Hi ChrissyRyan
You have mentioned several things in your post and I'm going to provide some perspective from where I am in relation to your post.
Quote from: ChrissyRyan on January 24, 2024, 05:56:39 PMWhat is stopping you as a MTF going full-time?
I'm not able to answer as I did not know that I went full time, or to put it another way, nothing actually stopped me going full time, so to speak. Let me quote, a post that I made just recently you can read it here if you wish.
Full TimeQuote from: Sarah BNo I did not know that I went full time. However, after My Epiphany and when I arrived in Sydney, February 1989 as me, I got settled over the next couple of months. The number of times that I had to present as my previous self was small. In side of 3 months, I was working full time. Therefore one could say I was living as I wanted to live as a female from April 1989.
At the time I did not know that I was full time, because the information, was non existent about my condition and I was very naive as well at the time.
I would like to ask you a question, do you want to live your life as female? If the answer is yes, then the next question is, do you pass as a female?
If the answer is also yes, then I'm going to tell you what my uncle said to me, "you need to go and live your life as a female", or "you should try and live as a female", then one needs to do the following to make your life as a female easier for you, if you have not already done so.
- Change your legal name
- Change your your documents
- Hormones of course
- Work as a female in you new legal name
If you do not pass then work on the following to ensure that you can pass:
- Hormones
- Remove facial hair waxing
- Remove facial hair via electrolysis
- Grow your hair as long as you want to
What I have suggested above is a guideline only and only you can decide what to do and how you are going to solve your personal problems and move forward in your life.
Quote from: ChrissyRyan on January 24, 2024, 05:56:39 PMOn some days as I get ready to go out for the day I wonder why I ever need to present as male again as I am far, far away in my mind a male nowadays. The reasons, I think, is the fear of making that full time status change and what that all means. This is not an easy decision for me for sure.
This tells me, you want to live as a female, yes fear, being self conscious about when you are presenting as female, looking at everybody that walks past you, thinking can they 'read me'. I can relate to these thoughts, except of course the fear, which I never suffered from.
Let me relate to you a couple of stories and you will get an idea of what I went through. These stories occurred before I finally left my family and friends and I was so to speak full time for at least a couple of days and I was not on hormones, my facial hair was waxed off, makeup and my hair was in a french braid completed the picture.
So story number one. I was traveling across the country in Australia, I needed petrol as my petrol was running out, I was scared to get petrol because I thought people would read me. Eventually I was forced to fill up and nothing happened.
Story number two. I was in a town and nature called so I visited the appropriate toilet, I was scared going in, I had no choice. I was washing my hands when I noticed another female present and she was looking at me and I was wondering if she read me. I don't know, I was self conscious. However I left soon after.
There were other encounters, were people using the right pronouns and questioning myself did I pass. Time went by and I became more confident, I was not acting per se as a female (all though I was female). I was just going about my daily life as Me! Just be yourself and that was the way I went about my daily life. As others have mentioned on this website, fear is the biggest factor in moving forward in our lives.
Quote from: ChrissyRyan on January 24, 2024, 05:56:39 PMIf I did go the distance I would not want to revert to a male status, that is, detransition, I just cannot see that. I am still learning to live as a female and to cast aside my male remnants that seem to have a prolonged half-life.
OK to be brutally honest there were two instances where I paused and considered what I was doing with my life, one was the consideration of de-transitioning. However, that was never going to fly in the face of it. Why? I was standing in the middle of George Street, Sydney and I was thinking about others, that were considering reversing what they were doing and I thought what I had to do to achieve this, breast removal was one of the thoughts racing through my mind at the time.
However, thinking about this, 30 seconds at most or a very short period of time, a sickening feeling came over me and I immediately and emphatically said no to myself about this. There was no chance in hell, I was ever going back to the way that I lived and to this day thinking about how I lived makes me sick to the stomach, in other words it makes me very nauseous.
The other time where I considered the ramifications of what I was doing and possibly could of ended up not going ahead with the surgery, was on the day of my surgery. My friend at the time was driving my car and we arrived at the hospital and I sat there thinking about what lay ahead and realized that if I went ahead there was no turning back, but I only dwelt on these thoughts only for about a minute or so.
Actually my mind was basically blank at the time. I already knew with out fear, what I was going to do, I did not know what the future was going to hold for me, not that I thought about that at the time, so I got out of the car and walked into the hospital and as they say, the rest is history.
One final thought on this, my past
life makes me who I am today.
Quote from: ChrissyRyan on January 24, 2024, 05:56:39 PMYet, I cannot quite cross that threshold of completely transitioning. Are you in any similar quandary?
Well no, (smile on my face), again the fear, the background noise of, I did this, I did that, don't do that, what about my friends, what about my family, how are they going to treat me and similar comments are drowning you metaphorically.
You only need one thought and one thought only and that is "What do I want?", You need to take care of yourself first and when you do that you will thrive. If you are unable to answer this question, then seeking therapy would help you in this matter.
Quote from: ChrissyRyan on January 24, 2024, 05:56:39 PMI do enjoy being my female self, and being treated by people meaningful to me as female. I still have some situations where it is wise for me now to present as male.
Again this tells me you want to live your life as a female. I do not know the situations, where you need to be a male, however my thoughts are you need to take care of these situations as soon as possible.
Quote from: ChrissyRyan on January 24, 2024, 05:56:39 PMHumiliation, non-acceptance, and awful, unkind remarks have taken a toll on me. It most certainly takes a lot of courage to be a MTF woman.
Yes, you need to be strong, resilient and have the courage to live the life the way you want. I know about the humiliation side, that has occurred to me during my life and that was to get a document notarized in front of a Justice of the Peace and the document explicitly showed details of my previous life and getting my English passport renewed online, resulted in further details about my life being revealed, which results in me feeling embarrassed and humiliated.
Quote from: ChrissyRyan on January 24, 2024, 05:56:39 PMIt is wonderful to be self accepting and accepted by others. It is those times with others I am happily myself although I can be happy still with my male side. After all, if I couldn't, I might be miserable. Dysphoria can be so intense some days though. I just try to have a good day and make the best of it. Some days I take some quiet time to soothe hurts, this lessens the discomfort.
Have nice thoughts and I wish you the best for your transition.
Hugs,
Chrissy
Whatever you decide, members of Susan's will support you unconditionally, I for one will accept and respect you no matter what you decide to do. Being miserable is not an option being happy is. Making decisions that will make you happy and the end result will make the dysphoria disappear. My decision in taking that final step has given me the tranquility that I never had before and I have never ever regretted that decision.
Have a nice day and all the best for the future, no matter what you do.
Best wishes and hugs
Sarah B
PS You can PM if you need to.