Worrying about my identity and not knowing anything

[Garoux]

Hello everyone, I'm pretty new to the website and I just want a place to talk to people.
I've been worried for a while that I might be non-binary, gender fluid, or transgender. Obviously it would be easier if none of these were the case but I'm pretty sure at least to some degree at the very minimum i'm non-binary even if I never tell a soul how I feel inside. I currently identify as male and have since birth, but I've been thinking for a while now that probably if I were born as female I would be more happy with who I am as a person. I feel like my personality would fit better and I feel like I would like myself better.  Many days my masculine traits and worsening hairline recession makes me feel absolutely horrible about myself and I just wish I'd been born female.  I don't completely hate my male self, and I don't dislike it even sometimes. Some days I'm totally fine with who I am and I wonder how I even began to think I was potentially somewhere on the trans spectrum, but then within a day or two I go back to feeling like I wish I were female. 
Here's the thing though; I don't think I could ever transition. I'm too anxious of a person and I care too much about what other people think and how it would negatively impact everybody else. I couldn't handle getting looks from strangers and the constant feeling like people might hate me because of my gender identity. I don't think I could deal with telling my family and girlfriend's family and my friends and etc. I don't think I could handle that. 
Like, if I'd been born female, I think I would be happier. But I don't think I would be happier if I transitioned. Does that mean I'm not on the spectrum at all and that I'm mostly cis gendered because I don't value transition more than the potential costs of it? I don't waaaant to be trans to any degree. If I just stuff this stuff down, is it possible I can still lead a fulfilling life? Will it always haunt me? Or can you just ignore it to some degree? Is there any solution other than choosing between transitioning and suffering the consequences of that and suffering and sometimes feeling somewhat intense dysphoria and just pretending like nothing is wrong?

[Janes Groove]

Does that mean I'm not on the spectrum at all and that I'm mostly cis gendered because I don't value transition more than the potential costs of it? I don't waaaant to be trans to any degree. If I just stuff this stuff down, is it possible I can still lead a fulfilling life? Will it always haunt me? Or can you just ignore it to some degree? Is there any solution other than choosing between transitioning and suffering the consequences of that and suffering and sometimes feeling somewhat intense dysphoria and just pretending like nothing is wrong?

Welcome to the club, Garoux.  Sadly not wanting to be trans, the way we look, the way other people look at us, etc. has very little to do with whether or not we are actually transgender (pretty much nothing at all). You can suppress the feelings for an hour, a day, a decade, but they will come back if that is in fact your genuine nature.   But if you are trans why hide it? You only get this one life to live. There aren't any redos.  Are you singing the song you came here to sing?

[Garoux]

I think I worry that what I'm feeling isn't legitimate. That maybe by allowing myself to wonder whether I'm trans to some degree I'm brainwashing myself and maybe if i stop thinking about it it will go away.
I don't think I really worried about this until a couple years ago (I'm almost 21 now), and I just want to feel how I felt in high school when this worry never came up. I worry that maybe I'm subconsciously looking to being trans as an entity for which my anxiety and depression is stemming from, but maybe it's not and I'm just struggling because I have the disorders and am just looking for something to blame. And maybe I'm just making it worse by thinking about the prospect of being trans.
But it's hard because sometimes I really just feel like I would really rather be female. And the thoughts don't go away. But I worry that maybe my problem is just that I shouldn't be contemplating about it at all and maybe I just need to try to be happy with what I have and not wish for what I don't have. All I want is to be satisfied with being male since I will never be able to be a biological female.

[Janes Groove]

I don't think I really worried about this until a couple years ago (I'm almost 21 now), and I just want to feel how I felt in high school when this worry never came up.

Is it that you never worried about it until a couple of years ago, or never thought about it until a couple of years ago?

[Garoux]

I'm not quite sure. I never really thought about it that much until some time in middle-high school.
I've always had long hair since middle school and never quite loved looking particularly masculine.
But I was happy with how I looked in high school. I'm a pretty lanky guy and my face hadn't become all masculine-looking and i had minimal facial hair and I hadn't lost any head hair due to genetic hair loss yet. 
But it's like, after my face really started maturing and my shoulders broadened more and I was less able to have my long hair without it emphasizing the hair loss I started really feeling uncomfortable with myself.  It wasn't so much the initial puberty that made me feel like this, but the recent adult-face sort of masculinization that occurs in late adolescence.   Sometimes I feel alright about myself and I look in the mirror and I tell myself "Look. You're a good looking guy, you're fine. You're good." and I might feel good about myself for a few days and I really start to feel like I never had anything to worry about and that I am totally cis and have no worries about being trans and I promise myself that I'll never slip up and start feeling like I might be trans again because in that moment it seems like the feeling is totally gone. But then some time goes by, be it a few days, hours, or a week or two, and all of a sudden everything washes back again and I start worrying again and feeling the dysphoria. 

[Janes Groove]

The fact that you are thinking about it a lot  imo probably means that it's something that you probably need to explore.  Trying not to think about it just won't work.   They have done psychological studies in the lab where they told people not to think about bears and it had the opposite effect.  The people who were the subject of the experiment thought about bears way more. 

And attaching shame and negative feelings to something that is natural is counter productive.  You won't get the answer that way.  You'll just make yourself feel bad.  Also, the fact you were thinking about this way back in middle school suggest it's a pattern of ideation that is not going away.

[Garoux]

I don't know if I was really thinking about it in middle school though. When I first learned trans people existed though probably in like 5th or 6th grade, it jolted me and made me feel very anxious and scared.  It had been while watching American Idol with my family and a contestant was an mtf trans person still going by their old name Scott. I spent the next couple days feeling really anxious whenever I thought about it. I also remember having this night sometime probably in 4th or 5th grade when I was super anxious and irrationally worried that the next day I would wake up as a girl. It was a very strange cocktail of strong emotion whenever I thought about the subject.
I also had this skirt that I had found on the playground in elementary school that I took and hid and kept in a drawer in my room. I never wore it I don't think, but I felt electrified thinking about it.
After those times though I don't know if I spent a lot of time thinking about it in middle-high school, I just know it made me really uncomfortable to think about for a very long time. If I did think about it much in middle school though I'm sure I would have just been super anxious and shoved the feelings away because that is what I tend to do.
In high school I didn't think about it too much I don't think until one of my closest friends came out as trans and bisexual. Then I felt all the worry again.
It used to be like this feeling of panic I'd feel whenever I thought of trans people. Not like towards the person exactly, not like a hatred of the person or a disgust of the concept of trans people that's not what I mean, but it made me scared of myself and whether I would want that and how I didn't want that and then I'd have to spend forever reassuring myself that there's nothing to be worried about and that I would have known since early childhood (which I now know isn't always the case) and that I'm just scaring myself over nothing.

[Daniellekai]

To parrot the usual advice here, a gender therapist would be very helpful in sorting this out. They can help you with anxiety as well, maybe get to the root of it... Transition isn't something to take lightly, but if you need it, it isn't something that can be ignored without having some kind of negative effect, depression, anxiety, etc, no one would choose to be trans, they'd rather have been born in a correctly sexed body. There are options other than transition, but transition seems like the best option.
Not to trigger your anxiety, but that story is repeated over and over on this forum, right down to the anxiety, fear, denial, etc. Seems common threads for trans who don't transition early.

[Janes Groove]

This sounds very familiar to me.  And reflecting back what you wrote you are feeling:

1. panic
2. scared
3. worry
4. anxious
5. strong emotion
6. uncomfortable

These are all very strong emotions and don't come from out of the blue.  You most likely do fall under the transgender umbrella and are somewhere on the transgender spectrum.  If you explore these feelings with a counselor it's likely that the compulsion to obsess on these things will abate.  It's very common for transgender people to lead double lives and spent untold amounts of energy hiding from society.  When it's really not necessary.  Talking this over in a safe space is really a very benign way of dealing with this.  It doesn't mean you're trans. It just means you want to bounce these ideas off of someone who can help you to understand them.   And just talking out loud in real life to another person can have a very healing effect.  Carrying it all alone is not something you need to do.   Have you taken any steps to talk to a gender therapist?   Also, a real life support group is a good place to start as well. In my city there are both transition groups and non binary groups that are easily accessible for free.  And totally confidential.

[Garoux]

I have not talked to a gender therapist. I'm still dependent on my parents and I'm in college right now and my mom is constantly adding and taking money out of my credit/debit card accounts and she'd probably see that there was a big charge at a therapist place and ask me about it. I don't think I'd want to tell any of my family right now all this stuff, and I don't exactly have much money at this stage in my life either for therapy appointments. 
I do talk to my girlfriend (of around 4 years now) about these things, but I feel like it makes her a bit uncomfortable and I'm afraid to talk about it too much with her. 
I might be taking a gap year next year though and moving to Southern California (long story), so I might pursue finding a gender therapist down there when I feel more independent from my family. There's nothing wrong with my family and my mom honestly would be super supportive, but I just don't think I would want to tell them anything unless I knew for sure I was transgender.

[Daniellekai]

Ah, college, then you have access to counselors! They may or may not have any experience with trans issues, I'd poke around to see if there are LGBT resources available on campus. Most colleges seem pretty good about this, but it's of course going to depend a lot on the college and the state, etc...

[Garoux]

I'm from Oregon, there's probably something here honestly. And I know that. I'm just scaredddd
I'm scared of unpacking my feelings to someone who actually knows what they're talking about because right now it's possible in my mind this isn't a permanent problem I'm going to have and that I can make it go away and that it isn't real and that if I actually talk to someone then I'll have to really consider things.

[LiliFee]

Same as what the others said: find help!

you sure are dealing with a lot, so perhaps one of the first things you can admit is that you can't/won't shoulder the entire burden yourself. I'm sure there are good therapists in your area, at least in Portland and Salem. (for instance, this one).

You don't have to work your way through this alone, nor do you have to do it in a fortnight's time. Just try to realize that, and start taking things one step at a time. You'll see: the fear will subside and before you know it, you're making steps you never thought you could. Good luck!

[Denise]

Garoux,

   The local university where I live has a "Diversity Office" which is staffed by LGBT (and non-LGBT) kids. You could start there.

    A couple of things I you said I would like to point out -

** "...girlfriend..."  You didn't say "Wife and Kids".  Take it from us older transitionees coming out to a spouse really stinks.

** "...5th or 6th grade..."  That matches - That's about the time you start to notice how "they" are developing and you are not.  I was very confused at that time and wanted nothing more than to mature into a woman.

** "some days I'm totally fine..." Great but, at least in my case, those days became ZERO days and it was really bad.  (It built up over 5 decades for me.)

... and more...

If you are starting to see negative male traits (receding hair line...) I suggest talking to a health professional and at least start on T-Blockers while  you are figuring this out.  Hair loss is tough to reverse (not to mention expensive).  You can at least slow down the effects of Testosterone.

Good luck and please Please PLEASE talk to someone.  Remember no one "wants" to be transgender.  It's not a choice.

[Janes Groove]

I'm from Oregon, there's probably something here honestly. And I know that. I'm just scaredddd
I'm scared of unpacking my feelings to someone who actually knows what they're talking about because right now it's possible in my mind this isn't a permanent problem I'm going to have and that I can make it go away and that it isn't real and that if I actually talk to someone then I'll have to really consider things.

I have heard this before. Many times. In fact I used to do it myself.  But what it amounts to is basically this:



There's a reason most colleges and universties have counselors readily available for free. It's a time to explore. To figure out what you really want to do with your life.  The journey isn't easy tho. By any means.

[Garoux]

Garoux,

   The local university where I live has a "Diversity Office" which is staffed by LGBT (and non-LGBT) kids. You could start there.

    A couple of things I you said I would like to point out -

** "...girlfriend..."  You didn't say "Wife and Kids".  Take it from us older transitionees coming out to a spouse really stinks.

** "...5th or 6th grade..."  That matches - That's about the time you start to notice how "they" are developing and you are not.  I was very confused at that time and wanted nothing more than to mature into a woman.

** "some days I'm totally fine..." Great but, at least in my case, those days became ZERO days and it was really bad.  (It built up over 5 decades for me.)

... and more...

If you are starting to see negative male traits (receding hair line...) I suggest talking to a health professional and at least start on T-Blockers while  you are figuring this out.  Hair loss is tough to reverse (not to mention expensive).  You can at least slow down the effects of Testosterone.

Good luck and please Please PLEASE talk to someone.  Remember no one "wants" to be transgender.  It's not a choice.

The thing is though, in like 5th and 6th grade I'm not sure I really feel like I was really concerned with any of that stuff. It is when all my general depression and anxiety started, but I don't think I really thought a lot about gender then and wishing I would develop as a female. Small things here and there but not like how a lot of fully transgender people describe really. I'm not sure though it's hard to remember.

I have heard this before. Many times. In fact I used to do it myself.  But what it amounts to is basically this:



There's a reason most colleges and universties have counselors readily available for free. It's a time to explore. To figure out what you really want to do with your life.  The journey isn't easy tho. By any means.

The picture made me laugh   
I greatly appreciate your responses, this is a wonderful and supportive forum and you are all lovely humans.