Dreams and memories
 

They say people can't remember anything from before they were 3 years old. In my case, the beginning of my definate memories was closer to 4, starting in the place we stayed after the doctors apparently did their thing to me. I was always unable to remember more, though sometimes I'd have a mental image with no time sequencing attached to it. And sometimes I've dreamed.

Not just any dreams, only a very few that I had while sleeping during one of my migraine headaches. I haven't always been troubled with migraines, for me they link to my estrogen level and are almost a recent thing. The only other time when I was subject to them was between 9 and 13, which makes me wonder if I had a high estrogen level then too.

The dreams themselves had been crystal clear, as though I were seeing things from my waking eyes, and my being fairly lucid. I could not act, these only seemed to be replaying events. Nothing unrealistic or dream like, being very mundane except for two things. The first was that I could not hear, and the second that everyone else seemed to be giants.

I'm somewhat of a sceptic and I usually attach the most likely sounding explanation to things, though lately those rationalizations have often been wrong. For these dreams, I said to myself that it must be a sort of strange hallucination brought on by the migraines. And the experiences were good to have, because they always cancelled the migraine instead of my having to suffer for 3 days.

But then last weekend I went to my grandfather's funeral, which was a sad occasion despite some very friendly distant relatives who I never usually got a chance to see. Though some of them were wondering where they got the extra granddaughter from, most of them were uncommonly accepting and didn't even need to ask, almost as if they'd known something for a long time.

Anyways, we took a sidetrip to the house I'd lived in as an infant. My parents moved out shortly before I was 2 years old, and never went back or visited the place. And ... that was exactly the place in two of my hyper- realistic migraine dreams. Seeming almost a complete match of details, except that the neighboring houses appeared to be slightly modernized, and the street had been widened to handle more traffic.

So now I wonder about the distinction between memories and dreams, and the meaning of why my subconcious apparently made such an amazing effort of bringing back pieces of my earliest past. How was this possible in the first place? when the developmental psychologists say 3 years old is the beginning of memory. Now I have more questions than I started with.

Sorry for rambling, good day to you all.

It is good that your relatives are uncommonly accepting of you, their "extra granddaughter". I have lived my whole life in one gender, but even so, my parents are not accepting of me.

Peter

Thank you Peter, I guess it is a good thing. The ones who were wondering about me were curious as to how I fit into the family tree. I think I may have accidently handled the situation with my family well. My intuition hints that in doing things as I did, exploring the past without rejecting them, I seem to have released them from some remorse. Perhaps this will help heal old scars.

I never figured out who gave me the gift of a jewelry box when I was 6, maybe one of my friendly relatives (?)

I was grown up in Switzerland. But when I had been, with 11 years, in London for the first time, then everything was so familiar to me, as if I had been living there forever. I guess, there was - still is! - some kind of memory in me. Not coming from this life.

After getting my med records and confronting my mother with them, I was amazed at how our relationship changed for the better. She told me right then that a great burden had been lifted from her by no longer having to carry the lies she had told me. Ironically, when she was alive, she never shared with my father some of my revelations claiming he was in denial. But since then, he has read the correspondance we had over it and has also come around and that has transformed our relationship as well. Secrets in any family are never good and it's sad that some parents will continue to carry them thinking it is for the best.

Hey Peter,
I almost forgot to respond to your feelings on the subject. But I remembered just in time, because I do care. So umm what kind of person would you like to be accepted as by your parents? What sort of acceptance has been missing in your life?

I suppose most people are able to find some approval if they're willing to sell their souls, though that kind of willingness never got me anywhere in the not so halcyon days of my youth.

Hi Priestess,

Priestess, I am really annoyed with you at this moment. It seems that in your search for an intersex diagnosis, you are unable to answer the most basic questions about your situation, as I asked you in a recent PM. The MRIs you have posted have revealed a fairly normal adult male body complete with a mature adult male penis. In terms of developmental biology, having a mature adult penis, puts strong constraints on possible intersex conditions that you might have. I suspect that many of the doctors who you have consulted about your situation have also encountered the ideas reflected in your "memories" and "dreams" and have been perplexed by your situation. The other day, you posted that trans people were mucking up the world, making it harder for you to get a proper diagnosis from doctors. I am not trans, but I really resented your statement about trans people. I resent people who come on this board and engage in trans bashing, as if that would somehow increase their intersex credentials. I am not a doctor, and only a doctor can provide you with an intersex diagnosis. But I am slowly, as you post more and more, getting a sense of what it might emotionally be like for doctors to deal with you.

Peter

I see Peter

As I recall, you go doing lectures saying that you were born with a vagina, and you have nothing, absolutely nothing to base your belief on. Your parents tell you you had an operation for undescended testes, and that could easily be true. You've experienced no health problems, you've not proceeded with any medical study at all, and you apparently don't even feel female enough to change your sex, though you have said you do crossdress. And I'm wrong and annoying?

I've said it so many times publicly, but you wish to assume I'm lying. Even the doctors I've gone to, at this point they almost all say something abnormal is in there, they just dispute whether it's natural or artificial, and keep coming up with various conditions to test for as a prelude to any diagnosis. Even the most critical doctor I've been to insisted that I'd had surgery to put a vaginal canal into me and remove my prostate and spermatic chords. Which isn't true, as far as I know.

All the extended testing at this point has been their idea, not mine. I just hurt badly, and need some medical attention.

And I've been sporadically bleeding and in pain for years, and had zero male sexual function, and now I've been reduced to having a lot of difficuly standing and walking. And had family members tell me what they did to me.

If I have no recognized intersex condition, despite my apparently having four gonads and 80% of a canal that's had cameras inside it -> then fine.
I have some problem that needs solving, that for sure. And the blasted psychologists who I used to see let me go as a client because they said I had nothing psychologically wrong with me, no gender dysphoria, only physical problems that I'd been willing to forsake my social identity for to cure.

All that post from you just because I asked what sort of person you wanted your parents to accept you as? It seemed to be a valid and supportive question.

You want me to go? Or shut up and accept (your?) leadership? Well I may go, but from my viewpoint you have no valid claim to intersex yourself, at least not yet. Even Wyn has evidence. You have nothing, just some big fat wishful thinking.

Ps, If this post is edited or censored by you in any way, I will know as a fact that you have no scruples or credibility, instead of simply wondering why the hell you're such an angry person.

Pps, My statements about the trans were derived from years of being forced to hang around with them, and putting up with the miserable shitty things they said and did to me. Any comments about their character and motives are the thoughts I'd had while being around them and observing them. If they don't like it, if they wanted me to think better of trans-kind, then they should have been a little nicer and shown some humanity to a stranger in their midst.

Hi Priestess,

Thanks for speaking your mind. It helps to clear the air. My mother said that I was born with a vaginal cleft, and lacked internal female organs. The scars on my perineum have been documented and shared with people who do medical research. Both my parents, after reviewing these scars, have acknowledged their existence, but have not given me a clear explanation. My personal physician at a major HMO (Kaiser) has investigated these scars, and has said that they are the result of a "developmental problem". He spread the "lips" apart, but found that there is no depth to my vaginal features. To be perfectly honest, I have always used the terms "vaginal features" and "vaginal scars". I have never claimed to have a fully formed vagina, or to have a vaginal canal. After I started posting here, there was a sudden fad for people to post that they too had undergone surgery to "close" their vagina. It seems that in every reported case, what was referred to was the line of Rapche (sp?), which is a normal developmental feature. You are correct about my treatments for undescended testicles.


You have mentioned some pretty remarkable anatomical features regarding your situation. In your last post you write: "If I have no recognized intersex condition, despite my apparently having four gonads and 80% of a canal that's had cameras inside it -> then fine". I agree that having four gonads would truly be remarkable. Recently, you wrote that your colon, splits off from itself, and loops back through an independent section before rejoining your colon. If this situation does not result from some medical treatment, and you were born that way, I would also consider that to be remarkable.

If we are talking about credibility, it is a two way street. We awake from our dreams, in the light of day; we face other people who might have an interest in the truth of the statements we make.

Peter