marvelous and many of us read all and hopefully adsorb some of the info.

Edy

[Anne2345]

Ha ha!! The jokes on you!!

Because I *did* read this post!!

So there! Take THAT!! The last laugh is all mine!! All mine, I say!!!

Muuuahahahahahahaha!!!!!

<<cough, cough>>

Um, uh . . . Hey!!! You wait just one minute there!! You . . . you . . . .

Why I oughtta!!!!

D'OH!!!!

Too bad for you, though, that I didn't read your post for *real.* In fact, I didn't even skim it!! I didn't even know you had posted it!! For all I know, there isn't even a post here, and my response is just all a random excuse to be silly in the face of a total non-event that never occurred because I have no knowledge of it no-how no-way no-body!!

Plus, it doesn't matter anyways, because you're dead wrong and I'm the exception.

KA-BLAM!!!

Game over. Play again.

:-)

[LeaP]

...

You are not you: Is there really an alien growing in me that is me? My experience was exactly the opposite, I developed inside and alien.



Reason is not reality: Reason is never reality, but reason is the roadmap for reality. The sooner you figure that out the better it is.



Remember how big the 6th graders looked: 6th graders are actually bigger so the metaphor limps a bit. But Posties as we apparently are so loving called now, or even elitist posties have one advantage over you, they been there done that. Interestingly there little or no variations in the classic one two three transition and so while I can empathize with your plight before it and know nothing about your life after except I wished you well both before and after, I did grade one and I know into how much trouble you can get doing that.



The Importance of (not) Being Earnest: Earnestly, transitioning is one of most humorous things I have ever done, funny? NO, but I could hear the universe belly laugh all the way across the bridge.

Our experiences are inevitably different, of course. Mine is suppression and repression. While there were "awakenings" throughout life, where I arrived was finding my sense of self as I was in childhood. The fight against self comes out of this experience, as self-preservation kicks in to maintain the false front.

Oh, you'll never find me walking away from reason! Understanding is a process, not an endpoint.

Your perspective is exactly right on the humor in life, I think. Even the most tragic of things can be comical. It's part of the richness of life to perceive multiple aspects of things.