First, sorry if this breaks the rules. I just needed to vent, feel free to delete.
I’m laying here at night worrying. I’ve had some euphoric moments today, and some dysphoric moments, and I’m worried I’m making a big mistake.
I’ve painted my toes and Shaved my legs, and they look great, I love my legs, but then I look back up and see this gross fat bald dude.
I never thought I had gender dysphoria, just the regular “Haha, I hate myself” because of my gut, face hair, body hair, hips, butt.
I have spent months seriously thinking about My gender identity in the lens of self acceptance, and flood gates just open. Shaving my legs and arms in middle school, never being comfortable without a shirt on, little things I guess. I could always excuse those away, because I used to excuse my dream state persona as “lol brains weird”.
I’m thinking back on some of my experiences, and it just seems like I was willfully ignorant, or just didn’t have the words to describe the feelings let alone the emotional intelligence to name them and understand them.
There was a time I was looking for any acceptance from anyone, and I fell into hooking up with older men. I was feeling sexy and made a comment about it and this guy straight up slapped me down. It hurt, I was angry, I didn’t know why. I didn’t know that my mental image was so far off, and it hurt when someone told me. I buried that of course.
Lots of buried emotions, buried memories.
All of that is enough.
The other sense of joy and euphoria I got today was a confirmation that I will be able to start HRT in about a week if I want to, I got that email today and was ECSTATIC, but then comes in more doubt. Am I just rushing things along? What if I’m just lying to myself. Let’s say I start HRT and after three months I call it quits? No harm trying, right? Better than sitting here in another ten years wondering why I kept kicking the can down the road. What if I’m not really trans, what if it’s Just…… I dunno, I don’t even have any diversions or excuses.
Would a cis person have even gotten to this point?
So many questions, so many anxieties, so many red flags in hindsight.
I’m trying to go back to sleep, I used to think it was just depression, but I love my dreams. I’ve exercised my lucid dreaming enough over the years that I can do anything, go anywhere, but the thing I love most about my dreams is how free I am. I just am me, a switch of a bisexual woman. Sometimes I’m more passive and sometimes I’m more aggressive, but I’m always me.
Waking up is torture, I’d rather go back to sleep. There were times that I had so thoroughly disassociated from my life that the serialized dreams I had about being locked in an asylum seemed more real, more comforting. Real life just felt like a bad dream, and even though I still had a grasp on reality in my waking life, the trauma of having to live in an institution because of my delusions I was a man living a miserable life in a dead end ‘unskilled’ job in bum Fuck Midwestern land was a lot, still is a lot.
Sometimes I’m not sure if that was more traumatic, or trying to be the husband I was always told I was supposed to be was more traumatic.
At that time I was drinking 18 12 oz cans of the cheapest strongest beer they sold a day within a six hour span, listening to old records and crying every night about something I couldn’t even tell what it was and was intentionally never going to remember in the morning.
Then I’d go to sleep…
I hope that girl is doing okay today.
TL;DR I have HRT available to me in the next weeks, and I’m excited and nervous, I can’t shut off my mind, and while I know that if I were to offer estrogen to any of my male friends they wouldn’t even think twice about turning it down, I’m sitting here excited and giddy but trying to talk myself down that maybe I’m not really trans enough, but logically I understand cisgendered males don’t agonize over This and never would’ve gotten to this point of the discussion.
Thanks for coming to my TED stream-of-consciousness infodump ❤️
I’m sorry to hear you’re struggling, it does sound quite similar to my transition process. I was told that the dysphoria often gets worse before it gets better and that’s what I found. But it did get better.
I also had those same doubts, at each stage, be it my initial appointments, getting HRT, taking HRT, booking SRS, getting SRS etc. I can’t obviously tell you if you’re right or wrong to transition, that’s your own journey, but for me each step was plagued with doubts, but I don’t regret things at all and I’m much happier now.
I think the doubts are perfectly normal, you are doing something big, that, in the case of medical transition, has lasting effects on your body. It’s natural to have doubts about that. I do think that you’re correct, a cis person wouldn’t even have a moments hesitation about declining HRT, it’s not something they’d even consider.
I will say that if you’re getting euphoria over the thought of taking HRT then it’s probably a good positive indicator. If you’re not sure there are a couple of things to bear in mind, taking HRT doesn’t generally have immediate external physical effect, it takes time to grow breasts. It does tend to have a mental effect much quicker, you can try it and see how you respond to that and stop if you don’t like it before you get irreversible effects. Please note I’m not a doctor and I’m only saying this from my own experience and every individual is different.
One other thing you could try if you haven’t already is breast forms, try wearing them around the house and see if it gives you euphoria or not. Breast growth is the primary irreversible part of HRT so it’s a good litmus test I think.
Regarding your dysphoria, I got the same. Transition is a journey and unfortunately I found that the more feminine I became in my gender expression the more glaring my masculine feature stood out to me. I think that’s probably fairly common, but it does improve. Slowly my face softened, my fat redistributed, my breasts grew.
Mainly though I got more confident and accepting of myself, it’s a long journey and isn’t always easy. I’m unlikely to ever pass but I’m ok with “looking trans” now, it’s me, it’s who I am, and that’s ok. I have wonderful supportive people in my life that I’ve met since transitioning and I’m much happier now.
I hope your journey works for you, whatever you decide.