I'm pretty sure I look quite 'odd' to most people and I'm also totally convinced that I don't totally pass and probably never will. I could go on listing my faults and problems, though I just got a strange feeling of deja vu so I suspect this would just be a rehash of things I've already said.
What has just occurred to me is that my biggest problem is that it's hard for me to accept the new me and that is the thing that hold me back the most. It's also become apparent that, despite what I thought, and probably even said, some months ago, it's not going to be a case of just 'me' in a different package, the old personality will have to die.
I spent alot of my formative years building up mental defences to stop me changing who and what I am, I can even recall conciously being worried about being different to how I felt I was. This isn't strictly a trans thing, just how I am. I've always tried to keep a tight control on everything about how I think and feel. It's very easy to slip back behind the barriers in my head when I don't know how to deal with things and essentially my old personality goes into autopilot bringing back my old voice, mannerisms, and a flood of confusion with it.
I am happiest when I feel that I am fulfilling my female role and behaving, sounding, and acting that way. It only takes little things to make me feel good but equally the smallest amount of wrongness can tip me the other way.
In order to complete my transition I think I do need to dismantle all the mental defences so that I can feel and think freely without being restricted by how I was before. I think it is also very important that I let people in - I think a big part of my old personality was a big mask to hide behind and I can't carry on being like that, I need to be be more open and, if you'll excuse the cliché, in touch with my feelings.
It really will be a different me that comes out of this journey. I have already changed, but the psychological impact and also the pysiological affects of the estrogen, and other medicine that I will take, will mean that I will feel and act much differently to now.
It's going to take a while to accept all of this and I might not even notice when I have, but it is both sad to think that I really will be killing off the old me, but comforting to know that it was that person that got me here and will still be helping me along the way.
[ And I can't believe how incredibly moving it was to type that - I have tears welling up in my eyes ... not ideal in the middle of the office! ]
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