I'm scared for transitioning because I can't handle binding most of the time. None of my binders are particularly powerful, or too small for me. I have an underworks tri-top that is the right size, but is about a year old, maybe more, and was second hand when I got it, and two gc2 compression shirts which just about bind me to an acceptable level. Somehow I can't wear them for more than a day or two at a time, sometimes I struggle to get through a whole day at work in them, even if I haven't worn them for a week or so before then. There have been times where I've had to go and take them off because I can't cope with it anymore.
The other day I was having a meal for just a couple of hours with some people from work, and some of my friend's friends (they knew that I was trans) so I wasn't willing to take my binder off because it was weird enough for them to have to pretend that I was female for the sake of my colleagues without catching sight of my chest too. I had to come straight back and rip the thing off, and struggled to sleep that night because of the pain everywhere that my tritop had been touching me. It was the same sort of ache/bruise feeling that you get the day after working out.
I can just about cope with not binding all the time at the moment (although it is worse now that I'm wearing uniform most of the time and I'm in clothes that fit me for the first time in my life), but I know I won't be able to deal with being out as male and having these things visible, even if only to me. I don't know how people do this day in, day out. It hurts!
