Transformation Trauma

[pebbles]

I am curious this question gose to the guys and girls... How did you respond behaviourally to the changes in your body brought about by your first puberty? Were you silent but crushed by it or were you more outspoken.

And to the older ladies and men I'd like to know how they responded to say post pubertal changes like typical aging as there born gender and how they live with it. Hair-loss and progressive changes in there bone structure did you notice how did you react?

I reacted very badly of to all of the changes body dysphoria in my case seems to be alot stronger than the social.
Each change I underwent usually each resulting in a new abnormal behaviour and a more extreme reaction each time, I remember distinctly when my voice started to drop at age 11 I asked my mother "what is happening how do I stop it?" She told me it was just part of growing up. I never thought of questioning it but I was saddened at loosing my voice... I remembered and tried to console myself with the story of 'the little mermaid' and how she lost her voice too... Happy endings like that don't generally happen for boys but I could hope.
It didn't happen of course and one night I just screamed at the top of my voice but of course nothing but a whisper came out beyond my range for now and forever.

As I continued to change everyone else was happy for my growing up I didn't think of questioning my feelings.
There was a period of obsessive extreme excersize to loose weight and not eating properly I one time I ran so hard for so long I puked and I realized that it seemed like a good idea and did that alot. I had read about anorexcia and heard it could stop female puberty I didn't know if it worked for males.
Overall tho I would just binge eat after starving myself for days thus I didn't really loose much weight mother just ended up accusing me of drinking alcohol because I was sleeping all the time extremely ill-tempered and puking up alot, I stopped this behaviour after awhile thinking it obviously dosen't break male puberty.

My big thing was self-harm and cutting throughout my teenage years and I'm now pretty heavily mutilated for it.
I remember my first time my facial hair was starting to come in just fuzz on my upper lip but I hated it I didn't understand boys at all who said they desired hair on there face I initially used a metal slinky to try and rip it out.

In any event my mum and dad noticed the fur after awhile and gave me my first Razor aww bless a rite of passage for so many men... it was a fascinating rite for me to be sure... You had to replace the blade from a box that would slot a new blade between a clamp. after finding myself unusually fascinated with the blades terrifying sharpness I just in my sadness and despair I instinctively lifted and ran the blade across my stomach. The pain was white hot and the release instant and seemingly complete for a time.
My parents and my expected gender role freed me from suspicion about and also granted me an inexhaustible supply of blades.
I remember thinking back to my childhood dreams of someone or something magical coming to save me, Maybe this is it... I ritualized patterns of self abuse and became more scarred. at my worst I was inflicting deep wounds everyday... nobody cared or noticed.

After secondary school I changed in myself alot about myself grew my hair out and behaved differently dropped alot of the faux male bits crossdressed in private and experimented with going out and presenting as a female alone... sadly I got genes from my gorilla of a father and although I've always shaved my body and facial hair I was aware at just how hairy I was getting and it would only ever get worse the older. The "natural" reaction of course was trichotillomania
I would just go nuts with a pair of tweezers and a mirror spending days without food just in my room tweezering my facial and body hair I'm still prone to this behaviour I'm not looking forward to growing it out for electro gonna be a hard urge to resist.

[Northern Jane]

 I had, as a child, identified as a girl but from 8 to puberty was the worst period of gender uncertainty for me. My puberty was mixed up, some male and some female development but both minimal but my response to the male development was rather extreme. Though I was a quiet, easy-going child, I started being a LOT more pushy about the gender issue (which wasn't necessarily a good thing in the early 1960's!), both about expressing my sense of gender and more vocal in objecting to being considered 'male'. The awakening of sexuality also didn't help - in that regard I did NOT want to be seen as either male nor gay but it was pretty hard (then) to get the idea across that being attracted to guys didn't automatically make me gay. By 15 I couldn't go shirtless (too much boobs) and I was in full scale rebellion against my presumed sex. DIY (illegal) hormones helped alleviate some of the anxiety when I could get them. At the age of 18 I could legally start doctor-supervised HRT (but an understanding doctor started me at 17) and it was very much a tranquillizer in that it helped me tolerate a horrible situation. With SRS at 24 (and the absence of T) everything settled right down into a normal life. Without medical help I would not have survived to age 25.

[JessieMH]

Lets see... until about age 10 I always had pretty gender neutral toys, always had at least one female friend around and except for a couple singular moments, never really thought about it.  I knew I wanted to be a girl since age 7 but at the time I accepted it as something that I couldn't change, back then anyways.

Age 11 and 12 were absolutely the worst years of my life between the teachers at school basically ruining my education and one of them actually hitting me and the damned children it's a wonder I didn't jump off a dock!

The summer I was 13 I think I left the house all of five times, my parents had split a couple years ago and both worked so I was always alone during the day.  Cross-dressed a little in private, cried the rest of the day

Puberty never really took off for me, never had facial hair until I was 16 (and still missing in some parts!), my voice didn't deepen until 15, never had a growth "spurt" more like "gradual growth over 5 years" my face hasn't changed much since I was 12 so that I'm thankful for.

So now here I am at 18, trying to transition away from all these damned things that have happened.

[Hurtfulsplash]

During puberty I became very depressed, shy and self conscious. I had a lot going on at the time besides the changes my body was going through so I don't know if it was puberty or life that caused some of those problems. I also started to sweat a lot for no reason, which I still find curious. I had acne very badly and gained a little weight for a bit, so I hated myself and the way I looked. I feel strange that I didn't know that I wanted to be male until I was 16, even though looking back there were obvious signs. I didn't like to shave and was proud of my leg and pit hair, but mostly I remember always being male in my daydreams. I didn't realize at the time that there was anything different with how I thought of myself in my head because I didn't even know I had a choice or that trans even existed. In regards to clothing early in my puberty I just wore what I was given, we didn't have much money for clothes, but I remember getting a bag of hand-me-downs and there were male clothes in there which I was very comfortable wearing. Not only was it just comfortable, but I "felt" better wearing them. When I was 11 I ODed and ran away a few times, then I cut for the first time when I was 13. Puberty just seemed to be the beginning of everything bad in my life.

[M.Grimm]

Puberty was terrible. I recall that when I first menstruated, my parents and I were staying at their friend's house that evening. The friends had a daughter who was a little older than me so we'd been pushed to be friends for years. And we were friends, it was just that we had very little in common, I would have preferred hanging out with her older brother but he was not interested.

Anyway, I think I was 13, or 12 going on 13, that night. We were getting ready to shower before bed and I realized I'd started my first period so she ran to get my mom. I was feeling a lot of dread, but of course I knew what it was, I'd just hoped it would magically never happen. Later, after I showered I came out and all the adults were grinning at me and congratulated me. I felt so angry and humiliated that they'd been told. Later, when we got home, my mom made me some special treat to 'celebrate' my 'becoming a woman' and I was so angry and sick to my stomach; I tried to be polite and I think I had a tiny bit of it but I mostly wanted to just throw up.

Worse was when my breasts developed, because up til this point they were barely an A-cup, something I could ignore while I played sports or ran around dressed like a tomboy, as the grown-ups put it. My chest was the worst betrayal because in less than 2 years they went from A's to DDDD's. Impossible to hide, hampering all my efforts in sports, and suddenly the focus of spiteful jealous girls and leering boys. I was told I was fat (because if you wear baggy clothes with a big chest, you look dumpy and fat regardless of your figure) or a slut. I hated them, and I still hate them, and the day I get them removed and thrown away like the garbage they are, it will be glorious.

These were the notable changes, which suddenly had people treating me like I was an incapable, stupid slut. If I tried to conceal my body I was mocked for being a fat slob, if I showed it off I was an attention-seeking whore. I didn't know what to do. I kind of switched between acting as both, I suffered from bulemia from age 16 until about age 23. I wore very revealing clothing and vamped at men because I guess I was playing into what was expected of me, and at the same time I was fighting hard against being the least bit masculine. All of this meant that men only saw me as a body and women thought I was a slutty bitch (these are not conjecture, and I'm not branding myself in this post; these were things that were told to me, to my face, or were said behind my back but I learned of it later). I eventually dealt with this by letting myself gain 150 lbs, although it was a semi-conscious decision.

I did learn that if you develop a busty hourglass figure, no one will have even the tiniest lick of sympathy for what you consider to be a curse. And I can understand that, it's like a model sighing about being "too beautiful" and how it makes life hard. Except, for me, it was like a cosmic joke--being saddled with an ultra-feminine body when my mind was wired to be male.

[LordKAT]

I can identify with much of your post Mr. Grim. Main difference being that I had no idea what a period was when I got my first and I was in catechism class at church.

[kyril]

I was mostly just ashamed of the changes - I knew they were coming, it wasn't a surprise to me because I read a lot (I knew I was trans via the Internet before my period even started). Being confronted with it was somewhat traumatic, but I deal with that sort of thing by just sort of hiding it and pretending it's not happening - I'm pretty much certain nobody but me had any clue when it started, and certainly nobody around me has ever known the monthly timing. And luckily, mine always starts in the middle of the night, so none of those embarrassing public situations.

The breasts were worse because I couldn't hide them properly. I tried Ace bandages a number of times, as well as DIY solutions like the control top pantyhose, but nothing really works well when you're 100 pounds soaking wet like I was in my early teens, because even pecs would look like breasts. So I mostly just wore nothing as long as I could get away with it. And then I was mortified when my dad noticed and told my mom I needed to be wearing a bra for baseball (why couldn't he have just told me?) And at that point I just sort of gave up on them and started wearing bras like a girl.

[LordKAT]

(I knew I was trans via the Internet before my period even started).

Hurray for internet. Showing my age here but, no computers in schools much less internet, not even in high school.

[kyril]

Hurray for internet. Showing my age here but, no computers in schools much less internet, not even in high school.

Yeah, the Internet was rather limited when I was researching this stuff initially (1992-1994 iirc) but it did exist and I was determined. It helped that my mom was a college instructor, so on days when I didn't have school but she had to teach she'd take me with her and leave me in an office with a computer to entertain me.

(If she'd known what I was doing, I think I would have been dead...between finding out about trans stuff and hanging out in 'adult' chatrooms as a boy...)

I almost wish I hadn't been so determined so early though. The timing was wrong - trans men were almost invisible on the Internet, and gay trans men's existence was at best ignored and at worst actively denied. If I'd waited till after high school I probably would have been more encouraged, or at least internalized less homophobia and self-hatred.

[jesse]

this is a sensitive topic for me because it goes to some of my worst memories. when the facial hair started growing thats when i first tried to transition this was in the 80's at 14 my father had enough of it and tosed me to the streets where i was targeted by a pediphile who thought i was female as thats how i presented myself. The end result of that was me being left for dead in a field east of Denver bleeding from a gunshot wound. i survived and returned home only after threats from my mom to divorce my father if he didnt leave me alone. our relationship died the day i returned to the house. i went into repression for thirty years i did everything i could to win his affection back by trying to be the best male i could be even at the expense of his little girls soul dying. i rebelled against my mother blaming her for costing me his love, she was my strongest supporter at the time and i nixed that trying to win back my father. I took on hyper masculine jobs as i aged al the while hating the mirror and avoiding allowing anyone to take pictures of me as i hated to see myself in anyway or form. now at 44 i have started to transition. i still hate the mirror i am lucky in that my family is all small boned and we age well but i still suffer from 44 years of GID that gets worse with each passing year.......Jessica
Post Merge: April 20, 2010, 05:11:58 AM
on a side note although i never tried to off myself before the thought of it has passed threw my mind a number of times including a couple of recent ones when i came dangerously close, this past christmas and last summer when i almost blew my head off with my Glock if it hadnt been for a couple people here i wouldnt be here now
my hugs to them and the rest of this forum
jessica

[Byren]

Puberty was hell. I wore as baggy of clothes as I could find, and resisted wearing a bra as long as I could get away with it, and even then would only wear sports bras/undershirts. (still do). I remember my chest hurting at one point and telling my mom about it, and hoping that it was something serious so I could get my breasts removed. When I started the evil monthlies, I at first thought I was dying...and then hated what the reality was. I wanted to die instead of having to live the rest of my life with...that. Ugh.

I also lost all of my friends during that time. My formerly gender-blind friends suddenly became obsessed with boys, boobs, and makeup...nothing I had any interest in. I just wanted to be flat-chested and gender-less again like I'd been before. It didn't help that I was realizing at the same time that I wasn't Christian.  I ended up spending nearly two years with no friends, and believing I was literally the Devil because I was so disassociated from everyone else, had come to hate them so much, and hated myself even more.

Now, I still don't have any close friends, and though I still suffer from extreme self-hatred, I know what my issues really are, and the religion issue is no longer in play. (fyi, I'm quite content as a Druid, no more devil-delusions, hehe).

[Rock_chick]

I remember wondering why my breasts hadn't stared developing and nearly being in tears. In the main I just retreated into my own head, i was at a private boarding school, so sharing dorms with other boys...I never really felt comfortable and of course got bullied mercilessly, being really rather feminine in character it was mainly about my sexuality. I spent most of my teenage years trying (and failing mostly) to not be a target for the bullies. I tried to kill myself aged 13, fortunately didn't work, somehow managed to make the worst of the bullying stop and things gradually got better...however by that time I'd really boxed and buried the GD and was going through the serious denial phase.

Did a stage of self harm as well...it's a weird one, the pain and blood feels like the only way you can get things out...fortunately I didn't do it too long...buried things again, but still have my scars. The worst thing about puberty was trying so hard to find some kind of way of being that actually made me feel happy, rather than an empty abject failure that I felt myself to be.

[Jam]

I remember when i was about to get in the shower (around age 12) and we had a mirror on the wall and i happened to glance and notice my chest. It had been hurting for days but my nipples had suddenly got huge and i remember thinking 'ergh what the hell'. It didnt click till they grew more that i was actually developing boobs i just somehow never thought it would happen.

Much of my puberty was taken by hoping my boobs would grow for fear of being bullied if they were small. I remember wishing i could just be a boy and missing my old chest. I didnt care much for my body i mostly ignored it. I definately became withdrawn and i had a lot of sadness but i pressumed that was due to bullying. It never left and only recently have i put it all together and realised why.

Im struggling to ignore my body now though. My dislike of it grows all the time and even with clothes on i can see the curves and womanly figure and it makes me so uncomfortable.

[cerealnmuffin]

When hair started growing on my legs and arms, I began wearing long sleeved shirts and jackets all the time.  Even in the middle of a Texan summer where it could spike around 100, I wore long sleeves.  I was ashamed and disgusted by my body.

Shaving became a morning ritual.  I worshipped at the altar of the bathroom sink, dragging the dulling razor across my face and meticulously shearing the unwanted intruders.  Blood mixed with shaving cream and water circled down the drain.  No matter how I tried, the hairs kept coming back with more and more friends.  Though luckily, I couldn't grow a full moustache or beard even leading into my twenties, as if i would have ever wanted to.

Physically, my body didn't masculanize that much, my voice never audibly dropped, hair didn't sprout on my chest, and I had absolutely no sex drive.  My parents took me to the doctor and found out that I had very low testosterone.  The doc wanted to get me on T... I always wished to have started hrt in my teens, but definately not that.  Luckily, that didn't happen.

My folks then tried to get me on bulk up shakes.  They made sure I drank each one... so I stopped eating food.  To this day, I can't eat more than 2 meals or finish all the food on my plate.  I weigh now as much as I did in high school, 110.

Still, at the time, I didn't know that transition was possible, so I thought of suicide everyday.  My brother who is a few years younger than me had a more dramatic change and I could see my dad's face in his, I didn't want that to be my future.  I was already pretty reclusive so my personality didn't change that much.  I have always cried myself to sleep ever since I was first being bullied for 'acting like a girl' (started kindergarten).  To cope, I threw myself into my writing, churning out manuscripts over 90k words each.

[andream]

I was pretty child, and was often mistaken for my mother's daughter pre-puberty, since I always had mid-length hair as well. I also sang in the choir, and often sang lead - thinkof the opening scene of the movie Empire of the Sun and that's how my voice was. Then I reached puberty, and my voice dropped. I stopped singing in the choir, whcih was horrible for me, but worse, when I got to fourteen, I started to fill out. I used to dress up in my mother's clothes when my parents were at work, and I was always happy at how much I looked like a girl, and I prayed and prayed that I would just one day actually just be one.

But when I filled out, my mum's clothes didn't look quite so good on me anymore, especially after my shoulders became more muscular. I also grew my hair out and cut myself, and my left lower arm has a multitude of scars, although they don't look all that bad. I didn't cut myself to feel pain - I cut myself because I wanted to die, and I had to go to the hospital twice. Puberty for me meant giving up the dream of being a girl, and accepting that I was really a guy, even though I felt like a girl. Of course... a number of years later and I'm transitioning. Better late than never, but I really wish I could have done something about it back then when I was petite and pretty. I'm not too big now - 5 foot 8, small boned, 145 lbs, but still. In short, puberty was a tragedy for me .

[kyle_lawrence]

Puberty was a weird time for me, mostly because of how late it happened.  I was 16 when I started mentruating, and had mixed feelings about it.  I was happy to have "caught up" with my friends and to know that there wasn't something wrong with me, but I hated it at the same time. I also had no hips or chest till I was 16 or 17.   I've always been tall with a skinny androgenous body type, and puberty didn't change that much, so I wouldn't say it was a traumatic experience at all.  Of course I also didn't reaize im trans till I was around 24.