if we had only known...

[Deleted]

If we had only been told it was ok to feel

If we had only known that we did not have to conform

If we had only known the damage of people pleasing

If we had only known you cannot purge gender...

The list is long.

If we had only known... what?

A thread to help newbies avoid the mistakes some of us made.

What are the "if we had only knowns"?

[Ativan Prescribed]

If I had only known I was going to live this long.
(I would have figured out how to get away with a lot more shit than I do...) 

[Deleted]

Apr 6, 2015 0:16:31 GMT 8 Laura J said:

If I'd only known ~~

I could be my true self and be accepted..

I could feel this much free'r than I've every felt.

That my depression, withdrawnness and insecurities would slowly drift away once my true self was exposed.

That I could feel so much closer to, and loved by God.

That one by one, the stereotypes I'd always been taught would disolve within me, and I could be open to expressing myself honestly, and loving honestly regardless of sex or gender..

That feeling feminine was as simple as it is, and okay to feel, and that it would draw to me the right friends, and drive off the ones who shouldn't have been there in the first place..

That there were as many of us as there are..

And that I know I'm in the best company society has to offer, with the most gifted, beautiful people..

It is an evolutionary process Mark and in that line of thought we can clearly see that creation and evolution are a process that work together and it has been unfortunate that so many have such tunnel vision to see it as either/or and refuse to accept the process in it's fullness as intended by the Creator.

[Edge]

Apr 5, 2015 10:52:58 GMT 8 Trinity said:

If we had only been told it was ok to feel

If we had only known that we did not have to conform

If we had only known the damage of people pleasing

If we had only known you cannot purge gender...

The list is long.

If we had only known... what?

A thread to help newbies avoid the mistakes some of us made.

What are the "if we had only knowns"?

For me, these things weren't gender related, but I think it's not that much different. I've always been that weird kid who believes in faeries (the old folklore, not Tinkerbell), witches, and magic and who bounced around like Gomez Addams wearing strange clothes and with strange interests. When I was a teenager, people thought it was time for me to be normal and this ended up causing me a lot of pain.
If only I had known that I did not have to conform and that people pleasing was damaging. If only I had known that I'm ok and, not only is it fine to be different, but it's part of what makes me the person I want to be and the person that other people like. If only I had known that there was nothing that could "cure" me and that I didn't have to want a cure.
If only I had known that I would still have friends and, better yet, real friends like I had never had before.
Gender-wise, I wish I could have skipped that phase where I insisted I was always and only a guy because I was afraid that being anything more would make me less of a guy. It doesn't make me less of a guy. It makes me more like me, but also more like the people I want to be like.

[Ayla]

Even if I had been told that I was ok, that I wasn't damaged or defective, that I can and should be authentic and less concerned with how others will react than with loving myself, if only ...

The thing is, I don't think that being told this would have helped me a whole lot. I think that I needed to feel uncomfortable, to explore my identity and to feel disapproval before I recognised, accepted and embraced these truths. When these truths are not hard wired at birth, when socialisation and dysphoria send different messages, I think we need to have journeyed, lived and learned in order to understand these truths and to get to a better place.

Safe travels

Aisla

[Sisyphus]

If only I had known I was not alone.

If only I had known that being me did not make me an imposter nor an appropriator.

If only I had known that there was a place for me to exist - that the binary didn't rule all.