Okay, the other night I experienced something crazy! I have experienced gender dysphoria for my entire life. But it has always been more on the mild side. Like I would look down, and see my penis, and it would affect me, and I would hate having it there, but for the most part, I would move on past it pretty easily. Or my bald head would cause me sadness, because I don't have the beautiful long hair I've always wanted as a girl. But it was not that difficult to deal with. I was surviving okay.
Well..........lately, I have started presenting as female a LOT more when going out and about, because I have finally reached a point in my transition, where I feel like I actually look female enough, to feel comfortable pulling it off. And for what I can't pull off, I make up for in increased confidence in general, and just no longer caring what other people think. So it has me pretty well covered now, to where I can comfortably go out dressed as female. But, something that happens along with this.........I see myself in the mirror constantly throughout the day. And if you are like me, and to the point where you actually legitimately "see" a female in the mirror looking back at you, this can be a very powerful thing. This is what really begins to solidify within yourself, that "Yes, that girl in the mirror is ME and I can do this!"
Okay........so.......when you get to that point where you for the first time are really truly feeling like not only are you female on the inside, but you are really truly starting to "feel" and "See" it on the outside as well......it opens up a whole new world of dysphoria on a level that I was not at all prepared for, and now I am feeling a need to see my gender therapist pronto! I mean it's bad!
The other night, I was laying in bed still riding this absolute high of getting to experience the freedom of finally getting to be myself, and dressing how I want to, not how others think I should. I had an itch on my head, so I reached up to scratch it, and to my absolute horror, felt my bald head. And I immediately burst into tears and a mini depression as the feel of my bald head reminded me that that beautiful longer hair I've gotten so used to wearing all day lately was not actually a part of my head. Then I put my arm back under the blanket, and my hand grazed my penis...............again.......burst into tears even harder this time, and was crying uncontrollably as feeling my penis again reminded me that I have the damn thing for one, but it came as a very sad reminder that I have to try so hard to be a girl, and didn't get to just be born that way.
I mean, just that tiny little grazing of my penis by my hand, was enough to really freak me out and make me super sad and emotional. I could not even touch it anymore for the rest of the night. Couldn't touch my head either. Or the few straggler whiskers on my face that the laser has not gotten rid of yet. I was laying there feeling like I was 100 percent girl in everyway, so you can imagine the utter shock and horror to reach down and feel a penis between my legs, and a bald head. It was the strangest thing for me, and made me realize that this journey is ever evolving, and there is no way to fully prepare a trans person for every little incident like that that they are going to experience.
Sure I knew what "gender dysphoria" was, but I had never ever experienced it to that kind of an absolute extreme. I know it's because I have been presenting as female so much more lately. So then the question becomes, so do I back off on presenting as female a bit until I deal with those feelings, or do I just accept that as part of the journey, and maybe even present as female more often. I've already been to the point for a while now, where I just want to 24 hours a day 7 days a week, because it just feels so right. And my wife has actually been the one to encourage it lately. She see's how much happier I am, so I think she allows that to help her to not worry so much about what other people are thinking. When I first started presenting as female, it made her super uncomfortable. That was 4 months ago, and it just bothered her a bit. She didn't want to walk near me and I could tell she was embarassed. But now.....she almost seems irritated if I DON'T put my girls clothes and wig on, because she's like "But that's who you are. Why would you not dress that way?" So that has been amazing. But right now, our only real hangup is our daughters school. I'm usually the one to go drop her off in the morning, but I have not come out to the school yet, or presented as female there yet. But once we get past that, I feel like it's going to be all open to every day. And my wife is the one that told me that she wants me to go "Full time" this summer, so that my the end of the Summer, when our daughter is ready to go back to school, she will have had a couple months of being around me and getting used to it. She already has started calling me "Mamma" about 50 percent of the time even when I am not looking like a girl, because her precious little 5 and a half year old head already gets it, and knows that "Daddy is really a girl on the inside". And when I need to take her to the bathroom out in public, I go to take her in the "Mens" restroom, and she says "Why are we going in there? We are both girls, we should be going in the girls bathroom". And I try to explain to her, "Well, other people don't know that. They think I am a boy since I look like a boy on the outside, and they expect me to use the boys bathroom." She usually says something like "Well that's stupid! You are a girl, and they should understand that and let you use the right bathroom!" It's amazing!!! So luckily as far as she goes, I'm pretty well golden. She just gets it, and compliments my skirts and things. But...showing up at her school suddenly as the opposite gender, could be a little funny. I've already been showing up there in girls shirts and jeans and painted fingernails and girly necklaces and things this whole time, but never with my hair on.
Yes, absolutely, the body dysphoria gets worse the more you present as your true self. I don't think I have it as bad as you do, by the sounds of it, but yes, it's there, and it is getting more intense all the time. (I'm coming up on a year full-time.)
I hate, hate, hate the feeling of stubble on my face, when I am preparing for electrolysis. At least I'm up to about a 120 grit, from a 60, but I still can't stand it. I can't wait to be finished with that horror.
When I look at myself in the mirror, if I am not wearing my wig, I try not to look above my shoulders, because I don't want to see my lack of hair.
I try not to touch my penis any more than necessary for good hygiene, because it just shouldn't be there. If I pretend it isn't there, my body looks half-decent. My boobs are small but shapely, and my hips are wider than my waist. But it is there.
This is all stuff I have lived with for decades. But the closer I get to being fully myself, the more the parts of me that aren't right bug me. Eventually, I'll be finished with electrolysis. Eventually, I'll get GRS. There's nothing I can do about the hair, unfortunately, so I'll just have to live with it.
As the Rolling Stones sang, "You can't always get what you want." It's still a whole lot better than the way I lived before.
I am so glad you have supportive family. Your daughter sounds precious!
I've felt that before. I have thought about burning off my body hair, facial hair. ripping "it" off. I've never done that, but I''d be lying if I said the thought never crossed my mind.
If you are ready, I fully support going full time in the summer. It sounds like you already have the acceptance from.your family, which is what I think to be most inportant. When I told my dad's family, it was relieving when they said they were okay with it. I went full time last year just a couple months after starting hrt, I did get a lot of customers that called me "sir", but I didn't let it get to me. It hit me harder when my dad's family's actions said something different from what they told me.
Though I moved at the end of July last year, in with my mom and older sister. They are way more outwardly accepting. Last night my sister told me she slipped up talking to someone else at home and that it felt wrong to say my old name. My mom agreed, so I feel a lot better about moving out here.
LaRell I know exactly what you mean shortly before I went full time I was in the shower and after shampooing I ran my hand down my face and felt the stubble I burst into tears by time I was done crying I was shivering from the shower gone cold I hadn't even noticed I was a wreck the next day was better but it comes and goes though never as bad as that day I hope you don't have a recurrence of this level of dysphoria remember you are not alone
KathyLauren If you try some time you just might find you get what you need
bobbisue :)
Quote from: bobbisue on March 05, 2018, 05:59:54 PM
KathyLauren If you try some time you just might find you get what you need
;D Yes, indeed!
Hair is what keeps getting me more than anything else. (Which is why I have a somewhat premature consult scheduled for transplants next month.) I have a solid hair line, and what has grown out is actually pretty cute. I can't really see my balding too well, its just out of angle, but I'll feel my head and feel the vellum hair and think "I have hair!". Then I use my phone to take a look how it is growing in and see how it looks in general, and every time, without fail I am shocked and dismayed at what I see. For all the fuzzy I feel, it's just not visible enough. It is still so distinctly thin (I maybe have 15% coverage on crown, tops, and that may just be because I've let what's there grow out) that I just want to cry. I have a terrible association with wigs from my mom's cancer, and the thought of wearing them for extended periods (more than an hour for a therapy session or a selfie shoot) just sends me spiraling down. I'm ready to throw away all of my remaining money from my mother's life insurance just to deal with it once and for all. If I had a full head of hair I'd probably be pushing going part time right now the way I feel otherwise (well, maybe with one or two more laser sessions on face just so I'm not killing myself shaving for practicality purposes).
You sound very much like myself! A couple years ago, I started shaving my head completely bald because I have the same issue. Decent hair all around the sides, and not too terribly bad of a receding hair line in the front. But that stupid bald spot right on the top, back part of my head, just will not grow! And I go through the same thing. I decided to stop shaving it for a while to see if maybe by some miracle the HRT has caused my hair to start growing again, and I do just like you do, and I feel the top of my head, and can feel what feels like quite a bit of hair growing up there. So I get all excited thinking maybe I can finally start letting it just grow out. But after a few days, I take a picture, and sure enough. Even though it "feels" like there is a lot of hair there, the picture reveals a very different sad reality.
Yes, if my hair could grow full, I would have started letting it grow out a long time ago, and would have naturally started presenting as female as my hair got longer. But being a bald transwoman throws an entirely different dynamic into the scenario where you are faced with having to actually make a decision of when you want to put your wig on and present as female. And it just feels so wrong. I am a girl. I should be able to just feel good about myself, and able to go out and enjoy life. I don't want it to even be an option to go out as a man anymore. And being bald and having to wear a freaking wig, is NOT my idea of getting to just enjoy life as the girl I am. I haven't looked much into hair implants. I'm just worried that I don't have sufficient hair to work with in the first place. I don't know.
Quote from: Roll on March 05, 2018, 11:07:58 PM
Hair is what keeps getting me more than anything else. (Which is why I have a somewhat premature consult scheduled for transplants next month.) I have a solid hair line, and what has grown out is actually pretty cute. I can't really see my balding too well, its just out of angle, but I'll feel my head and feel the vellum hair and think "I have hair!". Then I use my phone to take a look how it is growing in and see how it looks in general, and every time, without fail I am shocked and dismayed at what I see. For all the fuzzy I feel, it's just not visible enough. It is still so distinctly thin (I maybe have 15% coverage on crown, tops, and that may just be because I've let what's there grow out) that I just want to cry. I have a terrible association with wigs from my mom's cancer, and the thought of wearing them for extended periods (more than an hour for a therapy session or a selfie shoot) just sends me spiraling down. I'm ready to throw away all of my remaining money from my mother's life insurance just to deal with it once and for all. If I had a full head of hair I'd probably be pushing going part time right now the way I feel otherwise (well, maybe with one or two more laser sessions on face just so I'm not killing myself shaving for practicality purposes).
I guess part of me knew logically, that presenting as female more would cause my dysphoria to get even worse. But I guess I was not expecting it to hit me quite that hard. Ha ha I guess I just imagined it staying about the same somehow throughout the process. When I told my wife about it, she said "But I thought the dysphoria was supposed to get better the further along you went." I said "Well yeah, as I get to go out dressed as myself more, for sure I do feel incredibly happy and don't experience it while I am dressed that way and feeling good. It's when I have to take it off, and now am back to boy mode after having just experienced an entire amazing weekend of finally feeling free and like myself and so happy and beautiful." I think it kind of shocked her, because here she thought she was doing a good thing by encouraging me to dress as myself, and then she finds out that that very thing caused me even greater dysphoria. But it makes sense. If you are in boy mode more often than in girl mode, you kind of get used to it in a way, while still obviously never being fully happy and content, but still, when you are working your job or whatever, you tend to be distracted and not thinking about that nasty penis dangling between your legs. But when you dress as the girl you are for multiple days in a row, for the first time you really start to experience what it feels like to live life as yourself. Isn't that quite a concept? To get to feel what it feels like to live your own life like "YOURSELF!" So sad that so many of us had to live absolute lies for so much of our lives.
And yes...the stubble on my face. AHHHHHHHH!!! >:( I go in for laser on my face every 4 weeks about. Going tomorrow. And I'm supposed to not shave for 2 days prior. So I have 2 days every month where I am in a bad mood and feel like crap because I have to deal with the stubble on my face. Luckily almost all of the dark hairs have been eliminated now (I've had 6 sessions so far) and now I'm left with just lighter colored hairs that I'm afraid only electrolysis is going to take care of. But my insurance insisted on going laser first, and then electrolysis for what that doesn't get. But anyway........every month I am faced with this super obnoxious cycle where for 2 weeks after my laser treatment, the hair is still growing like crazy, and it is really coarse from having been zapped by the laser, so I have 2 weeks of not feeling feminine at all........Then the third week after the laser, the hair finally just stops growing, and my face gets really nice, smooth and soft for that one weeks time, and then when the 4th week comes, I am into the next growth cycle, so I am back again to having stubble on my face. So out of a 4 week period, I am lucky to get one week where I feel really good and have the smooth face I desire.
And yes, I do the same thing. When I look at myself in the mirror without my wig on, I try not to look up high enough to be reminded that I do not have hair. :embarrassed:
And yes, having a supportive wife and daughter, and living in a place where there is an excellent queer community and quite a few transwomen that I have kind of gotten to know, helps tremendously!!!! If I were still living in my home town, surrounded only by my uber conservative Mormon family, I would have a hell of a time doing this! Which is one of the huge reasons it took me this long in my life to finally do it.
Quote from: KathyLauren on March 05, 2018, 02:29:07 PM
Yes, absolutely, the body dysphoria gets worse the more you present as your true self. I don't think I have it as bad as you do, by the sounds of it, but yes, it's there, and it is getting more intense all the time. (I'm coming up on a year full-time.)
I hate, hate, hate the feeling of stubble on my face, when I am preparing for electrolysis. At least I'm up to about a 120 grit, from a 60, but I still can't stand it. I can't wait to be finished with that horror.
When I look at myself in the mirror, if I am not wearing my wig, I try not to look above my shoulders, because I don't want to see my lack of hair.
I try not to touch my penis any more than necessary for good hygiene, because it just shouldn't be there. If I pretend it isn't there, my body looks half-decent. My boobs are small but shapely, and my hips are wider than my waist. But it is there.
This is all stuff I have lived with for decades. But the closer I get to being fully myself, the more the parts of me that aren't right bug me. Eventually, I'll be finished with electrolysis. Eventually, I'll get GRS. There's nothing I can do about the hair, unfortunately, so I'll just have to live with it.
As the Rolling Stones sang, "You can't always get what you want." It's still a whole lot better than the way I lived before.
I am so glad you have supportive family. Your daughter sounds precious!