One of the fun parts about being trans is now there’s this name that the government and most strangers recognize me as that I and my close friends don’t, but every time I think about the fact that I have a deadname now, I keep getting struck by this strange feeling that my deadname never felt like mine, even through years of me actively using it as my name. I remember trying to change it was I was about 17 but I never did because I only tried to think of masc names. For as long as I can remember, I could never look at my deadname and feel like it was mine. I didn’t like it and it felt strange to even associate that name with me; I only ever did because the only alternative I could think of was just not having a name, which would have been a massive inconvenience. I never even really thought it was a bad name, I just hated it for me
Did anyone else ever feel like this or am I just crazy?
My deadname feels so distant from me that even when I meet or hear of a person whose name is the same as my deadname, it feels surreal. Like, my deadname has always just been a cue for me to respond to someone, just like how someone saying “Hey!” to catch my attention doesn’t mean that “Hey” is like a name to me. I do not have personal association with that name, and I never did. I haven’t even legally changed my name yet, but I will do so very soon, and it feels odd for me to remember that my chosen name is not my legal name quite yet. I forgot that it’s still not on my ID rather frequently!
I never liked my old name but only because it’s way too common. There were always like 2 other kids in every class with the same name.
I kid you not, my dad wanted to name me Vanguard, but my mom wouldn’t let him.
I’ve been pissed about this my whole life
same feeling
before i knew i was bigender i wanted to just change it to literally any other girl name (didn’t really know what i wanted yet) and my parents got super mad at me, lol
I completely understand where you are coming from and you are not crazy. For me I have complex PTSD because of my traumatic childhood. That means my default model for dealing with trauma is dissociation. So I see parts of myself as different aspects of who I am. One part of myself is the one that has my given name or what people call a deadname. He is one of our protectors and in IFS speak he is a firefighter. That is why I dislike the idea of thinking of him as dead. I know this sounds a little different from what you are experiencing but I figured it was close enough that I would tell you about it. Hopefully you take some comfort in it.
I also relate to mine using IFS. The protector is still around, but it never really was a ‘he’. Just a protective part wearing that ‘he armor’ to avoid experiencing more trauma.
But I generally relate to my parts as different animal or elemental spirits (did a lot of psychedelics before getting into IFS, still do a lot of psychedelics, but I did a lot before too).
This particular protector is chameleon.
That is what I love about IFS. It just seems so adaptable to different situations.
Yeah it’s a really effective tool for understanding different parts of ourselves and learning to hold space for all of those parts.
I see my therapist this morning and really need to, I’ve been disassociating the last 3 days and stuck in boy mode, mostly due to family shame and a stupid aunt running her transphobic mouth.
I am lucky enough for most of the names in my ethnic language to be non-gendered.
