Hello everyone! Ummm, does anyone have any advice, please?
I woke up today thinking of those massive old mechanical departures boards in railway stations and airports, and the chutcher chutcher chutcher sound they make when the letters change all at once, cycling through the characters before ceasing with a new destination.
My next and apparently final (before a decision is made) appointment with the GIC is next month. I know my head wants to be an androgynous and more physically and mentally female than male person, but the act of demolishing the masculinity seems almost a crime against nature. I can't seem to win in whichever choice I feel I'm making. Plus the GIC will probably make me do RLT, which means I'd have to walk around looking like I'm cosplaying Rayon from Dallas Buyers' Club. That, (as I've made very clear on previous posts) I will not do.
I genuinely feel a sense of foreboding, like its the time before a potential war begins, the "will we / won't we go to war" uncertainty. By this time next year I could be changing, or still the same, and I wonder what state I'll be in physically and mentally whether I go to war with my body, or not.
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I know that technically there is no time limit for transition, or for deciding who you are. Gender expression and identity can be fluid and change throughout a lifetime, it is a journey and not a destination. Despite the cliches, that much is true. Mentally and emotionally you can go back and forth your whole life. Physically however, there is only one direction you're body can go and that is forwards which is dictated by its programming. There are milestones (such as puberty, middle-age, etc) which come and then go, and you can't reverse your body to before those milestones.
I'm really at the stage where I HAVE to take action NOW.
As well as having increasing dysphoria and confusion since I was alot younger, I've been in a limbo for three years whilst I work out what feels right. I haven't cut my hair in three years, so its long now, but the MPB is rendering it a tangled mass of thin straggly weeds, which is at the stage of looking downright awful. It'll either need HRT to recover, or it'll need to be chopped off. Its been on life-support for three years with pills and potions but I can't sustain it forever, and I'm beginning to look like a tramp. My face also now has permanent beard shadow, my delicate neck and arms are bulking out, my body hair is now sprouting black hairs absolutely everywhere and it increasingly won't shave properly as it's getting thicker and coarser. I can't hold back the tide of 30 year old masculinity any longer, I've had an extended period of androgyny but that appears to be now over. No matter how closely I shave or how long I leave the conditioner in for my hair, I still have that tired, grey-faced stony-featured man look.
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So.... I either embark on a low dose of HRT this year, or I have to find a way to severe my feminine identity, as I can't cope with having that self-image in my mind and yet seeing someone completely different in the mirror. It was manageable when my hair was thick, my body androgynous, my beard almost none-existent. I could erase alot of masculinity very easily. Now its getting highly challenging, and will only get more challenging.
Myself in lower-light.
Myself in the cold bright light of day (albeit in black and white :p )
Anywho, so not to get down and morose like a moody moose, other things in my life are quite good at the moment, but the gender issue is major, and I need a set direction and to be at peace with whichveer path I choose. Yes, I am seeking therapy, but it still all feels rather hopeless I'm afraid.
