ok, now ladies, i know a few of you have recently posted on here that it was either you transition or it was the end. as i have said before, i don't need hormones or makeup to look, sound , or be accepted in society as female.
my questions are: who of you are transition or die?
and why do you feel that way?
i'm asking because i'm not suicidal and trying to figure out if i am the only one. i'm looking for this to be a very hot topic, so let the wrath begin, if there is any...
Princess Mickie
Warrior Princess
I use to think that was a pretty drastic thing to say,
but since starting HRT and feeling so right and so happy,
I like what I am,
I like what I see,
I've accepted my fate,
I can really see how going back would be very, very difficult,
It would be a very dark time for me,
I can see as I get further along how much harder that will become,
so for me,
yea, I do think it's transition or die,
I can't... I won't live as a male,
It reminds me of the famous quote by Patrick Henry,
"Give me liberty or give me death",
I choose liberty :)
Amanda
My gender dysphoria was at the core of my chronic bleak depression. Nothing I did could alieviate the depth of the depression. Then the depressive cycle got longer and longer. Then there came the opportunities for suicide. I knew that sooner or later I'd get the courage to go all the way.
It wasn't until I came out to myself and started my transition that I could see life as anything to be endured.
It wasn't an issue of passing or not passing. It was continuing the lie of masculinity. I could no longer live the lie.
-Sandy
For me it was not a choice of transition or die. It was a case of transition or continue to live a hollow and desperately unhappy life that was a sham.
I have battled with chronic depression for much of my life although I haven't seriously considered suicide since the 1980's. In the last 20 years though I have experianced the loss of many fellow travellers along the way. That loss has taken a very heavy toll on me but even at my weakest gave me determination to continue when I was lost in despair.
It has been a long road with little support from fellow travellers or healthcare professionals. Indeed many discouraged me and told me it could never work for me.
The thing is though it did work for me. Now I am living instead of existing. I never imagined I would ever make it this far, never imagined that others could accept me but the thing is you never now how far you can go until you start going. Against all the odds, against all advice I have reached a place in my life where others look to me for inspiration. What better tribute could I make to those that have fallen than to live and bear witness.
To me the choice has got to be to live.
Ann
Ann
Like Kassandra, gender dysphoria has been at the core of my depression for a long time. However, I've never (quite) been suicidal, and I've learned to deal with the depression (and many other factors that perpetuate it) separately from the gender dysphoria.
So for now, no, it's not transition or die, at least not yet. But I see how it could get to that point, and I don't really want to wait for that to happen. So it's not so much live or die as live or "live" (in quotations, meaning going through the motions, not really living in the fullest sense).
I got by as a "guy" .... but I never made a pretence of my non-existent masculinity .... guess I was the "quiet gay guy" to all who knew me ?
I was never comfortable in who I was, but was far from suicidal.
Just that I knew I had one life to live and knew that it was "on hold" in so many ways unless I could express myself outwardly in the way I'd felt inside since childhood ....
Continuing to live as a guy was effectively a slow "suicide" as part of me was dying every day.Quote from: Princess Mickie on April 24, 2008, 12:22:48 PM
ok, now ladies, i know a few of you have recently posted on here that it was either you transition or it was the end. as i have said before, i don't need hormones or makeup to look, sound , or be accepted in society as female.
Sad fact Mickie is that without hormones, makeup, surgeries even, you might be accepted as a feminine guy, but NOT female, and far less as a woman by society !
Laura x
Quote from: Laura Eva B on April 24, 2008, 02:32:36 PM
Continuing to live as a guy was effectively a slow "suicide" as part of me was dying every day.
Yes, that's what I was ineptly trying to say, but you said it way more clearly. The boiling frog metaphor applies.
I wasn't suicidal, but the effort of repressing who I am drained the vitality from every other aspect of my life. I struggled with depression and it seemed there was no point to my life. Oh, at times I pretended - I got married to a wonderful woman and my family became my reason for getting through each day. But emotionally I wasn't there at all. Eventually the emptiness consumed my job and my marriage. Because I *couldn't* give either of them any attention other than mere acknowledgement.
I ended up losing both, because I couldn't keep them up. And at that point I finally admitted to myself and to my wife that I am a woman. Ever since then it's been a whirlwind for me. Looking back I can see that I wouldn't have killed myself physically. But I would have killed my soul, inch by inch. I would have shut everything off until it died, like tying a tourniquet to a limb.
Who knows, perhaps one day I would have subconsciously killed myself. Perhaps like someone mentioned on another thread at one point by thinking "I can beat that oncoming car" or through mistreatment of my body (continuing bad eating and no exercise). Goddess knows I was doing that second one already.
Val
Quote from: Princess Mickie on April 24, 2008, 12:22:48 PM
i don't need hormones or makeup to look, sound , or be accepted in society as female.
Well, that wasn't my motivation for HRT really. I need to be female, soooooo... I need estrogen and SRS. The passing and acceptance are something of a side-effect really, although I need and want them too. But even if I passed perfectly, say perhaps through FFS, I'd *still* HAVE to have HRT (and SRS)... as I need, must, and absolutely have to be female. And for ME, passing and acceptance alone don't get me there if I still have male chemistry, body and genitals.
Why "transition or die?"
I can't really add much to the wonderful descriptions I'm reading here. As others said, I WAS dead... or dying. I could either just let myself slip into that dark oblivion... or try to rebuild my life as it SHOULD have been.
So, I'm giving the rebuilding thing a chance ;)
~Kate~
In my case it was transition or die. Why? well, to put it simply, I am not a man and I couldn't even conceive the idea of living my life as one. I wasted twenty years of my life trying to "cut it" as a young man. After two decades of misery and three suicide attempts, I HAD to transition. No excuses, no buts, no more lying. As I have said previously, if I hadn't transitioned, I would be much, much, much better six feet under...
tink :icon_chick:
Quote from: Kiera on April 24, 2008, 04:16:14 PM
You would think that especially among the "younger TS crowd" nothing is outside the realm of possibilities nowadays so, having poised this question before, why is it that the suicide rate for alleged young TS individuals is higher than ever before? If more are talking and aware of the help options and understanding that is available these days is it possible someone is confusing "causes" with "effects"?
Could you link a study on this?
Quote from: Princess Mickie on April 24, 2008, 12:22:48 PM
my questions are: who of you are transition or die?
and why do you feel that way?
I wasn't until I turned 21, that's when the floodgates opened on who I was. After this is when things got desperate.
The more I discovered who I was, the more I needed to transition. Being stuck in the military prevented that. So that was the only real time I considered suicide, and the closest I hope I ever get. In my case, it never would be an attempt, that's partly why I never did it.
Now? Yes, I would rather die then go back to living as a man. Now i'm living a more or less normal existence as a girl, and its grand. I found a piece of myself that makes me feel complete in an indescribable way. It would be akin to suicide anyway to lose that piece again.
I know I simply could not function anymore as a man, not for long anyway. The one day I spent an
hour as a boy was perhaps one of the most unpleasant experiences I can recall. To spend days, weeks, or more would be unbearable. There is no Eric to be had anymore, he died that day long ago when he was ready to die. Now there is only me, the girl behind the mask, without her there is nothing.
I've never been suicidal, I'd rather try my best in the face of adversity no matter the circumstances. I get depressed occasionally but everyone gets depressed occasionally about something or other. I even think it's possible for me to live happily without transitioning in my current situation. That doesn't mean I don't identify as female though and if my situation changes then it might get harder. But by then it might be harder to transition. This is my dilema :p I'm not depressed enough now that it's transition or die but I could be in the future!
I have been suicidal, but not from GID directly. I also have a chronic depression that tends to be worse in most respects with estrogen. (Not unusual though, women are fifty percent more prone to depression than are men and the estrogen differences are the only clues to that that aren't social. Although the social ones can be pretty large.)
So I went from chronic, steady low levels of depression to chronic but periodic levels of more severe depression.
But, in so many ways there is less to be depressed about as well. I am seen and accepted as what I am now and that difference is very, very large. More gregarious and mostly in a better overall mood than before. Also, and I think this is important, much more likely to see precursors to a severe depression and to notice that I am depressed now. It's much more visible when it does begin to set up.
And, the truth is, I cannot imagine ever going back.
N~
Quote from: Princess Mickie on April 24, 2008, 12:22:48 PM
ok, now ladies, i know a few of you have recently posted on here that it was either you transition or it was the end. as i have said before, i don't need hormones or makeup to look, sound , or be accepted in society as female.
my questions are: who of you are transition or die?
and why do you feel that way?
i'm asking because i'm not suicidal and trying to figure out if i am the only one. i'm looking for this to be a very hot topic, so let the wrath begin, if there is any...
Quote from: lauraContinuing to live as a guy was effectively a slow "suicide" as part of me was dying every day.
FTR this is precisely how I phrased it sometimes in the past. However, I don't think it's possible to answer this question to your satisfaction Mickie because we come from two different places. You have said in the past:
Quote from: Mickiei will state for the record i am TS, i do want surgery, just not now, i'm not ready for it nor have the expenses. my wife thought that i was only a CD when we married and I could have swore i told her i was transgendered before we got married. I do want hrt, i'm just like completely terrified of needles. in my EXPERIENCES, and experiences only, i don't believe it is necessary for everyone.
This is an example of statements I've heard you utter that say "transgender" to me. Transition without HRT? That's ludicrous if you ask me. I needed HRT to banish the noise in my head and to calm me. And before you say it's psychosomatic, remember I've been on HRT for 4.5 years and I still feel great. I
never want to stop taking it. I even went to 2 surgeons that allow you to stay on HRT right through surgery. But the effects weren't limited to making me
feel better, it also changed my body to something more desirable. It made my skin softer and drier, changed my nails, my hair (including body hair reduction), my senses of smell, taste and touch, and it even changed my eye color! It gave me a semblance of hips/butt, modest breast growth and I shrunk 1/2 an inch.
I wanted it all, and in my way of thinking that's another
defining characteristic of being born transsexual: You want to be what you should have been as much as possible. I'm done transition and now, for all intents and purposes, am the woman I should have been. You, however, think some of it is unnecessary and would like to opt out of certain things. You don't have that need, that desire to be all you should have been. That's what separates someone born transsexual and someone who's transgendered.
Different needs, different perspectives, different goals; that's why I believe this question can't be fully answered. You can't really relate to my experience because you haven't lived it.
If I may...
For me it was transition or die, even die trying. As with Tink, I was not a man, even though I did everything in my power to try and be a man, no matter what I did I was still stuck with a horribly deformed body. Like many I even thought of suicide for if I could not be happy, and live my life as it was meant to be, what the heck is the point. I guess I could have "Sucked it up" so to speak and got on with my life, but what kind of a life would it have been.
I tried many things, even self mutilation to alleviate the pain and anguish but it didn't work, and so it got to the point where I had to make a decision; Live a happy life, or end a morbid one. The choice was simple.
Steph
I have been depressed all my life. I thought it might have been my living conditions. I knew that I was female and I tried to be male. I really tried. I know when I was 15/16 I was going to commit suicide as my living conditions were not all that well and I was an outcast as I didn't fit in with the boys and I wasn't a girl. I was alone. I was left in charge of my family at age 9 and I was just tired. I chicken out but that is another story. I did at age 48 try to down some pills. I just wanted to go to sleep andnever wake up. I had been crossdressing quite a bit then and realized that I could not pass and my wife said she would leave me and that I had this picture of what I didn't want to be. Of course it didn't work out, I went to the hospital and got my stomach pumped and the started seeing a therapist. It is funny how a simple little surgery in the genital area cures depression. I'm no longer depressed. Sure, I have my ups and downs, but nothing like I was before.
Sheila
for all those, that wondered about my wrath questions, there has been a little bit shown. yes, i admit, i haven't lived any one of your lives. there are so many days i don't want to live mine. i'll admit, i may just be transgender, or even bi-gendered. i only utter my statements because they are true, some people just accept me as a feminine guy(like the redneck coworkers i have), but i am always working on getting them and everyone around them to addres me properly. even if i am bi-gendered, i am still more on the female side rather than male, i could throw all my male clothing away and it wouldn't bother me a bit, but i keep it, because my wife wears it and looks ever so sexy in it. and some days i have that overwhelming desire be completely female and other days, i just want to be me. i've repeatedly told my wife ince i met her that i want my own set of breasts and an ass that cloely resembled hers. i am happy to see all the responses i got and hope to see more, it does help me a lot more than you think. it's like i told Amanda, i do want hrt to make sure it is what i want, but the last thing i'm going to do is self-medicate myself. around here i'll be honest, there really aren't a lot of therapists who deal with GID in my immediate area, not to mention it isn't all that easy for me to get somebody to watch my kids while i go to therapy. tbh, you guys have been a real big support group for me to do a lot of stuff that i wouldn't have done with just the encouragement from my wife when i do get it. my desire may not be that strong for everything yet, i am still quite young, but as many of you said, it usually only gets worse.
i've felt like quite a lot of you, i never fit in with the guys at all, i have very few guy friends and plenty of girl friends. i posted these questions to see if i was the only one who was not suicidal about her decision, because yes i am in the process of transitioning at work, i am getting the information and hopefully the money around to change my name. it's like i told my sister the other day, i have been and always will be Mickie. that will never change. yes, i want sort of "opt" out of a lot things, like changing some laws as i live in Ohio. here we don't recognize same sex marriage or anything of the like, nor do we change gender markers on birth certificates, and if we could we still have to catch the woman at the dmv in a very very very good mood, which to be honest, i have caught maybe since i have been driving and the last time i went to that dmv she was gone. i also posted another thread on here about if anyone had transitioned with hrt and a few others actually have, i have been told by three other ts women that i am excellent candidate for transitioning just based on body structure alone, yes i know my mental state has to be there as well, that's where therapy comes in, i can hopefully go talk to someone who suppose to be neutral on the situation and hopefully unlock the gates to hrt for me. my wife told me a while back to take her birth control as it had extremely low doses of estrogen in it, she said she did notice some changes in me and i did as well. i'm just waiting and questioning as any girl would do...lol
thanks all,
Mickie
Warrior Princes
If I were living as my old persona, maybe I wouldn't be dead in the literal sense, but I'd be part of the living dead, a much more cruel, morbid way to stay "alive".
Yeap, It applied to me.
Back in the dark past (which seams like a lifetime but is only 14 months ago), I was there, Transition or die. I had heard it a lot on the forums and did not think it would apply to me untill my depression hit me down the gutter. Once I knew I guess there was no turning back even though I wanted to turn and run as quickly as possible. I was become the living dead.
Alice
I had always felt that it would be much easier to live without transitioning. I like women, I want children, I want to marry, I want to have a traditional life. But there was no way I could get that. I've had a few breakdowns, and although I always got back up before getting too carried away with things, I just was not willing to push myself that close to the edge again.
Even since I just started to take care of matters, things have looked up tremendously. Its like night and day. My only wish is that things would go faster for me instead of having to wait for so long to see the proper specialists here...
I've given myself timetables, like getting married at a certain age. That is long past and didn't happen, and recently I said if I don't transition by X age, I could not live on. Now that I'm actually in the transition I don't think so negative anymore.
I do still ocassionally think about death though. Often times it's putting a gun right between my forehead brow bossing, it would be so... so justified. Until FFS the thought will be there. I'm 1000 times more positive about my whole situation since HRT.
Quote from: Princess Mickie on April 24, 2008, 12:22:48 PM
my questions are: who of you are transition or die?
and why do you feel that way?
i'm asking because i'm not suicidal and trying to figure out if i am the only one. i'm looking for this to be a very hot topic, so let the wrath begin, if there is any...
you are not the only one. there is a lot of T3 going aroundf where if one person is, another must be too to not be less ->-bleeped-<- than they are.....
At the end of the day, people have different dysphorias....
you say yo dont want hrt or feel suicidal? lucky i guess.
dont want to be suicidal, its not fun, trust me....
R >:D
I think I'm going to catch a few ZZZ before I attempt to respond to this thread. I will say I did go through the suicidal phase, that was 8 years ago. Now 8 years later I am where I wanted to be all my life anyway, I am woman. The hapiest I have ever been in my life.
Cindy
If not transition or die, how else could it be described? Transition or more lies?
I was good at denial, telling myself I just wouldn't be a REAL woman without all the internal organs, and having gone through a female puberty...
Yeah, it'll never work...
But year after year I kept asking myself the same question over and over again -- "What's WRONG with me?" There was depression, but it just seemed part of the landscape. Somehow I coped.
Comparing my life before and after transition, it feels like the movie The
Wizard of Oz, with everything pre-transition in black-and-white, then after a tumultuous period, my world turns to gold-standard Technicolor!
Compared to before, I really look forward to each day.
Karen
I should note maybe that I am 61, have always known that I was female. My depression and anxiety always seemed to run in cycles of severity. My first attempt at suicide was at 19 by overdose and death by cop. Fortunately I passed out before being shot. The prospect of being institutionalised back then was scarier than trying to live as normally as I could. Anyone remember the movie "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest?, That was how I remember the place.
Second attempt came at around 35 years old after having sought SRS and was denied it due to the SoC veiws of that era. I tried to OD again and managed to keep my self uncontious for 72 hours and gained a Court ordered commital for 30 days. Seeing how I was married and had two young sons at the time, I learned to start burying my dysphoria with my first mental barricades.
Over the course of the years my dysphoria would surface, each time getting a little worse but I was able to build another wall here, a fence there. I did on several occasions talk to Mental health folks but was always left with the idea that nothing had changed and that I would never be able to transition.
In 1985 and after having included a second marriage and alcoholism to my resume in order to try to live normally, the dysphoria again surfaced in a major way and I tried suicide again. As OD'ing hadnt been all that successful I drove a Jeep Cherokee Chief into a culvert at 60 mph. As Im still here writing this, I can only guess that there were force afoot that wanted me around for something. I took that jeep end over end for thirty feet and rolled it three times, the top being flatened to the seats with the exception of the drivers seat. At least I didnt go back to the Psych ward that time, but I did spend a month getting de-toxed and learning all about the twelve step program.
Well, with my new found belief in a higher power I managed to last until last July. I must reiterate that the Dysphoria, depression and axiety only gets worse with time and never goes away. So here I was last July the whole thing crashing down on me again, only this time I knew without a doubt that I could go no longer. I had become very active in a Church over the last four years and was using extreme guilt as a buffer and I think it was my final wall.
As I left for work that morning I was quite convinced that I would not return home. I cried all the way there feeling guilt of what would happen to my family. I nearly avoided steering my vehicle into an oncomming Semi several times. I made it to work that morning and during periods of working alone cried my eyes out several times. I work at a hospital and have pretty much free access anywhere in the buildings. Well to cut this short, I found my way to the fourteenth floor roof and spent about five minutes standing on the edge contemplating death and my misery. I then remembered a staff member that had recently told me if I ever needed anything to call her after I had done some work in her office.
I decided to try one more time and to my surprise her boss was the head of Employee Assistance. We three had a long talk and they gave me TG resources to contact and told that times and things had changed. Well I am here to prove that and while I am still fighting anger, rage and such for the lost years I have never been at more peace and been more content than I ever have been. Eight months on HRT, a very good Endo, a good Therapist and much more.
So now that I have have once again wrote a book, the ending should be fairly clear. Yes, for me this life has always been a choice between suicide and transitioning. I cannot begin to understand how I ever made it to this age and I always think of those girls that didnt and Im certain that the list is very long.
Thanks for allowing me to express this once again. My intent is to offer hope for others. It does get better than it used to.
Hugs
Wendy
Hi Wendy C hon, welcome to Susan's. I am post op 4 years and have been full time for 8 years. I am 62 years old and what more can say, I very much identify with what you have shared with us here. I was alcoholic for 25 years. I would like to share more with you but right now I am going a TS support center where my partner and I are support workers.
Cindy
This is very hard for me I'm 28 and I've never mentioned anything about this to anyone I've kept it all to myself
So I've basically suppressed it for a decent period now. I'm frankly stuck I cant come out due to a number
of reasons family friends and simple economic's would stop me doing any changes even if i did.
this is the first time I've said anything at all. Anyway my situation is upseting me and
I'm finding it on my mind almost all the time it used to be something I'd
only think about when trying to sleep at night or if something reminded me.
But I guess theres limits to suppressing something and I'm beginning to hit it. So this topic I'm finding
extremely disturbing to me, is there nothing i can do to help cope, what I'm asking here is
there truly no way i can channel this into something i can keep to myself but allows me to
not continue suppressing inside. I would love nothing more then to fix this but right now i
see no options, I really don't want to get depressed or start drinking but the comments here
are suggesting thats my future....and some issues i already have are starting to make sense
as to where they are coming from.
HI Yip. Welcome to the forums. :)
I know what a tough thing it can be to share these troubles with others. I hope you'll stick around, and if you have a chance, post a new thread in the Introductions forum (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/board,8.0.html) to let us all know you're here.
Of course only you can know what your gender troubles can mean for you and how you can best deal with them. Certainly keeping it all to yourself is terribly hard. I haven't yet come out to most people I know, but I have to some friends and family, and while it's one of the hardest things I've ever done, it's also been worth it just to have that burden shared by others, and to know that they won't reject me for being who I am.
There are lots of small ways I find to cope from day to day with having to live in a male role, at least for now. Clothes are part of it -- for instance, why on Earth should I wear men's jeans when it's a little pinprick to my soul every time I put them on? Nobody notices; it just makes getting through the day somehow easier. Also, in social settings, I try to avoid artificially playing up masculine behaviors to compensate for my fears of being "discovered" as I have done in the past. Living alone helps me have some space where I don't have to put up a false front to the world. I don't know how much of this you might be able to do yourself, but you can try little things and see how they go. You'll probably find that others notice and care much less than you do -- since you're not in high school anymore; that would be a different story! ;) -- so you probably have more freedom than you think.
Most transsexual and transgendered people do not become alcoholic or attempt suicide -- though the rates are certainly sharply higher than in the general population, and depression is pretty widespread. :( I'd very highly recommend trying to find a therapist. Depending on where you are, you can find therapists who can work with your insurance, or charge on a sliding scale to support people who couldn't get help otherwise. You might want to check out the Therapists and Counselors (https://www.susans.org/Medical/Therapists_and_Counselors/) page to find someone in your area who specializes in gender issues. This can be really worth it, even if they are a bit farther away. If it's too much trouble to go weekly, you can certainly go biweekly or even monthly, and still get a LOT of benefit out of it.
I hope something can happen soon to make you feel less "stuck," but even if it doesn't right away, I hope you can understand that you have lots of options, especially if you are patient and take your time. I wish you many blessings.
~Alyssa
Hi Yip :) While new here at Susans also I would wish you a warm welcome. You have come to the right place to start getting answers to your questions and directions on how to find yourself. Please do not take my post as a future to look forward to. You have arrived at a time that I believe is 100% better than when I started my journey. Times have changed and information, sharing with other TS, Standards of Care, good Therapist and Endocrinologists are much better now. I was only trying to answer the question from my particular viewpoint and my own experience.
I will not say it will be easy for you and this ride will be very much like a roller coaster. Alyssa made very good reccomendations and listed a good starting place with finding a qualified Gender Therapist. I truly hope you find your way Hon and hugs. Stick around awhile and you will learn much.
Wendy
For me, it was transition or die; I could no longer bare it; walking around female, untill someone came home. Everyone else accepted it. And every day the bucket dripped full, untill I no longer could take it. I wanted to get rid of the doubt that was surrounding me as well, regarding this subject.
But the bucket was full, I no longer could take it. It was transition, or die, but more in a figure of speach. I know I can't take my life, it's unethical imho. Even when things are so depressed, I always compare myself to someone who is worse off, that's my way of survival so far. I was talking to a psychologist right before and said: I either kill myself or go 24/7. His bodylanguage changed.
And asked carefull: Do you have any plans for that?
I said: No, because it's going 24/7 not the other "option"
There was only one problem, my father. He was the one from keeping me from going 24/7. But no longer, I just didn't care anymore what he said or do (There's only nonsense coming out of him, so.......).
So, i'm now 24/7 since 24th of April, it feels good, no more suicide thoughts (I had the thoughts, just not the plans, or any will to do so.), I also feel less tired than before, as if a burden is taken away.
And me and my father no longer talk to each other (While we still live in the same house ::) )
Quote from: Karen on May 11, 2008, 10:12:14 PM
Compared to before, I really look forward to each day.
Very recognisable. I'm also making plans to go studying again :)