So. I'm an emotional mess.

File that under 'Duh.'

So, late this January I had... I don't want to say, 'discovered,' but rather more like.... 'finally admitted that I was a transexual. This admission happened in possibly the worst place ever: Work. Fortunately, my cube is situated kind of out of the way in a corner so I could sit there and just weep for fifteen minutes straight before pulling myself together so I could finish my shift. Don't get me wrong. There was still a fair amount of denial there to help me get through the day, but when this kept happening to me over, and over and over again, it finally hit home that if I really wasn't trans, I wouldn't be feeling so deeply about it as I did. I had to accept this and move on. That was the first week.

Since then, I came out to my primary physician, then found a therapist and came out to her, and then my wife. I still have my son to talk to and my parents, though I'll be speaking to my Mom this weekend. The thing is, I was hoping that coming out, and admitting this to myself and my loved ones would start to make things easier ... but they haven't.

I keep getting these terrible mood swings. It's like I'm okay, and functional one minute, and then I'm blinded by my dysphoria so badly it takes all my willpower to keep from breaking out in tears in public. When I'm at home I just let it happen. I go from knowing that it's possible to change myself in a way that fits me better, and  it's just going to take time, to seeing myself in the mirror and just thinking that I'm a lost cause that, at the end of the day, I'm just going to look like they put some neanderthal in a dress.

What's worse is that I just can't help these feelings. They hit me so hard that my chest tightens up and it almost physically hurts. And I feel helpless in the face of my emotions (and while it may seem I'm sounding rational right now, I've got tears streaking down my face.) and I wish I could do something that would just make it stop when it gets this bad. I'm a wreck, and I know it, and I know that it'll get better, but knowing doesn't help. I'm already on antidepressants. Have been for the majority of my life, and I shudder to think of what my emotional state would be like if I'd stop taking them. I'm not really sure that I want to up the dosage, though, because I don't want to turn myself into a zombie.

Because, let's face it. For the first time in my life my emotions are raw, and genuine, and real, and there are times when I look forward to living because I know that, for the first time in my life, I can actually change things for the better and that there's hope for actually being happy with myself for once.

So. Now that I've done rambling and getting my keyboard soppy with my tears I want to know if any of you felt this way, and how long it took for things to kind of normalize. Because I'm padlocked into this damn emotional rollercoaster and right now all I want to do is get off. 

I'm not good at making people feel better but I'll tell you how I came about admitting to myself.
I met this girl in college, dated her for a few years, lets call her Sally. Smart, funny etc. I really loved this girl, planned on marrying her. Through my life I was very different from other males, she picked up on this. She enjoyed having a boyfriend who was a little feminine.
As time went on Sally started to complain that I was not very manly. She wanted me to act more like a man and treat her more like a woman. I said sure, I could give it a try. That's when things got rather unpleasant, I was forcing myself to be something more than I wasn't. In fact I wanted to go the opposite direction, but of course I didn't admit it at the time. So things started going downhill from there until we split up. It hurt really bad losing that connection with her. I lost total contact from her. No ability to regain what was lost, no longer engaged.
After about a year and half, I was getting over her but other feelings were starting to well up inside. Something I had been pushing down and away since childhood. So what did I do with these feelings? I of course shoved them back down and started to date another girl. I figured as long as I keep my mind focused on a relationship I wouldn't have to worry about those pesky emotions that made no sense to me. The relationship took a drastic nosedive in 5 months. And those feelings I kept down started to seep back into me. I was really lost as to these weird feelings that brought depression. So finally I said screw it, come at me. And it knocked me flat on my back. I sobbed and sobbed letting go of everything that had accumulated and kept hidden over the years. I was finally true to the needs calling deep down.
It really hurt smashing that boy in the face and leaving a crying girl staring back at me in the mirror. But I finally understood where I was, who I was. It took a few weeks to really pick myself back up and another few months to place everything in a functional sort of way. But I feel peaceful inside of myself now, nothing like I have experienced since adolescence.

I can really relate to you. It does seem to get worse for a while after coming out. I've been numbing myself out for a long long time and now it's just all out in the open, and I'm vulnerable. I kind of feel like a mess myself. Whenever my dysphoria gets really bad, I hibernate for a while until I get myself together, then I try to go out and distract myself once the worst of it's passed.

I don't think upping the ADs would do much, because it's probably a normal human reaction to this kind of a situation, and ADs treat chemical imbalances in the brain. The same way I'm on mood stabilizers and antipsychotics for my bipolar and I'm still an emotional wreck. Gender dysporia and depression seem similar but they are very different things, though many people have depression on top of, usually caused by their gender dysphoria. And that seems to be your biggest problem right now. I'm personally waiting for a therapist, I think that'll be a huge help, somebody to pour my thoughts out to and help me navigate through my transition. And HRT, I think that'll help allieviate a lot of my gender dysphoria.

I'm lucky in that my wife has been very accepting of this, and wants us to stay together for as long as possible. She knows that this isn't changing how I feel about her, and if anything, it's caused us to grow closer together since I'm more comfortable in opening up to her about myself. 

And this is part of my frustration. Relatively speaking, things are going very, very well for me. Better than what a lot of you have experienced. Yet I still get so down so frequently so quickly. To kind of give you an example, when I wrote this last night, I was down. But right now I'm up. I'm feeling hopeful and okay, and somewhat normal. Hell, even listening to the sound of my own voice isn't bothering me as much today as it has been all week. But I know that at any time, without any warning, that could change. Argh. 

You know what, whatever happens outside of ourselves, I think the biggest adjustment is what's happening inside. It's a HUGE adjustment to transition from one gender to another, even regardless of circumstances. I think it is is entirely natural that your emotions would be up and down. In fact, it would be more worrisome if you were not having some ups and downs. It means you're dealing, you're coping. It doesn't always feel great but we feel things for a reason. I went through a long period of time where I did anything and everything to try and escape my emotion. It was mostly about unhealthy coping mechanisms. Unhealthy coping mechanisms take you to more unhealthy places. But having mood swings, in the face of something as colossal as transition, regardless of the reaction of those around us and the circumstances we may or may not have to face as a result, is healthy. It means you're moving forward, and you're figuring stuff out emotionally   

Everyone is different, but for me, the worst pain and the worst dysphoria occurred when I could no longer numb or detach or submerge this huge part of myself that was in agony from being in the wrong gender and having no hope of making it right.
There was so much to do and so much I didnt know and couldnt control it was overwhelming. But the one thing I could do for that scared lost sad part of myself was to make a promise that I absolutely intended to keep: to do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, until she could fully live her life.
Then I followed through by doing real things to make her life better. The determination, plus the action, that was the antidote to the soul poison called hopelessness.

Thank you all for you encouraging words. I know things will get better as long as I'm moving forward. I know that it's going to take a lot of work to get me to be where I'll be happy, and the path is clear on what it is I need to do. I've achieved a level of clarity about myself that I've never had before that it frustrates the hell out of me to know, in my head, that there is hope, but feel, in my heart, hopeless. I've been my own worst enemy for so long I sometimes fear I don't know how to do right by myself.