It feels like my subconscious is playing devil’s advocate with me.
For a number of months now, my dreams have occasionally thrown me a curve ball by slamming my deadname or previous pronouns in my face. Usually it’s in the scenario of seeing an old friend who didn’t know about my transition or someone knowingly being malignant. It’s surprising each time it happens, but my reaction’s always the same: disappointed sigh followed by explaining that the old name/pronoun isn’t correct.
At first it may seem like my subconscious is trying to tell me that I’m mistaken in my gender identity, but I don’t think this is the case. My trans journey has been a very quick one. In under three years I’ve gone from discovering my trans identity, starting hormone therapy, undergoing two surgeries, to now presenting masculine with a goatee. A lot of trans people spend that amount of time in self reflection and discovery before doing any physical changes (if they decide to go that route). I’ve had multiple doctors and a therapist ask me if I might be changing too fast.
Such a quick change is quite a shock on the body, both physically and mentally. Now that things have settled down in the past year, my brain seems to be doing a self-check with these dreams.
“Hey there, subconscious here. Phew, what a ride we’ve had! Just want to see if you’re sure we’re not really a woman. We’d been presenting as female for 28 years after all, and I’m rather used to that.”
“No brain. Being used to it or more familiar with it doesn’t make it right. We are male.”
“Ah, cool. Just asking.”
“I appreciate the testing, but could you not use the deadname and pronouns to do it?”
“Yeah, well, they helped you answer, didn’t they?”
Psyches are weird…
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