Running Away From one's Past

[Guest washougal]

I feel like i am always running away from my past. I dont know if this is common among trans folks but i always seem to be finding a new "thing" that is the main driver that my life is centered around but not staying connected to those things i have done in the past. At times i think that maybe i purposely do this becuase i want to disconnect myself from those past experieces (even though some or even many of them are good) because i dont want to remember myself the way i was then. I say this not having transitioned medically or socially or really having made any big transition in my life, but i keep cutting off my past and not wanting to even think about it.

I guess some examples of what i am talking about is that i have not spoken to a single person from high school since i graduated (5+ years ago) even though i have been back living at home for quite a long time and there are lots of folks still around from my high school. I cant even bring myself to respond to an email from the LGBT center director from college who led the trans support group that i attended for about two years while at university. I similarly havn't spoken or really had any contact with anyone from university even though it has been a couple years since i graduated.

At this point i am really feeling isolated. i have constant anxiety about interacting with other people and find endless reasons to put off meetings etc. I want to have some friends but at the same time i am so uncomfortable interacting with people that i dont end up ever making any friends. Even here on the internet in a supportive place like laura's i constanly find myself trying to make my posts anonymous, afraid someone might recognize me or even know i look at this site. I actually dont even post here very often, i just read the posts that others have written and respond in my head because i cant bring myself to actually type out a response. recently i have been able to wrtire some stuff on my blog but i even feel that that is shallow and that i am not really getting at what i am feeling and what it going on in my life right now.

i guess i just feel trapped and that somehow cutting my life up into distinct bits that i dont revisit somehow makes it feel as if i am actually making progress in my life, even if it really doesn't feel that way.

does anyone else ever here ever feel this way?

[VickySGV]

I am quite a bit older than you are, and I remember going through much of what you are describing. I am now meeting those memories from my young adult years and they are troubling, but now a goodly number of the people have died of natural causes, and a few not so natural causes, unless war and suicide count as natural causes of death. Since I am now my true self, I can look back and see the true parts of life and honor them, even though I was not my right self. The good was the good and a rite of celebration of the good often helps.

You need to forgive the past, and you need to give yourself permission to have good memories that you will keep and use for growth. It takes an effort, and it takes risks to make even the tiniest break in your comfort zone. You are a good person and need to see yourself that way.

[Guest Laird2013]

Hey Washougal, in reading thru your whole post, I wondered if you've spoken with a health care provider about your feelings. The thought of generalized anxiety or social anxiety occurs to me.

[Guest washougal]

Yes i saw someone a few times when i was in high school and was severly depressed/ becoming physically ill before school almost every day. They put me on some anti- depression drugs and basically the whole thing didn't do much for me and my family other than costing us quite a bit even with insurance. I stopped going to the doctor/phychiatrist/therapist (i honestly cant remember what their official title was) after a few months and went off the meds with no ill effects. It basically wasn't working because my problem wasn't normal teenage problems, but my gender disphoria (of course at the time i had never heard of such a thing or transgender for that matter).

I saw a therapist a few times when i was at university (and after i had discovered what trangender was and figured out it applied to me). I didn't follow through for very long with the therapist because even when i did manage to tell them i was trans they either were not educated on trans issues or decided that wasn't the problem (even though i told them that i didn't smoke or drink or do drugs and wasn't cutting myself or anything like that they seemed stuck on trying to fit me into some stereotypical college kid box). I gave up on the therapist fairly quickly but did regularly attend several lgbt support group meetings.

Yes i do have social anxiety and recognize this. I found out from my folks when i was at university that they had though since i was little that i had asberger's syndrome. They told me this after one of my advisors asked me if i knew what asbergers was and i realized that i had some of the symptoms and asked my folks if they had ever though that i had asbergers. I have always had difficulty in social situations and have never socialized with people my own age (always with people much older than me). I have great difficulty reading body language/facial expressions and apparently i commonly make facial expressions that are not appropriate/ that i didn't even know i was making/do not reflect the feelings that i was trying to express. Some people at university were able to help me with this and i have learned to a greater degree to control my facial expressions and have been able to make some progress in one on one interactions with other individuals. But yes, i still have a great deal of social anxiety and basically dislike and try to avoid social situations either consciously or unconsciously.

Oddly i really enjoy interacting with animals (non-human ones that is) and have much less trouble understanding their body language and have basically surrounded myself with animals in my everyday life for most of my life. I am not really sure what i would do with myself if i didn't have lots of animals and would probably be depressed to the point of being totally non-functional if it was not for them.

And yes i know this is totally stereotypical but i was as a kid/still am fascinated with trains and even went to a railroading camp.

[Guest washougal]

Hi Vicky,

I guess some of what made my thoughts about this come to the point of posting here is that several of my friends have died over the last couple years, including most recently a neighbor who was a very good friend of mine and tought me a lot of important life lessons (both as an example of what to do and what not to do, but they were strong enough to see and admit their mistakes in their lives and try to help others not make the same ones). This same neighbor also gave me my first breeding stock of a type of animal that has been an important part of my life since that time and has over the last few years become the focus of my life and i now have lifetime goals of improving the breed.

I guess that i have been struggling of late to try to think more about my past and reconnect with it. There is nothing overly violent/traumatic that i am trying to forget, I guess just the general feeling that i am never being the real me and that no one really knows my true self.

Thank you for your response it really gives me a lot to think about.

[Charlize]

Hi dear and yes i used to feel that way especially after i left school. I have rarely seen anyone from that time until recently when i have made contact with a few to tell them of my status. I didn't realize or maybe act upon the realization of my gender issues until late in life. I'm finally me and living in the small town i grew up in on the family farm with my wife, son and his family( my grandkids). I'm finally fully out to the world that sourrounds me and have found a new freedom and acceptance i never felt before.

On an aside i love animals as well. We have over 30 goats now and although they are difficult at times they are such fun as well. I had to botle feed 3 kids last winter and they are still my own babies. They run under my skirts with such love and just look up with such beauty.

It took me a long time to combat my fear but now i'm just a chatty cathy and enjoy others most of the time. I'm glad to say things changed and i feel free.

It can for you as well.

Hugs,

Charlie

[Guest Jaques]

I can relate to this in some ways. Though I don't mixing with people I already knew before transitioning, I don't tell others ive met afterwards, so I also faced a bit of a dilemma when it came to meeting a couple of lesbian women at my chi gung class - everyone there assumes I am how I appear, a regular guy, so I have tended to avoid getting into any kind of friendship or even attending any gay/trans events locally because I just want to live my life as I am now and don't want to be pointed out as trans. as ive finished transitioning........which for me is what this was about, just being male and not labelled as gay or trans as before.

Sometimes I feel that's a kind of selling out but really Its not that I don't want to know these people, just be part of the community as a whole and not just one section of it, if that makes sense.

Ive recently avoided members of my extended family, aunts and uncles, cousins etc because I moved away years ago, haven't had much to do with them for years anyway, yet I think words got around because a cousin I hardly knew has said how it would be nice to get together when im next in town - I haven't seen her for about 30 years - so I think its just a case of "lets look at what Jaques done now"...............so they can sod off, lol!

So...............Washougal, I can get what you are talking about, though I don't have your particular problems - however, I did live the lst 8 yrs of my life in Crewe, northern England, which is a huge Railway Station, in the days when there were only steam trains - you would have liked that! When I was small my big sister used to put me up in the rope luggage rack - the carriages were all separate then - and wouldn't let me down - she was mean! We used to stand on our local bridge and when the engines came past puffing smoke, had a competition to see who could spit down the funnel, I should have known then I wasn't meant to be a lady.............lol! All the best to you.