Thanks for sharing this. The transgender forum isn't very active anymore. And I do miss reading posts here. This is my second time around here on PC. And the first time I was here I posted in this forum. But I rarely post my own threads anywhere on PC anymore. And when I do, they're not of a personal nature.

I'm a 70 year old man now. But I've struggled with my gender identity for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories of life relate this. In my case, there's always just been two of me. There's the male persona I show to the world & there's the female persona that has been trapped within my male body all of my life. It would not be too far off the mark to say it has been a war. (It's a long story & would take a very long reply to go into.) And even though I'm now as old as I am, it's still not entirely over. (As I have heard it said in the past... if you're trans, you're trans for life. It never goes away.)

What you described sounds similar to dissociative identity disorder. It may well be you couldn't be diagnosed as having DID. But it sounds as though you may have some DID-type tendencies. At least that's the way it comes across to me. I'm not a mental health professional though. So that's just my personal opinion. Perhaps some other more knowledgeable members will have some thoughts with regard to this.

You asked if other people feel things the way you describe. Of course I can only speak for myself. And in my case, as I mentioned above, there's just my outward (pretty marginal) male self & my hidden female self. I guess I wouldn't say they're personified exactly. But they do both definitely exist. It would be too complicated to go into here; but a few years ago I developed the notion of my female persona being a fraternal twin sister who never developed physically, but whose psyche exists within me along with the male persona I show the world. (How this all came about is a long story.)

So anyway... the point being here... no... you're not off your rocker. You're simply struggling, as you wrote, to reconcile the gendered identities within you. And my personal opinion would be that probably anyone who has gender identity issues goes through this in one way or another. I know I certainly have. I don't know if you have seen, or are seeing an experienced gender therapist. But if not that may be something to seriously consider. I don't see anyone anymore. But I did see a gender therapist for a short time. And while I was doing so it was helpful.

There is also another website I could just mention to you. And, given the way you describe your gender-identity-related experience, it sounds to me as though it might be helpful to you. The website is: Bigender.net. It 's not a very active forum anymore. But the few people who are on it I think experience their gender-identity-struggles similarly to what you describe. So I think you might have a lot in common with them. I was a member there for a while. But, in my case, I found I just didn't fit in. Here are links, first to BgN's home page & second to the forums sign-in page:

Bigender.net Journals

bigender.net • Index page