I've kinda been disappointed in myself the past few months or so because I haven't been posting a whole lot about my gender these days. Its been as if I have this mind set that posting about my genders has to be some paradigm shifting thought or something. Also, that when I post about my genders.... it should be about discovering something about one of them, not about them as a whole. A fellow poster at bigender.org refers to his/her genders as "shards" as in shards of glass, because s/he sees each gender as a shard of a mirror. It prompted me to think about my own "shards".
At one point in my life, I did feel like I was like a mirror, often shattering apart and then being glued back together. I felt powerful and capable and complete when I was glued together. But then I would fall apart again. I would feel lost and wondering what happened and where did who I was go?
For me, it took me 23 years to realize that when i felt that way (complete and capable), I was experiencing a whole different gender state and not a place that was "finally me and finally whole!". it was something entirely unique. It was not really me gluing the mirror back together, rather, it was finding a few pieces big enough that I could see myself in as a whole. It energized me and made me feel on top of the world. I finally did break the cycle of feeling complete and capable to feeling fragmented and confused and lost. But at that time, I tried everything to get a fix to make me feel good again. It made me feel like if I didn't somehow get all my energy back and be on full energy (like I did when I felt "put together") then I would never feel stable and happy and complete and healthy.
It has been taking a long time to figure out what exactly it means to be a gender that is not female or male and to come to terms that this is just a part of me, not an ideal place. I eventually learned that for me, the mirror was my surface layer and there was something beneath that was a core and didn't change and I could tap into it whenever I wanted. It was earth shattering for me. I found the strength and the thread I needed to not feel fragmented and lost. It stabilized me. My 3rd gender feels at times like it is the closest to my life force, my core, because I don't feel constrained to what I should be, or do, or think, or whatever as male or female. I can incorporate all that I love about male and female and it makes me feel more whole. Thus, my 3rd gender is my "comfort" zone. My comfort gender. But it is not my core. It is different. And that surprised me even more when I really started trying to figure out what my core was. I found out, yet again, that my 3rd gender is not something that I pass through on my way from male to female and vice versa or when I feel fragmented or complete like I once thought. Its a complete gender on it's own. I definitely do know that if I feel "broken" or don't feel "stable" I can not just "hide" or be another gender while it all works out. I'm not a split person, I am a whole one, and so when something goes wrong I suffer as a whole person, and in all my gender-modes. But the more I learn to understand that each of my genders are their own emotional beings, the more I can grow as a core person, as a WHOLE core, because I am growing as a person from multiple vantage points in life.
Often, I will find that learning to live with more than one gender is about learning who you are on the inside and determining what that means when presenting yourself and interacting with the outside world. Some days I feel like I am going through what most toddlers go through- discovering themselves and the world. I remind myself to take it slow and one day at a time. Children are children for a while, and the stage i am in is not fully grown. I know that if I have a really big break-through for one of my genders emotionally (ie: understanding something fundamental about myself as a certain gender, etc) it tends to affect all my gender-modes. I feel unified in a way, and fully charged, and powerful again like I used to, but I know its going to be fleeting. I have to remind myself that I need to process whatever it was and let it take it's time and my other genders need to process it too. When I am really struggling with something emotionally as one gender, even when I am not fully aware of it, that is when I tend to feel disconnected again. I am prone to anxiety and depression and to be honest, just going crazy when all this happens.
I find writing very helpful to sort it all out when I'm feeling "off" in any way, even when I can't figure out why. That is why I blog here. It helps bring to the surface a lot and stabilizes me. I also try to find things that "ground" me emotionally for each gender. For example, my male gender really likes books and cycling. So I make a point to keep things out (like books, and my boxers have cyclers on them, etc) to remind myself who I am. My energy needs it and it keeps me charged on my own source instead of resorting to drugs or something worse to get my fix again. I still struggle with that. (It has gotten SO much better after working with an energy worker- the trauma touch therapist-for 12 weeks though. She straightened me out a lot.) I have also been discovering that following my intuition is really important too. Call it "the secret", the life force, divination, whatever.... if i don't, I usually start to not feel well. Its like life saying "I told you so!, you should have listened to me....". lol i'm a science guy/gal and to be honest really struggle to let myself believe and trust in such things. but the more I fight, the more I realize that I just need to let my energy guide me to what I need.
Lately, I have started to see myself more comprehensively. It is as if the more separate and independent I allow each gender to present themselves on the outside, the more whole I feel on the inside. I feel more comfortable with myself and each gender is a counterweight, a balance, to me being the healthy, happy person I want to be. Now, when something happens that concerns just one gender, it is something unusual. Each of my genders, granted, have their own emotional being, but if I'm angry about something, I might be angrier when I am male, for example, but I feel it as 3rd and female too. Long ago, if something happened to me, I would only process it (or mostly) through one gender. So when I was raped, and I only processed it through my male and 3rd gender, it is no wonder that I am only now just working through it as a female. My energy is "untangled" now, as my trauma therapist says now. It flows straight. It isn't knotted anymore. The energy doesn't get bottled up in places and/or blocked anymore.
A lot of my experience now is feeling my energy and emotions and thoughts, etc flow through each of my genders/emotional beings and processing through them. I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to have something happen and only need to process it once, cuz in my world I have to do it 3 times. But then again, I get to learn from life from three different angles. I'm a more well rounded individual. It can be a lot of work too though, I will admit. But it is starting to be a comfortable place for me. I'm slowly finding myself and putting the shards back together into a complete piece of glass. Who knows how many more smaller shards are left, but I do know that the big ones are put together now and I can for the first time see myself in the reflection.
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