Feeling like turning around and running away from transitioning

[Amoré]

I don't know what is going on before I started hormones I was certain I wanted to transition even if it costed my marriage and family and everything. I remember sitting there and my psychiatrist asking me if none of them where in my life what would I choose. I sat there and was like I would transition for certain.

Now I am going for month four it is three months and 3 weeks of hrt and I feel like I just want to turn around and run away from it all. I am finding it very overwhelming. Losing my marriage also was my biggest fear and it happened. Hurting my family and causing them trauma that I also did. I feel like transitioning might not be worth it as I am not yet a woman it may be months before I pass even though my mother, wife and therapist said I pass I don't feel if I do,I am only getting some boobs now and then I still can't afford srs later on.I feel like Everything is just falling apart and breaking around me,caught between two worlds feeling as if you are lost in the space time continuum is so overwhelming.

Some days I get the urge to dress but then nerves take over I feel like a man in woman's clothing and feel wrong like my manliness is supposed to be gone and I am supposed to be comfortable in the clothes but I aren't. I accepted that I am trans and have GD I accepted myself as a woman in this body. A woman that loves robotics and tech stuff motorcycles and fast cars. I don't let my interests define my gender. But the moment I have to venture out of my comfort zone of this manly facade that I put on I get very uncomfortable.I fear that people will figure me out. I fear for not finding love again. I fear my future as a woman and that I won't make the cut.

I am so stressed of what lies ahead for me. I am scared of what the future may bring for my trans life. I desperately want another child my current wife does not want to have another child with me. It breaks my heart. I fear what my current two year old child will do and if she will recent me when she grow up.

I am just rambling and venting I am scared as hell of my future as a trans woman.

[Dena]

You didn't mention if you were on a blocker because if you are, it will reduce your drive to transition because it will make you feel less uncomfortable in your body. Should you discontinue the blocker, the old feelings will return in full force in a short while.

The fear you feel is real. I still remember the first time I had to walk out to door in feminine dress. It took me more than one try to open the door. I would put my hand on the knob and then take it away. Repeated exposure overcomes that fear and the best thing you can do will be public appearances with somebody you are comfortable with. Start in places you feel comfortable going. In my case it was my therapy group which progressed to dinner after group. The fear is normal but short lived.

You will be the last one to see yourself as feminine. It took me a couple of years full time before I look in the mirror and saw a woman looking back. Trust what others tell you because they will be much less biased about your image.

I am computer hardware, software and can fix many things a normal male can't fix. That doesn't make me any less of a woman. Men are nurses, secretaries and stay at home dads but that doesn't make them any less a man. You are what you feel you are on the inside and your body or work doesn't determine your gender identity.

You need to find what makes you comfortable in your skin. Yes you will be uncomfortable finding it but that's what self discovery is all about.

[Amoré]

I am currently on blockers and hormones. I went of them for 6 weeks and the feeling returned within a week. I had so bad dyshoria I cried for 3 days.

[Dena]

The blockers are taking the edge off but not completely.

Your child will still love you when she grows up as long as she is around you as much as possible. Children are very tolerant and will love anybody who gives them love. If you transition now, she will never know you any other way. Your wife is another matter. Therapy might help bring here around but the numbers are about 50/50 that she will accept the transition. She could change her view of you if she sees how you will change going through the transition. Getting rid of all the emotional baggage we carry with us makes us a much nicer person to get along with. The improvements in your personality may cause her to reconsider her position.

It is important to understand you are doing this for yourself and what other people think or what they figure out isn't important. I suspect most of the people where I currently work know or suspect the truth about me. I hadn't fixed my voice when I started there, I don't wear makeup because of the heat and I don't dress up because I have no idea what I will be crawling around in. They all accept me and talk with me and I don't care what they suspect about me. I just assume they might know the truth about me and I don't worry about it. I am comfortable with my self and the rest isn't important. It takes time to reach that state of mind, but it happens.

[AnonyMs]

I started and stopped HRT quite a few times under pressure from my wife. I'd feel normal taking HRT, then terrible when I stopped. Maybe even worse than before I started. I eventually gave up on stopping, I just couldn't take it anymore.

I'm quite certain now that stopping is not an option. I'd not survive it long and I'm no good to my family dead. The only question became what next? I've been doing medical transition only, no social. Its certainly not for everyone and I'm not entirely sure its a good idea, but I'm mostly quite happy with it and I've avoided the problems of social transition. Its quite likely I've just delayed things though; I'll end up needing to socially transition, and regret not doing so earlier.

If I do socially transition I plan to get it over with as quickly as possible from the medical side, and I'll have been on HRT a long time. Like most I've a serious fear of walking outside presenting female.

[warlockmaker]

I can remember the tremendous sense of guilt after about 3 months on HRT and blamed myself for so much that went wrong with the family and its future prospects. But I am lucky in that I was seeing a therapist for 3 years before I even started HRT and he prepared me for some of the guilt that I would have to face. On HRT I developed a new found empathy and that pre HRT idea on transitioning changed from one - "I have to do this for my own sanity and mental well being"- to one where - "how can I do this and still accommodate my family". This will change as you begin to adapt to your new perception of life. Some of us stop transitioning but I would give it time and give your mind time to adapt and then decide.

[JoanneB]

I cannot tell you how many "WTF Am I Doing " meltdowns I had early on. All I was able to see during the darkest of those times was how crazy I was. What a Fools Errand I was on. I made it this far. WHy blow up your world. And the Guilt, and especially the Shame. The pain and anguish I was causing my wife. Unilaterally redefining the marriage. Blowing apart her world... Our World. Our shared hopes, wishes and dreams of a long happy future together and the great adventures we'll have. The shame, proving without a doubt what a totally disappointment and F'up I proved myself to be. The Prodigal Son turns to the Dark Side. That close call in my teens finally coming back. They failed, I failed.

I can go on, as I am sure you have a long laundry list too even before getting to the balding since 14, 6 ft tall, big every everything, not a womanly feature about me part. Yet deep down inside I knew so much, if not EVERYTHING, I was doing in the past NOT Handling being trans slowly and inexorably had been killing me inside. Turning me into a lifeless, soulless thing that merely existed and did as expected. No Hopes. No Wishes. No Joys. No Happiness. No Dreams, bar one given up on long long ago.

"I Know What Does Not Work" became my daily affirmation. It helped to pull me out from the meltdowns. Even the ones made all the worse when I slacked off on HRT at the same time. It is a vicious cycle that Death Spiral of Depression. The only thing close to joy and happiness I was able to see was the image of Joanne looking back at me in the mirror. Not the sad old man. For a brief instant the fog cleared and I could see how far I had come. The personal growth I achieved. How much better of a person. Heck, even learning what it is like to BE a person, had happened by doing all that I was.

During the darkest and most shame and guilt ridden times brought on by the pain I was causing my wife, we would talk. Often I would make the offer to stop all the nonsense if she needed me to. She would always say no. "It's something you need to do, to explore".  The answer I secretly longed for, though she was never shy about her expressing her dismay over the turn of events in our life.

As the months passed and the next meltdown came along her answer subtly changed to "You know you can't" followed by her same observance about my personality changes for the better. Again followed by my doing so will likely lead to the end of the 'Us'.

Six, seven years later I still get my meltdowns as I balance a male life, my female side, being a husband, being a lifemate, being a provider, being one who needs nurturing. I life in absolute fear of returning to the dark days and regressing back down to that 'Thing' I had forced myself to become in order to survive living up to others expectations of me as a 'Man'.

I look back and see that today I am in a far better place. I am living a dream. Perhaps not "The' dream but how many people of the 8 to 10 billion on Planet Earth gets to?