Quote from: Shantel on October 18, 2013, 11:04:10 AM
I quit HRT for two years but became very ill with no hormonal base, so I went to injectable T and later T pellets and hated the effects eventually forsaking that and returned to feminizing HRT. It had been a negative experience, I think the T killed a lot of my hair follicles but I concluded that being homely isn't nearly as bad a rap as being miserable knowing that regressing like that was a big mistake. My advice is don't even consider it!
Thanks for sharing your experience Shantel, I had considered a castration before coming off hormones so I could be "gender neutral" but my endo recommended against it saying I'd need to take testosterone to enable calcium absorption or some such. I gave up on that idea but 22 years off HRT has had more or less the same effect on my follicles too
From that point of view it is my biggest regret although Regaine seems to be helping so I'll have to see... fingers crossed. Like you I had a meltdown of confidence - I felt I was turning myself into some kind of freak, the sad thing is, looking back at those photos now I was a pretty young woman and passed quiet well. Can't cry over it now but it's still a shame I couldn't see what was staring me in the face.
Quote from: Violet Bloom on October 18, 2013, 11:35:37 AMGender aside I simply didn't have the personal strength to present myself in public as I saw fit. I was living with severe shame for who I was just as a person and it took a long time to get past that. It would have been nice to have much of that time back to live over again but it was invaluable in building my strength of character and for the people I've come to know that I otherwise would likely not have.
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I am curious if you don't mind expanding on it what exactly caused you to bail on your original transition attempt? And what led you to try again? Why was there such a huge gap in between and how did you cope with it?
Thanks Victoria - I think your first point about personal strength vs shame goes a long way towards answering why I bailed. The early 1990s was such a different time and while things aren't great for trans* people now they were much worse back then. I certainly wasn't very worldly and without enough confidence I felt petrified every time I went out cross dressed, even though I did it with friends and solo and nothing untoward ever happened I always felt I was about to be sprung. I'm very tall and felt I stood out like a sore thumb so that didn't help. Wearing a dress was one thing but wearing pants inevitably meant I got misgendered which was depressing, especially since I just wanted to be a jeans and tee shirt kind of gal - my mistake here was not understanding how to dress like a woman even when wearing more gender neutral clothing.
Electrolysis was taking forever and had become a major drain on my youthful wages... half the time I couldn't go out cross dressed because I wasn't able to shave, I felt like a hairy freak. Turns out I was having the slowest and least effective variety of electrolysis. The fact that I hadn't transitioned full time after two years of back and forth was testing and confusing even my most supportive friends, or that's what it felt like. Half the time they weren't sure what name or pronouns to use for me and I wasn't making it any easier for them by not being clear. In retrospect I came out to them way too early.
The HRT, I felt, wasn't very effective. It had feminised my face and stopped my hair loss (already starting at that age) but breast development was underwhelming to say the least. AAA cup? Perhaps? I was getting monthly injections of E which I've since learned can be an incredible emotional roller coaster ride, which it was. I was putting on weight around my stomach, apparently a side effect of Androcur, never explained at the time.
Financially I was struggling, although I had a steady job in the public service and was reasonably covered by anti-discrimination laws, I didn't feel comfortable about transitioning in the workplace. I saw myself as potentially out of a job and with no way to pay my rent let alone electrolysis, clothing, medical, etc.
I was seeing a shrink once every few months but the sessions were more about ticking boxes rather than support or talking about my concerns or problems. There was a gender centre that I went to once but because I hadn't crossed full time I felt like a fraud and never went back. Pretty sad really.
All of that was bad enough but my family was the biggest sticking point, I told my mother and she almost went into melt down worrying about what everyone else would think. Potential rejection by my family was too much to contemplate.
This all became a perfect storm at about the 26 month mark and I just couldn't tolerate it any longer... had a major melt down and decided to abandon all hope of becoming the woman I wanted to be. Stupidly stopped HRT cold turkey (so dumb!) and just moved into denial that it had ever happened. Although not religious I had formed a spiritual view that we are born the way we are for a reason and since I was a "male" I just had to suck it up and make do. That plus some ten years of psychotherapy which allowed me to come to terms and, to some degree, peace with my male condition. I found groups and friends where I felt I was able to fit in without having to prove my masculinity and would be able to express my more feminine qualities without censure... more or less that's what allowed me to make it through 22 years. Even so it was pretty clear by my fantasies, writing, artwork and online activities (once the internet existed!) that I deeply still wanted to live as a woman, I was just using more indirect channels to express it and relieve the counter pressures. There was a point early this year where that wasn't enough and after another melt down I came to realisation that transition was the only option.
Hope that wasn't too long! But basically it was a mix of many things, I was a mess and felt I had no option but to stop. I'm very happy with my decision to restart HRT, my family will still be a hurdle, but many other things in my life feel more stable and supportive... so we'll see how it goes!
