Immature

One of the things people seem to wonder a lot about with starting HRT is will it change your personality, will it change you into a different person, will your wants and interests change? I've answered this in a sense in several posts before, but not directly. The quick answer is "yes and no." Personally, I've had several things about my personality change, but much of it is staying the same.

I feel very much like a kid at a lot of points during my day. I find something new about me almost every day, and often when I do I really get a sense of feeling new in my own body... if that makes sense. For example, I was in the shower and ran my hands down over my bum and I noticed how different it felt (and might I say, damn nice too!) I think to myself sometimes that this must have been what it was like when I was a teen, or younger, touching myself, seeing how I feel, getting in tune with my own body. More then ever my body is becoming something I enjoy, it's all very new to me, my own body, but it's exciting.

What does that have to do with my personality? Well all of that newness comes with it's share of shyness. My body is so new to me, and so sensitive now, I feel like closing up a little while around people. In the sense of  the typical young girl covering her newly developed breasts. Once this shyness is done though, I think this part of me will return to how I was before.

I've mentioned my love for video games before. That is something that has, but hasn't changed. I still have the want to play, in fact I'd like to play some right now, but now I have other things in my life that I need to attend too. Not just real responsibilities like the house or the kiddo, I'm kinda not counting those. I can easily lose hours and hours grooming myself. If I were to, say, let everything go for a bit so I had to do it all in one day I could spend a work day just primping myself. Start with a shower and shave, plucking my chest hair, combing out my wig, putting on make-up etc. etc.,  easy for that to take 5 hours out of my day.

So really my wanting to play video games still has not changed, that part of my personality has stayed the same, but it has changed functionally. So perhaps from the outside observer "Rebecca barely plays video games anymore" (gasp) But that's only because I have stuff to do, not because I don't want to.

My sense of humour has not changed at all, period. Nothing to say here, lol.

One thing that has changed is I take my time more now, and I expect others to be ok with that and if not, oh well! I always hated being rushed but I would rush myself if I "needed" to. Now I don't do that so much. I think this has come from having to be "careful" with my own self now. An example to make that makes sense..

Before if someone was waiting on me to take my outdoor clothes off I'd just whip it all off as quickly as I could and get out of the way, or help or whatever it was. Now I take my time, I have to be careful taking my scarf and jacket off or it'll tangle my wig into a celtic knot, and while I'm being careful, you can wait. Little things like that, that I find myself doing often are simply conditioning me to take my time more.

There are a good few things like this taking my time that have changed and I really like them. When I imagine myself in that light it brings a smile to my face. I enjoy the fact that I take my time now, it seems to fit this image I have.

Which reminds me of one thing that has changed and I am so grateful for. My day to day, general anger is really gone. I get angry now sometimes sure, but it's not my entire life, every waking second just mad at the world. It is ***SO RELAXING*** (I didn't know how to emphasize that enough...). I don't really know how to describe what it's like to feel like you have to defend yourself every moment you are awake. How about this? Imagine living as a captive to an unknown number of people any one of which is waiting for you to open your eyes so they can start right away with whatever they want to do to make you feel like you'd be better off dead, I mean really feel it. So imagine that, feel it? Now instead of them waiting for you to open your eyes they can actually see when your brain "turns on" after waking up, the second you become conscious, and change "all of those people" to your own mind.

I guess "relentless" is a good word.

 It just slipped away, I didn't even noticed until recently. This part of me was one of a very few major parts of me that I was always hoping would change or go away when I started transitioning. This is something else that fits the image I have of the woman I'll be.

Of course that has had a huge impact on my personality, an impact I'm excited to happen. Not feeling trapped all the time has opened my mind and perceptions to the world around me that much more. I feel this every day, without fail. I'll be doing something and I'll just realize how connected I am with what's happening at that moment. It's a feeling so new to me it happens with everything, even the mundane. I was petting our pet cat the other day and I realized how soft her fur felt, and that I never "felt" it before.

Something that has come as a direct result of losing the anger is my creativity has started to come back. Having my mind freed up like I mentioned has reopened the doors to my creativity and it's wonderful. I'm still in the beginning stages, this blog and a few other written word things I have done seem to be where it's starting. I have the occasional flash of how "easy" I could drawn something I'm looking at that I distinctly remember having as a kid regularly.

The last thing I wanted to talk about isn't a change that has happened, it's going to happen. It's not really the result of HRT either, but of transitioning itself, but it will change my personality, and I think the most out of everything. What I'm talking about is my voice. I may have mentioned before how my voice is effecting my personality. Before it was things like having to watch the words I say because some are a little trickier then others, or having to pause to get my voice right before I kept talking. They have had their little effects, but I feel there is more to come. I'm still not happy with my voice, to me I sound like a guy trying to sound like a girl and I really don't want to sound like that. Every now and then I say something a certain way and it's like "A ha! that's it!" but it's difficult to keep. When I do do it though, I feel completely different through my whole body. It's not just a "yay success" It's "OMG there *I* am!" I almost feel like each of those moments reprograms a little part of me. The sound of my voice may be hard to hold but that feeling leaves it's mark like few others do. I smile to myself, feel warm and content and it lingers in my heart and mind for a noticeable amount of time.

I get the same feeling a handful of other, really random ways. Walking down the hall and turning a certain way, or looking at something "cutely" and I can picture my own face, getting a compliment, touching my own leg, walking, dancing... none of them making me feel like that every time, but they are so random it makes me want to say "everything" has made that feeling come out from time to time. Perfecting my voice is what I'm pretty sure will finish all of that feeling.

I'd like to say "I hope I answered your questions" but I'm almost certain I just raised more. I do remember it was something I was a little afraid of before I started transitioning. How much of me will hormones change? I'm well aware of how powerful hormones can be, and I was worried I'd be someone else entirely (a little foolish  know, maybe a little wishful forethought). Now that I'm 6 months in I can say yes, there have been changes, some of them were ones I even worried about a little before. Not a single one of them does anything short of making me happy now, not a one.