Will it return?

[redhot1]

Lately I haven't been thinking about trans-related stuff for a while. I'm wondering, will the feeling ever return?

Even though I never hated my body, I guess I'm a little disappointed.

[FTMDiaries]

I buried my feelings for 20 years, trying to concentrate on raising a family. It didn't work. Those gnawing feelings kept coming back, and they kept getting worse... until I got to the point where I needed to do something about putting things right.

Perhaps you're not yet at that stage? Perhaps you won't even get to that stage? Who knows? You've said before that you doubt you have gender dysphoria. If you do have gender dysphoria, it has a tendency to get worse over time if left untreated, so yes, there is a good chance that it will come back. But if you have something else, only your therapist can advise you on that.

[chris.deee]

For me, I've gone days, weeks, and months, even years without thinking about it.

And yet it always comes back.

I'm to a point where I'm happy either way and just embrace the way things are on any given day. 

This is why I doubt I'll ever transition full time.

This is also why i don't think I'll ever stop expressing as a woman. There is no last time for me other than when the grand clock of life runs out.

[KathyLauren]

I find it ironic that the realization that these feelings were real and would never go away did more than anything else to make them (almost) go away for me.  I have to pay close attention to which part of that is real.  Otherwise I run the risk of talking myself out of doing anything about it.  The real part is that it is never completely going away.

[Jacqueline]

The phrase I have heard over and over is that it never goes away. It sometimes goes dormant but never completely disappears.

In my case, I had multiple symptoms but never "knew", realized till I was 50. Those symptoms have come and gone but hit me hard last year so it would not let go till I dealt with it or experienced some sort of traumatic event.

Admitting does relieve a lot. However, as I am still not out in public or work, I  still get bouts of dysphoria leading to depression and occasionally anxiety. However, they are so much less long lasting.

Take care and I hope your journey is smooth from here, wherever it leads.

Joanna

[CarlyMcx]

I won't say that it will never return, but it might not return for a very long time.  I was 19 when I first discovered the possibility of transitioning, and then gave up after researching it and realizing that it was financially far out of reach.  But when I finished school and started working eight years later, the urge came back. 

That time I gave up after finding out that gender identity disorder was considered a mental illness (this was in 1989).  I got married, had kids, and thought I had put away the gender thing for good.

Then ten years later I got divorced.  In 1998/99, I started dressing at home, set up an online persona, started researching therapists and doctors, and then -- I was in court on business, and I saw a young, almost passable transgender who had a case under her male name get mistreated by a judge.

I was in a custody fight over my kid at the time, so I went home, cross dressed one last time, looked in the mirror, said "this just isn't me," and it worked. For a time.

The anxiety and panic attacks started about six years later, in 2005.   I managed to stay in denial until late in 2014.  Now here I am.

YMMV, but if the dysphoria returns, come see us again, or contact your local LGBT center.

[gennee]

I've been out for 11 years now. I don't have the feelings every day but it lurks over my shoulder.

[Dena]

I transitioned without blockers and I know my T levels were well above the feminine level. The feeling was with me throughout my transition. Post surgical was the first time in my life I was free of T and it's funny but for a long time I didn't notice that feeling was gone. I blamed it on a complete move into the feminine role and there was some of that but only after coming to Susan's have I realized that the surgery did more for me that giving me that last bit of passibility. It removed the source of T that had made me uncomfortable for many years. For the last 33 years I have been free of the trans feeling and comfortable with my role in life. If done right, I think the feeling will never return.