is it normal that I still question myself?

[awkward-shark]

On my last session with my therapist she asked when I started feeling like I wasn't a woman. I said that only resently about a year ago or a bit more. I'm 20 and most transgender people I've heard of (specially ftm's) say they knew they were trans since 10 or 15... while I've lived 18 solid years just fine (kind of). Of course there's been some signals all along but nothing that made me think I was transgender.
Anyways, to this point, in my lone times I ask myself "am I making this all up?". I feel I tend to panic and exagerate things but I'm constantly afraid that my therapist will say "you don't have gender dysphoria so I can't write you a referral for the endocrinologist".
I ask myself if I would like to back off, say I was confused to my friends and therapist. Use my birthname and don't wear a binder anymore but I don't want to.  I can't do it no more. It really is like living a life. I finally know who I am and all this makes sensem, I want to start testosterone sometime next year and yet... I'm afraid I might be faking it?
Has this happened to anyone?

[Laura_7]

Usually cis people do not question their gender, apart from a little curiousity.

I'd say go with a feeling of joy.

Its often that we feel something inside and then mental chatter starts and people doubt.
Just listen to some kind of inner feeling of what feels right.
Just try to relax... and keep on keeping on.


have a *hug*

[Ms Grace]

If you could press a button and turn forever into a guy would you press it? If you thought yes without a seconds thought then that might give you an idea of what is in your heart. When I was a child I never specifically thought I wanted to be a girl but I knew I really didn't like being a boy and having to be with the boys and be expected to do boy things. I tried to fit in as well as I could but it wasn't until I about 18 that the reality of what that all meant made me understand I was female I had just never previously had the language to understand.

[synesthetic]

I think every trans person experiences doubt. doubt about identity and feelings of faking being trans, myself included... but in the end you've just gotta do what makes you happy. if you feel happier and more like yourself as a guy, then I don't think you're faking it.

[Tiffanie]

I am sure everyone has a level of doubt from time to time.  I am 18 months full time and still (very rarely now) wonder if I made the right choice.  At the beginning it was a regular thought

[Dena]

Before SRS I think there was always some doubt because waking up after surgery I was in pain, still doped up, I couldn't see because of the eyedrops and I wanted to go back to sleep but one though flash through my mind before returning to sleep and that was I made the right decision. That was the first time I had that though and I have never regretted my decision.

[Katiepie]

Doubt comes in to play at many times. I know, when I was younger, I wouldn't give it some thought, when the thoughts first came up sporadically that I thought I was a girl, and that I had thought that maybe I was and my parents were hiding the fact that I could have been born a girl, that they didn't want one because for the life of me my life before age 6 is non existent, other than a small photo here and there. Like i only remember I wasn't boy enough, but I wasn't much too girly in my young years, other than never wanting to touch dirt, and get dirty at all.
Like I know now that I was meant to be a girl, and my thought patterns and how I do things, and how my brother and well my cousins and everyone in my extended family, I kinda take on patterns much like the girls in the family rather than the boys, except for going through with the military stuff.

Go with what's in your heart, and don't take a second look. If it is meant to be, then your choice goes farther to making yourself happy with you.

Kate ♥

[awkward-shark]

I guess is okay to follow my heart, I do know that this is the way in wich I'll be happier but I'm afraid of the reaction this could have on my parets and extended family so it makes sense that a part of me wished I could live with out transitioning... But I can't and I don't want to.
Ultimatelly, only I can decide who I am, not my therapist, not my parents, not my friends. Those doubt thoughts could be driven by fear, right? Fear of being rejected and lose job or school opportunities.
Thank you all for your comments.

[suzifrommd]

I'm afraid I might be faking it?
Has this happened to anyone?

Well I spent the first 50 years of my life not knowing I was trans, so when I started thinking I was, it took a lot of getting used to.

[synesthetic]

a lot of my doubt is driven by fear, so that could definitely be a major factor in the doubt you experience.
fear is one of the strongest emotions we deal with, and it can alter our train of thought completely, making us second-guess ourselves.
but you can never let your fear win against you.
be yourself unapologetically, as hard as it is.
<3

[EmmaLynn]

I question constantly if I am just making everything up and I am scared to go to the therapist because i feel like they will just tell me that I am and I just need to get over myself. One of the things that helps is when I came out to one of my friends they told me that it all makes sense now that he knew there was something different. But I feel like there is always the questioning especially for us who have lived for a long time not knowing, just that hopefully eventually all of the questions will fade if not go away at some point.

[awkward-shark]

a lot of my doubt is driven by fear, so that could definitely be a major factor in the doubt you experience.
fear is one of the strongest emotions we deal with, and it can alter our train of thought completely, making us second-guess ourselves.

I can relate this to my experience because I might have discovered this way back in high-school but I believe I was too afraid to even allow myself the posibility of exploring my gender. I thought, when I came to terms with myself, that I was over that fear but it obviously takes more than just that to get over it completely.

I question constantly if I am just making everything up and I am scared to go to the therapist because i feel like they will just tell me that I am and I just need to get over myself. One of the things that helps is when I came out to one of my friends they told me that it all makes sense now that he knew there was something different. But I feel like there is always the questioning especially for us who have lived for a long time not knowing, just that hopefully eventually all of the questions will fade if not go away at some point.

This also reminds me of how I felt when I first came out to my friends. Many of them told me that they already knew it. I think even friends from school whom I've known forless than two years also feel that way.