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Thread: Transition is only half the battle

  1. #51
    Silver Member Inna's Avatar
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    plan? for what? to plan at an onset of transition is like getting ready to fly Boeing 747 while just enrolling in a flying class.

    Cognitive processes hinged on Testosterone environment, Social dynamic based on male hierarchy......

    Good luck with planning, and Yes, plan all you want and see the life unfold in the most mesmerizing way.........totally unlike the plans proposed.

  2. #52
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    so after reading Inna's and Kaitlyn's comments (two women whose wisdom I listen to and respect). It is best to develop the mental agility and ability to adapt at the beginning of transition instead of trying to plan for an uncertain future? To develop the tools and hone them that when life changes we are also capable of changing and adapting quickly while expressing our inner nature.

    Perhaps it's best to look inward just as much as outward when planning this thing.

    Does that seem reasonable to those who have walked farther on this path than I have?
    "In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change, lies our happiness and freedom."

    "My actual gender identity emerged as I healed from the scars of childhood not because of those scars" - Kelly J

  3. #53
    Gold Member Kaitlyn Michele's Avatar
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    I'd say to Inna that there is a romantic notion of losing the T and getting the E and emotionally growing through a wonderfully meaningful process...but if I knew I was flying a boeing 747 tomorrow I would not go to bed tonight, I'd call pilots and ask them how to fly, i'd spend all night reading the manual and trying to understand all the controls...doing the best I can to learn everything about it...i'd look at the weather forecast...

    I just don't get the whole planning is useless thing...its a basic fact that plans go wrong...the point of the plan is to have some idea of how to handle it when they go wrong...i'll probably still crash the plane, but without planning I will for sure
    I'm talking about nuts and bolts...do you have the $$? what will you do if you are marginalized at work?? who can you tell first? what will you actually tell them?? do you have a support network around you?

    I'd say to Mary that I think the idea of developing mental agility to adapt is great but we talk in generalities a lot...when I talk about planning I am talking more about nuts and bolts..

    .... what EXACTLY is develop tools and hone them??? answer that question for yourself ..can you imagine your therapist saying "go develop some mental agility"..

  4. #54
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    excellent point Kaitlynn, I too would take a crash course (haha) on flying 747's.

    planning how to come out professionally and personally of course is very important. Isn't it ironic that when someone spends their whole life hiding they develop the skills of a spy then when they transition and come out they need the skills of a marketer and salesperson while the old skills only work to their detriment?

    I agree that making sure that your income source will be sufficient and is weatherproofed as much as possible from the storms that are coming, and your housing situation as well is an imperative part of the planning. I didn't say that very well, or at all in my post. Survival begins here though doesn't it?

    "can you imagine your therapist saying "go develop some mental agility".."

    My therapist did say such a thing to me, many times but not in those exact words. I spent months with her and by my own efforts working on how to handle doubt, shame, guilt, avoiding black/white thinking, learning my individual strengths and weaknesses so I can identify what specifically about my problems are hurting me the most. We spent almost a year examing my conscious thinking to look for learned errors in perception and cognition that would hold me back from becoming myself.

    I came to her and my first question was how long it would take to get a letter for hrt. She replied that if that was what I needed then I would get it but only when I was ready and there was no timeline, it was dependent upon me. I almost didn't go back to her, but I am so glad I did now. Something about her struck me as trustworthy even when I resented her for telling me what I didn't want to hear.

    All of those decisions that you mentioned are so much easier to make when prepared both physically and mentally. It is impossible to persuade and convince someone else of the rightness of your actions when their approval is too important to you to take the actions in question without doubt. It is important to understand why one has lived in denial of their true gender for so long and how exactly we have created the emotional wall to contain this truth in order to dismantle it. While writing this I think of Paula's words that she wants to be able to feel and express emotions as a woman and wonder if this is not part of the issue in question. That is why my advice to her is first to dismantle the emotional wall that is keeping her from feeling this in the role of "man", then build from there in so many words.

    All these things are what I refer to when I use the term mental agility. Basically I mean examining ourselves from a distance personally, understanding the ego reactions to the worlds reflection of our identity and the emotions that come from our unconscious and conscisous identity which then interpreted by the malformed ego into what we call "truth" but is not necessarily so. Then understanding what went wrong and reshaping ourselves, reparenting ourselves, seeing the true reflection of ourself to turn into that which should have happened but didn't.

    None of this is possible without complete self acceptance and the mental tools necessary to be agile and not lose yourself in the process.

    I guess the best way to describe mental agility would be to free oneself of unhealthy thoughts and feelings that will hold you in place when one must move quickly. That way we can live more happily in a world of constant change without fearing the changes that will inevitably come and the pain that is always a part of life. It is that fear and how we react to it that keeps us from feeling connected, yet feeling connected is the only way to mitigate the pain that life always brings. It is in this way we are our own worst enemies.

    So perhaps our paradox is that it is important to manage this process with self-awareness, yet we have gotten to this place by living in denial and building a lifetime of habits to limit our self-awareness to protect ourselves from a truth that we do not wish to possess while still in denial.

    That is why we do this: to stop living a lie, to be authentic and real for the first time, to actually feel alive. But because of the paradox of awareness that I have mentioned we make many mistakes and cause ourselves more pain than is necessary. It is impossible to be in two places simultaneously of course, and that is our problem, but it is possible to help ourselves learn to move from one place to another much quicker and safely. That is called agility.
    Last edited by mary something; 06-02-2013 at 11:14 AM.
    "In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change, lies our happiness and freedom."

    "My actual gender identity emerged as I healed from the scars of childhood not because of those scars" - Kelly J

  5. #55
    Gold Member Kaitlyn Michele's Avatar
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    good points all Mary...

    its the specifics that count... Its a great idea to identify your own self talk and how it can hurt you for example..be brutal if you can muster it...

    Its obvious how analytical I am...i'm a businessperson by nature...my therapist urged me to use that... she kept responding to my rantings with "consider it as data"

    In the context of transition is half the battle, if you can somehow improve yourself in other ways it can only help you in the 2nd half..

  6. #56
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    sounds like you had a good therapist too Kaitlyn . Her telling you to consider your emotions as "data" sounds to me like her attempting to help you see yourself from a distance and integrate yourself by becoming more self-aware by stepping outside your emotions to see with more clarity and act with more agility. One point that my therapist brought up to me once that at first pissed me off but I kept thinking about was this question. She said that you want to participate in a set of medical and hormonal treatments that have been developed in response to a need that some people have. These treatments were designed to help women who are in the wrong bodies to change their bodies to suit their mind and soul. Because the treatment was developed as a response to the fact that there were "men" who had already emotionally and mentally transitioned to "women" proves that it is not necessarily the medical treatment that provides the full solution and understanding but the mental changes that happen.

    Basically it was a chicken and egg analogy. Which came first, women in the body of a man who then were so fully realized without any medical treatments that the only logical conclusion was to change the body. It is the allure of medical treatments and hormonal treatments that causes us to focus on that specifically at our own emotional detriment I believe and my therapist did also. They can make us look like a woman, but a woman is more than her exterior. They can reproduce some of the physical sensations that women have, but not all.

    If the transsexual who was fully mentally and emotionally transitioned to womanhood hadn't existed first then how would she have ever convinced a man in the 30's or 40's to try and change her body? The first tenet of medicine is "do no harm".

    I think we forget that sometimes because the little girls that are producing our emotions are like every other little girl I have ever met, they want to grow up RIGHT NOW! lol
    Last edited by mary something; 06-02-2013 at 11:40 AM.
    "In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change, lies our happiness and freedom."

    "My actual gender identity emerged as I healed from the scars of childhood not because of those scars" - Kelly J

  7. #57
    trans punk Badtranny's Avatar
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    The guys that work for me are required to submit at minimum a One Week Plan that lays out the work and the resources required. Most of the time I'm looking for a Three Week Plan. I want to know what they plan to do and how they plan to do it. My foremen are professionals and when they complain about having to submit the plan on a job that "might not even take a week", I ask them if they would send someone to pick up lunch for the crew without a list of what everybody wants?

    The answer is self evident, nothing happens without a plan. Well nothing you want to happen anyway.

    I'm as lazy and free spirited as anyone I've ever met, and those traits don't excuse me from the need to execute a plan, on the contrary they demand it.
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  8. #58
    :) Post-Op Hippie Chick CharleneT's Avatar
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    Making plans is a very very very good idea. Expecting that they will not end up working as laid out, also a very good idea - but at least you have a clue and maybe a plan B ( or C ) !

    Post surgery life is as some above describe: very normal, in many ways boring and most definitely plain old every day is just a day. Really, the excitement (if you would call early transition that) is over. You're who you wanted to be and now you can do it - whatever that is/was/will be. Jorja is spot on target with her comments!! Accept and be who you are -- and mum's the word on the past. Transitioning is a huge and long task. It will seem hard to do so, but basically forget about it.
    Last edited by CharleneT; 06-02-2013 at 02:08 PM.
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    And if you go no one may follow. That path is for your steps alone.

  9. #59
    Silver Member kellycan27's Avatar
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    As a young transitioner I find life after transition anything but boring. I began living my adult life as a female and I was able to experience a lot of " firsts"... First meaningful job, first meaningful romantic relationship, first time experiencing motherhood. First opportunity to have and function as a family. Raising children, involvement in the community. We're building a future for us and our kids. A lot of late transitioners have been there done that.. got the t-shirt already.
    I don't imagine life being able to show them much more than they have already experienced, nor do I see them getting excited over much. We're just starting out on life's journey.
    Last edited by kellycan27; 06-02-2013 at 03:18 PM.
    "one day I'll fly away..... leave all this to yesterday"

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  10. #60
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    "Life is what you make it. You put forth the effort you will be rewarded with a wonderful life." I was told that by a TS post-op lady thirty five years ago.

    I took her advice and have to agree. Life has been good to me. You can sit and whine and cry and allow your doubts to eat you alive on the couch and have a miserable life. Or, you can get with it and have a normal, full, rich life. It is all up to you.
    Last edited by Jorja; 06-02-2013 at 07:13 PM.

  11. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaitlyn Michele View Post
    sometimes that feeling of normalcy or congruence is ALL YOU GET, and everything else goes to S@#T...
    Now I understand what is going on with my life right now.

    Personally, my life is good, myself. But out there, all the world is going mad I think.
    Last edited by Beth-Lock; 06-23-2013 at 04:57 PM.

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