Welcome to the boards. The way I see things, we do whatever we must do in order to survive. If survival means detransitioning until we are in a better position to figure things out or transition "for real," then so be it. Being afraid--especially when it's justified--is not the same as being a coward. You did what you had to do, end of story.
Try not to dwell on wasted time. I'm not saying to bury the past abuses because that's not good for you. But fretting about how much time you've wasted is, well, a waste of time, as I have discovered in my own life. Wouldn't you rather expend that energy and time on doing something positive in your life? Something to take you further and further away from the abusive past that forced you to make those survival decisions in the first place? Whatever you figure out, whatever you decide about your future, is fine. You are finding yourself. And now you seem to be in a much better situation to forge your own life without interference from people who do not have your interests at heart.
I sometimes still think about the "wasted" time between the moment I came out to myself as a transsexual and the moment I actually did something about it: That delay lasted for as long as you have been alive. But my logical side realizes that trans resources and support were limited in the eighties and nineties and that I was nowhere near strong enough to start dealing with my condition. In the meantime, I lived my life. Some of that time was truly wasted, yes. And I did miss out on living those years as a young man, so I can look at the whole time period as "wasted" because I was living as a woman. But I did a lot of things as a woman that I would have done as a man anyway. And if I had transitioned earlier, I would have missed out on some other things for sure. I'm better off if I accept that my path was my path and I just had to walk it. The only way to avoid taking that route would have been . . . to live in a different world. Circumstances beyond my control forced me to make decisions that I wouldn't have made in a better world. It seems to me that you were in a similar situation.
I'm so glad that you found this site. Keep coming back. And don't beat yourself up for necessary compromises. You are alive, and you are where you are now, so you must have done something right!
