Here is Why You Repeat Old Behaviors Mid/Post Transition!
Why do you revert to old gendered behavior years post-transition? Dr. Z explains learned programming.
You've completed transition (whatever that means for you). It's been 5, 10, 20 years post-transition. Yet sometimes you find yourself reverting to old behavior—responding from an inner sense of masculinity/femininity you used to be, behaving in gender-specific ways you don't identify with anymore. Why?
Learned programming: Your brain learned a particular way of behaving and programmed itself to think in a particular way. Imagine your brain as a computer programmed pre-transition to behave and interact through the gender lens of your assigned gender at birth. You got so habituated that now it's difficult to strip yourself of that learned programming. It stays with you until you find a new way of rerouting brain waves to look at things from genuine, authentic perspective.
The older you are, the longer learned programming stays post-transition—the longer you lived operating from that software, the harder to relearn. Younger people relearn easier.
Two situations trigger reverting: (1) Very stressful situations—brain reverts to familiar, which is old sense of self. (2) Around loved ones who knew you pre-transition—you're hyper-vigilant wanting them to validate you, putting brain under stress, so it reverts to familiar.
Watch to find out why unlearning behaviors takes a while, why your brain works as an ally (bringing in familiar when stressed), and why this is NOT an indication you made a mistake transitioning.
