New and Looking

[sesame]

It took me some time to be comfortable enough with myself and my body to simply be me - which oddly was the goal all along. In some ways during the journey to authenticity I lost some of "me" and it took some time to get all of her back.

Explain more please!

In many ways living "stealth" is living in fear. Also in many ways it is the only way to secure personal safely. The down side is, you monitor EVERYTHING you do and say down to reflexes like coughing, laughing, clearing your throat, yelling, walking, standing...

But that would require a Tg to give up the originality of herself and put on an artificial mask of pretence. And she will have to go on acting round the clock until she retires to bed! Is that kind of life comfortable? It sounds very tiring and full of mental strain.

[sesame]

On 2nd thoughts, acting is more or less a factor common of life.

A holy man once told me that we are all pretending most of the time. We are performing in front of our relatives, friends and even to ourselves!

[ila]

Originally Posted by sesame

A holy man once told me that we are all pretending most of the time. We are performing in front of our relatives, friends and even to ourselves!

Interesting sesame. Did he expand on this statement or just leave it at that? The part about performing to ourselves is very intriguing. I think you may be on to a theme for a new thread.

[sesame]

We hide our real thoughts and feelings from everyone. We are afraid or ashamed of other people, or may be we dont want to hurt them. So we put up an appearance of happiness and harmony even though our opinions dont concur.

"Doubt whom you will, but never yourself."
If we doubt our own beliefs, we can no longer continue with our lives in a usual manner. There will be a great conflict or mental breakdown. To avoid this, the mind, which is a conglomerate of thoughts, and quite inventive, adapts a strategy to continue usual life. It starts pretending to itself and starts denying the disrupting issues, as if they dont exist. It is with great control over the mind, can we dare to face the Reality of ourselves.

There is constant strife inside every one of us! Thats what the Holy man said.

[Bionca]

Originally Posted by sesame

On 2nd thoughts, acting is more or less a factor common of life.

A holy man once told me that we are all pretending most of the time. We are performing in front of our relatives, friends and even to ourselves!

My old therapist practiced what she called Psychodrama. In essence the branch of Psychology says that everyone plays different roles in their life (worker, son/daughter, husband/wife, friend etc.). None of these roles is the authentic person, but are a part of the authentic person. The key is to make sure all of the roiles one plays in life are in harmony and not at odds with the other.

[sesame]

What is this Psychodrama? Role playing?

Example:

Jim is a son to his father Mathew (my boy)
Jim is husband to his wife Sweetie (C'mon honey!)
Jim is a father to his son Jack (dad!)
Jim is a buddy to his friend Jacob! (dude)
Again, Jim is an employee to his boss Jaguar (Idiot!)
Jim is "sweetheart" to his secret love, Janet (Aaaaaha!)
Jim is "bastard" to his ex lover Amanda! (that lying scoundrel)

If Jim is so many, then who is he to himself? Just me???
How does he manage or handle so many roles?

[chrisraid3]

i am new to this page too and looking for man woman or tgirl lol

[Bionca]

Originally Posted by sesame

What is this Psychodrama? Role playing?

Example:

Jim is a son to his father Mathew (my boy)
Jim is husband to his wife Sweetie (C'mon honey!)
Jim is a father to his son Jack (dad!)
Jim is a buddy to his friend Jacob! (dude)
Again, Jim is an employee to his boss Jaguar (Idiot!)
Jim is "sweetheart" to his secret love, Janet (Aaaaaha!)
Jim is "bastard" to his ex lover Amanda! (that lying scoundrel)

If Jim is so many, then who is he to himself? Just me???
How does he manage or handle so many roles?

There is some role-playing involved - yes. Most of Jim's roles are probably in harmony with eachother, so his conflict and anxiety would be found within the roles that are not in harmony (like husband and secret lover). Having a dialogue in a safe place between the two roles can help to twease out an authentic relationship between the two, or help to better define one or the other, or even help to end a role that is causing problems.

This absolutely helped me to integrate my past as a boy/man and my life as a woman as well as figure out how I internalized being a "boy" with the identity of a "girl".

[Dutch_88]

You should dedicate a topic to the Dutch transsexual "Kelly van der Veer". Does anyone know her? She's beautiful!

[hankhavelock]

U guys are light years above my "pay grade"... cannot follow all that psycho therapeutic stuff... but that's just ME! To me transsexual issues have always been and will always be what I can relate to on a personal level / and to me that's "hands on" literally. When I let my fingers run over her back in the morning and she turns in bed, opens her eyes and smiles at me, opens her arms and we kiss for ever...

Sure, let me at some time do my PhD in all this, but the important thing to me is all the love I meet. Blended in with all the pain. The combined beauty of transsexuality as I've met it.

Less than three meters from here lies the most amazing woman - so excuse me for not just dealing with academics :-) Her pleasure and smile is 1000 times more important ;-)

Gotta run...

Peace!

H

[Bionca]

Originally Posted by sesame

Explain more please!
But that would require a Tg to give up the originality of herself and put on an artificial mask of pretence. And she will have to go on acting round the clock until she retires to bed! Is that kind of life comfortable? It sounds very tiring and full of mental strain.

In a nutshell, I think lots of TGs initially go in an extreemly "feminine" way of being - "more feminine than 'real girls'". It helps to think of this as a second puberty - think how teenage girls act once they start to come into their own womanhood trying on the social roles and the affectations of "femininity". Lots of Tgs do the same thing in part to secure their identity and in part to make sure that people will see them as the correct gender. I sure did.

Eventually, like our genetic sisters, we eventually come into our own ways of being women. For some of us it remains a fery hyper feminine presentation, some very demure, some overtly sexual, but most are comfortably just gals. It's all about finding comfort.

For me specifically, I left behind some of the things that interested me as a young boy/man. I stopped reading comic books and playing video games because "girls didn't do that stuff". I stopped riding my skateboard for teh same reason. Then I just said to hell with it. I'll be a tall gal who trucks to the comic book store on her skateboard. Fun times those!!


Yes indeed it does mean that a stealthed TG gives up some freedom and expression. That level of self censorship can eventually take an emotional toll. Just ask a gay person who has been closeted for 50 years and finally "comes out" how much more free they feel.