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Hi All--
I was eighteen before I figured out one of the male codes about fighting. It goes like this: If you're willing to fight, and demonstrate it at least once, then you often don't have to fight again. Just the knowledge that you will if provoked is enough to make others think twice, and usuallly things get settled in some other way.

We have often discussed the problem of figuring out just who our femme selves are. Are they separate people or personalities, or are they part of who we are all the time? The difference is more striking because our femme selves cross gender lines. But I realized that most of my life, I had an alternative personality who was male. So I thought I'd write about that.

To call him an alternative personality is to beg the question, but I don't have better terms for it. I became aware of "him" at around 17, but it was only in brief flashes. I had buried my anger throughout my boyhood. When I finally let it surface at 18 or so, it took on two versions. One was just what I'd call "normal" anger, which could lead to shouting and even fighting. It could be disruptive and upsetting to others, but it would soon blow over.

But if I got angry enough, a switch would flip in my head, and a whole new set of responses would come out. It was like being under the influence of a drug. I would suddenly get very calm and calculating. Whoever "I" was in that moment was capable of doing whatever needed to be done to destroy an opponent.

I had no control over this, and I couldn't "will" it to happen. In times of real danger, it could be a help. But it also came out in situations that were not appropriate for it. I am thankful that I never had to injure anyone behind this feeling, because I would not have been able to control it very well. I did scare some people very badly, and that was enough to show me what could happen if it got loose.

By my forties, this other self was not coming out very often. I was living a more peaceful life in general, and seldom got into confrontations that would bring out that much anger. Then, late forties, I sensed my femme self stirring around. When I became the feminine part of myself, I suddenly felt very vulnerable. I no longer had access to that violent male side to protect me in times of emergency. I had to figure out new ways of feeling safe, because being Anita was a new way of being "me," and it didn't include those impulses that I had always counted on before.

Is this a good thing? A bad thing? I really don't know. I still carry a certain confidence with me when I'm out as a woman, because I have those past experiences of knowing I could do whatever needed to be done. Yet I'm not sure what form that would take NOW, if I ran into real danger. I have talked my way out of some harassments, just as I've seen women do all my life. My talking skills have improved dramatically, because I see the need for them.

For me personally, my femme self feels different enough that I can't say, "Oh, she's the same person as me, just different clothes." And I could not say that about the extremely violent part of me, either. With him, the change was instant, so the difference was very clear. I realize now that this earlier experience made it so that I was not so surprised when Anita showed up.

I still don't know if these are truly "other selves." I can say for sure that both of these selves have allowed me to tap into feelings and experiences that I had never experienced in my everyday way of being.

Anita,

That was a very good post IMO. There is a lot of wisdom with in it, for those who can see it. Just the determination (from with in) not to allow yourself to be walked on is often enough.

And it does not have anything to do with how well anyone is trained in combat. I personally know of one little guy who was walked on (heavily) some years back. He waited long enough so that he would not be a suspect. And one evening threw a rock through this guys front window. When he came to the window to investigate he was shot in the face with a shot gun. Today he lives with both the physical and mental scares of that confrontation.

Anita,

Thank you for sharing this with us. I too see significantly different personalities in my sweetie - a very male man, and a very calculating, quite unpleasant woman. He's sweet and caring, she is a real stone bitch with not a shred of emotion. Sometimes he wears her clothes, sometimes she wears his. So it's not as simple as "When he's dressed, he'll be her." But the two people carry themselves differently, speak with slightly different inflections, and I can tell which one is which - usually.

It's not clinical-level multiple personalities - unless there's a lot of alcohol involved, the core personality (the default, for a lack of a better term) always knows what he or she has done. (Clinical multiple personality involves an unawareness on the part of the core personality of what the other personalities have done.) But it most definitely is somewhere on the continuum between single personality and clinical multiple personalities.

I don't quite know how to explain the difference between this and "Having different sides to my personality", but I do know that some of us do have different people inside our skin. Let me back up a minute. I don't consider this to be a mental illness. I have no official psych training (other than about eleventy-jillion under grad college classes and a lot of observation of human behavior), but it appears to be that all of the *mental illnesses* are found in normal people - up to a point. Take depression for instance. Depression runs the continuum from the blues to clinical life-threatening depression. So do all these others, I think, including multiple personalities.
There is a point at which it becomes clinical, a point at which it does create major life problems. But for the majority of us, we just seem to have a bunch of different people in our heads. I don't know what causes it, nor do I know why there can be a sudden switch between who's in charge for the day, but I do know that it happens and that sometimes it happens that the different people are of different gender. All mine are girls, but it isn't necessarily so.

I also know that some of the personalities, for some people, have very different levels of toleration for frustration - i.e., your guy that suddenly can turn violent. One of mine has one hell of a temper and can scald your skin right off, but she doesn't get the upper hand often.

For me personally, there is no one of these that are the *real* me. They are all me. How do I explain this? The difference between this and different moods is that different moods is the different moods that one single personality can have. Different personalities are more fragmented than that, and each one can have a variety of moods. They are, for lack of a different word, different people inside my skin.

I guess I see a lot of this in the crossdressers, at least from my vantage point. I know that this is the best description of what is going on with my sweetie. One of him is him and one of him is her. It doesn't necessarily make it any easier to live with, as his femme side doesn't like women, including me, but he's about gotten control of that. In fact, the two personalities are so different that he is heterosexual and likes women, while she is also heterosexual and therefore likes men. Very different to standard issue bi...

For those who are interested in multiple personalities, there is a rather fascinating, if horrifyingly sad, book called, When Rabbit Screams, about a woman with a whole slew of multiple personalities resulting from horrid abuse in her young childhood. I haven't read it in a long time, but basically, the dominant multi-personalities agreed to have therapy sessions taped and transcribed to aid psychiatrists in treating highly clinical, highly disruptive multiple personality syndrome. It is fascinating to watch how the different personalities relate to the world, and fascinating to see how capable and imaginative the human mind is in coming up with ways to protect the inner child. Beware, though, that it is a highly disturbing book.

Thanks for sharing...
-georgia (so)

Hi,

Whoa Anita that was pretty deep! Thanks for sharing that part of who you are. It takes a lot of self-knowledge to be able to write such an introspective commentary about yourself. I'm in awe.

If I ever see a woman in trouble I tend to change my mood. These days though I know if I should call the police or deal with the consequences of helping her. If I hear a woman tell about her stories of being beaten by a man as the man took her confidence away from years by telling her she was ugly, stupid, and worthless I usually shed lots of tears as the anger I feel is unable to be expressed any other way than tears. I can't imagine someone being that cruel, nor can I handle that an individual had to endure that kind of pain, both mentally and physically.

I agree about finding out about my male side when I was 17 or 18. I began liking martial arts and decided I want to protect myself. Well, so much for that idea. I say that not because I know I'm TG'd, but because I'm a crappy fighter. I mean I really stink. I have gotten angry enough that I want to fight someone, but it dissipates as logic overcomes anger. I think I can defend myself ok, but I doubt, God willing, I'll ever be the agressor. Well since high school that's been the case at least.

One last thing. That avatar is so hot!

Hey Georgia, that was a very enlightening post. Well done!

Hey Darlene? Was the little guy the person who threw the rock through a guys window? Who waited long enough not to be a suspect? Did he throw a rock at his own window and wait for someone to come and investigate and he shot them in the face? Did the little guy throw the rock then wait for him to not be a suspect and then walked over and someone shot him in the face?

Thanks everyone!

Beauty

Darlene wrote:I personally know of one little guy who was walked on (heavily) some years back. He waited long enough so that he would not be a suspect. And one evening threw a rock through this guys (who had hurt him) front window. When he came to the window to investigate (the guy who had hurt him) was shot in the face with a shot gun. Today he (the guy who had hurt him who was shot) lives with both the physical and mental scares of that confrontation.

The bold has been added for clarification. I hope this helps you Beauty.

Hello--

Georgia(SO) wrote: But the two people carry themselves differently, speak with slightly different inflections, and I can tell which one is which - usually.

Georgia--
I have noticed this, too, and it is also mentioned in literature about multiple personalities. To me, this body is a shell, and the being and/or energies inside of it are the ones who give it whatever personality it has. Anita's presence shapes me differently, especially in the face. There are diffferent degrees of this, and some pictures are startling to me.

The difference between this and different moods is that different moods is the different moods that one single personality can have. Different personalities are more fragmented than that, and each one can have a variety of moods. They are, for lack of a different word, different people inside my skin.

You described it very well, Georgia. That "normal" anger of mine might look like extreme rage to an outsider, and maybe it is. But it comes from my ordinary range of experience. The other guy had a different feel to him, and was capable of doing lots of damage without much rage at all.
That shift was like clicking on another software program entirely.

Darlene--
That kind of incident is one reason why I have never kept a gun around. I don't trust any of my "selves" not to use it at the wrong time.

Beauty--
I was touched that you felt a desire to start martial arts, but found you didn't take to it very well? It's never too late to begin. Maybe a gentler form like Tai Chi might work better.

Watching women or children get hurt by adults is very upsetting to me. I have been very fortunate the times I was forced to intervene in such setups. It's definitely something for the police to deal with, if at all possible.

Glad you like the avatar!
A

Anita,

That was a really awesome post!!!!!

I really have nothing to compare it to. I have no such side to me. In fact otheer than my business/work personna, the take charge get it done, all business personality I invented, I really have no other side to me.

I had three older brothers who continually told me that all I needed to do was to hit someone and people would leave me alone. I was always afraid to fight. I would get an andreneline rush, my mouth would go dry and I would lose my breath making speaking almost impossible. I got beat up a few times where I was not even able to defend myself.

It is really interesting to hear others stories and how they cope/coped with these difficult issues. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

Love always,
Elizabeth

Anita: I have been thinking about what you had stated. I can see myself in your words. If you will look at my thread about beating up under the area, Coping with CD.

One point that I never could put into words that you did is, Departmentaliazation of the brain. That is the words my therpyist calls it anyway. She says I am a pro at departmentalization, I have areas in my brain that I have names for. For example part of them are Gelinda, the Ranger ME, professional me, the killer, etc. There are a few more. I am wondering if my departmentalization is the same as your personality of your parts.

Anita I can also relate to your rage within. I have dealt with it all my life. I have a fear that I deal with minute by minute, hour by hour it is one of the major reasons I am such a loner except for my wife and kids an there kids. I am afraid of losing it and killing someone again. So I can understand your fear of the other self alot of mine was refined in ranger training but it was there before. So I can understand yours.

Sorry for the rambling Did not want to do that but I have a problem when the flood gate gets open it pours out.

Geeeeeee.

Interestingly enough, Anita, not only do different personalities carry themselves differently, but psych lit of clinical-level multiple personalities has documented cases where, for instance, one personality can have diabetes, while the others don't. Makes my mind just boggle at the potential of the human brain...

-g

I am posting just to let y'all know that I have read each and every word and as usual I am humbled and impressed. I will not respond as because of what I am going through right now, I do not wish to share or burden anyone with. Once it is over, I may try and reduce it down to a palatable amount just to tell you what has happened, how I handled it and that The bottom line is that I am moving on!!!
You know in a lot of our senior High School year books they wrote a brief description of what we are assumed to be like and for me it was dead center, = "It is not wise to wake a sleeping lion!" Someone has poked me with a sharp stick! (no one on this forum)
Virginia

Hi Elizabeth--
Very painful to deal with this subject. I experienced what you did all through school, although I never got beat up. But I was always trying to avoid conflict, and that took a lot energy that could have been used for other things. I was trying to be invisible and also trying to be competitive, at the same time. It didn't work very well.

Gelinda wrote: She says I am a pro at departmentalization, I have areas in my brain that I have names for. For example part of them are Gelinda, the Ranger ME, professional me, the killer, etc. There are a few more. I am wondering if my departmentalization is the same as your personality of your parts.

Hi Gee--
It sounds the same to me. I'm only conscious of two beings right now, since the violent side of me seems to have disappeared. I try to integrate the two, which has been the subject of some of our other posts.

I am sorry to hear that you don't really trust yourself to keep control. You're right, I know enough about that to understand what it means.
It is odd that when I drank heavily, I put a heavy lid on any of the stuff I'm writing about here. You might wonder how I did that, when I had no conscious control over it. I don't know, either, but no matter how drunk I got, I kept a tight rein on any anger.

What bothers me the most, Gee, is that I've seldom read any books on anger that ever deal with the kind of thing we're talking about here. And THAT has made me angry, too. No one wants to feel like they're so far outside the norm that no one can understand them, and I felt like that for many years. I did have a Vietnam vet for a therapist at one point, and he could listen to this without turning off. But he said that he would not hypnotize me, because he did not want to deal with what was there on that level. He was willing to talk about it.

Georgia, I had forgotten about the differences that multiples can manifest.
I tend to agree that our different selves are on a spectrum with multiple personalty. What my different selves express is not so extreme that I have to blank out to let them come through, but there are similarities.
Hypnosis brings out this kind of thing, too. On some level, I imitate my sisters and my mother when I'm being Anita. If you hypnotized me, I'm sure I would do all their mannerisms perfectly, including the voices.

Virginia--
Sorry to hear about your current situation. I wish you the best in resolving it.

Well I think most people have different personas that they adopt for different occasions. Think about your "professional" persona vs. the one you use while hanging out with friends vs. visiting your parents. These may or may not be walled off from each other. In a sense multiple personalities is just this taken to an extreme. And as Georgia says there's a bit continuum in between.

For many crossdressers, I think we compartmentalize those aspects of our personality that society considers "feminine" into a persona that gets externalized through our dressing. That persona may be just a vague set of feelings, or a fully fleshed personality, or somewhere in-between. For me, "Darla" is a side of myself I've felt inside -- but also something I've consciously shaped, in part to exercise parts of my personality that I feel are under-developed.

I suspect that if being a "feminine" male were more acceptable, we'd see less actual cross-dressing, since men would feel they could express that part of themselves while in a male persona -- just as GGs can be strong and assertive (and other traditionally "male" characteristics) while still thinking of themselves as female.

GGs can take things pretty far without feeling like men. I just finished a book that studied a group of women who were so masculine in appearance and behavior that they regularly were mistaken for men, much to their annoyance. To some extent they had consciously patterned themselves on men (typically emulating their fathers) and looked down on other women as being weak and girly. (What was sad is they'd internalized the sexism of the '50s and '60s of their youths.) But they still saw themselves as women. Interestingly a number of them became butch lesbians, in part because that was a role that allowed them to be their masculine selves and still be seen by others as women.

Darla

Hi Darla--
I know that switching into work clothes is a milder version of all this. When I used to put on my Boy Scout uniform, it was a different feeling than just wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

I do wonder if there would be less need to crossdress if men were allowed to openly take on the walled-off qualities labeled "feminine." One benefit of this I can see would be this: potential transsexuals would know about their need to transition much sooner. If they were able to explore femme behavior from childhood on, they would probably be aware by teen years that it wasn't enough. Wouldn't that be something?

Maybe these archives will stay around, and some T-girl in the year 2320 will read this and think, "And it did happen! My, my, what they went through back then!"

Hi Anita,

A great topic. I too remember the exciting discovery that if you hit people they will likely stop bothering you. And like you it came in my late teens. Wonder if it's a coincidence that this was draft age back then?

Jennifer Boylan wrote a bit about this in her book She's Not There. When she started hormones in preparation for SRS she was quite surprised at how she would feel vulnerable just walking down the street without the protection of testosterone in her blood giving her a certain attitude towards the world.

Andrea

Andrea, I remember that you have your different femme selves--Mountain girl and Andrea being two. You might have mentioned another one. Different "flavors" to your experience of this.

I would not care for further feelings of vulnerability from hormones, if I ever go on them. It has taken me a while to get used to the level I feel now.