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You're not alone! I felt like this when I was a guy I felt sickened when I saw myself,it went away when I changed but it takes time.Hang in there, I'm a 6'3" Glamazon you can be to!

For me it was. But after my srs it got better.  What do you want to know?

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Plus with diet hormones and time your body will change a lot. After my orchi my body really changed. Yours will too

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muuuu, regarding bloating, the less water you drink, the more you'll bloat! Or after drinking diuretics like coffee or alcohol, that remove the water in your system. If you're not getting enough, the body thinks it needs to conserve the remaining water, so it kinda hangs onto it. Drink two liters of water a day, and watch the bloat vanish....

As for the rest, well, most women (and maybe people) have body issues these days to one degree or another. They hate this or that part of themselves, something which you would prolly kill for in your own shape, right? But that's life. It'll get better with a few years on HRT I think. Good luck!

Transition takes a long time especially muscle mass reduction and fat redistribution nothing spectacular is going to happen in a couple of months.

You need to be realistic about your expectations and if you can't be you will be very disappointed. I'd like to be 5'6" and weigh 120lbs but that's never going to happen. I wish I didn't have to wear a size 12 shoe but I do. I'm not the only 6' tall 160 lbs woman out there.

The question is do you need to be pretty or do you need to live your life as a woman? These are two different things. Your view of what a woman should be is idealistic, lots of woman would like to be what you describe but most are not.

I think this is where therapy could potentially really help you. You sound like you have your gender issues more or less sorted out now you need to work on your body issues. I had major body issues as well but 2 years on hormones and FFS have done wonders for me I don't get misgendered and I don't need to cry about the way I look anymore. (and believe me I cried!...a lot!)

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Quote from: aprilrain on November 15, 2012, 06:44:49 AM
The question is do you need to be pretty or do you need to live your life as a woman?

^^^^ this

Of course, it would be nice to be a pretty woman but, to me at least, it is more important to be treated as a woman and lose this fake male exterior.

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Hating your body is common.  I hate mine, every time I look in a mirror.  I see a middle-aged male,  I can see what could have been had I come to terms with being TS earlier, and I see the damage and limitations of what I now have to work with. 

Everyone wishes sometimes for things that cannot be, that they grew up differently, that they were shorter, or smaller-framed, or whatever.  Natal women wish for such things, too.  Still, some of your words concern me.  Having a more feminized body - your body - is absolutely achievable. But weak and helpless?  Being shorter than you are?  These are expressions of longing and pain but not a healthy focus looking forward.  Take an honest assessment of yourself to see what your possibilities are.  The transformations I've seen are AMAZING.  April is one example. Even knowing this, I continue to share some of the despair, but I've seen more than enough to give hope, too. 

Quote from: muuu on November 15, 2012, 07:07:33 AM

Yet again, I'm really scared to ask for things (psychologist/psychiatrist), so I don't want to do it unless I have to. Did you go to a psychiatrist while dealing with body issues, and did it help any? Or was time and working out the only way to get helped?

You sound the same way as I did ~18 months ago.  I hated my body, how huge my upper body was in comparison to the rest of me, didn't want to be 6ft tall etc...  I really wanted to be short and pretty, and no matter how many times people close to me said that I looked like an attractive girl I refused to believe them. I saw a psych and various gender therapists, but none of them were any help at all.

Things only started changing when I was about 8 months on hormones.  Passing as a guy started to get hard, I'd often get female pronouns even when I was trying to be male.  The first time I went to a pub wearing a dress I had two guys offer to buy me a drink and one that said I was gorgeous, all before I'd managed to get to the bar!  It was then that I started to understand that other people saw me as an attractive woman.

Now I'm 2 years on hormones, I still see my body to be ugly, huge, tall, masculine etc... but I've also come to see that for everyone else I'm a tall attractive blonde.  It's still hard dealing with the fact that I think I'm ugly, but it really does help knowing that I'm the only one that sees me like that.

You've only been on hormones 2 months, give it some time and keep in mind that how you think you look is probably a lot worse than the way you actually look.

Quote from: Raneth on November 15, 2012, 08:58:40 AM

You sound the same way as I did ~18 months ago.  I hated my body, how huge my upper body was in comparison to the rest of me, didn't want to be 6ft tall etc...  I really wanted to be short and pretty, and no matter how many times people close to me said that I looked like an attractive girl I refused to believe them. I saw a psych and various gender therapists, but none of them were any help at all.

Things only started changing when I was about 8 months on hormones.  Passing as a guy started to get hard, I'd often get female pronouns even when I was trying to be male.  The first time I went to a pub wearing a dress I had two guys offer to buy me a drink and one that said I was gorgeous, all before I'd managed to get to the bar!  It was then that I started to understand that other people saw me as an attractive woman.

Now I'm 2 years on hormones, I still see my body to be ugly, huge, tall, masculine etc... but I've also come to see that for everyone else I'm a tall attractive blonde.  It's still hard dealing with the fact that I think I'm ugly, but it really does help knowing that I'm the only one that sees me like that.

You've only been on hormones 2 months, give it some time and keep in mind that how you think you look is probably a lot worse than the way you actually look.

This is exactly what I'm going through. When I tell people I'm trans the first things they usually say are (women) "I would've NEVER guessed... I mean... you're GORGEOUS!" or (men) "Huh? Well you sure don't look like a guy. You look better than any ->-bleeped-<- I've ever seen on TV ...  I can tell they're all men."

Me on the other hand? I still wonder if I pass. I ask my roommate every time I go out of my doors "do I look ok?" "do I pass?" ... I still see old me and wonder how people see me the way they do. Yeah, I get glimmers of confidence when I look in the mirror. I also see a a wide chin, thick eyebrows, imperfect skin, a wide rib cage, a low hanging jaw, big nose... I hate pictures because I see "guy" in all of them.

I might be the very typical 5'3", size 5-6, size 34B girl blah blah blah to you, but I have my insecurities... and IDK if I see them going away unless I get some FFS at least.

Well myself being Tall and Heavy right now (but I'm working on the heavy part) I too would like to feel more dainty and graceful, however I don't want to be weak and helpless, no instead id rather be like Super Girl or Wonder Woman or She Hulk. Why? Well because I personally think amazon type women are very sexy and you should not feel bad about yourself, I would be so grateful If i could end up looking like a noble warrior woman.

Now i do understand that you'd like to be smaller and slimmer and be comforted, I want that too in a way, which is why I will be looking for a gal that's taller and bigger than me, of which I had decided on a long time ago that was what I was attracted to when it comes to body types.

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Hmm, Idk if my perspective will help- I doubt it- but I'll share it anyways!!

Just for clarification- I'm genetically female and okay with that.

Okay, when I was younger and growing up I was always the biggest kid in my class. I was chubbier and taller and I had a huge freakin head. I hated it so much! I just felt like this giant walking around with a bunch of babies. It evened out in high school, but until then, I was an oddball. Right now I'm 5'6, 140lbs and about as ungraceful as a person can get. My gf always jokingly calls me her dainty little flower because in truth I'm like a bull in a china shop. When I was a kid, I longed to be little like my peers. I just wanted to fit in! Somehow, over my childhood, I guess I grew to love how different I was and now I wish I could be taller and more like an amazonian warrior lady. I'll never be able to be what I want, but I'm okay with what I've got cus I really don't think I have much of a choice.

Since my gf has given me so much love though, I've really come to love and adore my body cus she just dotes over me all hours of the day. This has helped me a lot. I think it's sad that I needed that reassurance, but meh.

Actually, I really don't know where I was going with this story.. maybe I was just trying to give you an example of how a person can go from body hate to body love... it can happen

Quote from: muuu on November 15, 2012, 09:36:48 AM
Well... I could see FFS helping if you're concerned over your face. But is your face really as bad as you think? Or is it just something you see?


What I'm thinking is... If I keep feeling the way I feel now about myself, I'll always live like I do now (be in my apartment, do _nothing_ except hating myself). And, because you both still see a man in the mirror, maybe there's something you have to work out, mentally. Like, it doesn't seem to go away on itself, and I really don't want to get stuck like I'm now.
Soooooo, seeing a psychologist/psychiatrist doesn't seem like too bad of an idea. Though, maybe that's something you should do after you've gotten a bit into transition?

It's just me. I see the old me. People think I'm crazy once I talk about cutting my face open and doing surgery to it. They can see a nose job helping that's about it. And my nose isn't that bad ... just... *I* can see it. One of the last times I saw my therapist, even he said "Do you think you can be a guy if you needed to? People are going to have a hard time seeing you as a guy, even if you tried"

My point is, hormones and even therapy isn't going to get you to stop seeing the residual man in your face. You wake up every morning, brush your teeth and see yourself. You do this every day of your life. Most of us (like me) have fretted over how masculine we look and how much we hate it most of our life. So that residual sense of masculinity just doesn't fade unless you do something that changes you SERIOUSLY like surgery.

Am I less dysphoric about my looks now that I've been on HRT for over a year? Oh yes absolutely. But is it gone? No. To add, from all the trans women I've met, I think I'm extremely fortunate with my results on HRT, too....

But you can't let that stop you from going out. There are days I don't wanna go out either because I look ugly as sin in my own view. But I go out. I do what I want. There's no point in going through all this extra crap that a human being shouldn't have to go through just to sit at home and hate yourself. It's so counter to what transitioning is about.

Quote from: muuu on November 15, 2012, 09:36:48 AM

What I'm thinking is... If I keep feeling the way I feel now about myself, I'll always live like I do now (be in my apartment, do _nothing_ except hating myself).

That's exactly how I was when I first started, except I was living with my parents.  Luckily I had an incredibly supportive girlfriend who made sure I eventually went out and started socialising again.   

Quote from: muuu on November 15, 2012, 09:36:48 AM

And, because you both still see a man in the mirror, maybe there's something you have to work out, mentally. Like, it doesn't seem to go away on itself, and I really don't want to get stuck like I'm now.

It's definitely some psychological thingy that needs to be worked out, and maybe people who are further on in their transition than I am have managed to sort it out (I'm sure they have, but it seems the further someone goes with transition the less likely they are to hang around).  I seem to be liking my appearance more and more and I think it will pass in time, it just hasn't happened yet!  For me I require outside validation to make the body-hate go away and that certainly wouldn't be possible if I stayed indoors and never interacted with other people.

The only way you'll get stuck the way you are is if you let yourself get in that position.  It may be hard but going outside and making friends is probably the best thing you can do to make sure it doesn't happen.

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