Needing some help... what should I do?!? :(

[Ive]

Hello everyone,

Iv here
I understand that the topic may be very silly, but I am having a very though time in this moment.
I am writing here for letting things out and... because I really need some help.
I am trying to understand what I did, what I am doing and what I am supposed to do, and maybe someone of you had similar experience, or simply talking can help a lot.

*Very long post*

*Please, keep calm while reading*

I discovered to be a transgender girl in 2014 (2 years ago), when I was doing a Ph.D. in Informatics Engineering in Portugal (I am from Italy, and turned 34 y.o. this month). I was staring at me in a mirror when I first saw my woman's eyes.
When I understood this, I was in a very though moment, and discovering to be a girl made the things even more mad...
In 2014 it was 5 years I was in Portugal: I went there in 2009 and settled in a small student city.

I had already enough of the place after one year, and started questioning the fact I was there and doing a Ph.D. quite early.
Here is when the problems started: I could have changed place and what I was doing, but I didn't want to "ruin myself".
Since the beginning of the University I tried to build up my life, trying to "be as the other boys" and "having a happy career". After the University I worked in Italy one year, and then decided to do an experience abroad to open my mind, and challenge me with a PhD.
I tried Portugal, and the city I lived in it was simply not what I was expecting, but when I started questioning my choice, I found myself stuck: I had no idea on what I wished to do with my life, had no perspective for my future, and I had really fear of changing place and work. I thought a lot about Spain and other countries, but when I was dreaming, there was always a question popping to my mind, saying "and when there? what I do?". Also for this I never changed, and also never got back to my homeplace.

I also always wished to be "a special one", to defend myself against the world and to have a beautiful life. The Ph.D. started to show me how many flaws I had, instead.
It was like discovering I was a fake...
Meanwhile, I tried to take advantage of the experience, while complaining and being very introvert: had some experience with girls, all of which were unsuccessful (i.e., I didn't fall in love, I always struggled for understanding "how to be in a relationship with a girl"), and started to fear I was gay (I was 29 y.o.).
I started to say to myself very bad things, like "you have no balls to change place", "you had not to come out your country", together with the will of changing place and do something I liked.
The problem was... I didn't know what I liked...
However, I just did nothing and got stuck in that place.
Meanwhile, a lot of pressure from the environment came on the fact I was not engaged, I had no idea on what to do after the Ph.D., together with the fact that I was discovering that I was not really interested in Informatics.

My "relationship" with informatics started when I was a child: I just played with PC's, and know how to use them at the high school, where I begun to be the "informatics guy", with some neck for mathematics.
I though I WAS that person (well, I tried to be that person, to defend myself against the world, as I really didn't know what to do), and so I graduated in Informatics and then -> PhD.
Then... bang! I discovered I was not what I thought, and in 2014... I discover to be a girl, even!
Being more precise, I know that in 2014 I gave myself the possibility to start "feeling things": I was always really closed, and always feared my feelings, which is not related to the fact I am a transgender woman (I suppose). I started to be free...

At that time I had still to finish a couple of works, write my thesis, and defend. And this is what I did, while I was trying to being sure of what I was experiencing was real!
I still wished to go away, and also I wished to erase all I was doing to myself and my life: change place to Spain and... and....... then what?
I started to show to other people to be happy, when I was very sad inside... that made me even more sick...
I worked for pushing the Ph.D. on, which I eventually succeed in. I got this PhD in January, 2016. Then ran away from there and got back to my hometown.
My colleagues and professors are still wondering where am I, and when I am getting back to the University.
In particular, my advisor is waiting for knowing what I wish to do next.

Now I am home since February, and I still don't know what to do...
The only thing that I did was to get into a psychotherapy (a gender therapist, which is also psychoanalyst), rest, and try to figure out what happened...
Here I need some help, advices, and whatever it may help me...

I am not able to search for a job in the area I studied in... (yes, I am trying to get a normal job to survive and get on with my therapy here in my hometown - until I know what to do with my life).
Also, my Portuguese advisor is waiting for some answer from me... what should I do? Say to him the truth, or do a post-doc (and get some money, as mine are running out...), being "false" (i.e., not really, really interested in Informatics?)
However... when I think about getting a job, a bunch of things come to my mind, like: it is this that I want to do in my life? what will be my future in this company? what will be my future in this city?
But more than this... I don't want to study those informatics things any more... I feel I am not doing what I would have liked to do, and I am going in the wrong direction. And also "I am not the computer boy" that everyone know...
Together with all this, I always feel the pressure from some colleagues (from the University and the PhD course), like "if I don't do like them, I am not good, I am a failure"...
Very sad and bad...

I feel really, really, really desperate...
I got a lot of titles and no motivation for using them...
I also started to think about what to do alternatively to Informatics, back in 2013, ranging from mechanical engineering to astrophysics, all things related with mathematics, which I always saw as a lifebelt (in may ways). All of this ended up in a nightmare.
Now I am just tired of all this, and wishing to get a very simple job: work in a cafe, a restaurant.
To start over...
But I know I can't do this: I am 34 now, and don't know what I really like.
Also, I was proficient in English... and now... I don't want to use this anymore... I used this a lot to know more people and be that "nice guy" that I wished to be (without being really happy about it), and now... I really don't know why I should use this language any more...

What should I do?
Maybe living as myself (a woman) can help me having a perspective also in the field I studied?
Should I give myself a chance (another? or the first real one?) with informatics?
If I think carefully, the most disturbing thing about this all is the fact I was considered a man.
Did or does anyone have any similar experience?
I am really tired of all this... this is so frustrating...
(Meanwhile the psychotherapy is showing that I am/was very sensitive to other's judgment and have/had lots of difficulties in feeling things - and things are improving, day after day).

HELP!

Thanks everyone!
Writing and reading myself is already helping.

Kisses to everyone,
Iv.

[Dena]

It's hard for anybody to give advice because you are so unsure about what you want. All I can do is tell you what I did. I knew I was transsexual at age 13 but I was also raised with a work ethic. You do a job well even if you don't like it. I have a number of skills and possibly could have worked in a number of professions. About age 19 I got my hands on my first computer terminal in college and I discovered I had a natural ability for programming. It's not so much the act of programing but the challenge of solving problems that others fail to solve. I like pushing my mind to the limit and possibly that's one reason I like Susan's as well. This ability funding all my medical expenses, my life for about 40 years, my home and will fund my retirement. Take some time and think about it. You are fighting a number of personal issues which therapy might help with but you need to find something you truly love to do as a profession. It might still be Informatics but it could be something else.

Also consider that few professions bar women from doing them. Most of my life I have programmed as a woman. I know a woman who was involved in support of a tunneling machine and now runs a truck repair company. Post surgical transsexuals even fly passenger aircraft.  Think of what it might be like to be that bright woman in Informatics because that could be your future.

[Ive]

Hello Dena,

sorry to reply to you, in this post, very late.
Thanks for your reply. I am much better now, most important I am much stronger and determined in live my feelings.

About the topic we were discussing, I will take advantage of the fact I already put it in words, and continue talk a little bit about it.

Well, I am really stuck, and maybe in the most silly and dangerous way.
I finished my PhD in January, and now we are in September. OK, I choose to take six months off, which after such a journey, as a PhD abroad, I think is more than human. Plus, I discovered to be "transgendered", so... I should go a little bit "easier" on me. I admit it.
I started to question myself about my choices and the direction my life took. I was not happy on a bunch of things: the place I choose, the usefulness of a PhD, the affairs I was having with girls. It started back in 2011-2012. I think that 4 years is a honest time to sit down and think about all this stuff. Plus, it was not easy to admit things about my sexuality, gender identity, the fact that I was going to hurt my family and change the way the society see me forever.
I admit it, it was too much. I was brave. I won.

Today I understand tons of things, and I am starting to be able to distinguish if I am doing something for feeling guilty, or  shame, I am starting staring right at my fears and social pressure, and stand still. It is not easy, but I am getting stronger.
I am also starting feeling things independently from what I did, i.e., without the "oh-my-God! If I feel this, then it means that I did all this work/study for nothing! I am the most stupid being in the universe". This is really, really hard.
Now, at age 34, I am looking forward to do things.
But I am really crying for all of this. I would have liked things to go differently.

Well, ten years ago, when I was 24, I hoped to be as my colleagues: have dreams, and do what you like most. I liked what I studied, it was all really interesting. I enrolled in the Informatics Engineering course as I was good at using computers and good at maths (and always kind of enjoyed, somehow). During the years of the University I was good, but I kind of loose interest of being "the computer guy". Maybe I started understanding I was not. Well, I continued to be, for the others. The at the end of the course I found myself "in the void": I had practically no interest in being the computer guy anymore. I didn't want to work for telecom companies, neither software houses. I had no idea on what to do. Was that the thing I liked most? Maybe not... This was the first, frightening moment, or crisis: I had to come to terms with myself, but I was not open to discover myself.
What did I do? Why did I do this?
Then it was time to go abroad, and I found this PhD. I said: wow, that's cool. I enrolled, I won a scholarship, I did it.
Well, it started to go not in the way I dreamt about: the reality was though, and the need of "coming to terms" was growing stronger and stronger in me. Then 2011... and today.

I really don't know what to do.
Putting apart all the gender dysphoria stuff, on one side there is the fact that I don't want to be the regular person it is not interested in what zer does in zer life... But it seems I arrived to that. Maybe this is something that I still do, when I tried to be a boy/man, that is to be something that I was not feeling to want, but I wanted it so bad just for not being considered a looser or stupid. But I was.
On the other side, I am really tired of all this informatics crap: I have still some interest, but I am still full of pressure from outside about being the guy that took a PhD, and now... is he going to do something different? Is he crazy?

I would like to not do this stuff ever again in my life, just for not answer to any question about "what do you want to do in your life" anymore. And I found myself to ask to myself, repeatedly, "do I like engineering/programming/information technology"? Yes/No/Yes/No?

I tried to have an interview for working back in my place, near Naples, in Italy. A small software company was interested in having me working with them, but I refused. Why? I didn't know if that was what I want, I didn't know how, eventually, a transition would have been there, and... I was going to be a sad, sad individual that works on anything , without any interest and joy in life.

Well, maybe... this is the point. The "individual without any interest and joy in life."
I have to start to understand that I passed that "phase", and now I am starting feeling things, feeling myself and giving myself importance over the others. I am not sad, I am starting winning my battles.
Feeling without pressure.
The sad thing is that I am 34. It took some time, but was difficult, and tough, and still today it is.

What should I do?
Go for a regular job and take my time, step by step? Or dare, and participate to some post-Doc project (maybe learning something quite different), or go for some Space Agency (I would like to try)?
Yes, I always feared to "loose trains"...
The fact is that I am also willing to leave all this, and retire to some place to live a simple life, with few things.

Damn it!!!

Kisses, and thanks for the support.
Iv.

[Rachel]

This is just a thought. Perhaps experimenting being yourself, going to group get a really good gender therapist and figure out if you want to transition.

I was born with a female brain. I knew it very young. I was also born an engineer too. I am doing what I love to do. Perhaps finding something you would love to do and feel passionate about.

Academia in  general is more accepting than private company's, at least where I live.

[Sno]

[hugs]

As a coach, I often see folk who are 'good' at something, but thier heart isn't in it, and without that they don't desire the challenge of test, refine, retest, refine and so on that pushes performance higher still.

What was attractive about informatics, to you, can still be relevant. Post doc opens up lots of options - combine with psychology to start to properly quantify human interaction and performance in business perhaps, it doesn't have to follow the regimented programming, and academia is much more accepting of folk in general than business, alternatively, you could take the bold path, and decide to retrain, as a PhD qualified electrical engineering friend of mine did, as a patent attorney.

Universities, also have jobs they need doing, so they can function, and I suspect you'll find enough non-regular, non-repeating tasks of interest there, to allow you time to work though therapy, and make life scale decisions.

I would be open, and honest (ideally face to face), with your old department, they obviously valued your input and presence, otherwise they would not be asking 'what now?', and see when the conversation leads. You never know what doors may open.

Take care, and be gentle with yourself, it all doesn't need to be decided yesterday.

Sno.

[Ive]

RachelLyn and Sno, thanks for your replies!

Sno, I agree with what you said. The only thing is that I did my PhD abroad, and I just had enough of the city where I was.
On the other side, I guess I just can't renounce to have a wonderful life. It's kind of strange, at a first sight... at least for me. But I don't know why I should renounce to do bold/profound/wonderful things, even if they are small.
I am exploding...
Meanwhile, tomorrow I will send my CV to some companies, as I am stuck since 7 months, and I need to work for gaining my independence again. I will also try to send my CV to ESA and some spatial agencies You never know.

Anyways, let's see.

You are all wonderful, people.
Thanks for your comments, time and support.

Kisses,
Iv.

[stephaniec]

Well, good luck finding your path. I'm a 64 year old who has been transitioning for 3 years. I'm on disability and welfare bordering on homelessness , but so glad I'm finally becoming my proper self.

[Dena]

As difficult as it was for me to transition, I was lucky in that I was decisive. I knew at age 13 that becoming a woman would be in my future but I had no idea the what the path would be to take me there. I discovered computer programming at age 19 and the attraction of accomplishing something nobody else had done yet kept me interested in it for years.

To me it sounds like to some degree you are like me as you like the challenge. The problem is the goal you pick is fixed instead of moveable like mine is. For me there was always one more challenge beyond the one I just accomplished. You see learning the subject as the goal and once learned, you lose interest. Unfortunately you will need to find that lasting goal, the one you can't get enough of and nobody else can do that for you.

The interesting thing is I haven't programmed in a few years but I look at each task at work as a challenge. When the fork lift wasn't working correctly and the guy who fixed it didn't know what the problem was, I took what I knew, applied logic and found the answer. Challenges are all around us but you need to move away from the single goal to many goals.

[Ive]

Stephaniec and Dena, thanks a lot for your replies.

Dena, thanks a lot for sharing your experience.
I don't know if I am so in the programming, but I had, in my life, some interest in maths, which is something fascinating.

In this moment maybe there is so much stuff going on that I just want to jump out of what I did until today and show to myself that I am more than "a-guy-hiding-himself-saying-he-s-good-at-maths-and-computers". I am really sick of that. On the other side, there is a part of me that is, maybe, genuinely interested in something related to maths.
A part of this "jumping-off-the-train" is also related to the Ph.D. I did, and from which I awarded a nervous breakdown and deep conflicts, I am trying to heal. I had my final defence in January 2016, and since then I came back home to rest and tell my family what was going on. I started to speak to my family about the fact I feel a woman back in 2014, and I decided to dedicate the period after the Ph.D. to let them "see" the situation, before I got lost in the world. Needless to say, it is really though. But, even if they don't (and can't) believe me, they are showing some support, which is the most precious thing I have ever had.

Back to my Ph.D., this was a try back to 2009, when I was searching something wonderful to do. I arrived in this nice small city in Portugal which I enjoyed for the first year, but then I started to see that I was not happy there, and also I had not so much interest in my PhD topic. There was the possibility of doing something in collaboration with Berlin, but that plan burned up, and I remained with my topic. After a while, everything got heavier. I tried to enjoy, but I was in a need of something different. And there it came my two enemies: guilt and shame. What if I had changed my path? I had no support anymore from all the people, I would be the "bad-guy" nobody liked anymore (yes, it was always very deep feelings of being abandoned), and the shame of being "the-guy-that-left-his-PhD", the "stupid-guy". In, like, months, I was feeling very depressed, also because I was the "guy-that-did-not-understand-how-to-be-in-love-with-girls", and "the-guy-that-did-not-understand-what-to-do-with-his-life", and as always "the-stupid-guy".
Things started to go out of control, and suddenly I had my PhD stuck. Meanwhile I had lots of affairs with girls (which was funny ), but sent me to a deep hole in which there was no way out.
Back in 2011 I was still at my first year of PhD, but I had no choice: I had to go on with that. Well, "having no choice" was something I saw due to the guilt and shame feelings. I could be the "bad-guy", but that was too much for me. That would have been destroyed my "image", and gave me much less "power" to use against the world, to defend myself and to live a respectable life.

I was stuck, I "had" to go on. It was 2011... I finished in January 2016.
You can guess how it was: from inside I was dying, and from outside I had to support the fact I was "the-computer-and-PhD-guy-who-loves-what-he-s-doing", which is something straight related to my sense of shame.
Saying the truth would have been worse, at least as I was (and am) thinking about in that period (and now).
Meanwhile... life went on without me. I tried to be on the piece: I went to several conferences presenting my work, and some experiences were simply wonderful, but I was like I was divided inside.
Then, in 2014, after several times I tried to be "the-straight-guy", and tried genuinely to "be-the-good-guy" and like what I was doing, like the place were I was (I tried hard, over and over), I opened to the idea of being "the-gay-guy", fighting my inhuman sense of shame. Then I discovered to feel different, to feel a girl. In that moment I had a boost in my sense of self that gave me some power I never had. I "understood" things!
And... there is goes my story.
I pushed my foot on the gas from 2014 until 2016, finished my PhD with a deep sense of "what-the-hell-am-I-doing!", but with the fear that, without that PhD, the probability of succumbing in life (as I was a transgender individual) would have been higher (still think of this).
I still don't know if it was the best for me, but I still bring in myself, after 7 months, a deep sense of conflict, about this title, and how I was not genuine with the people I met and lived with from 2011 to 2016 (I should have not been there...).
One of the worst things was (and is) also how to deal with my advisors: what a deeeeeep shame...

When I came back home, I was so desperate and split inside that I thought I could not recover from all this anymore. Today, at 7 months distance from the end of my PhD, I am far far (far far) better, but still I have nightmares about these years, years I lost forever, and that I could have used to do something that I liked more. Paradoxically, I lived some wonderful experiences (I went one month and half in Brasil, went to Singapore and Tokyo, and Budapest), but still there is a part of me saying that it should not have been like that, like running away from my fears.
I am in therapy since February also for this moment. So far, I understood tons of things, and I am much much better now.
Yes, first world problems...
I think that maybe I could not do better, as I had no real possibilities, and I was not open to be my real self, which I am in this moment. But I don't know.
I only know that I had no force to accept the shame and guilt, which is something that I am definitely doing in this moment.

Last, but not the least, when I discovered to be transgendered, I kind of "used" this "I-am-a-girl" to say "sorry" about all the things I did, even as a justification to the fact I started a PhD: "If-I-only-knew", and "I-did-nt-know" started to be my justifications to use with myself and the others (like my advisors). Today I know (thanks God) that the facts are different. But still, there is all this stuff I am not able to "swallow".

So! That's it.
I am still very confused on what to do.
I would really explore myself, and trow it all away.
But on the other side, I would try to solve my conflict and try to go on on the engineering road.
The worst thing is that I don't want to loose anything, which is impossible, but... I am stuck for this right motivation, I guess. I don't take a "whatever-job" for not "loosing-the-train".
Yes, I still have a lot of walk to do...

All this when I turned 34 in the last June.