Do you keep them, destroy/delete them, lock them away? What are you doing with your photos of your old self?

Personally I’m a bit torn. On one hand I want to keep them because they are still memories, on the other hand I never want to see them again. So I will probably lock them away/archive them somewhere.

But what about you?

  • dandelion
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    4 months ago

    Yes, archiving them somewhere. I think this is highly individual. For me, right now, I feel like there can be catharsis looking back at those old photos. When I was first transitioning, especially a few months into HRT, it was a major confirmation for me that looking at old photos of me and comparing them to how I looked now I could distinctly tell the old photos were not “me”, that I couldn’t recognize them as myself in the photo, it looks like a stranger (even though I felt not all that much had changed, merely the presence of a denial / neglect beard and masculine clothes, etc. in those old photos were enough to create that distance).

    I wouldn’t want anyone else to have photos of me, though. I think I would want to control when and under what circumstances I come across them. (That has always been true, but now I feel more justified in that position, whereas before I think people just thought it was something unusual or unhealthy about me.)