GID sucks - not for everybody

[Apples Mk.II]

I first I was happy to discover there was a possibilty of finally improving my life, but as times advances, everything seems to be against me.

- Noticing late in life
- Losing hair at a fast pace
- not a single female looking trait on the face
- A bad face even for a male
- insufficient male voice range that would require surgery
- unsupportive family
- etc, etc, etc.


This is not for me. I thought it would improve my life, but it is going to be far worse. I already damaged my beard with laser and I am still on time to conserve what I have left. I'm seriously considering not going to the therapy appointment and disregard this as some sort of sick mental disorder, self image and self steem problems, maybe a sexual maturation disorder, autgynephillia, a sick fetish, or I just hate myself and want a free ticket to a new life, that is not going to magically change. Probably the GID is just a lie I made up to make me feel better.  I lived 20 years with it and it did not got that bad until recently. It cwill go down again. Why jump the shark just to remain forever in the unpassability and remain as an "ugly ->-bleeped-<-"?.


Not all the caterpillars can turn into butterflies. We have to accept what we are.




Three days of voice therapy can do wonders on my self steem after discovering you simply don't have the minimum physical requirements. This is the cherry on top in a scaling month of feeling like crap... Why I can't be normal, get a hot chick and live a normal life? If I could put all of this effort to start changing my life, why I could not do it before?

[Ave]

do what you have to do.


I wouldn't consider you an "ugly ->-bleeped-<-". There is always something you can do to fix your problems, FFS, Voice surgery, etc...

I hope you do good in, well, whatever you want

[Jamie D]

I just want to add, denying the dysphoria won't get rid of it.  A lot of us have tried.

[Apples Mk.II]

Agh. As soon as the sun rises, I'm getting to the top of a small mountain and shout as hard as I can. Better start looking for my trekking pole.

I need a more physical way of venting than ranting on the internet.

[Nicolette]

Honestly, it IS a tough route, but all routes may be as tough, but if you do decide not to follow through with transition then find a place of your own, to at least get away from your parents! It will allow you to think more clearly.

[Apples Mk.II]

Voice surgery, etc...

HEard the results, makes me want to puke.

[Ave]

HEard the results, makes me want to puke.

damn, that's harsh, especially since I know who you're referring to.

Whatever dude, if having a "str8" life is your deal in coping with GID, then have at it .

[Apples Mk.II]

damn, that's harsh, especially since I know who you're referring to.

Searched for femlar it in youtube, listened to five different persons. Either the results were worse, or they were not even trying.

STR8? AH, straight. I don't care about it anymore. And I should put that razor back in its place, it is giving me weird ideas.

[Ave]

Searched for femlar it in youtube, listened to five different persons. Either the results were worse, or they were not even trying.

STR8?

str8=duplicitous hetero/cis normative relationship.

[Stranger]

I have seen your photos on this forum and really don't think you're remotely as unattractive and never-ever-passable as you believe.

For what it's worth.

[Apples Mk.II]

and never-ever-passable as you believe.

While I keep my mouth closed. Have you seen my range on the voice sub forum? 100-140, full male, it won't go up. With a fundamental frequency of 100. I hate my voice that much that I keep trying to force the pitch every day, with all the pain is causing me.

I can't even do a falsetto. I did not want to do RLE because I knew my voice was unworkable. I felt I could never ever go full time because of the voice. My biggest fear was that I would always end in awkward situations every time I had to talk. And that would happen daily. Surgery? The results make me want to run away. Without a decent voice, I can't do my work. I just want to see one person that sounds ok. I want to believe that since I only need to raise the pitch, those persons in the videos simply did not practise enough the rest of the voice factors. I want to believe that I may have some sort of ailment that will improve the voice after finding and correcting, but they already told me that they could not find anything wrong, apart from the sinuses. And that would only fix the resonance, which I also seem to lack. thanks to that defect.

Heck, I remember that local person that was encouraging me and bullsh*tting with "don't worry about your adam's apple, it will shrink and your voice will change". Who were she trying to kid?

Who am I going to fool but myself? Just delusions. I don't have the guts to go through a whole life of "Hey baby, you hot!" *reply with a trucker's voice* "Oh crap, a dude". I am already a weakling. With a botched, impossible to complete transition, I would not leave home in my life.


BRC commented yesterday that case of that transition disaster. It was like watching my future self. And Annah has always been the voice of reason. Voice over the rest, nothing is as important.


Since I already paid for the cd's and tuner, I will skip to the second one just to see if I can get the correct resonance, mostly to avoid feeling like having wasted my money. If I think I can go back to my old self, it must be a really mild GID.

[Stranger]

I don't have the guts to go through a whole life of "Hey baby, you hot!" *reply with a trucker's voice* "Oh crap, a dude". I am already a weakling.

The very fact that you're entertaining this scenario for yourself shows that your anxiety has shifted from "I'll never look like a woman, ever" to "I'll never sound like a woman, ever." It seems to me that you're right to have admitted that yes, you may be able to look passable. The next step is to admit that yes, you may be able to sound passable.

I realise that you feel you've hit an unpassable wall with your voice; that your resonance, your pitch, has become fixed where it is. Nonetheless, voice training is something you work at over time. Even if you think you're at your limit, there is probably room for -slight- improvement. And the next month, you might discover you can slightly improve again. And again. It seems very early on in your voice training to have the kind of total despair and surrender I'm feeling from your posts. Frustration and doubt, yes, but don't let that overwhelm you.

[Beverly]

BRC commented yesterday that case of that transition disaster. It was like watching my future self. And Annah has always been the voice of reason. Voice over the rest, nothing is as important.

Actually, from listening to your samples you actually have a good basis for a female voice in one of them. You are also your own worst critic so just keep practising and posting samples for us to judge and we will give you honest feedback.

It will take at least 6 months.

Nothing about transition is fast. Everything seems to take forever.....

[Apples Mk.II]

The very fact that you're entertaining this scenario for yourself shows that your anxiety has shifted from "I'll never look like a woman, ever" to "I'll never sound like a woman, ever."

Changes from time to time, but the only thing I am glad about is that I am not as wide as a WWF brawler. I have a inverted triangle build and wide shoulders, but it is better than nothing, I can easily lose weight compared to others and a bit of corsetting could do wonders.

But it is seeing everybody and they all look luckier than me in the beginning, and when somebody mentions says "You could be passable", it feels as if they just don't want to make you feel bad. Maybe only the ones that succeeded  are posting before those before / after, and the ones that ended in a disaster are just hiding from the world... All the people that look good now already had good faces to begin with and only in need of small corrections. Me? I am a natural accident. I'd need every existing surgery and that would probably mean looking as some sort of blow-up doll. Forehead, brow ridge, nose, saggy eyelids, tiny eyes, deformed mouth, premature aging... It is not only the gender thing, I also hate everything else about myself.

And that is my endless circle. I have hopes, then I watch other people transitioning and seeing the already looked work in the beggining, I start getting depressed, I go back to the mirror, I drop a drama bomb, community tries to counter it, small feeling of hope again, circle restart. I am even afraid of getting an evaluation from VirtualFFS. and what they will tell me.


PS: And still can't understand why precisely prior to the GID discovery is when I started to be labelled as desirable by several girls, or saying that I had a nice face... Unless it is something like anorexia...

[Alexis]

It most certainly is not for everybody. I can confirm that GID, or whatever term it's going by right now, does indeed suck. The thing is though that for many of us (and I understand that it is not all) there was not a choice. If there was, believe me, I honestly would have loved to have been able to stay male. My life does not need the added stress that transition has brought on with work, medical issues, family problems, relationships...yea, you get the point.

Transitioning with the expectation that you'll pass 100% right off the bat with no real effort, I hate to say it bluntly, is unrealistic at best. How you carry yourself and how you act say a lot more about you than how you look or sound. If your goal is to simply just be a hot (and I'm not saying that that is your goal, I'm just speaking generally), then you may want to step back and think about it a bit. There are a very lucky few who get to that point, most of us though are just happy about finally being ourselves and interacting with the world as who we really are. That is what, to me at least, this has all been about. Bringing out the person who is trapped inside.

It's hard. It may wind up being the hardest thing that you do in life. It sucks. It takes a lot of work. Takes a lot of pain, it's expensive (I'm not just talking about money either, because the expense can extend to friends, family, career, etc.), and it's physically and mentally exhausting. Even after all of that there's the chance that society won't want to play nice with you and you won't pass or whatever. You have to transition for yourself if that is what's right for you, and not be so focused on what the world around you is thinking. There are girls and guys out there who transition, go through all the surgeries and unfortunately cannot pass, but they still find happiness, so don't try to take that away or discredit them.

If you have a choice in the matter then I am very happy for you and I do wish you nothing but the best whichever way you choose. Like I said though there are those of us who didn't have that luxury. Some who can't bare the thought of continuing on in their current state, and some who for some reasons are forced to live as someone they're not and don't get to transition even though they want to. I don't think that your decision should be based on how passable you think you will be, it should be because you want to be you. It is impossible to know how you will look or what you will sound like or anything until you try anyway. The focus really should be on being happy about being yourself.

Having said that, life comes in a lot of flavors. Only you can know which one you like best. Only you know which one is right for you.

ps. I too have seen your photos. I don't think that you would be "un-passable." I have not listened to your voice, but I can say when it comes to voice, realize that there are a lot of muscles involved. It takes training. Training takes time. If it helps use even something like weightlifting as an analogy. Using said analogy, expecting yourself to lift 220 the first time you do an exercise you've never done is unfair to yourself. You have to start lower and build yourself up to that weight. Voice is very much the same, at least that has been my experience. It's all a process, both physical and mental, and you get out of it as much as you are willing to put in. I truly wish you the best of luck, and I hope that you can lighten up on yourself and find some happiness in the things that you have going for you.

[Apples Mk.II]

It most certainly is not for everybody. I can confirm that GID, or whatever term it's going by right now, does indeed suck. The thing is though that for many of us (and I understand that it is not all) there was not a choice.

The sad truth is that probably that "Get out of jail free" card does not really exist. It is frustrating, but the thought of living as I was until now, is even worse. After hearing people saying "accept yourself all the time", I guess it is what I have to do now. I should better than anybody else that trying to act again is going to be even worse...


Back to practising...

[Apples Mk.II]

I should no be here. But I wanted to say one more thing... And I wish I was not lying. I have spent the last two days crying and considering suicide. I have never though I would do that, not even 12 years ago when I had to spent a few days in a psychiatriac ward after suffering from a Major depressive episode. It also started with "What's the point of living like this". The only difference is that this time I was actually considering finishing with everything. Standing in the station, pondering if I should jump a few seconds before the train arrived.

Yesterday was one of my worst days of pain. I have a nice combination of skeletal disorders. A bad Ankle, damaged knes, a displaced hip and scoliosis, lordosis and cifosis. Rather hard to be detected, but enough to make me have to endure a nice degree of pain and discomfort every day. Every time I used to show a bit of pain, I was always told by my parents that I just was an hypocondriac and I had to endure. If I was not dying, It was not bad. So I just left my body decay unnoticed during the years, with the hate about me, them, my life, everything being constantly repressed, pressed and stored, until things start exploding. A lot more with the therapy, that keeps unpacking "emotional boxes" and making everything even worse. I though it would improve my life, but I only see how worthless and wasted it is.


As usual, this proved to be another counterargument for transition. I can't maintain other posture than a stiff Robocop walp to keep the body straight, and I can't even swing my hips. The spine only allows movement in one direction. I will never be able to develop a decent movement pattern. I can't even do that. I have been on painkillers for two days. I just want to get me hooked on something, or whatever that makes all of this just go away.

I feel worthless, pathetic and a factory defective product that should have been recalled a long time ago.  If I divide my future in two paths, I can't see how any of them benefits me. Transition is something I can never complete, as limited and malformed as I am. I can't excel at anything and I will be a lonely aberration, more than I am now. And remaining as I am now... I don't know how to continue. I don't fit anywhere, I have no friends, I hate everything, everybody and myself, and I am the unluckiest person in earth. I did not earn a single decent trait in this lottery that is life, and I don't deserve anything.

When my two paths look this bad, a third option starts arising: End with everything. I never considered doing something like this, and now... I keep seeing it as the easiest and most harmless solution. I have nothing, nobody, wasted my life and have no interest in finding something good in the future. I have only known suffering for 30 years, and I don't want more.


People seem more worried about me than usual. I'm looking more and more like a corpse, I walk as I was going to fall any moment and I keep crying eny time I am alone, just asking for somebody to end this quickly. I don't have strenght for anything. I always thought "sooner or later, things will improve, something good will happen, I will be able to dig myself out of this hole". Now everything seems miserable and I don't want to wait more for that moment. Continuing is too painful. I see nothing that can motivate myself to keep going one. I'll die alone.



Sorry, this is the worst kind of rant. I can't take it anymore. Others have tried to encourage me and say that it is only in my mind, but it does not work. The therapist keeps saying that the most cruel person to me is myself, that I am like a judge that keeps punishing me and making my life more miserable. That I keep setting rules for making everything more hard and extreme. i should say that I hate myself, but that's too obvious. I don't know what to do. I thought the last major depression made me stronger, but I am still the same. I have not changed in all of these years. I just believed I was better. But I am the same worthless being.


I should need another painkiller, but I don't want to get hooked to those things... Anti depressants already scare me enough, the last time they turned me into an overweight drooling and shivering mountain of meat. And I almost forgot. I had to develop muscle to properly support my back and knees, so losing muscle mass to HRT can't be a good idea. I don't want this.

[Stephe]

No one can help you but yourself. You do need to stop beating yourself up.

You are right, GID sucks when you are living as the wrong gender. NO ONE thinks this is easy and most believe they can never do this. I know I did but now I have been living as a woman going on 5 years. I WAS an ugly ->-bleeped-<- at first but feel I have finally morphed into a decent looking woman. I looked like a cave man per-transition.

If your goal is to be some hot looking girl, then you might have to ramp that down a notch or two. Most of us won't ever look like a young fashion model with a body to kill for. But I do KNOW that living as a women removed all my GID issues and life is great now.

[Apples Mk.II]

I undestand what you mean, but I don't want anything of that, I don't even want to be a woman... I just want my old life back, being completely oblivious and ignorant. It was a crappy life, but at least I did not know it... This has gradually taken my health, crippled my sleep and reduced my productivity at work to a point where I risk losing it. Eight kilograms lost, insomnia, inability to concentrate, can't even enjoy the few social events I could participate in. No libido or sex drive and distancing me from the few people that cared about me.

I don't want anything of this, but the damn thing keeps pushing and eating me from inside, breaking every small thing that still worked for me. Nothing works into getting it out of sight anymore. It is something that wants me to change, but I don't enjoy it. At first I thought that accepting it would reduce the anguish and pain, but I actually hate it.

[Alexis]

You are not worthless. That needs to be said first, no question. You need to get yourself out of that mindset of thinking as nothing good can come out of it. I know, because I've been there myself as have others. I really do promise you that things can and will get better, but you have to put yourself out there. It's not easy, but it really does get better, you can't sit around waiting for them to, you have to go out at make your life better for you

I am really sorry about the pain you feel and the hardships that you are enduring.

A lot more with the therapy, that keeps unpacking "emotional boxes" and making everything even worse. I though it would improve my life, but I only see how worthless and wasted it is.

Reaching out for help is not worthless and is never wasted. Talking about things that are troubling you and are hard for you is the first step to healing. It is very hard and you are very brave to have sought help.

When my two paths look this bad, a third option starts arising: End with everything. I never considered doing something like this, and now... I keep seeing it as the easiest and most harmless solution

It's not easy and it is certainly not harmless. It affects everyone around you and everyone in your life. It precludes you from the chance to be happy. It precludes you from the chance to change things for yourself. And it denies everyone who cares about you one very basic thing, YOU. Yes, it is an option, but it is never a good one and never the right one.

People seem more worried about me than usual

This is case and point to what I just said. People worry about you because they care.

Others have tried to encourage me and say that it is only in my mind, but it does not work

It is not only in your mind. Not at all. The pain can be very real, and it is hard to deal with. You need to find something that helps take your mind elsewhere, get yourself active, do something you enjoy, and quite plainly get out of your own head. Again, I say this because I have been sitting where you are, beating myself because I thought it was all at an end. There are indeed people out there for you and people who care. And there are people here on Susan's who care to, and who want nothing more than to help you. You're doing the right thing by reaching out and saying you need help. Now you need to let people help you.

I see nothing that can motivate myself to keep going one. I'll die alone

This is where you have a choice. If you can not see a reason to live, then you need to go out and MAKE ONE. I know it seems daunting right now, but it is very doable, I promise you.

The therapist keeps saying that the most cruel person to me is myself, that I am like a judge that keeps punishing me and making my life more miserable. That I keep setting rules for making everything more hard and extreme

From what I have read, I actually could not agree with this more. You are WAY too hard on yourself. You punish yourself for things, you bring yourself down, tell yourself you can't do it for whatever reason. I'm telling you right now, YOU CAN! I have no doubt that if you put all the energy that you spend on hating yourself into trying to change things to be happy with yourself, that your life will turn around in an instant. Right now, you are your own worst enemy. Let those around you help you

I undestand what you say, but I don't want anything of that, I don't even want to be a woman... I just want my old life back, being completely oblivious and ignorant. It was a crappy life, but at least I did not know it... This has gradually taken my health, crippled my sleep and reduced my productivity at work to a point where I risk losing it. Eight kilograms lost, insomnia, inability to concentrate, can't even enjoy the few social events I could participate in. No libido or sex drive and distancing me from the few people that cared about me.

I don't want anything of this, but the damn thing keeps pushing and eating me from inside, breaking every small thing that still worked for me. Nothing works into getting it out of sight anymore...

I don't think that any of us ever wanted this. The key to what I said in my previous post in this thread is indeed that this is VERY hard. Like I said, I would have like to have been able to stay 'male' and live a normal life, not having to deal with any of the issues. That was not in the cards for me. But what I didn't do in that previous post was follow through to today. I can tell you with perfect certainty that I am happier now than I ever was in my past. In fact even the worst days for me now are still better than those best moments of my 'old life.' What changed? Me. I got out of my own way, like I'm begging you to try and do. I stopped lying to myself about who I really was. I sought help. I talked to a therapist. I started one step at a time and eventually my feet began to take me new places and I haven't looked back since.

It took was saying "I will not let this beat me." It took trying to make things better. Like I've said many times to you now, if you can get yourself to start thinking positive, and thinking about all the wonderful possibilities that could come to you in life, some of them actually will.

I really hope that you are ok. I hope that you can find some peace inside. I hope that you can lighten up on yourself. You do not deserve the pain that you put yourself through. You are a much better person than you think, and you indeed have the possibility of a bright future if you only allow yourself to go after it.