Hello all. I am A. and I am 26 years old.
I was on T from 2012 until last month. For the past 13 months I have noticed large amounts of hair loss, accompanied with dandruff which later developed into scalp psoriasis. I decided to stop T mainly because of hair loss at first but I have been constantly feeling bad about ever transitioning. I feel that transitioning didn't help me solve any problems, and in fact, I now believe it has worsened my life. I have recently found something in life which makes me feel good like never before, and it has nothing to do with transitioning.
To start off, I lost my mother when I was 13 years old. I tried hard to continue with life back then but a few weeks after her death, I stopped going to school for around two months. I was too close to my mother, to the point that I slept next to her until just a few days before she passed away. From then onwards I was left without any person to confide in and it was at this point in time that I started feeling suicidal. I have tried horrifying methods to end my life but I always failed at reaching my goal or doing something permanently damaging.
I finished obligatory school at age 16. I then continued studying but I left before I finished the first out of two years. I continued with suicide attempts and self-harm. After stopping school I spent around 3 years living life as a shut in in my room, almost never going out, not even if needed. Before the end of my shut in lifestyle, I found about the term transgender through the internet, more specifically through the experiences of transmen on YouTube. I remember seeing one video which quite described what I thought I was going through at the time. So later I decided that I need to see a psychiatrist and I was referred to a specific psychiatrist by a voluntary organisation after describing what I was going through by sending an email. After having the first session with the psychiatrist, he told me to write him a letter, describing why I wanted to live as a man. He told me to send this by email, which I did. During the second session with him he told me that he finds my case to be a genuine one and referred me to an endo. The endo did not order any blood tests and prescribed me Nebido, only after expressing my concern for his initial prescription of T pills, which I knew could do greater damage to the liver. And so I began medically transitioning without having quite made a social transition first, considering that I spent years locked up in my room. I remember writing in that letter that the thing which bothered me the most were my very heavy periods which interfered with my life ever since I got them. I couldn't even sleep in my bed and slept on a cheap foldable one while occasionally even getting spots of blood on this bed. I was never told about the side effects and irreversibility of certain changes which testosterone causes.
Just 3 months and a half after starting testosterone, I was admitted to hospital after my last suicide attempt, which involved me taking a bunch of pills I found at home which made me feel really sick. The primary reason why I did this was because I was not being accepted by my family and they reacted negatively after using my desired name when going on television. At hospital, they put gender identity disorder along with my suicide attempt as a diagnosis. While at the hospital I self-harmed, which resulted in an early termination of my stay at the psychiatric unit. Before leaving I was seen by the psychiatrist who sent me to the endo. He told me that I should choose between going to a mental health hospital while telling me that it will be difficult for me to get T while I was there or to go back home, where I was being even physically abused by a member of my family who didn't accept who I was living as, although the abuse started since my mum passed away. Of course, I had to choose going back home, but the psychiatrist didn't even suggest stopping T for my own good while I continued living at home.
While starting my medical transition with a few resources, I found a small first job just a few weeks prior to my suicide attempt. I was earning just the exact amount of money to buy the shots, some food and bus tickets to get to work and back. A few months later I switched to a job which required me to work more and of course earn more. But after 4 months, I started having too much anxiety and decided to quit. I soon decided to go back to studying again, while not having a job, which meant spending every single penny I had left on testosterone. My classmates at school were mostly 5 years younger than I was and I felt weird at first but I soon adjusted. However, I was having severe anxiety about what would happen if people found out that I wasn't 100% male, especially because on official records, the school used my birthname with my desired name in brackets. I was always anxious about students finding out. But fortunately for two years I felt quite good about continuing to study.
I eventually reached university and before starting my course, I could change my name legally, thanks to a new law. It took only a few minutes at a notary and I was then able to change my documents with my desired name and gender. Problems started again during my first year at university. It happened that the name I chose for myself did not match with the one I used at school for two years. So I told the truth to a few classmates who asked about my name. Then I started feeling left out and I considered quitting university several times, but I was not granted this by university staff. Since then my anxiety became constant and my health deteriorated rapidly. I started losing sleep, I could barely breathe at times and my body was in so much pain that even lying down became painful. At university I started feeling left out and very lonely, which added to my unhappiness.
I am now in my last year at university and after being granted a break from my studies, I got new classmates, two of whom rapidly became my friends. Despite the age gap of 5-6 years, I have never felt connected to anyone before these two girls in a very long time, possibly since my early teenage years. I discovered that it was friendship and constant human interaction are what keep me happy and not the testosterone I have spent so much money on. For a few weeks, my anxiety left me for a bit before realising my need to come off T due to hair loss mostly and then realising that I made a huge mistake in transitioning. I am now feeling terrible, and I am again barely sleeping. I would love to return to being a girl, minus the horrible periods which I lately found out that there is a solution for, without changing into a man. What I know is that I will never be the same again. I will never fully regain the feminine features I had, nor will I fully regain the lovely thick hair or the hairline which cuddled my face very nicely, nor will I lose the beard completely without spending thousands of money.
And nor will I find a man who would love me as he would love a woman. While identifying as a man, I identified as gay too, to the ridicule of people in an LGBT youth group who called me a straight woman. Back then I found it offensive, but I guess they were right. No amount of testosterone would have made me a man. Thankfully, I didn't do any surgeries, because besides being terrified of medical procedures, I never hated having breasts. I loved everything about my body, including the hourglass figure I had while being at least 30 kilos lighter than I am now.
Medically transitioning, before socially transitioning, having been through several traumas and not finding the support that I needed ruined my life, forever. I, at almost 27 years old, I am still dreaming of having that first kiss which I have longed for ever since I was a child. I feel that no man would see past the horrible things that transitioning did to me. I wish I could have had support and more explanations by health care providers.
Sorry for the long post, but I am in a big fat mess at the moment.
