Alright, since I've been around making some noise I figured I should divulge some of my story and ask a few questions of my own:
Experience:
Early childhood: Was essentially a blur- I remember making my dinosaurs get married and start a family, I remember dreaming of becoming like my (woman) kindergarten teacher, I remember absolutely devouring anatomy and nature encyclopedias very young. I fell in love with motown and was the only 8 year old singing the Temptations that my mom and dad ever saw. I remember avoiding man things like the plague: "Now if he could only be of use and get out to mow the lawn."
Though, I never really pondered my inner gender being so young.
8 yrs old: I start becoming jealous of my girl cousins. I wanted long hair, I wanted some dolls (I'm pretty sure that I got one and immediately hid it to be lost forever in the average eight year old's room). I tried sneaking into their tent when we went camping, and my brothers made fun of me for taking my mom's work clothes to sleep in (tell me again that scrubs aren't comfortable in any color! They were clean, and huge on me). I started to become keenly aware of gender differences and tried very very hard to fight my girl-ness, I succeed and bury the feelings hard.
14 years old: I start to develop as a man. The "switch" flips on. I go to my mom and tell her that I am more comfortable as a girl and in their clothes, that I'm not gay (whatever that means, like that made her feel better), and that I want to talk more. She brushes me off and goes to work. I begin praying that I wake up a girl. I believe that I'll be a girl in heaven, and if not, I'd rather be one in hell. I knew then that I was made a girl in a boy's body.
15 years old: After my mom finds a favorite dress of hers out of place I am summoned in for a family meeting and told that it's okay. Even with family support I brush them off and tell them I just want to be normal in the face of a hostile high school environment. My mom soon re-invents my condition as a strange sexual fetish and my dad just forgets. I begin questioning my sexuality, but go all the way in the closet. I have my first castration "fantasy."
** A decade goes by without incident. I sometimes cross dress to relieve tension. I was constantly teased on suspicion of being homosexual by my male friends, and my friends that were girls were surprised at how sweet I was, and how willing I was to dress up for them, though I never got to. I got a manly job, was discriminated against there for being so different from the manly norm, met my wife, grew a beard on and off (for over two years!), bulked up, and fathered a daughter. At that point I was completely closeted and functionally in denial, so called "cured."
25 yrs old: Sick of my secret eating a hole in my conscious and forcing me into a depressed man-robot with no direction I come out to my wife. She's shocked, thinks it's a sick joke, thinks it's a fetish, compares me to many terrible, and one very, very, terrible thing(s). I check out mentally and check into a mental hospital for two weeks. They tell me that I have to seek out a therapist and just get on to transition if I'm bad enough for it to affect me like this. I have family meeting pt. II and tell everyone that I'm doing it, damn it. I lied and thought of alternatives. I spend two years trying to compromise as androgynous, letting myself out in writing, and dressing on my own time out in public away from home. I hate the compromise.
27 years old: The floodgates open. I can't stand my own reflection. I start to freak out over going bald, my voice, my facial hair, my complexion; I sometimes believe that going to sleep and not waking up would be best. I deflect morbid thoughts of self mutilation everyday (If I'm blind I can't see me, right?), and alcohol starts to taste pretty good... I know that I have to seek out help, no matter how scary.
And here I am, only a month (it seems NOW) from beginning HRT. I'm getting along alright, (I scaled back the alcohol long ago, don't worry) and I'm trying to cope with eventually separating from my wife and not living with my daughter full time. My mom and dad support me, my two best friends support me, my sister supports me, and my wife isn't even mad at me- just grieving over the loss of me as her husband and the future she planned. I was on the road to ruin anyway- she would have lost more had I remained unchanged.
So, I have two pressing questions:
When should I see a doctor about a hormone consultation, since it seems I'm on track to get my body under control early? And should I begin the laser treatments now, before I go on E? (I hear that facial hair grows back after the laser if you have male levels of T.)
If you have any family advice that would be appreciated as well.
- Marina
