I haven't been reading a lot of things. So, if this is a recent re-run, please forgive me my inattention to detail. Some things struck me today and got me pondering. They were 1) reading someone's despair on another site (it's kinda a common despair in this line of life, the "I will never pass and be accepted as a woman" despair. I think most of us MTFs have suffered through it at some point.)
2) Yet, another post on yet another site wherein someone was talking about "fixin' to start" (I'm never quite sure what that means.)
3) A discussion in a chat with a friend who lives nearby.
The secret to successfully transitioning is.... hahahaha. Surely ya didn't think I was that bold!!
But, maybe some things to think about? ...
1a) If you read the Velveteen Rabbit and can 'get it' if you place your own name into every reference and thought and speech of The Rabbit and it all makes sense to you. Well, then you are on the right path if you are transitioning. 1b) If you do not 'get it' then maybe you just need to work a bit longer on 'who am I?' Re-read the book in six months and see if you 'get it' then.
1c) Maybe if you do a and b and still don't 'get it,' then you should just do the self-discovery thingy from b and perhaps discover that you are one of our brothers or sisters who have another type of dysphoria. Or, maybe it just isn't body dysphoria at all. Maybe it's just you are uncomfortable with yourself.
Kinda like hoping that something outside me can change me in a way that I can act and be acceptably.
Maybe you just really cannot accept who you are, and have been thinking that if you could just have estrogen you would be 'nicer' or 'more open' or something. I don't know anything but this.
I thought for a while that being an androgyne would solve my problems. Then I decided that being a woman would solve my problems. Well, guess what, neither did. All the GID in the world, all the TSuality in the universe, will not solve not one of my problems.
Yet, now, post-transition, here I sit realizing what a wonderful world I live in, fascinating. But, the problems? Well, they were all there still after everyone saw me as female. Just like they were there after I was walking about as a gender-bender for a few years. The thing is, the problems actually increased as I had bought into the notion that anything but discovering myself was a cure for my problems.
Hmm, discovering myself and allowing her to 'be' is not as easy as tumbling off the proverbial log! It takes work. But, it is all worthwhile afterwards.
HRT and living into a role were not able to alleviate what at the core was a large discomfort with myself. It was only after being on HRT for about a year that I really decided to look deeply within me. It was then that I began to get comfortable with Nichole. I began to discover who I was and that I could accept that. Yep, I could actually live my life as just Nichole. Nothing had to arrive from outside of me to make me better. All I had to do was to be aware of all the physical and psychic parts of Nichole and allow them to be.
If I wanted to change some of them after I found them? Well, then I could do that with work and some determination. But, HRT never made any of that change. Being accepted as the woman I am didn't change those things. I had to get acquainted with them, accept them as part of me, not some alien feature that had fallen from the sky and wasn't me at all.
There was no easy way to my womanhood. I doubt anyone finds that easy way until she kinda falls off the log anyhow, and begins to just be able to be herself.
I hate pain. I hate seeing other people in pain. Today, I have just seen enough for today. Tomorrow I may see more. Maybe even my own. But, if it is my own and I can just accept it as being part of me, then I can go about relieving it.
The secret to successful transition is kinda simple, I guess, although it took me quite a while to discover it.
Shhh, it's all about being myself, and having that just be okay today.
