I'm not really new to the TG community, but I've been avoiding it.

When I was younger, I had a year of intense depression where I strongly felt transition was inevitable.

I bottled it up, got past it, or so I thought but I'm approaching 40, and the feeling that I want to be a woman, is returning.  I don't want it to come back.

I just can't imagine it will work.  I'll just wind up divorced, living a life as a fat, way too tall and ugly woman without friends.  I'm currently married to someone I love very much, I'm a fat, tall and ugly guy without friends.  That seems a little futile.

But that's the depression.  I feel that way about everything.

I am just filled with this deep anxiety that the only way I'll ever be happy is as a woman, or that if I try to transition, it will take my life from crappy to intolerable.

I'm also stuck from really getting to express femininity due to financing and living in an intolerant relative's home.

I don't know, I just feel like I needed to put this out there.

You should talk it over with a gender therapist. There's no rule that says you have to do a full transition. Even just a low dose of estrogen might help ease your mind. Whatever/whenever you decide, find someone with experience and compassion to help you sort it all out, and take it one step at a time.

And make use of Susan's. It helps so much just to be in touch with people who understand. You're not alone here.

Welcome Particle.  I repeat what Jillian said: you are not alone here.

I was a boring and unattractive man with a wife and family, a home and a church.  Even before I made the decision to transition - thinking about it was enough - I lost my wife and my home and almost all my family.  The church threw me out, and all my 'friends' were in that church and never spoke to me again.

For me it was worth it when I did make the decision to live as the person I really am.  I can't say if it would be for you but please do continue to explore your feelings.

Mary

I've located a therapist who takes my insurance.

I'd probably even be happier if I could make some minor adjustments .

Sometimes the small things go a long way. I know for me, just using men's deoderant and shaving with a men's razor felt really good. Going on birth control to eliminate monthly hormonal fluctuations completely changed my life too. You'd be surprised at how much better you might feel about yourself and your situation just from doing things that no one else will even notice.

Quote from: Lo on November 23, 2013, 12:56:10 PM
Sometimes the small things go a long way. I know for me, just using men's deoderant and shaving with a men's razor felt really good. Going on birth control to eliminate monthly hormonal fluctuations completely changed my life too. You'd be surprised at how much better you might feel about yourself and your situation just from doing things that no one else will even notice.

It's quite common for tentative MtFs to wear women's underwear.  I found that just felt wrong under male outerwear but it does seem to be a popular choice.  I started wearing some small items of feminine jewellery - that doesn't really come under "Things that no-one else will notice" though!

Yeah, I actually have been plucking my eyebrows to a neat men's/heavy women's level.

It does help a little.

Ugh, I am gonna have to reopen this issue with my wife, and as I'm going closer to the transition monster her reaction will be stronger.

Maybe I should take up something manly like strength training and buzz off most of my hair.

That'll work, right... oh wait that was the past year and a half.

It does feel like you are getting very close to the point of no return.  Where your life, sanity and health outweigh the marriage that has already fallen apart.  How much longer can you keep up the pretence?  Of course I don't really know you or your situation, but that's the way it was for me and it seems for many of us.

Hi Particle,

Sounds like a familiar situation to mine. I want to be able to let the woman in me express herself but I don't exactly know where to go to do so, and financially, things are tight
especially with Christmas rapidly approaching.

The Gender Therapist was good advice I'll probably be doing the same early next year. It may be a little expensive, I'am sure they'd be more than happy to work with you so you only have to pay what you can when you can.

Even just one session I'am sure may help you see how far you need to go.

Best wishes,
Marie

My marriage hasn't fallen apart.  She knows this is more than a fetish, and I fully believe she would love and support me going full transition and srs.  She just would need to end our marriage.  She'd accept me as a woman, but she doesn't want a sexual or romantic relationship with a woman.

I'm not sure where the line is but it's not because we don't love each other.

I just want to make sure this is real or just an escape from myself.

As a (former) fat still tall and basically ugly guy having twice experimented with transitioning in my 20's I can say there is hope. The fat part is the easiest. Though I'll admit having lost close to 1000 lbs over the years, 5l-10 bs at a time.

Twice I tried to see and what I saw was ugly. No way could I survive transition without having an even more miserable life. I opted to soldier on as a "normal" make, or as close to one as I could. Managed fairly well for a few decades. That is if you don't count a constant state of depression and slow decline into becoming a lifeless, joyless, machine whose only purpose in life was to wake up go to work eat sleep and repeat. While waiting for the inevitable disaster to strike.

The last episode of the excrement hitting the air handler came about 5 years ago. Lost my job, had to relocate some 350 miles away from my home and wife that I love more than life itself. Work at a totally crap job where I felt totally useless, pretty much was. No longer the hero, the status I usually rose to in smaller companies. Something impossible in a place with tens of thousands on the payroll.

Amazingly, within a couple of years I achieved my life long dream, to be seen as and accepted as a woman. It took a ton of hard work, a few gallons of tears, and the help and support of a wonderful TG group. Most of all I gained self acceptance.

My sense of duty and obligations prevent me from going full-time, for now. Not sure if ever. Fear is the biggest demotivator. The other is the potential cost or fallout. Again fear driven.

I think my plan is to lose weight I'm 6'3" 450 lbs

If I do transition, I won't be a petite girl, but maybe pull off an amazon. 

Quote from: particle on November 23, 2013, 10:56:09 PM
I think my plan is to lose weight I'm 6'3" 450 lbs

If I do transition, I won't be a petite girl, but maybe pull off an amazon. 

One more inspirational thought. I used to be an even 6ft tall. Thanks to the ravages of time and gravity I am now over an inch closer to my goal height of 5'6". I figure in another 172 years I'll finally achieve that too. 

A member of my group, as he puts it, is 6 ft 18 inches and heavily built. It is difficult to tell just how comfortable he is with his decision not to transition because of that. However, he is on low dose estrogen, does some cross dressing, and has been married for a long time now to an MTF group member.

How far you need to go depends on your comfort zone. Only you can know that. Without self acceptance you will always be in search of some other thing to bring some peace, or happiness into your life. Lack of self acceptance just feeds the depression which in turn promotes the "Why the F should I even try" feelings.

For decades I got by with the ocassional cross-dressing. Having an understanding wife was instrumental. Wife #1 was not so understanding. To be fair she had no idea of my deep dark dirty secret. My current wife and I have been together one way or another for some 30 years. She has always known of my, at least CD need and even my past history of experiments with transitioning. We both concluded I was a CD perhaps a tad more. I had also resolved to do my best to be "Normal" since I felt and experienced the lack of any sort of sucess being more.

Hmm.

Is it weird that I seem to be able to feel more easily empowered if I think of myself as a strong woman rather than a man?

Quote from: particle on November 24, 2013, 08:13:51 AM
Hmm.

Is it weird that I seem to be able to feel more easily empowered if I think of myself as a strong woman rather than a man?

Not at all weird.  One of my friends was telling me I was a strong woman before I'd even made the decision to transition.  She was right - I was no longer a weak man.  I just hadn't come to terms with reality.

Quote from: particle on November 23, 2013, 10:56:09 PM
I think my plan is to lose weight I'm 6'3" 450 lbs

If I do transition, I won't be a petite girl, but maybe pull off an amazon. 

Stay positive about losing weight. You always want to keep your goals high but take gradual steps to get there!

and tall Guys/Girls are sexy too!

Too many feelings are hitting me.   I feel like I want to be dead inside again.  I feel guilt and shame and good old frustration fueled anger,

Ironically I think I'm more attracted to my wife I think myself is a lesbian woman than I do aa a man .

Why the hell did I open this damn mental Pandora's box?  Very much in crisis.

Quote from: particle on November 24, 2013, 05:18:15 PM
Too many feelings are hitting me.   I feel like I want to be dead inside again.  I feel guilt and shame and good old frustration fueled anger,

Ironically I think I'm more attracted to my wife I think myself is a lesbian woman than I do aa a man .

Why the hell did I open this damn mental Pandora's box?  Very much in crisis.

Ahhhh My two oldest and dearest TG friends; Guilt and Shame. One of them I almost finally lost, that's shame. It took years of hard work. Guilt is a lot more resourcefull. Hard to loose that one completely. Especially when it concerns how all this is affecting my wife. In most others areas both are vanished.

Ironically, opening that box; finally taking on the beast; is what vanquished them. At times it is an uphill battle. Yet I suspect much like myself, you already what doesn't work. Which is why you are here. Questioning. Examining.

It does get better

Quote from: JoanneB on November 24, 2013, 05:53:47 PMIt does get better

This is so difficult to believe.  I have a lifetime of coping strategies for my social anxieties and autistic tendencies, and a lifetime of conditioning and practice finding a "normal" male niche to fit into.  I have such a strrong, automatic revulsion to feminine things, while also having an intense attraction to them.

I also have a big problem in that I like to call myself "cult-fodder".  I'm intelligent.  Arrogantly so.  But my critical thinking isn't that great, so ideas I expose myself too start seeming like "oh this answers the deep yearning questions in my soul"  I'm worried that I'm allowing that to happen now, that I'm depressed and vulnerable and I'm opening myself up so I can believe that everything will be rosy if I become a woman.  I'm worried that I have warped my own childhood memories to support this.

Then there is a voice, a clarion call in my head.  It says that out of fear I've hit snooze on my gender issues too long. It says that something terrible is going to happen if I don't get rid of my fear.

I'm terrified that I am a woman, and that I will need full transition and SRS and all that.  I'm so terrified I won't explore beyond sexual fantasies of myself as a woman, and occasional (maybe 10 times more fully, less than 50 partial) attempts to crossdress.  (I know that isn't enough.)

I DON'T WANT THIS!  I just want them to fix whatever broken part of my brain and mind makes me feel like this and become a normal guy.  That won't be the person I am right now, but SHE isn't the person I am right now either.

*edit*
Removed the trans-phobic screed which I laid out explaining my mental justifications for why I should be able to overcome this and be a normal male.  It was never 100% what I believed, and really there is enough negativity out there, especially from an obstinate and biased viewpoint.
*/edit*

Yeah, I think a gender therapist may be really critical soon...

Quote from: particle on November 24, 2013, 08:14:39 PM
I have a lifetime of coping strategies for my social anxieties and autistic tendencies ...

Oh not another Aspie!  My local Asperger support group were quite happy to accept me as a woman after having known me as a man.  One of the men even failed to realise the new woman in the group was someone he had met several times before as a man.

Quote from: particle on November 24, 2013, 08:14:39 PM
I also have a big problem in that I like to call myself "cult-fodder".  I'm intelligent.  Arrogantly so.  But my critical thinking isn't that great, so ideas I expose myself too start seeming like "oh this answers the deep yearning questions in my soul"  I'm worried that I'm allowing that to happen now, that I'm depressed and vulnerable and I'm opening myself up so I can believe that everything will be rosy if I become a woman.  I'm worried that I have warped my own childhood memories to support this.

That was a significant worry for me too, and is still to some extent.  Is being a woman my latest "Aspie special interest"?  I don't think so because I am happier and more peaceful than I have ever been before, but the niggling worry is still there.

Quote from: particle on November 24, 2013, 08:14:39 PM
I DON'T WANT THIS!  I just want them to fix whatever broken part of my brain and mind makes me feel like this and become a normal guy.  That won't be the person I am right now, but SHE isn't the person I am right now either.

Sorry Particle - that's not going to happen.

Quote from: particle on November 24, 2013, 08:14:39 PM
Yeah, I think a gender therapist may be really critical soon...

Yah think?