How do you feel about your 'downstairs mixup'?

[Alice Rogers]

I really don't know how to feel about my 'parts', some days I hate them, other days I sort of forget about them, I know I hate erections to the point where I have almost entirely trained them away.

I KNOW that if the SRS were a less traumatic experience I would go for it in a flash, but really the surgery is MASSIVE and has some truly petrifying horror stories attached to it. I mean no matter how wrong my 'bits' seem to fit me right now at least I can feel sexual pleasure through them.

Where does that put me? Is it normal to think about keeping them simply because the SRS is such a HUGE deal or am I just being a wuss.

All I know is that if I pass in public I might be able to live with keeping the 'extra' flesh down there, or can I? Hell I don't know......

[Natkat]

seams normal to me. Alot of FTMs dosent do bottom surgery either as its a pretty complicated surgery.

I feel very diffrent about what I got from day to day. somethimes I forget about it, somethimes I hate it some times I feel totally fine with what I got.

[Alice Rogers]

We should swap....

[Jessica Merriman]

I have to go all the way with SRS. My parts are a sad constant reminder of what I was raised as. I hate to feel them down their, when I sit, stand, move. I hate them. It's almost like they mock me all day and all night. I will love it when they are gone. Good riddance. Even with all the stories, it is worth the risk to me. I am dedicated and focused on what I need to do. If something does happen, as long as they are gone I will be just fine.

[Alice Rogers]

I feel like that some days, then other days I get scared, then other days a feel numb about it. I have hurt myself in the past and even come close to cutting off the blood supply to them, what stopped me was knowing I will one day need the skin from them to make my 'right' bits.

And I do so want to feel my boyfriend 'inside' me (other than anal that is)

[suzifrommd]

I could live with it being the wrong shape, but I've decided not to. I'll have enough money saved up and I've decided that's how I want to spend it.

It took a while to get to this point. I had to go through all the downsides to the surgery and make my peace with them one by one.

[Alice Rogers]

I guess I am lucky, although I have to jump through a LOT of hoops thanks to the NHS I get all my treatment for free.

[Ltl89]

I HATE my genitalia.  Hate it.  I don't want to get into it too deeply, but for most of my life I had a genitial defect that ultimately required corrective surgery.  So, imagine overwhelming body dysphoria on top of feeling like a weirdo that's different from all the other normal people.  It's "fixed" now, but doesn't resemble the right part yet.  Oh well, SRS will come soon enough.  Despite my poverty, I'll make it happen one way or another, lol. 

Surgery on that part of the body isn't easy physically or emotionally.  Make sure you know what you want for a fact before signing up for it.  There is no taking back your decision.  Some of us will be glad, others may not.  Just wanted to throw on a disclaimer because SRS is a very individual thing and people should follow through with what suits them best.

[LordKAT]

It needs to get fixed and bothers me all the more with being in a hospital where it is seen way too often by others.  Money is too elusive and insurance isn't being helpful for trans things and leaves way more out of pocket than I can afford for even non Trans stuff..

[ChelseaAnn]

I'm like you too. Right now, it doesn't bother me so much. I'm not on HRT yet, but I suppose I could live with it for the rest of my life if I had to. Saving up for SRS doesn't seem as important as fixing appearance to me (considering my wife is staying with me). Although, if I hit the lottery, I suppose it'd be an option to think about.
I think that SRS could be scary to think about, if you're truly thinking about whether it's right for you or not. But, then again, I think we all got scared at one point or another thinking about changing in the first place. I got scared of coming out, but it was one of the most satisfying things I'd ever done. SRS is major surgery though, and I'll add to the others when I say it should be thought over very carefully. You can retransition back to male if female isn't right for you, but I doubt anyone would want to go through SRS again, even if they had the money.
Don't overthink it right now. If you start saving a lot of money, perhaps it's worth the thought. Final word: if you have doubts, don't do it! (Unless you have a time machine to go backwards and undo it)

[mrs izzy]

I could not stand them. It was the #1 force in my dysphoria. I took the time to work with my great team of gatekeepers and get to the end of my dysphoria via GRS.

SRS/GRS is truly in todays day and age just a walk in the park. For MTF you go asleep as a M bits and wake up 1-1/2-2 hrs as a F bits.
For the MTF is less a issue then what the FTM have to go through.

For me it was a 1 surgery down stairs event but for the FTM it can be up to 5 and that is more greater risk factor each time you do go under.

Yes any surgery runs risks. Yes it is a major surgery and one not to enter into lightly.  I am lets say 50ish and had not one issue, but also i had my GCS done by one of the pioneers in the field and i think that makes a huge difference. For me pain was not at all what i thought it would be. Just healing is a very long process and you need to listen to your body through out the whole post process.

You need to do what you feel is what you need to be happy. Everyone responds to healing different.

I now look in the mirror and see the bits i was supposed to have.
Izzy

[Jenna Marie]

I didn't *hate* them; it was more like I wanted what was supposed to be there than that I couldn't stand what was. Eventually, though, it got to the point where I did really NEED to fix things. I won't try to talk you into anything, but for my own anecdote I'm an anti-horror story; very, very pleased with the results of GRS and fully functional in all respects. I actually expected it to be much more of a gigantic deal. I will say, though, that I was terrified of having any kind of surgery and definitely second-guessed myself a lot as the date approached, so it's not true that "everyone" is 100% certain and unafraid.

(Izzy, I think only Brassard is that fast. I hear typical is more like 6-8 hours!)

[Madison Leigh]

I'd much rather have "other parts" down there; but I don't really have any animosity towards them - other than the fact that certain articles of clothing don't fit as well as they should or show more than they should.

[ukftminneed]

I wish we could transplant them to each other

[Sephirah]

I only feel anything when I think about it. So I try not to think about it.

[eli77]

I wouldn't say that I despised what I had, so much as I desperately missed what I didn't. It was a really big deal for me, and despite some minor issues, I'm super happy with the results. I'm comfortable with my flesh in a way that I never was before.

That said, SRS is not time sensitive the way HRT is. Take your time to make sure it is the right choice for you. And there can be a bit of undue pressure towards SRS in trans communities, just because the people who want it often REALLY want it--like me. It's major surgery with some serious potential complications, a long recovery period and some degree of required maintenance for the rest of your life. I wouldn't say don't have any doubts, because you are always going to have doubts, but do be a bit careful.

Basically, if you believe it will help you to feel better about your body and you understand and accept the costs, go for it.

[Kia]

Downstairs mixup? someone's seen The Mighty Boosh

I'm good with half of my genitals half the time. I hate the testes but the rest of it seems to work for me most of the time. Though sometimes dysphoria gets the best of me.

[anjaq]

I could not stand them. It was the #1 force in my dysphoria. I took the time to work with my great team of gatekeepers and get to the end of my dysphoria via GRS.

SRS/GRS is truly in todays day and age just a walk in the park. For MTF you go asleep as a M bits and wake up 1-1/2-2 hrs as a F bits.

Yeah - for me it was a huge part of the dysphoria as well. I could not stand it. Yes I had feeling and was afraid to loose that with SRS, but other than that there was nothing I wanted to save about that. Its funny - now that its gone for 13 years I cannot even really imagine having this. It just does not go into my mind if I try to - like I used to imagine how it is the other way round, pre-everything, I imagined how it is now - and I could and it is now like I imagined it - the other way around it does not work even though I should have the memory...
That said, I was scared of SRS as anyone else I guess. I was unsure if it really is for me until some months before the date when I made a decision in a moment of severe confusion and dysphoria and fear - It was a "hitting the bottom" moment at which i just could make a decision or be smashed inside. And it was the best - once I made the decision all things fell into place and SRS was the best thing I did in that time - even though some of it went really wrong and had to be fixed.

But are you saying that SRS nowadays takes only 2 hours? Did i get that right? I was under for 9 hours I believe. I really missed something that happened in the past decade that cut the time down that much.

I now look in the mirror and see the bits i was supposed to have.

Yeah right I also "look in the mirror"  - Ok that and really - if I sleep I sometimes think of my body and I remember that sleeping on the side as I often do now feels so natural, some fleeting memory on how it used to be when I was disturbed by dysphoria in old times, reminding me of the good decision I made. I do not just see that in the mirror, I FEEL it whenever my mind checks what my body does, I just feel how this is my real body now and the memories give me a short dark glimpse of how it would feel now to still be dysphoric and the contrast to that makes me happy in that moment

[ErinM]

Before I started transition it was mostly sense of detachment and ambivalence they were just there and served various purposes, but my genitalia never seemed like a part of me. Honestly I feel my prosthetic eye was more a part of me than my "parts".

As I have progressed and become more solid in my identity as a female I have become progressively annoyed by their presence and on bad days I'm painfully resentful of them. Now I simply want them fixed.

[E-Brennan]

No desire for downstairs surgery here.  For me, my dysphoria is more related to how I'm treated by others, and how I'm perceived in society.  Nobody needs to know what I've got - or not got - between my legs to see me as female.  I've never seen 99.99999% of women I know naked, nor does it concern me what's inside their underpants; to me, they are still women.

That said, for everything else - boobs, facial features, etc. - I'm 100% all about changing those because those are things that directly affect how my family, friends, co-workers and strangers see and treat me.

But I fully understand those who have worse physical dysphoria than me, and it's a problem I'm glad I don't have to deal with.  The SRS process seems difficult at best, and something I'm happy to not need - now, at least!

Given a choice, I'd love for the penis to be gone and replaced with what should be there.  But given my situation, I see there being far bigger bangs for the buck in terms of money and effort and results in the things that people can see rather than the things they can't.