This is something I brought up in the chatroom, but I feel it'd be really helpful to hear opinions from both mediums, and besides that I can more freely be more thorough about the details ---so, here goes!
I'm concerned about being...'too soon' for HRT. I really don't have good practice with the skills: I don't have my voice practiced, I have an unpracticed jist of how to use makeup, I have some clothes, and my job status isn't...exactly grand. Also, apparently I need to learn to walk in a more feminine way.
My local support and my family insist different ways on how to handle this whole process, but it ultimately comes down to 'wait', when not some form of 'Just don't do it'. What to wait for is essentially about "Make sure you know you want this!", "Try to enter a relationship", "Try to get a strong job", etc., but I don't feel I really agree about this. I for a while now was trying to run away from something I knew I felt for, and I've been in several relationships, one almost up of them almost going in particular ways. I also feel that a job that wants to discriminate me would find ways to make loop-holes and fire me, which I feel would hurt me worse than just not be hired in the first place, on top of that a coworker suddenly changing their body and your identity towards them is a little big to suddenly deal with. :\ I've also had one of my friends suggest that I take anti-anxiety medicine. I feel that drugs oriented directly for mood and mind are sinful and evasive to one's real behavior, and he should know better that I feel this way, and he's also a supporter that says that I should wait for several years so that my body can completely develop masculine before I work on it to change it.
So, honestly, they leave me feeling a little disoriented and discouraged... But... I really want to do this. The 'pure' part of my personality knows what they say, knows that things might not pan out perfect, and knows that there's health risks. She still really wants me to do this. I've been getting ups and downs in my mood, where I feel really enthusiastic and in touch with what I want, only to bomb down and feel defeated, and it feels like it's getting progressively more severe. I feel like I'm going crazy and I feel like I am because my body and mind are not getting any sort of applied treatment. (Which makes me feel that my really getting hyped up for corsets relates to.) It's just all leaving me miserable that I'm not doing it, and also leaving me feeling paranoid and defensive. I'm scared that I'll snap, or do something harmful to myself.
Also, I -have- gone out cross dressed. Some of my friends do a 'girls night out' thing where they help me cross dress and we all go out to do something. It's not particularly common, but going out feels very free and good. I'm very comfortable about looking like a woman, and I have to actively force myself into any kind of fear that I could be unsafe from this practice. It might seem like cross dressing might be a good settling point, but the problem is that there's an 'empty' feeling that accompanies it, that I know that my body's still entirely masculine.
I feel like I can comprimise my issues. I work enough hours/week that I can spare money to get clothes. I can practice on makeup. I can be silent until I get the hang of voice. I don't think I walk overly manly even if it's not feminine. Even then, don't I have a good while before my body starts to take to the hormones more visibly?
So...yeah...It's just troubling...Am I really too early to go into HRT, or should I go with it?
