I touched on some of this in my intro, so I'm going to keep the first part short:
I was born female, started transition to male after going back and forth with gender conformation for a long time, freaked out and stopped my transition, went back to transitioning female, and now I'm back to questioning. I'm still going by female pronouns and my birth name at work / home, but among my SO (who is also trans) and all of our friends I am going by neutral pronouns, and my birth name (which is technically unisex) or my assigned nickname on the server, which is feminine but attached to the character I play within the group, so it doesn't really bother me.
Anyway, now that the small re-cap has been covered! I was living in the Atlanta area for two and half years, and it was within that time frame that I spent about year going by a male name I chose, and masculine pronouns, in addition to several months on T before my insurance got messed up. I ended up freaking out and stopping my hormones and declaring my cessation of transition to everyone I know, who was in the loop.
I had to move back to my home state, just a few months after stopping my transition, which also means a very small, hick town where everything is bass ackwards and very religious and just not equipped for this type of stuff.
I was attempting to grow my hair back out from over a year of undercuts, and the T had changed the texture of hair, and caused to grow back out VERY wavy, as opposed to straight as board, and my hair looked AWFUL. I got a haircut for the sheer purpose of shaping it up better ONLY, and the woman who cut it literally chopped it all off. I was so upset, and when I got home I was like "Who is this handsome man??!" So that was my first bit of dysphoria since presenting female again, but I couldn't pinpoint if it was because I wanted to look feminine and felt masculine, or because I felt masculine but was presenting feminine. I just started caking on the makeup and it turned out that it worked as a very cute pixie cut, and it kinda died down.
I was shaving my face every day (because the facial hair is one of those things that does not reverse) and between the T and getting two BAD upper respiratory infections back to back my voice was SHOT, but when I got a job at the grocery store I work at now everyone that came through my line was calling me "sir" if I didn't wear makeup, even though I was wearing a push-up bra and dressing in a feminine way. In addition to that some of my online followers on one of the apps I use a lot thought I was MTF, not DFAB. It was making me feel like crap, and I couldn't figure out if I was angry because I was getting misgendered while trying so hard to fit the female mold as best I personally could. (I've always said "I can't girl" because I suck at makeup, I hardly wear jewelry, I prefer to dress for comfort rather than aesthetic appeal and makeup skills are meh.) That would have FLATTERED my sooooo much while I was transition, though I was extremely lucky to get gendered correctly 98% of the time while I was male presenting, even before starting T.
Fast forward a couple more months and I just got OUTRAGEOUS top dysphoria out of NOWHERE. I started getting sad and missing T, in general, and then all of a sudden the thought of putting my bra on and wearing something tight fitting gave me massive anxiety. I pulled my binder out and started wearing it again, rather than a bra, and gradually started to dress more androgynous...I still wear my female skinny jeans, but I did that even when I was male presenting because they're hella comfortable and I like the way they look, and I got purged all but like 4 articles of masculine clothing when I moved home because I didn't have a lot of storage space in my new accommodations and I was certain I wouldn't have another "episode" so quickly after quitting my hormones.
I was satisfied being androgynous and "confusing" for a little bit, so I figured maybe that's it...just be me, do me, like go with the flow, don't make any gender related changes or decisions, just live my life. So I'm not shaving as often, got my hair cut EVEN SHORTER, and started dressing more masculine, and it seemed like as soon as I did everyone switched to "ma'am, ma'am, ma'am" ALL THE TIME. So that left me feeling even more confused.
A few people have refereed to me as "he", "sir" and "man" lately, and every time they do it just perks me up, even if my day is going terribly. But then the next person I see calls me "ma'am" and it brings me down HARD! I'm beginning to think that my distaste for being called "sir" before was because deep down I was trying to hard to force the feminine thing, and I internalized my own dysphoria and turned it around.
I'm really scared about starting to transition again, and I could not and would not as long as I live in this small town. I mostly just don't want to go through changing everything again like what I go by name wise and pronouns, because I'm scared I'll freak out and want to stop again. Not to mention, I already have high blood pressure, and T drives it through the roof. I had to go to the ER this past week, with no insurance, and miss a day of work, because my potassium was low and my blood pressure got dangerously high, especially for someone my age, and I legitimately thought I was having a heart attack, which can be caused by that, but was luckily not the case. There are also so many other health concerns with taking T, and one of those is getting a hysterectomy within a certain time frame, which lord knows I cannot afford any time soon.
I really do want to get back on T though, but I'm just kind of playing everything by ear right now because I want to see if this passed and I go back to being alright with being feminine, so it's kind of a good thing I'm uninsured and don't have access to it, but at the same time, the craving is REAL. I know that presenting non-binary and gender neutral is a thing, and I don't have any problems with people who are comfortable presenting that way, but there's just this wiring in my brain that tells me that's not an option for myself, it's got to be one or the other, and I don't want to live my life constantly regretting transition or not transitioning, so I want to be REALLY sure before I take any additional steps now.
And despite the fact that I'm an adult, my mother and I have an EXTREMELY close relationship, and while I know she wants me to be healthy and happy, and to no stress over my gender identity on top of everything else I stress about. I know that once I get back to a therapist she's going to want to speak with them. She admitted recently that she had wanted to sit down with my last one and make sure she'd really routed around to find the "base of the problem"...and it hurt that she called it a problem, but as she explained it, she's right...it IS a problem for me because it causes me so much distress and back and forth, and inner turmoil and conflict. She doesn't want me to suffer, and she doesn't want to "change me" or "fix me", but she's very adamant that whoever I see tries to dig deeper and "solve the problem" before I go back down that road. She has a theory that it's a defense mechanism, caused by my own self-loathing, and the things that I truly desire and want deep down but don't have, and that I essentially come back to being masculine when I've been hurt by men because "If you're not going to be the man I need, screw you, I'll be the man I need", but I don't need to physically be a man to have that mentality, thought I do get where she's coming from. She's very convinced there's something additional underlying that causes my bouts, and thinks it's a hormone imbalance or even just strictly Body Dysmorphic Disorder, or BiPolar disorder and that if I'm on the right medication and therapy regimen it will go away, and she may be right, but my previous therapist didn't suggest any of those things to me.
People used to constantly say things to me about how frequently I dyed and changed my hair, and I realized after I shaved my hair in the middle of a mental crisis that the reason I do is because it's something I can control, and gives me a sense of peace when I can't control anything else that's going on around me...And my gender identity crisis makes her think of when I expressed that her. But then I raise her what she has said about other who are trans or gay or not conventionally accepted by society..."It's not a choice, it's just how you are. No one would CHOSE to be outcast? No one would CHOSE to put themselves in a place where they could be ridiculed, or even physically hurt, or disowned by their family? Obviously that's just how you're wired, because why would chose that for yourself." ....She even wants to go to pride this year so she can give out free mom hugs to people who's families have disowned them or treated them poorly for their sexuality or gender identities, and while that melts my heart...I wish she could have a little more support for me, and I don't think she DOESN'T support me, I just think we're on very different pages about what's best for me, and despite our closeness sometimes we do have a habit for miscommunication between the two of us.
I guess my game plan is to just ride it out, see where everything goes, and if I'm still feeling this way once I can get insurance again, I'll just get back into therapy...if it turns out there's no underlying cause and I have some kind of self-love break through I won't pursue it, and if that's not the case, I'll get back on T on the low down, and just do everything, like coming back out, and changing pronouns and names on the low down, until I'm super ready. I think one of the reasons I freaked out and stopped my transition is because everything was moving really, really fast, but also wasn't at the same time. Despite my freak out of wanting to be feminine and marry a cis man and settle down and have children (which passed pretty quickly after stopping my transition), I was also getting really resentful and hopeless as all of the other trans men around me were having top surgery or getting it soon, and changing their legal names, and it felt like I was never going to get there myself.
I have decided that if I start my transition again I will keep my middle name, which is unisex, and makes things easier for the family....And I have also decided that I am going to sit down with my mother and brainstorm on first names, because she HATED the one I chose before, and as much as it's still kind of stuck in my brain, I don't think it's the one...I've got two I really like, but I don't know and I'm not to that point yet. Quality over thinking right there, am I right?
Anyway, I know this was really long, and I appreciate anyone who reads through and has any input...I just really needed to get this off of my chest, and since I can barely pay my bills on part time and minimum wage, I don't have a therapist, and my friends can only do so much whether their biased to my happiness or just don't understand what I'm going through.
