What triggered your late transition?

[shanetastic]

I guess I would be considered an early transitioner, but either way, I just came to a point in my life where I didn't care about anything or anyone.  I was in a nice deep depression, when I decided, what the heck, I guess I'll just take a stab at this since my life can't get any worse.  Thus far I don't regret anything in regards to that decision  

[TheBattler]

I guess I would be considered an early transitioner, but either way, I just came to a point in my life where I didn't care about anything or anyone.  I was in a nice deep depression, when I decided, what the heck, I guess I'll just take a stab at this since my life can't get any worse.  Thus far I don't regret anything in regards to that decision  

Another one!!! Why could I just avoid depression in the 1st place - I wanted none of this.

Seams like HRT is the asnwer to everyones depression  .

Alice

[shanetastic]

I guess I would be considered an early transitioner, but either way, I just came to a point in my life where I didn't care about anything or anyone.  I was in a nice deep depression, when I decided, what the heck, I guess I'll just take a stab at this since my life can't get any worse.  Thus far I don't regret anything in regards to that decision  

Another one!!! Why could I just avoid depression in the 1st place - I wanted none of this.

Seams like HRT is the asnwer to everyones depression  .

Alice

Alice, I don't think it could be said any better.  That whole denial thing, that is dealing with depression.  Well, at least for me it was.  Ultimately though, you can only live in denial for so long, and then I relapsed into that huge depression where I just shut out the world and tried to figure out whether I wanted to live or end it over this stuff.

Really, I don't think anyone wanted this   Still to this day I really wish I didn't have to deal with this.  But what can you do about it really though.  I guess just deal with it the best you can and make the most out of the rest of your life.  So I chose to try to make it better, but we'll see how it turns out in the long run.  I'm still very self concious and in a sense to this day as well, so I can only hope for the best.

[cindybc]

Hi again Nickie
Yep I can agree with the part about what the other kids would have done. I was getting enough beatings already just for being there. Everyone thought I was weird because I kept to myself, I was a loner. To tell any one at school was certainly not an option or any grown ups about my secret  desire to be a girl. Witch burning would have been legalised again. Getting some relief now and again by dressing up with some clothes I had stashed around the premises. Everything culminated to a sobering realisation for me 8 years ago when I knew I needed to do something or just end it. I started full time 7 years ago.

Cindy

[Suzy]

At age 44 an illness nearly killed me, causing me to take stock of everything.  I had no idea that the thoughts I had about being female would come flooding out, but now I see the connection.  Part of me had never really gotten a chance to live, only a chance to get a peek at life before being smothered time and time again, starting when I was small.  The shame and guilt I felt was incredible.  I also had no idea that anyone else felt the same way.  I came to Susan's out of desperation to try to understand what was going on with me.  I still hoped I could talk my way out of this, that it was only a passing phase.  But it's like trying to put the genie back in the bottle.  I can suppress it for a while, grow depressed again, or enjoy the life and the challenges I face.  So I now feel I am being pushed along by something bigger than myself.

Kristi

[Kate]

Seams like HRT is the asnwer to everyones depression  .

Not at all. HRT doesn't cure depression for anyone. Being true to yourself can though (*if* that's the source of the depression)

~Kate~

[cindybc]

Hi Kristi

I do so agree with you. For me it was like there were two me's playing a tug of war or like two people constantly conversing with each other in my head. Finally after nearly ending up driving my car into a rock cut I was finally at peace when the other part of me, image in my mind, The other part of me laid his sword on the ground and said I will fight no more and just laid down and went  into peaceful rest.

Cindy 

[TheBattler]

Seams like HRT is the asnwer to everyones depression  .

Not at all. HRT doesn't cure depression for anyone. Being true to yourself can though (*if* that's the source of the depression)

~Kate~

Is transistion a physical need - I would say yes - there is something within HRT that our brain needs. As tink Said.

Due to recent studies, I firmly believe that transsexual people are born with a congenital neurological condition that requires treatment; so it's fair to say that for transsexual people, transition IS a physical need.


tink

Notice how everyone has problem withdrawing from HRT. That Physcial need is to great.

Alice

[Laura Elizabeth Jones]

In a perfect world I would have started transitioning in my teens, however, this was not possible for me in 1989. I did know that transitioning was possible but I had no idea that you could start at that age. Plus, I was worried about any negative reactions if I had come out at that age (11). So, I spent a lot of time being angry and depressed and later turned to substance abuse to 'help' things. Fast forward to age 29 and that is when the "alarm" went off in my head. I became an utter wreck and thought about death everyday and attempted suicide three different times. It was a dark time for me. Earlier this year I finally found a therapist, and a few months later I started electro. I received my HRT letter 8 months after starting therapy and found an endo and started HRT two months later. Since then things have improved tenfold and I am actually happy again. Happiness was something that I thought that I would never feel again and life is SO much better now.

[Robin_p]

Jealousy.. I was still on the fence and two years sober.  I saw a Trans-woman on the train to boston. After a week of watching her go through everything. I said to myself "i can do that and could do it better".

After that everything just slip into place. Therapist, support, money and Endo..

Here I am and loving it......

[cindybc]

Hi, Morticia,

What you have described in your post is a near carbon copy of the stuff  I have experienced.

Oh, good grief, I am so happy I don't get the depressions any more. I am usually a pretty happy and bubbly person and I am happy that those qualities have returned. It would be so much of a waste of what precious time I have left in this world if it didn't.

I am as female as I can be, and I am happy as can be with my life. I will agree with what you said about the hormones, that they don't have any affect on one's moods but the mones do have a lot to do with a change of your anatomy.  If one can actually take control and become conscious of themselves and know who they truly are, they can experience a change in their character and personality as well as bringing-on very profound emotional changes.  Then one will see life around them change due to a major change in their perspective.

But one has to want to change before they can change. You are quite right, you are not the same person you were when you bought the ticket for the Greyound to transition. I believe that about 80 % of your growth and learning about the true self within is actually done before the surgery.   

I am just  realizing what it is I am watching materialize before me.
I am watching an evolution that is a revolution. Transexuality is being diagnose and treated in children as young as 8 years old. There pre op teenagers who at age 18 or 19 are ready for their GRS after having started their transition and rel life experience in Middle school.

The evolution is in the diagnosis and treatment of Transexuality. The revolution is in the quality of our lives and the life expectancies of our younger brothers and sister who will likely not die by the age of 30 by their own hand.

Only just a short 20 years ago Transexuality, or gender dysphoria had finally made it into the books as a psychological disorder. A definition made my medical community. It was classified as Harry Benjamin syndrome 

So that was part of the reason we older folks took longer getting there and damn lucky to still be here t talk about it.

Cindy

[TheBattler]

Oh how I've changed..  More inside than on the outside but that's getting there too.
But depression?  I'll never be free of that demon.

If I thought transistion would not get rid of the depression - I would not transistion. The whole idea of transistion is to become happy - not to continue depression.

Alice

[buttercup]

Well, I'm working on it.
But I've got serious problems.  My life has been a pile of crap from the day I was conceived until this very moment.
I've got almost 47 years of bad crap rotting in my brain.
If I could wake up tomorrow looking like Miss America I assure you I would be much less depressed but I would still have a lot of bad crap fermenting in my head that will never go away. 
Transitioning doesn't take away the pain of all the years of abuse one suffers.
Transitioning won't undo all the beatings and broken bones, emotional abuse and other abuse that went on year after year after year.

I'm transitioning to be me.  If I find happiness along the way it won't be strictly because I transitioned, it will be because part of my brain malfunctions and I would have no more memories of all those very bad years.

I'm not transitioning to become happy, I'm doing it because I have to.  There simply is no other option.
I HOPE that someday I can be happy.  But I doubt that will ever happen.  Unless like I said, all those memories vaporize.

I can relate to you Morticia, being an abuse survivor is a constant struggle, some of us win and some of us don't. 

[Melissa-kitty]

I'm still struggling with the whole transition thing, but options seem to be narrowing. My life completely changed a few years ago. I moved to another state, divorced, my kids grew up and grew apart from me. I was living alone for the first time in my life. I started over. Completely. What to do with myself, those thoughts and feelings in my head. I rebuilt how I ate, became vegetarian, became physically active, and calmed down. Then started to dress better, less hiding my shape. I became less anxious, less angry. I started to behave in a less stereotypical masculine way, that I had adopted to disguise the fact that I wasn't really a boy. Then my thoughts and feelings really started to scream at me, that I was never a boy, which I always knew. Suicidal thoughts became more frequent and started to scare me. I had to do something. I've started therapy, started presenting more female. Working on laser and voice. In boy mode, I'm more feminine, kinder, more fashionable. I'm starting to show up on people's queer radar. And I love it!

[Ms Bev]

At age 44 an illness nearly killed me, causing me to take stock of everything.

Kristi.......I'm happy you made this decision/discovery/necesity now.  See.....some of us are much much later than you.  I started transition at age 54.  Still, I am as happy as can be.  It's interesting, our transitions began on the same note, although I didn't have a life-threatening illness.  It was  just a sudden realization that if I hid forever, I would never have the life I needed.  Soon after that, I took my first dose on my way to puberty.
Good luck to you, girl!  By the way, your latest pic shows a very, very pretty lady hidden in all that fog.  Like all late transitioners, we gradually emerge from our fog, and crystallize into our true female selves.


Bev

[Berliegh]

Re: What triggered your late transition?
My early transition.....

it only became a late transition because I couldn't get the help, support or treatment earlier on. The diagnosis of gender dyspgoria was made very early on....

[Berliegh]

Same here.  I  *KNEW* I was a girl when I was 4 years old (I think that's how old I was).
I was taping my bits and pieces away out of sight when I was 4 years old.
And I have no idea where I got that from, I had never even seen a naked person except me.
I just knew that it wasn't right down there.
But this was 1965.  Not a good year to come out.
When I was caught taping I was beaten bloody, constantly.
That sort of put the brakes on things for awhile ya know?
I was beaten almost everyday of my life until I turned 18 and moved out. 
Even then it was 1979 and the info did not exist in this bumpkin redneck part of the world.
It was the mid 80's before I even found out one *could* transition.
And it was the 1989 when I took my first shot at it.

A lot of us old timers had a lot of things working against us.
It was a very, very different world back then..

I was first diagnosed as gender dysphoric by a doctor in 1984....

Although I had presented as female from as early as 13 I didn't start looking into transitioning until the late 1980's. The private clinic that I was in contact with at that time charged very excessive rates for just a consultation. I found it confusing and exploitive and at that we hadn't got the internet or the same kind of help there is today. It wasn't until 1998 that I started transition...

Even though we must be of similar ages? I don't see myself as an 'Old timer' just yet Morticia.....

[Rachael]

And now my greatest fear is getting Alzheimer's and forgetting that I transitioned.

this is a bad thing why?
R

[cindybc]

I'm not going to die, I am going to get abducted by aliens.
Berliegh and mortician, I am probably the same age maybe a little older then you two. I would like to respond to both of your messages but my Soul Mate and I will be stepping out for a while and I will write when I get back. I heartily know some about abuse, been there to.

Cindy 

[Berliegh]

I'm not going to die, I am going to get abducted by aliens.
Berliegh and mortician, I am probably the same age maybe a little older then you two. I would like to respond to both of your messages but my Soul Mate and I will be stepping out for a while and I will write when I get back. I heartily know some about abuse, been there to.

Cindy 

.......oh dear...have I just aged that much already in 10 minutes .. or maybe I just look it...lol

I'm in my 40's...is that still classed as a an 'Old timer'?