Past meets Present
(by Alexis Rene Jones)
A challenge of sorts was presented to me by a new friend. To present how did Alexis get here? My instant response was "the internet silly"....But have asked myself the same thing daily for years. I still don't have the answer.
So come with me to the early 80's in a rural midwestern U.S. setting far away from mainstream influences of any sort . i.e. Where you have three channels on a television a antenna would pull in and a local newspaper deilvered every Wednesday. It really wasn't as bad as it sounds.
As with other stories I have read about you always see "girls" who have dressed since the post diaper stage in which if you count tromping around in Mom's shoes so be it, but the Freudians will have a fieldtrip with that.
The recollections are as vivid as the monitor is before me. From about the ages of 8-9 that I saw a girl in particular who was a model . This girls hair, her smile, her everything was just so intoxicating to me to the point I was trying to actually cut up old clothes to emulate what she was. She presented to me more than what was "supposed" to be as in selling print, but for me, I saw a sense of happiness within spirit and mind. Also note, at this point most of my friends were girls.
It was after that revelation ( as if 9 year olds can have those) I was watching one of the three channels our antenna would pull in and on a news special dubbed by me "The outing of Caroline Cossey"(From the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only )http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/bondgirl.php .
I had no idea at the time about the transgendered world, but I was reeled in by this and would NOT let my Parents change the channel, Though they wanted too. As at that time I was too young to be paranoid about anything so they watched it with me. Scary to think of these days.
As I followed the show hanging on Caroline's every word, My Parents weren't taking it seriously and nothing against them, they just didn't understand why a relatively healthy and "normal" person would want to change gender or express it differently. Their thought was sexual dysfunction of sorts .
With that in mind I decided I did not want to be "Dysfunctional" and dropped it consciouisly.
However the plagues subconsciously overcame the conscious and months later was back at the trying to cut clothes this way or that way. Whatever I was doing, it didn't fit typical boyhood.
Though normal other things followed growing up from then on, There was always a cloud over me it felt . Not so much a rainy day cloud but just that things weren't adding up but you push on through them thinking maturity will resolve.
It was finally after the school days were over that I had access to clothes that I didn't have to hack on and were already feminine in manner that I thought Oh-Oh. I was drawn to presenting a feminine image of myself as much as ever...Kind of like a bank robber noticing a vault unlocked ! Just too tempting.
But how could this be ? I was happily dating a girl and was not gay so how could this childhood "mishap" still be haunting me. Note the reason I said gay as it was assumed and understood you had to be gay if you wanted to be a woman, as in what I had learned as a child. So with that in mind, I dropped it completely and closed the door on it forever !
K fast forward another few years later, some mishaps & several wrecked relationships later the urge is still present daily....BUT AGAIN WHY? The beginnings of relationships were varied and different, but the endings were a broken record. Essentially I was a "best friend" but so much that it couldn't be in a masculine to feminine of sort of relationship. I have never told a S.O. to date who I officially was. So I guess you could say I was lying about myself....Or who I was, without knowing it.
So finally the last of ongoing relationships ended in divorce with what I had percieved as marrying my "dream girl". It was after that I knew I had to put a stop to the nonsense and learn what was within.
Now, I had enough motivation to get online and enter a X-dress chat room, To seek out some sort of help or a clarification ! Wow was I ever brave or what? That was 5 years ago, From that point to this day has been a learning process of sorts. A mating of the pieces of a proverbial puzzle if you will that I am thinking only the edges started to come together .
So the purpose of all this is not to rattle about me me me. I want to direct this more towards you, the reader. As your responses may provide another piece to my puzzle and others.
What are some of the alternative effects you have felt ? i.e. relationships, jobs, general mental well being, other...?
What do you feel sculpted your perceptions of yourself and others within the transgendered society ? Do you remember what you felt before you knew there were others just like you ?
If you have found a balance, is it dated? Essentially you are walking on a infinite tight rope.
One of the first compliments I ever recieved was how well I was balancing things. However what I was truly doing was burying one side to let the other breathe all of the fresh air. As we have discussed that does NOT work and a crash of sorts followed soon after, Just months after I got online 5 years ago... There really can't be two of you...As they prescribe "other" meds for that.
I know there are a million more questions to be asked but this should be a nice start.
A challenge of sorts was presented to me by a new friend. To present how did Alexis get here? My instant response was "the internet silly"....But have asked myself the same thing daily for years. I still don't have the answer.
So come with me to the early 80's in a rural midwestern U.S. setting far away from mainstream influences of any sort . i.e. Where you have three channels on a television a antenna would pull in and a local newspaper deilvered every Wednesday. It really wasn't as bad as it sounds.
As with other stories I have read about you always see "girls" who have dressed since the post diaper stage in which if you count tromping around in Mom's shoes so be it, but the Freudians will have a fieldtrip with that.
The recollections are as vivid as the monitor is before me. From about the ages of 8-9 that I saw a girl in particular who was a model . This girls hair, her smile, her everything was just so intoxicating to me to the point I was trying to actually cut up old clothes to emulate what she was. She presented to me more than what was "supposed" to be as in selling print, but for me, I saw a sense of happiness within spirit and mind. Also note, at this point most of my friends were girls.
It was after that revelation ( as if 9 year olds can have those) I was watching one of the three channels our antenna would pull in and on a news special dubbed by me "The outing of Caroline Cossey"(From the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only )http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/bondgirl.php .
I had no idea at the time about the transgendered world, but I was reeled in by this and would NOT let my Parents change the channel, Though they wanted too. As at that time I was too young to be paranoid about anything so they watched it with me. Scary to think of these days.
As I followed the show hanging on Caroline's every word, My Parents weren't taking it seriously and nothing against them, they just didn't understand why a relatively healthy and "normal" person would want to change gender or express it differently. Their thought was sexual dysfunction of sorts .
With that in mind I decided I did not want to be "Dysfunctional" and dropped it consciouisly.
However the plagues subconsciously overcame the conscious and months later was back at the trying to cut clothes this way or that way. Whatever I was doing, it didn't fit typical boyhood.
Though normal other things followed growing up from then on, There was always a cloud over me it felt . Not so much a rainy day cloud but just that things weren't adding up but you push on through them thinking maturity will resolve.
It was finally after the school days were over that I had access to clothes that I didn't have to hack on and were already feminine in manner that I thought Oh-Oh. I was drawn to presenting a feminine image of myself as much as ever...Kind of like a bank robber noticing a vault unlocked ! Just too tempting.
But how could this be ? I was happily dating a girl and was not gay so how could this childhood "mishap" still be haunting me. Note the reason I said gay as it was assumed and understood you had to be gay if you wanted to be a woman, as in what I had learned as a child. So with that in mind, I dropped it completely and closed the door on it forever !
K fast forward another few years later, some mishaps & several wrecked relationships later the urge is still present daily....BUT AGAIN WHY? The beginnings of relationships were varied and different, but the endings were a broken record. Essentially I was a "best friend" but so much that it couldn't be in a masculine to feminine of sort of relationship. I have never told a S.O. to date who I officially was. So I guess you could say I was lying about myself....Or who I was, without knowing it.
So finally the last of ongoing relationships ended in divorce with what I had percieved as marrying my "dream girl". It was after that I knew I had to put a stop to the nonsense and learn what was within.
Now, I had enough motivation to get online and enter a X-dress chat room, To seek out some sort of help or a clarification ! Wow was I ever brave or what? That was 5 years ago, From that point to this day has been a learning process of sorts. A mating of the pieces of a proverbial puzzle if you will that I am thinking only the edges started to come together .
So the purpose of all this is not to rattle about me me me. I want to direct this more towards you, the reader. As your responses may provide another piece to my puzzle and others.
What are some of the alternative effects you have felt ? i.e. relationships, jobs, general mental well being, other...?
What do you feel sculpted your perceptions of yourself and others within the transgendered society ? Do you remember what you felt before you knew there were others just like you ?
If you have found a balance, is it dated? Essentially you are walking on a infinite tight rope.
One of the first compliments I ever recieved was how well I was balancing things. However what I was truly doing was burying one side to let the other breathe all of the fresh air. As we have discussed that does NOT work and a crash of sorts followed soon after, Just months after I got online 5 years ago... There really can't be two of you...As they prescribe "other" meds for that.
I know there are a million more questions to be asked but this should be a nice start.
Comments
I enjoyed your tale of life in the MidWest , as I have family in Indiana. Do you want a pop? No, Gimme a Coke. Coke? All we have is Pepsi...
Anyway. The cloud metaphor is so appropiate. I was living one cloudy day after another until I was 35. Yes 35! Can you imagine it? This secret, dirty, shameful secret I carried affected everything I did. Like the alcoholic who is "drunk" ( really in denial and NOT sober) and then finally accepts him/herself. It takes awhile to reach our moment of clarity and I regret the years lost, yet I look forward to the rest of my life and my journey of self discovery, one day at a time.....
Thanks for sharing
Jenna