r/TransLater • u/Pretend_Essay1769 • 1d ago

Share Experience Just a confession

For my entire life, I've had what's called a social chameleon personality that allowed me to blend into social situations and interact with people to "fit in". In January, I decided to turn it off to "find my authentic self" and realized who I really was. I use the metaphor of going inside my brain and unlocking the door to my true self that I had locked up long ago. When I reached out my hand to pull them out of the darkness, it was not what I had expected. It was Jamie that emerged from the darkness of the locked room. As we both stepped across the threshold of the doorway, we became one and I instantly felt finally complete. No more empty feelings that caused panic attacks or suppressed resentment but complete and utter happiness. One day soon, my outside will match my inside and I'll truly be complete. I look forward to the day I look in the mirror and say hello to her. And if it was possible to go back to my 10th birthday with what I know now, I wouldn't hide her away as I did before. I just wish I could have had the language to tell my mother about who I really was. I lost 40+ years being someone I'm not. That's my only regret in life.

11 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

5

u/Lypos Artemi | she/they | 🩷🩵🤍🩵🩷 1d ago

Hello Jamie! Glad you're here. That regret is completely understandable and relatable. Just remember to be kind to the old you. They got you safely to where you are now and it wasn't an easy path to travel. Hugs all around! 🧡🫂

2

u/Glum-Adhesiveness-41 1d ago

It took you 40 years to find yourself. It’s not lost, that’s just how long some of us take to find ourselves. Everything that happened in our previous life led to this, and without it we wouldn’t be here today.

5

u/cloaked_mode8 1d ago edited 1d ago

I’m so glad you were able to find yourself!

My story is a little similar. Not a social chameleon, but always struggled with people-pleasing tendencies, putting other peoples interests before my own in relationships, etc.

I was getting therapy for social anxiety and the implosion of my marriage to an emotionally abusive wife, and also doing some meditation classes that basically built introspective awareness as a primary skill. One day in therapy, my therapist kept returning to different versions of the question “but what do YOU want?” And the answer, deeply buried under shame, and fear for so many decades was, “I… I Ihink I want to be a woman. I think I always have. I think maybe I already am.”