How to deal with dysphoria while waiting for SRS/FFS?

[Carrie Liz]

Simple question, hopefully people have suggestions.

I'm 2 1/4 years on hormones now, and will officially crossing my 1-year mark of full-time as of 2 days from now.

I'm still dealing with a lot of emotional distress due to still being stuck pre-op, which is keeping me from even attempting dating because I simply would not be comfortable being in a close relationship with someone while I still have that thing. And I'm also dealing with a lot of distress due to still being stuck with a face that doesn't instantly read as female unless I'm wearing other female-gender-signifying things like clothes, earrings, and makeup. I'm really tired of being scared that people are seeing me as a man every time I don't feel like putting effort into my hair, my appearance, and I just want to roll out of bed and throw on a unisex sweatshirt. People still stare at me every time I do this.

I pass. I'm stealth at work. That's not the issue here. It's purely a matter of wanting a body that is completely unquestionably female no matter what. And not being that way, still needing to convince myself that I look "female enough" on many days, and still feeling like the actual reality of my body is in direct conflict to the self that I see myself as in my head, is really hard to deal with on a lot of days. I've kind of just settled on needing both SRS and FFS before I'll really feel comfortable in my own body.

Problem is, I don't have a lot of money. My job only pays about $30,000/year, and while I am indeed putting money away for surgery, $350/month or so, it is going to take me a LONG time before I can afford the $15,000 for SRS and the $20,000 for FFS.

So what can I do to calm myself down in the meantime? How can I quit having panicked freakouts when I look in the mirror and see a self that to me invalidates who I feel I am? How can I mitigate the pain, and tolerate my appearance and my body better, while I'm stuck in limbo land waiting for the finances to afford surgery or waiting for a promotion to full-time at work which is probably at least 2 years away?

Another thing that bugs me, is that I'm 29 years old. I'm wasting the last few precious years of my feminine youthful prime feeling ugly and feeling trapped. How can I mitigate that feeling as well, seeing as how at this rate I'm going to be in my mid-30s before I'm completely done with transition, which is getting dangerously close to stretching it in terms of my eventual life goal of having a family?

Any advice is welcome.

[Erica_Y]

Carrie I wish I had the magic bullet answer to your emotional situation. Very early in my transition a dear friend shared a life experience with me to share some wisdom. She was is a lady in her early 40's and is around my age by the way. She is quite beautiful and very feminine. She was constantly self conscious all the way into her late 20's - 30's because people would stare at her and she would immediately think that there was something wrong with her and it bothered her a lot. She later came to realize that the looks where not do to anything other than appreciation and admiration and she came to accept it. She told me I am going to have the same thing happen to me and to realize just because someone looks at me does not mean they are reading me or anything negative they are looking because they like what they see. This was powerful for me as I realized this is a normal female experience and we tend to focus it in a trans context because of situation bias.

You say you pass at work and passing is far more than looks so focus on your positive experience and realize that if you pass at work you probably are passing in  lesser situations and believe that if people do look and everybody does look at everybody else all the time that we do not need to jump to worst case scenario all the time sometime a look is just a look.

By the way we are on somewhat similar timelines as I am a week or so away from one year fulltime myself. Draw strength from your work experience and believe it carries over everywhere else because it probably does.

Not sure if I helped or not but my friends experience resonated with me so I thought I would share it.

[TerriT]

Hi Carrie. I've always admired your transition and I'm happy to congratulate you on your first anniversary of FT. You should be proud of how far you've come from the young woman you were just a few years ago.

I think that, I always wanted to be a girl, so I have trouble accepting that I am a girl. And I look for reasons to doubt that. But those are just my feelings about whatever interaction I am having. It isn't the reality of the situation. But how can I know what's in the other persons mind???

The truth is, you're a very pretty, smart young woman and that is what people see. The hard part is passing internally. I hope that you will stop judging yourself so harshly and allow yourself to experience these things (relationships, seeing yourself as beautiful) that you seem to be avoiding.

[Carrie Liz]

My main issue with dating is more one to do with genital anatomy... I'm still on the fence about whether FFS is a need or just a desire that will fade as I gain more self-confidence, but all the self-confidence in the world isn't going to change how I feel about my genital anatomy, and all the self-confidence in the world isn't going to make me happy with that thing, or be comfortable with anyone else touching it or seeing it.

Appearance-wise, I'll acknowledge that it's mainly my own issues with it that make me feel bad. I do worry that I'm not feminine enough for anyone to find me attractive, but then guys do hit on me at work now and then, so that does shut the self-criticism up a bit. And even though I do think I pass because everyone automatically treats me like I'm a normal young woman, there's always a dark unsupportive voice in the back of my head telling me that my mannish facial features are too obvious, that there is NO WAY that they don't notice, they're just humoring me.

Anyway, though, again, appearance-wise I'm not sure if it's an issue that is just about self-confidence or something I need FFS to help with. SRS, that is something that I'm dealing with constantly, and which is basically holding me back from feeling like I really am in a female body, and holding me back from even trying to date because I just don't even see the point of going through the heartache of all the inevitable rejections and fetishizations that will come from me being pre-op, only to attain a form of intimacy that will do nothing but cause me dysphoria. So how can I deal with that mentally? That is a case where I feel like my life is on hold until I do something about it, and again, I'm stuck in limbo-land waiting to afford it.

I meant my opening post to be just as much about SRS as appearance issues, but it kinda ventured off into appearance-rant territory because I was in a bad mood tonight after trying to take a cute picture for Trans Day of Visibility only to have every single one of those pictures end up looking mannish instead of cute.

[Lady_Oracle]

I'm in the same boat right now about grs. I'm at my 3 year hrt mark. In the process of figuring out which surgeon to go to. I'm aiming for surgery sometime next year. My bottom dysphoria is getting progressively worst but right now it's leveled off since I'm not sexually active anymore. Having a sex life for the first time in my life and top of which with the wrong genitals gave me a mixed of heightened emotions that were amazing and scary at the same time but ultimately made my bottom dysphoria even worst. It was nice being in a relationship and with someone that genuinely cared for me and I for them but I've realized I can barely deal with my genitals as they currently are when having sex. Idk about you but for me I also get intense physical pain from erections so its just even worst that can't enjoy an orgasm without pain. So yeah that's where I'm at right now.

What I do to deal with those issues is that I avoid intimate relationships. I'm more focused on just forming friendships at the moment. I do everything I can to keep my self esteem high, by doing little things for myself that make me happy. I have an outlet where I can express myself freely. TMI ahead!!! This might sound gross for someone that isn't a fan of hair but I've been growing out my bush to make the thing look smaller and I also can't see my testes either. Seeing my female pubic pattern helps immensely with dyshoria as opposed to being just bare down there.

Also I try to focus on the parts of my body that I do love. I try to improve them with exercise, stretching and great posture. For example toning my butt or increasing my flexibility with yoga, like hip stretches feel amazing. Or I focus on my long hair and continue to improve my styling techniques. That's the gist of what I do to give my mind a break from my bottom dysphoria.

The biggest one that helps the best is just staying socially active with friends and family. I have a great support network, which helps immensely. The less alone time I have with my mind drifting onto bottom dysphoria land the better. However it is uncontrollable at times and I can't always keep it at bay. I have triggers like pregnancy and period talk that sometimes get to me.

All in all what I've been doing lately has been working so I'm going to keep this up until surgery.