Hello all! You can call me Elle and I'm 34 (just this month).
I only recently came out as transgender (MTF) to my immediate family (parents, siblings) about two'ish months ago and two closer friends this last December. I feel extremely lucky and grateful to have the full support of my parents and my sister as well as a couple supportive friends. Heck I'm even grateful for my tactless, bias, ass of a brother as even despite his open disagreement and insensitivity towards me we still mostly get along, well as much as before lol.
So a bit of history, I've been fully aware of my transgender status for a solid 10+ years. Previous to that I've simply known something was wrong with my life as far back as the end of grade school, I simply lacked knowledge to put words to it. Of course things really got a lot worse for me during and in the aftermath of puberty. As a result I spent my teens and onward fraught with depression, repression, frustration and anger.
In my late teens I even used to pray, "please when this life is over just let me just be a girl". Upon reflection I realize by this point I'd already given up and opted to live an empty shell, a facade of a life. Lost were my ambitions, my drives, my dreams and instead a slow spiral of self destruction took their place.
Even upon realizing I was transgender in my early-mid twenties I found excuses why I shouldn't transition. I am after all not a small person and stand just over 6 feet tall. I have a fairly deep voice (and IMO a limited vocal range), and copious amounts of body hair (curse my genes). These were but a few of the excuses I used to convince myself that it was preferable to continue living the facade I'd grown so accustomed to. So again the cycle of depression and repression continued.
As a result over the years I've increasingly felt emotionally disconnected. To the extent that when my cousin passed away I couldn't find the tears to morn. Then again when my grandmother passed away last year, a lack of tears and proper morning. Both of these incidents greatly concerned me as well as my increasingly numb emotional state. (A bit of a silver lining though, I found myself choking back a few tears just trying to finish this paragraph. I never would of thought I'd be happy to just cry again, it's hard to put into words.)
Eventually what I thought was my rock solid resolution crumbled and the weight of the world became to much and what seemed like the unthinkable, ending it all, didn't seem so bad. By this point at the end of last year I was 320+ lbs and barely had the energy or drive to do much of anything other than continue the downward spiral.
Then something wonderful happened, I opened up and told a friend I'd known since high school. I still don't even know what spurred me to do so, but I'm glad I did. The relief that provided was indescribable. The dam had been breached and I realized there was no going back unless I was ready to give up.
I immediately began losing weight / exercising as well as signed up for health care coverage (which I had been lacking for years). I stopped cutting my hair and also began treating my hair loss, which thankfully isn't to bad (though I do wish I had done something sooner.....ah hindsight...*sigh*).
A few months later, and many a panic attack, I opened up to my family. Lets just say I was prepared for the worst, however their support and general acceptance caught me completely off guard. Frankly I was left befuddled for a good month afterwards.
Shortly after I began seeing a therapist and have been slowly taking steps to be myself. I'm even looking to start on hormones after I work out switching to another doctor / clinic next month.
While I do still have bad days I try and keep positive and hopeful for the future. I may yet have 60+ pounds to loose but at least I've lost 30 lbs to date (down to 290, yay) and I'm a lot healthier for it. While my hair was thinning, that's stopped with treatment and even shows signs of a bit of regrowth. My hair may be taking ages to grow out but I'm loving it more and more ever day.
Finally and most importantly, while I may at times sigh in disgust at my reflection there are now times I catch a glimpse of someone I can love.
So yeah, that's my overly verbose introduction. Nice to meet you all!
