This site's main authoress, Jennifer, started this site by producing and posting her transition journal on-line. They cover from her first starting to seriously question her place in this world in 1997, through her SRS surgery in 2001. They are provided in annual episodes in PDF format.
To access the Journal files please send Jennifer an email at jenni at gender-id.com for a link to the journal files. This simple task is needed to help provide some minimal confidentiality.
Meanwhile, a little about the value of Journal Writing....
Journal Writing
I very highly recommend journal writing because it really is something you can do to help yourself. Perhaps more than therapy, and more than talking with a friend or loved one.
Don’t view this as a lark, or some "pop psychology" concept to simply discard. It is a tool that can help you a great deal; it is something that will allow you to reach into your heart and mind, and is a tool that can help you sort through your thoughts and feelings and help decide what is best for you to do with your life.
When writing in your journal, it is imperative that you are able to be brutally honest with yourself about everything. Therefore, the security of your journal is of utmost importance.
When you write in a journal you must write freely, as if nobody on the planet will ever see it. To ensure that happens, you must protect that journal from being read by anyone else. You can’t be brutally honest about your feelings if you think the people you are writing about will ever see it. If you can't trust the security of your computer, or of a handwritten journal, then destroy the document, or do not save it after you write it. It isn’t essential that the document continue to exist; it’s only important that you write.
Being honest with yourself takes a lot of practice. If writing seems "hollow" at first, just keep writing. It also isn’t about how beautiful you write; it’s about working through your issues, and searching your feelings.
We spend a lot of time lying to ourselves, and to others, about the way that we think and feel. Lies take many forms, and may range from "I’m sure I’m just a TV – I think I can handle this…" to "Killing myself is the only answer." Your true feelings about being transgendered may run much deeper than "I’m just a TV". As you write, you will be amazed at how many alternate solutions become evident to you, as you continue this dialog with yourself. Suicide, you may find, is not your only option when you step back and look at your situation.
The journal isn’t about documenting life events, although that may be something nice to look back on, like an old photo album. I find that I forget a lot of details, and enjoy reading about some of the good times. To be a useful tool, though, the journal should be about examining your life, your feelings, and your choices.
Writing things down also gives you a level of objectivity that you need if you are going to make improvements in your life.
Give yourself the opportunity to let your feelings out, in a very safe way. If you've never done this, then sit down right now and write the words, "I am a transsexual." - If that is what you think you might be, that is. You will be amazed how good it feels just to admit things to yourself, let alone to others or in your journal.
When you write, write as if you are writing a letter to someone. To sit and write about your thoughts and feelings in a manner in which others might need to read and understand them, is a powerful way to sift through your mind, to get at what is really bothering you, and how you really feel about something. It puts problems into the proper perspective.
My personal experience is that writing is very healing. It helps me to sort out my thoughts and feelings. I know it does me a lot of good, and I can tell when I haven't written for a few days; I may feel a bit out of sorts. After reading a section of my journal, my friend Ms. M said that she can tell that I felt better about what was bothering me as she read along.
Writing in a journal can help make you healthier, too.
Writing in a journal may rev up your ability to fend off germs, according to studies by James W. Pennebaker, PhD , a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin . Dr. Pennebaker found that people who wrote about traumatic events for 20 minutes a day three to five times a week had about half as many doctor visits as people who didn't write. Their antibody response to bacteria and viruses was more vigorous than the control group's too.
Putting it all down on paper may help you see your problems as less stressful so your body doesn't automatically produce stress hormones, such as cortisol. "There's preliminary evidence that writing improves function in the parts of the brain that control cortisol secretion," says Joshua Smyth, PhD, study project director at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, who headed 1998 research that found similar results among people with chronic illnesses.
In a long-term Alzheimer’s Disease study of nuns in Wisconsin, the researchers noted that "The sisters who had very positive emotions in their biographies as young 20-year-old women, they lived about 10 years longer than the sisters who wrote nice biographies but that sounded like business letters. There wasn't much emotion (in the biographies)".
I’ve presented evidence that writing in a journal, and expressing your feelings, can help you in many, many ways! So, even if you only write a little at a time, write. It does your mind and soul a lot of good.
I invite you to read my journal, which is located at the new www.gender-id.com.
