Welcome Michelle, and hi Allie,
I can identify with your feelings. It's an emotionally risky journey. We can't avoid it, and can't see our way around in it clearly.
I've been recommended for HRT for MTF, but I'm uncertain. I'm in Ontario Canada.
I share your fears, and so far I cannot see myself making it to passable. My Psychologist paired me with a girl (Astrid) who said two very interesting things about overcoming fear and about medical transition without social. First she was so panicked about shopping and being out that they gave her sessions with electro shock. I know NO, but this was interesting. She held metal cylinders, while she laid back and they mentally took her through mental scenarios that would over stress her. At the point of maximum stress they would shock her lightly, then begin again over and over. They said medical science doesn't know exactly how it works. Astrid said it freed her in just a couple of sessions. She lost the negative feedback, and went straight out to shop! She accelerated her transition at that point, and said only to try this is you are ready to GO! Secondly she said a drug is being researched that will hopefully give, well maybe me, a mental transition without the physical changes. I would jump on that, to be more emotional, sensitive, and to have even more appreciation for female interests.
I'm looking for those half measures that would calm me, without risking rejection for myself. Looking back I thought I had just some strange feelings, then a phase that could be conquered with an experiment or two, then a kink that I could manage ... with just one more binge before purging, then something more complex with a name that had to be given a place, needed to be shared with someone, then, and then, and then. I always felt I could manage it, slow it if I couldn't end it, indulge it and put it away, but now I'm thinking my conscious mind was never truly in contol of my feminizatiion. My unconscious mind I believe now was always in ultimate control, and that my concious rational mind could only really fight minor delaying battles paced at a level that wouldn't make me too unfulfilled to stand it at any one point. At any one point in the feminine transitioning that was going to happen in me, one way or another. To quote Tina Turner "We can make this easy, or we can make this hard", but can we just make this friendly somehow?
Do you have fun pre HRT ideas? Has anyone heard of the drug?
This forum is great. I can see from others, including Allie, that I'm not facing nearly as many pitfalls as others, and that I'm not doing THIS alone. I gives me the courage to take another step into the unknown, in some way together.
Pensively,
Lauren
