Somewhere in between.

[Amy413]

Ok, first time ever. (posting a pic of me online like this)
here's a shot of the feminine me.
A rare picture that I actually like. (the 2016 one on the right)
Along side plain ol what everyone has seen for years, taken in 2013.
I have lost almost 40 pounds since then. I weigh what I did in high school
I never liked pictures of myself until recently as my hair got longer and I played with my phone making selfies.
I just never liked pictures of me as a guy. I'm kinda in-between now. I have to do something about facial & body hair to do more. I have e-mailed a therapist, just waiting hear back to set an appt to talk with her. I'm on the road, don't know how long it will take though. HRT will happen at some point, the breast forms are giving me a little bit of a rash. I look forward to real ones growing.


But wow, I can't believe I'm posting this.

Here I am world. This is me.




I'll be updating this thread in the future as I make progress.
I love how my hair is coming in, can't wait til I can make a decent ponytail.

BTW, I'll be going by Amy

[Ms Grace]

Looking good Amy. And BTW you can change your forum name if that's what you want to do, just PM one of the moderators.

[Amy413]

When I'm ready to use Amy I will do that.

This name switching thing, I just came up with Amy 6 months ago.
I was inspired by the scene near the end of Toy Story 2.
When the colorful Barbie turns to Stinky Pete the prospector and says,
"You'll like Amy,...She's an artist."

Using it is still very new to me. I have been totally closeted.

I also kinda like pete as a girl name to be honest, some girls are named bobby or joey, some boys are named alice.
But in society things like that throw people off.
So I decided to come up with a 'culturally female' name.

Still breaking 'Amy' in.

An interesting thing...

Amy means "beloved"
Peter means "rock"

Amy-Peter comes together as "Beloved Rock".
I like to think of this big one we all live on as a "Beloved Rock".

Words have a tendency to dance around in my head and mix me up.
I'm dyslexic too.

[Ms Grace]

Yep, whatever works best for you is the thing to do.

The one thing I would say about names that can be either male or female, I've heard some transwomen say it can lead to a fair bit of misgendering, especially on the phone.

[Amy413]

I guess it's a transition to adapting to the new name.
I'll switch to us Amy in my forum name, just thinking of something to add to it text wise rather than just a number.
I'll get back to you on that.

At least in this forum it'll be good practice to start being known of by Amy.
You folks are the first set of people who will know of me by Amy.

Funny, things are kinda snowballing in me.
The past few days have been intense since I decided to come here.
This is my affirmation to myself of really wanting to transition.

I almost did it before 10 years ago. But I hadn't resolved my alcohol issues and that got messy before it even got off the ground. It took all this time to come to terms with the booze. Thankfully, a little over a year ago the powerful force of gravity taught me some lessons about booze......

I have a nice scar on my scalp to remind me. Haven't had anything to do with alcohol since.
To me it's the same as drinking bleach, why would I do that?

Strange how a knock on the head makes you look at life a little different. Over the past year I have been in transition before I even admitted it to myself. Last summer I told my family(mom,dad,sister) and had an emotional breakdown in the process. They were all great about it, but I totally short circuited and I'm still picking up the pieces. I've been acting like a total nutcase.

Things are slowly coming together emotionally for me as I come to terms with myself.
I know now this is not something I can ever escape, put away, push down, ignore, deny, "get over"....
This is me.

It didn't take long for me to look around here and finally find a place I can belong.
Thanks 

Your new friend,
Amy

[Ms Grace]

At least in this forum it'll be good practice to start being known of by Amy.
You folks are the first set of people who will know of me by Amy.

One of the reasons I decided to use my new name as my forum name, and not something like Clov3rPants, WowWowWow or Random66 (not that there's anything wrong with anyone using those names!!) is that it gave me the opportunity to get used to people knowing me by that name and calling me by that name. I found it helpful at any rate.

[Amy413]

Come to think of it, I also kinda came close back in 89 when I was 19.
I was living in Los Angeles, was hanging out with some people in a not so healthy scene.
Kinda turned me off to the idea for a while. West Hollywood is a crazy town.

We hit potholes on our path.

[Tristyn]

Ok, first time ever. (posting a pic of me online like this)
here's a shot of the feminine me.
A rare picture that I actually like. (the 2016 one on the right)
Along side plain ol what everyone has seen for years, taken in 2013.
I have lost almost 40 pounds since then. I weigh what I did in high school
I never liked pictures of myself until recently as my hair got longer and I played with my phone making selfies.
I just never liked pictures of me as a guy. I'm kinda in-between now. I have to do something about facial & body hair to do more. I have e-mailed a therapist, just waiting hear back to set an appt to talk with her. I'm on the road, don't know how long it will take though. HRT will happen at some point, the breast forms are giving me a little bit of a rash. I look forward to real ones growing.


But wow, I can't believe I'm posting this.

Here I am world. This is me.




I'll be updating this thread in the future as I make progress.
I love how my hair is coming in, can't wait til I can make a decent ponytail.

BTW, I'll be going by Amy

You look great. Love that smile!



-Phoenix

[Amy413]

An observation of myself....
As I am accepting myself more, my gender and my sexuality.
I've realized I have a few persistent "hollywood crushes"

I'm just pretty much interested in everyone actually 
Pretty is pretty.
There are a lot of pretty people.

Gender, celebrity status, doesn't matter to me.
Hollywood or Fresno, people are beautiful. It's the variety that I love.

But I'm not gonna look at 'Spin City' or 'Back to the Future' the same now.
I'll be able to let myself enjoy the characters

[Amy413]

I'm not even on HRT yet, but since I have made the decision to contact a therapist and get the ball rolling, appointment set, I have been on a emotional ride like you wouldn't believe! Or many of you would who have been through it already.
I've had a number of false starts in the past, but this time it's for real. Family already knows, and I have made the step of actually reaching out to resources.

Up down all over the place, tears of all kinds, spinny head sometimes.

This is what I have wanted to do the whole time, can't fool myself any longer.
My whole memory it's been all about the girl stuff, stealing my big sisters nail polish and what not.
I've been this tomboy hiding among the boys all these years, getting tired of the guy stuff, it was fun for a while, some of it is still ok, but I have always wanted to play with all the girl stuff, but everybody kept stopping me.

They have fairy LEGOS now!!!!!!!!
I almost fainted.

[Amy413]

The more I allow myself to be Amy, I get giggily fits.
Like i'm in Jr High or something.
Like I said, I'm not even on HRT yet.
Just as I discovering the little girl deep inside, she's kinda silly and giggles a lot.

Been puttin on this "tough guy" act so long, it feels good to just let go and be me.
One of the decisions in all this is to just stop acting. I've been pretending to be a guy, not very good at it either.

I used to be silly and fun when I was little, playing with all the girls, then all of a sudden everyone changed.
Things went downhill. I put up a shield, eventually a wall.

Nice to finally start knocking some bricks out of this wall.

I have to go get me some of those fairy Legos

[Amy413]

And then I crash.
I think about how I can't leave the house to do anything, there is literally a freeway traffic jam outside my front door.
Moving is financially impossible.
I am essentially confined to my house forever. It is far too much of a hassle to go anywhere in town.
I get far too frustrated with traffic. I am a serious road rage danger to myself and others.
I just do not think HRT will fix that.
That road rage is not gender dysphoria.
It's rage at being completely TRAPPED in a house in a nearly inaccessible neighborhhod. As long as I live where I am I am going to be miserable.

But I have absolutely NO alternatives for another living situation NONE WHATSOEVER. NO WAY OUT!!!

I am basically in prison. Solitary confinement. No friends, no visitation, nothing.
At least my cell isn't made out of concrete.

Really, I can go into detail about how I am 100% stuck in this house, no other place to live.

people want to die when they feel trapped.
Transition or no transition, I can't do a thing with my life, it's at a complete stand still.

I want to die.

[Amy413]

I know I need help, but nobody seems to get through to me.
I am led to believe I have to do it all 100% by myself, alone.
All my problems are my fault, and my responsibility to get out of, nobody on earth can help me.

Everyone just stands on the side and watches me sink deeper into the quicksand, they can do nothing for me.
In this cruel world, I am expected to pull myself out or die.

Welcome to earth
Welcome to hell

[Deborah]

Cheer up Amy.  If you do start HRT you might be surprised at what it might fix.  If you are constantly dysphoric then a lot of other issues can stem from that alone.  Among those are anger, stress, depression, and hopelessness.  All the ones that you are feeling.  When the dysphoria is lifted all these other things often seem to magically evaporate right along with it.

I can't speak for anyone else, nor am I a psychologist, but for me cross dressing provided only a momentary relief and then it all came quickly crashing back like an avalanche burying me under yards of suffocating snow.  And I felt as you feel now.

You should make an effort to get in to speak to a qualified counsellor or psychologist as soon as you can.  Just that step alone will provide you a surprising degree of relief.  Then you can take steps towards HRT if that is the right thing to do.

There is a better path forward into the future.  But it's up to you to seize the moment and take those steps into the light.


Sapere Aude

[Amy413]

The 29th @ 11
appt set.

It was actually the setting of the appointment and the thinking about getting around the city and downtown and all that .

I am extremely crowd-phobic.
The denser the collection of people the worse it is, it's been this way since I was a child.
I am also autistic, I have sensory issues, I have no filter on incoming sensory data, I get overwhelmed very easy. That's why autistics "melt down".

Why would I expect HRT to be a cure for autism?
Sure it could alleviate some things. But let be realistic too, there are no such things as magic bullets.
My difficulties are not 100% caused by the hormone imbalance.

This crowd problem of mine also includes vehicular traffic.
It's essentially the thing behind feeling trapped. No matter where I live there will be a crowd blocking be from the world. The world is crowded.

People are nice one on one, but packed into groups, they are terrifying. But with the way the world is and going, this will only get worse!!!! 7 billion plus and counting!!! It's an infestation!!!!

Groups are unpredictable and unstable, difficult to navigate.

Seems in order to actually have a life I will have to somehow learn to like groups. UGH!!!!!

That's when I want to die. I hate groups.

[Amy413]

This is going to sound all "weird" and stuff, many will just think I'm nuts, but It's the psychic noise as I call it that bothers me about groups. The undifferentiated psychic sludge that leaks off of everyone that bugs me, it's worse the denser the crowd. I can't quite explain it, but it's psychic noise. I just can't be around it.

But most folks don't believe that "psychic" nonsense.

[Deborah]

I understand the psychic noise issue because I feel it too.  Maybe not to the same degree as you do though.  I have never liked crowds much either but can pretty much block out everything and just settle into my own thoughts.


Sapere Aude

[Amy413]

In 2007 I had a "bad trip" on lsd. A hard detox from alcohol was involved.
It was essentially somewhat like an 'n.d.e.', but there were no bright lights.
I'm not even going to describe the place I went, too dark.

My mother insists I have ptsd.
She's also a retired mental health professional.
And has had a bad trip herself in the 70's.

Something got cracked open in 2007.
Something metaphysical in nature.

But talk about socially unaccepted things, once you get into all the "woo-woo" psychic, metaphysical stuff, people start not taking you very seriously. It's all got to boil down to some medical condition they can prescribe something for.

C'mon folks, the universe is much bigger than that.

[Amy413]

I've done a fair amount of experimentation with substances, and spent lots of time in 12 step meetings (nearly 10,000 of them literally) I can quote chapter and verse of the AA Big Book.

It's actually the alcohol that drives anything into the dirt.
I've combined it with a lot of stuff, it messes everything up.

BTW, approx one year since I have had a drop of alcohol.
And since I have ended my dysfunctional relationship with the 12 step world.

If there is something beyond a phd, I'd have that in the subject of substance abuse. Researched it well from both the active and sober end.

I also think maybe it was that dysfunctional relationship with the 12 step world that contributed to my discomfort in crowds.

I shut everything out, period, when I ended my relationship with both alcohol and AA.

[Amy413]

I've always considered myself a scientist.
I have been fascinated with theoretical physics since I was a small child.
I came across a cool picture book called "Space-Time and beyond", written with the help of the guys who later made the documentary "what the bleep do we know?"

Some kids read comics about superman, I read comics about Einstein.

Everything I do in life is some kind of scientific experiment, I can't help it , it's my nature.
One subject I'm into is the nature of time and consciousness itself. Yes it's super-nerdy.
Eyes glaze over when I talk.

Every time I did something like lsd, or mushrooms, or whatever, it was a deliberate scientific journey into non linear time to gather observation data. Yes, I know a very wreckless and irresponsible way to go about science.
But I believe that when researching time science, one is ethically bound to only conduct experiments upon ones self. "Time" is a human invention, a way for our consciousness to organize the unimaginable size of the universe and all of it's dimensions. Or minds organize that into neat linear segments we call time. Time is really a science that falls within the realm of psychology. Experiments can be extremely dangerous!!!

My bad experience in 2007 for example.

I'm still compiling the data from that juvenile lab experiment with beakers blowing up.
Not literal beakers blowing up, that day was completely nuts. Humboldt county California on April 20th, anyone familiar with that place will know how nuts it was.

Hopefully I can write some software that can back up things I say with mathematical proofs.
This is math I can't scribble on a blackboard in greek, I need to write it in a computer programming language and make an interactive piece of software to properly explain the stuff in my head.

I feel like "John Crichton" from Farscape with the wormhole code buried in my head, no joke.
I can see the geometry with my imagination.

I'm not nuts. I'm a total math-science nerd.

And that "wanting to die" comment above, just saying that when people feel trapped that increases the futility of life. I'm a drama queen sometimes. lol.