opinions of post op regret

[Madison (kiara jamie)]

so over christmas i came out to my family and friends and to an astonishing amount of acceptance, but one of my friends said something to me one day that i just can't shake, he asked me if i knew if i was going to be happy with where i plan on ending up in the next year, he told me that he was worried that i would turn around after i had my FFS, BA, VFS, and SRS, and say that i might regret it and feel like it would be the biggest mistake of my life,

now i know that i am for sure 100% transgender and have been wishing for the gender fairy to visit me in the middle of the night and gimme the old flick of a wand and switcheroo, but i also believe the theory of a 2D perspective will never see the potential of a 3D world, and thus i feel like i cannot trust my own thoughts, with such a major decision i am making i cannot ignore the fact that i might be seeing my future in all glitz and glamor and not realizing that it will just be the same as it is now just with a different gender, i just want to set realistic expectations of were my life will be in the future and not get disappointed when i get there

so i have seen most regret filled transgender stories to be a lack of expectation or planning or just not realizing that they were gonna change gender when it was still a doubt in there mind, i have timelines and planning for my future transition, i have surgeons picked out, i have everything planned in my head and the only thing holding me back at this point is my timeline not being there yet and it is killing me, i just don't know if i should be worried since i truly and absolutely wish i could do it tomorrow, and have almost no doubt that i want it immediately, i feel like the waiting is what helps me weed out the possibility of regret in the future, because the moments when i would potentially look back and regret, i would instead think back to how long it took and how it was such hell to wait for it, like every day that i have to tuck that damn thing away and not be able to wear my lululemon pants in public because they show or the other cute outfits that i have because they are to daring, i just want to cut it of myself lol

so basically i want to just ask all post op girls or boys for both FFS and SRS, if you ever had regrets and why did you have them?

[Vicky]

Between hours 24 to 36 post op, I had one terrible ton of regret, but it was in relation to the pain and healing process, and not really anything else.  I and others I know have had a time in that period when all you could do was cry, but the crying worked and got something else out of our system.  It may have been left over effects from anesthetic, or a spiritual issue of loss of blood and other tissue, but once it was over and our faces washed, it was over.

In a post in another Site, I wrote about the fact that we never fully understand or can predict the full impact of our decision to go forward with surgery. There are little items that we forget in our planning that can throw us for a loop.  I had planned for stitches coming out, other healing issues, all but one I ended up with.  When those hit, I did get a "what have I done" moment and may have let my eyeballs leak in frustration.  I was angry at the time it took me for added hygiene, and it was embarrassing to have my little donut seat with me for a month whenever I went out somewhere that I had to sit for a while.  As time has gone on though, the biggest issue I am seeing is that I no longer have the planning and the hoping and stress of doing the lead up to surgery.  There is a vacuum where there had been a lot of action, the issues of gender for my body are in the past, and I need to fill the space where they had been.  Nothing to make me want to go back to male in body or socialization, but the high heels are replaced by running shoes, and the lacy gowns for evenings on the town are Bermuda shorts and an ordinary T shirt, and femme is wearing a Breast Cancer Awareness T shirt. You will quickly find an ORDINARY life, dysphoria is not replaced by euphoria (the old bod still hurts and gets sunburned) but by routine, that while it is YOU, you realize you are no longer the center of attention and are just ordinary.  (But I love it.)

[mash]

Im pre-op and I share your sentiments and I like what you said that Disphoria does not get replaced bu Euphoria .I long for having a vacuum from where all the disphoria issues were I look forward to fill it Not sure with what yet but at least it will be vacant ... to have the luxury to think of mundane things at leisure and not have this cloud of "what, when, how,should I, can I  uncertainty hang over me..  Bliss for me, lies there. Not Euphoria

[mandonlym]

I had to give up the love of my life to transition, and I'm much less binary than most people so I'm on the genderqueer end of the spectrum (prefer to be a woman but didn't experience major dysphoria as a man). I have moments of wondering whether I should have stayed male and led a happy life with him. But in the end, I know that my life has so much more meaning and dimension now and the regret is only a passing thought.

[mrs izzy]

For me i never had the fear of doubt in walking my path.

I also lost a marriage of almost 25 years due to my dysphoria.

Only regreat i have is i did not understand my dysphoria many years earlier.

Everyone has to be comfortable and happy with who they are and where they need to go.

Its so true, you only get out of life what you put into it.

As my sign is says my mind is quiet now.

Not everyone is supposed to walk this path and if there is doubt it needs to be explored with ones therapist and your RLT.

Never rush anything, take all the time you need to make a decision that is right for you. Stop when you find your happy spot in life.]

Isabell

[missy1992]

I have had FFS and SRS

I do not regret either surgery 100%

I DO regret getting work on my jaw
I have difficulty breathing out of my nose in one nostril
I have a large scar on my hairline
I have a little bit of numbness on the top of my head

Was the FFS worth it? well...
I suppose I do look better however (not including the jaw work). I rarely wear make up nowadays

I don't regret SRS at all but the recovery was tough. Maybe I wish I could have kept the other bits to enjoy a bit longer but SRS would have been inevitable for me.

[Carrie Liz]

I'm not post-op in any way, but I thought you would enjoy this little infographic which sheds some light on the matter statistically:



It is worth noting that genital surgery has by far the lowest satisfaction rate of anything, with three times as many people not being satisfied with it as are with HRT. But still, 90% are indeed satisfied. So while it does indeed bear consideration that regrets are definitely possible, and pretty common, and therefore making absolute sure that you're ready and have considered all of the possible connotations is VERY important, 9 out of 10 people who have it are indeed satisfied. (This is from a survey of 448 trans individuals.)

In a 2003 study of 232 post-op trans women who had all received SRS at the same clinic using the same technique between 1994 and 2000, ZERO expressed outright regret, with only a few expressing occasional regret. And dissatisfaction was most strongly associated with inadequate aesthetics or function, not with feeling like surgery was the wrong choice.

Again, these are just a couple of studies. There are many on this site who have indeed expressed regret. But it's really not as common as you might think. A vast majority of trans women who have the surgery will be happy with it.

[Northern Jane]

Pre-transition and SRS in 1974 I had no idea what lay ahead but I knew I couldn't stay where I was - it was killing me - so when I made the change it was with the determination that whatever came of it, I would make the best of it. As it turned out life was WAY better than anything I had dreamed of.

Everybody has their good days and their bad days but at least as a woman I was in a better position (frame of mind) to deal with the hard times.

[Vicky]

Of the folks I know who have regrets about GCS, the greatest number had unrealistic expectations of what the surgeon could work on their bodies.  The next greatest number are people who had unrealistic expectations of how life in general for them would be, almost all not seeing that it would be much the same as it had been.  If they could not play the piano before GCS, they could not play it post op either!!  As reality sinks in and Life On Life's Terms plays out though, the grumbling is getting weaker.

[Veronica M]

Okay, this is my turn to sound like a complete idiot... But I am just starting down this path so please excuse my ignorance. I know what SRS is, but what is FFS? I figure the only stupid question is the one that isn't asked... LOL

[Carrie Liz]

^Here's a definition of every term that the OP mentioned:

SRS = Sex-Reassignment Surgery
FFS = Facial Feminization Surgery
VFS = Voice Feminization Surgery
BA = Breast Augmentation

[mrs izzy]

Of the folks I know who have regrets about GCS, the greatest number had unrealistic expectations of what the surgeon could work on their bodies.  The next greatest number are people who had unrealistic expectations of how life in general for them would be, almost all not seeing that it would be much the same as it had been.  If they could not play the piano before GCS, they could not play it post op either!!  As reality sinks in and Life On Life's Terms plays out though, the grumbling is getting weaker.

Very well said Vicky. Ditto.

Isabell

[Nicolette]

I transitioned long ago in the 90s, but only had SRS recently. The only regret I could potentially have had is if I lost the ability to orgasm. Even though I was prepared for this eventuality pre-op, being actually post-op and inorgasmic was not fun, to say the least. In the first few weeks post-op my libido shot up. All that preparedness shot out of the window. I considered going to my GP and getting some anti-depressants to kill my libido to get some relief that way. But, six weeks in and I managed to work out how to obtain an 'O' again, and on demand. I can tell you that that was a mind-blowing relief!

What happens if you have a high libido and become inorgasmic? I thought I was prepared.

Euphoria? That's when I squeeze my butt into tight pants and see or feel no bulge!  It's sublime.

[Vicky]

But, six weeks in and I managed to work out how to obtain an 'O' again, and on demand. I can tell you that that was a mind-blowing relief!

What happens if you have a high libido and become inorgasmic? I thought I was prepared.

This is one of the expectations that can get blown way out of the water, we compare post life to pre-life, and post abilities to pre-abililties, and it works like a dead horse.  I much prefer postie O to guy O, but it is different.  Figure it will be different, and you win more than you can believe.

Euphoria? That's when I squeeze my butt into tight pants and see or feel no bulge!  It's sublime.

ROFLMAO -- Oh gawd, getting my breath back from laughing!!  How true indeed!!

[LizMarie]

Euphoria? That's when I squeeze my butt into tight pants and see or feel no bulge!  It's sublime.

Vicky and Nicolette, you are killing me! I am laughing here. But you know what? That is exactly one of the things I am looking forward to!

[Agent_J]

I'm one who had SRS and regrets it. I had it eleven months and two days ago.

I went through all of the gatekeeping: over a year of therapy before being allowed to have any HRT, and having to be full-time to get doses of HRT that would actually do anything (my first year of HRT was less than the minimum guideline range.) My therapist also enforced the one year RLE requirement for SRS as one year since the first post-FT session I had with her, and then delayed further, such that it meant I had over two years of RLE before I had SRS. I had my first therapy appointment in which I asked to begin the process of getting HRT and transitioning nearly 20 years ago - in the early summer of 1994.

However, the reason I regret it was that all of that came with the pressure to either transition with SRS or not transition at all - deciding that SRS was not for me meant losing access to HRT and all support for my transition. It was of the sort of gatekeeping that many believe disappeared across the entire US in the 1990s, but it was still around in my current region, a metro area with a population over two million. There was regular aggression from them due to the fact that I was not able to update my legal gender (a common one was insurance billing headaches because they insisted on keeping me as male in their records when my insurance for the past 2.5 years has had me as female.) Additionally, I faced some misinformation in the effort to persuade me to have SRS that served to set me up for unrealistic expectations, e.g. that having limited sensation and swelling after 3-6 months was unheard of.

I'm in therapy, with a different therapist of course, to help deal with depression and regret. The depression dates back more than two years now and developed following an E dose reduction. Alas, it has not had the libido suppression effect for me. I really wish it would because the lack of any sex drive for the time I was on Spiro was perfect for me (this fact was the reason my E dose was reduced as previously mentioned - the doctor was concerned that I was content with no sex drive.) After SRS my libido returned and has not relented.

Orgasm after SRS is extremely disappointing for me. I basically don't get the orgasmic pleasure release step, going straight from building-up to post-orgasm (arousal vanishes, clit becomes hyper-sensitive, etc.) It becomes all about relief from my libido, which is what I had before HRT but with less reward now.

Ultimately, my regret/satisfaction with SRS is mixed. In the regret column is that my body feels wrong - disfigured, even. In the satisfaction column is being at last free of the gatekeeping, particularly secure access to HRT, being able to have my legal gender (updating that marker on my driver's license even required the letter from my surgeon!) and so forth.

The only point the doubts, which I had consciously buried years ago to get access to HRT, emerged again was four weeks before my scheduled date, and by that point I was under so much stress that I couldn't figure it out anymore - I was no longer capable of making a choice.

[Violet-The-First]

To be completely honest I was expecting some sort of divine intervention when I woke up with a vagina for the first time. But I was just me. I hadn't really changed at all. All the my problems were still there, they didn't just disappear. But for the first time in my life I had courage to face them head on, having an SRS gave my strength to face my fears. Besides that, probably the most important, it gave me hope. Hope that one day my life would be everything I want it to be. Everyone dreams of a future filled with glitz and glam don't let other shake you. But know that if you hadn't truly looked at all sides of the argument you could never be sure you were making the right choice. Listen to you heart, but let your head make the wisest decision for you. Because you are the one who had to live with it, not anyone else.

Much love

[Jenna Marie]

Nope. Not for an instant. I did have some doubts beforehand - I'm the sort of person who second-guesses myself about dinner, so that wasn't a shock - but was 95% sure.

I think one of the necessary downsides of informed consent is going to be people who are unable or unwilling to BE informed; this is true with cis people and elective surgery, too, where someone doesn't bother to read all the information provided, signs on the dotted line anyway, and ends up surprised by an outcome that they *were* warned about. But I also think people are allowed to make whatever changes they want to their bodies, even if it's sometimes a mistake. In short, I suspect a lot of the regretters either ignored the fine print or expected something like Violet's "divine intervention," and discovered that changing the genitals won't fix anything unrelated they didn't like about their lives/situations/minds.

Frankly, I see the same thing about people going into transition - the ones who are damaged by life or unwilling to take responsibility for their lives will find that transition doesn't cure anything but trans-related problems, and come out the other end still depressed and looking for a scapegoat. (I sympathize with them, mind you. It's the luck of the draw that I didn't have those sorts of issues, and never had to deal with any transition-related traumas either.)

[Agent_J]

I think one of the necessary downsides of informed consent is going to be people who are unable or unwilling to BE informed; this is true with cis people and elective surgery, too, where someone doesn't bother to read all the information provided, signs on the dotted line anyway, and ends up surprised by an outcome that they *were* warned about.

I don't know that there's any way to win that one given problems that may come with gatekeeping (like I experienced.) For me, the information was there, but I had therapists and doctors actively asserting that what my surgeon's packet included was archaic, present for only legal CYA reasons.

Frankly, I see someone ignoring the information out of their own choice as a better risk, however much marginally so, than having professionals lie to them.

[Jenna Marie]

J : I guess you must be new to the site; I see people posting about post-op complications a lot here. Not that anecdotes prove much, but it'd certainly have shown that your therapists + doctors were lying.