In need of support or just a swift kick

[Fire]

G'dmorning all,
It's been an age since I posted and partly, that's what brings me here again. I won't say I've fallen off the wagon, but I've got some very ornery and uncooperative horses.

I've been on hormones 3 years come August, I've been working on electrolysis about an hour a week for about 6 months less than that. I told my parents last year around July and we actually talked about it in November... They haven't taken it well and I'm not sure I have either, I've certainly stalled again, I haven't told the rest of the family, or my place of work.

For years now I've moved glacially forward, I haven't really tried with my voice, changed my name or gone full time. I see a psychiatrist and am out to my friends, wife, electrolysis. I've learned a few very, very basic things with makeup, foundation, powder, blush, eyeshadow, etc, but very, very rarely apply it. I can't tell you the last time I did my nails or shaved my legs was...

I guess the gist of it is that I felt when I started, and feel now that I am a woman, dressing alone wasn't enough because I wasn't going to 'pass', to be accepted as a woman. Not taking hormones wasn't enough because I wasn't happy with myself as a man.
I knew very much what I *didn't* want... but it seems like I've approached the rest with fear and anxiety. It is a lot to explain in a short post...

I know I'm a woman, I just don't know anything about being one... I don't know how to talk or walk. I can't seem to relax and I'm so nervous, stressed, and anxious about the process, the reaction and my seeming shortcomings that I've grown ever more bogged down. Since last autumn I've grown depressed to boot, I'll be seeing my GP about that next week, and am still seeing my psych, but it's made the process seem all the more daunting.

I would love to hear from you all, about anything, but any insight on how to reconnect with yourself, how to find the strength to get through this, to enjoy being yourself... I'm just tired of the struggle and I could really use a boost.   

Thank you so much for reading,
Jeri~

[spring0721]

Jeri,

I can't offer too much advice although I know others will. I will just say, try to stay positive and be open with your therapist/psychiatrist especially regarding the depression.  Maybe as far as 'learning how to be a woman' as you said......observe! Is your wife into makeup and clothes? Maybe she can guide you in this.  If not go to the food court at the mall and watch women interacting, walking, look at the way their makeup is done etc.  Makeup is a lot of trial and error anyway to be honest.  As far as not shaving your legs or doing your nails....maybe if you make yourself do it then it will have a positive boost to your femininity.  Either way, I'll really be hoping that things turn around and you get the positive boosts you need. I'm wishing you well!

[spacial]

My own position might help you.

I have little interest in what I wear as such. I wear what is practical and is going to give me a safe, quiet life. I have little interest in makeup, feminising or many other pre-op ideas. Though I totally support those who do.

If I did any of those it would be simply a visit, to where I believe I should be, now. We visit for holliday or to something we might look forward to. But always, it is a temporary visit to non-reality. I know how things are. I'm not stupid nor self deceiving. I have survived by being conscious of reality. I have no intention of letting that necessary guard down.

I don't want to apologise or explain. I don't seek anyone's permission and resent that I am expected to get it, to have, what I believe is a perfectly reasonable surgical correction of what is, for me, a birth defect.

I don't seek to be 'One of the Girls', because I have little interest in people generally. My life experience has demonstrate taht most people are nasty, temperamental and unstable. I look forward to my social life, being pretty much as it is now.

I don't seek to hide my past. I don't seek to publicise it. It is a matter of fact in much the same way as any other health issue. I would feel no shame knowing I had had treatment for an STD for example. I probably wouldn't make a point is telling everyone. But I feel no shame for something that is beyond my control

I just need to have the ugly bit corrected. I will need artificial hormones and I want to take female hormones because they are the most appropriate for me.

What I do after that and how I proceed from there I will decide then. I don't expect to be anything. I just need to be rid of the self loathing that my body currently causes.

Then I can build. Then I can heal. Then I can start to live a more normal life.

Because I am a woman with an ugly bit. It's as insulting and hurtful to my ego as it would be to anyone else's to have to live with what I know, shouldn't be.

[Fire]

Thanks girls, I appreciate the support. I know everyone faces this in their own way and we all feel it, just this afternoon as I get to replying here, I read two very similar posts that are very, very close to my own fears and worries.

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,136579.0/
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,136497.0/

I'm really not sure how to get unstuck, I'm going to be working on it, but I really wish I could find the push to just go, go, go and get on with it!

Spring, no, my wife isn't really into feminine things, she doesn't know much more about makeup or walking/talking/interacting than I do. I may try the footcort or similar observation, but I don't always get much out of it. It's like reading a technical manual with no pictures and no hands on for me... It's just a huge run-on sentence that talks about a thing I can't conceptualize. But if I can see it, interact with it. Does that make sense?
I very much intend to get back to doing the other things, legs, nails, whatever I can, hopefully one good deed for my ego will turn into another, and another. : )
Thank you again for the support!


Spacial, I very much understand where you are coming from. For me I just don't think about this stuff often, I don't dislike visiting a place where I'm pretty or my nails are done or my makeup is done. I realize how small a fraction of a day that is. Mostly I get up, dress and rush to whatever it is I'm up to, even if that isn't much, I don't spend much time on the getting ready for it, I just get going.
Overall, that's the kind of girl I am, I'm relaxed, I'm into lots of different things and I'm fairly 'natural'... I often don't think about clothes, jewelry, makeup etc.
But, and here's the but, I *do* want to, I do find myself envying other women when they look so nice, or wanting to wear something I see in a store or on someone else, wanting my makeup to look good, my outfit to be not just a set of clothes I'm wearing but an actual thing someone might think I looked good in. The problem is that my general blithe and low key attitude about life doesn't get much done, all of a sudden I really need it all done yesterday and I don't know how to get there to boot.

Now I'm in a place where I feel that I both neither 'need' to do a thing to be myself, and yet need to do everything and more to be 'myself' both to my own ego and to those who I interact with, because as much as I often dislike others, society, etc... I still exist in it, and I wish to be seen as 'me' again, just the woman, as a woman, no questions if ands or buts in anyone's mind, or my own, and to, perhaps have a good time in my body again. Much like commercials would have us believe life is amazingly better with their product, and have yet to convince me, I'm certain the things I love won't somehow be magically more awesome just because I mastered eye shadow or had the perfect lilt to my voice, but I think I would be more comfortable, more relaxed, and more satisfied if I were better rounded out. Like certain classes from school, I may eventually never use a great deal of what I'm struggling to learn, should I manage to learn it... but learning it gives me the tools, should I need them.

Thank you again for the response and the support.

Jeri~

[JoanneB]

Some background... I've known I was different since 4-5 y/o. Back some 50 some odd years ago, especially in a blue collar, 1st to 2nd generation off-the boat immigrant city, "different" was not an option. And I was different in more ways than one. And I was "reminded" of it in many ways.

Yet, I held on to the dream. Experimented with transitioning after college, but stopped... TWICE. Both times opting for "normal". Which included the wife, 2.3 kids, house, etc.. Well, wife #1 never knew before we got married beyond how I am "So different from other guys". When she discovered how different, 6 months later we were seperated and divorcing. Almost wife #2 fared a bit better. She was told, was accepting of it, to a point. As setting a wedding date pressure mounted she called things off. Now wife #2 always knew,and somewhat supportive to a point.

At 6ft tall, balding since I was 14, big boned, deep voice, frog size hands and super extra large feet i knew I could never pass. A big reason why I stopped my transition experiments. I spent my life untill then being a target. I didn't want to spend a lifetime being one. Forget being seen as and accepted as a woman!

For decades I was able to escape maleness and dress around the house, which was about once a month. More so during high stress periods. I got to practice. I got to keep the dream alive, in a small way. Practice paid off.

After the excrement totally hit the air handler 4+ years ago, I needed to fall back and regroup. Being trans was a primary root cause of many of my life's problems. So I took the beast on. Started looking for a support group or any other sort of TG resource. Nothing I've ever done before. I got lucky and found a "local" group, some 90 miles away.

I took my first baby step towards getting better. I went to the group meeting. Sort of felt nice, got to try this again to see for sure. THe following month, felt even better better. In fact, started to feel I needed to be there. By month 3 I was hooked. I knew I needed to be there.

In time I started shedding decades of shame and guilt. In time my self esteem grew enough that I once again dared to venture out into the light of day as the real me. Surprisingly, even in the middle of hilbillie central, no lightning bolt took me out. Months later I was living mainly as a woman outside of work.

Even more amazing, in spite of all the gory defects and deficits I mentioned earlier, for the most part I've been seen as and accepted as a woman. I achieved my life long dream.

How did I really do it?  Not sure besides knowing what wasn't working. Sort of like that Opposite George episode from Sienfeld. Though in the early 1970's at age 16 or younger I was already reasearching about being a TS, tried transitioning, dated full-time TS's, it wasn't untill I went to my first TG meeting being in a room full of people just like me, did I realize how much I needed to feel it was OK.

Shame, Guilt, zero self-esteem, zero self worth all work great at distorting your perception of reality. Thanks to my TG group and especially one very special soul there, I slowly started learning what it is to be a whole and healthy person again.

Executive Summary
Attitude is everything 

[Lesley_Roberta]

What makes a woman a woman?

Well it is not just a menstrual cycle regardless of what some cis females might like to think.

If they get the operation (the cis females) and they remove the usual parts that make babies, do they get demoted from being female?

I wonder how they would react to being told, sorry you don't have the parts you are now not a woman? Because it is not just hip structure that makes you female either.

It's a lot of things.

I have taken to sitting in Tim Horton's drinking a hot chocolate (that is over priced but I can cope with that), and watching humanity come and go. The young and the old. Kids and seniors. Mostly seniors at my location of choice though. I watch the way they walk and stand, they hair, their clothes. How they sit and how they eat and drink. The way they talk.

Frankly, with the exception of breasts and overt hair styles and clothing making them identifiable as not male, there are a lot of females walking by that look utterly dreadful Sure they have the posture, but, it's like can't you see how that outfit looks on you?

Of course guys are as good at giving a lot of indicators of what seems important to males. And the fact that so much of it is not important to me, kind of reinforces my feelings about who and what I am as well.

I don't like baseball caps. I have one, that is a gift from a publisher friend with the magazine logo. But I don't really like wearing it. Messes the hair up. And the fact I care about my hair being messed up likely makes me more female than not.
I refuse to wear my pants like most men seem to think is ok. Pull your *&#@$ pant's up you bloody slob! I don't like filthy clothes, and I don't like pants that drag on the ground and are tattered. I am not ok with rude T shirts. I won't wear a variety of types of typical male clothing, and I'd rather not wear a suit coat under any circumstances.

Telling me I look handsome, will not get you any real appreciate.

But I was not raised in dresses, I have not had to worry about clothing based on menstrual realities. My posture is wrong. I likely walk 'wrong'. But 50 years of conditioning is harder to lose than some weight. I do NOT expect to master a range of atypical female aspects before I die. It would be nice if I could. It would also be nice to wake up and find I had been turned into a cis female by the tooth fairy too

So you might want to be less harsh on yourself than you might be doing.
There are lots of cis females doing no better in their own way eh.