I think regret is a complex thing and I looked at some regret stuff including this thread just to get my head in order before surgery I wouldn't wish it on anyone and I wish anyone who does have regret good luck in sorting things out.

I lived 6 yrs ft before surgery making sure of everything I also said to my self if I don't pass or cant get my voice right or im not happy with any bit of transtion go back to being male dont do it.


Xx

It hurt me to read what you are going through, Roxanne. I really hope everything will work out for you and you'll be satisfied with the results, good luck!

Quote from: crowcrow223 on June 08, 2014, 04:12:32 AM
It hurt me to read what you are going through, Roxanne. I really hope everything will work out for you and you'll be satisfied with the results, good luck!

Thanks.

Still having a hard go at it and it's getting worse. Worried Miro and Co will not get me any kind of reasonable near future date and the thought of waiting 6 months or a year is dreadful. And it's not in the kid waiting for Christmas sense at all. At this point after 1 failure and 1 aborted surgery as long as the third attempt is in the abstract (ie not done) it's going to feel like it's never going to be done. It will fail too. Or just never happen.

Or that Miro and Co will just blow me off and not respond or string me along.

I wish he tried to use the flap from my side at this point even though he said 90% chance of failure. Don't really care that it would have left me with a massive scar I already have one on my left side and my right side is numb now. Also was shocked back in October last year when told I could have died during my first surgery. Well that was my first reaction. Subsequent and current thought has been I wish I had. Thinking about suicide a lot but of course still have the carrot of hope dangled in front of me.

I can relate a lot to how you feeling, and the only thing I can really say is that it's all about the right timing, certain things are meant to happen at a certain time. We just gotta be patient. I really hope though, that they will schedule sth really soon for you! Keep it strong!

Quote from: crowcrow223 on June 09, 2014, 04:05:36 AM
I can relate a lot to how you feeling, and the only thing I can really say is that it's all about the right timing, certain things are meant to happen at a certain time. We just gotta be patient. I really hope though, that they will schedule sth really soon for you! Keep it strong!

I've been home just under 2 weeks after surgery and it feels like a lifetime. Trying not to be a drama queen / exaggerate but it really does. Miro said they would tell me in 2 weeks but of course nothing. Not expecting anything either. Will email one of his assistants Monday night I think (that would be 2 1/2 weeks because they will get it Tues morning).

I keep having both dreams and thoughts of falling off buildings. If this had been the surgery where they said "sorry, we've tried everything, there's nothing we can do" I would have done it already.

Have You thought of counseling in-between planning and having surgeries?

I do have a psychotherapist. I haven't seen her yet since surgery though. It only helps to a small extent though.

And I've tried several anti depressants and they don't work. They just cause horrible side effects. That and perhaps irrational thought but the problem isn't the mind, it's the mind-body mismatch and drugs can't fix that.

I never progressed to the surgery, but I can tell you why I had my regrets about transitioning and the signs.

The biggest reason why I became a regret case is because I wasn't honest about myself about why I was transitioning in the first place. I felt a lot of dysphoria over being seen as male, but it's not because I hate my male body. It was because I thought everyone was thinking that I was a "->-bleeped-<-" and that I wasn't a real man. But I repressed that because I didn't want to face those feelings of inadequacy as a male.

Another sign I should have seen was that I hated the changes from HRT, I hated the breasts, I hated the hair loss, I hated the shrinkage. I hated the emotional changes. I kept telling myself "you have to adjust." I wanted to be seen as female so I could be safe, not because I wanted a female body.

I was saving for SRS, because I believed it would make me a "full" woman. I liked having my penis, and I liked using it, I just believed SRS was the "next logical step." If I had gone forward with it, I'd be an even huger regret case.

I guess the question to ask is why you want SRS. If it's to be "normal" there's a big red flag there. If it's because you really dislike your penis (as I have come to dislike the breasts from HRT) and feel that it doesn't belong, then it is probably the right decision. I want to have the breasts I grew removed and I know this, unlike the transition, is the right choice. I know the difference between my desire for SRS and breast removal because with breasts I genuinely hate them. I don't always feel abnormal for having boobs, they felt alien from the moment they began growing. My penis always felt natural and I had no issues with it.

so the one thing i have been thinking about lately is about my current genitalia, personally before i started transition i wasn't to bothered by having my penis, it didn't cause me great dysphoria, and it really wasn't that big of an issue for me, it hasn't been until i started transitioning and having to deal with hiding it that it has become a problem, everytime i try to wear something that i think would look cute on me, i am always worried about if i would be able to hide it, and usually when i put underwear on i curse at it for being so friggin annoying and just being there, i think i have had my fair share of irritation from it and at this point it really hasn't done anything positive in my life with maybe making it easier to pee if i was to get stranded away from a toilet, right now even before my 1 year RLE, i feel i could get my grs and not have any regrets but i feel like i might just be overlooking something for right now and i do need a year of constant misery from it being there to cement the choice of grs in my mind

Madison, it's a very serious decision so you might benefit from seeing a therapist who would help you decide.

DeanH, how long ago did you transition from male to female?

I started a part time social transition at age 16 (2005) and started the full time and HRT process at age 18 (2007). I started detransitioning in 2011 but I wasn't generally seen as male again until late 2012.

Quote from: LordKAT on June 05, 2014, 01:00:55 PM

You are not wrong. Informed consent, in any place I've seen it, is for HRT and sometimes top surgery, NOT SRS..

I had one Informed Consent HRT provider, and my do people want to pin my SRS regret on that. I saw her after more than 3 years of dealing with endocrinologists and a therapist who interpreted the WPATH SOC in the most strict way they could (e.g. requiring a year of therapy, HRT letter, and RLE to get HRT!) The main plus to that IC provider was that she was *not* one for changing widely changing my Estradiol dose every quarter (which did seriously bad things to me mentally!)

My gender therapist was extremely exacting in ensuring I had the full year of RLE that the SOC "requires" (in her interpretation of it) by not even accepting my request for a letter to be written until 1 full year since my first appointment after transition at work had passed (and it would take another 6 months for her to write the letter, which meant my RLE before SRS was 25 months due to unrelated work and academic restrictions I had.)

A major problem is that many therapists and HRT doctors do not see SRS as an optional part of transition. I went into SRS with doubts; in the last four weeks before surgery I debated canceling. Only the fact that I would be denied HRT from the providers in my area and would lose support from gender therapists (they would have encouraged me to detransition since I declined SRS) and a lack of a viable Plan B pushed me to continue in spite of the doubts - I saw life getting worse for me if I canceled and took the doubtful unknown of SRS instead.

A few weeks ago I was finally able to have an orgasm, and a new round of regret emotions hit as it was a massive disappointment; so much so that I sobbed in emotional agony immediately after the orgasm. I know now that this isn't unexpected, but my gender therapist and HRT doctors had given me a hard sell on SRS that included it invariably being far better (and not taking over a year to access,) etc., that I reasonably came to have expectations that I didn't know were unreasonable. I was dealing with it every 3-4 weeks from my gender therapist and every 1-4 months from my HRT doctors (the HRT docs would not allow me onto a longer schedule so long as I had not yet had SRS, and they mandated that I be in therapy on that schedule until I had SRS or they would cease prescribing HRT to me.)

Quote from: Agent_J on June 17, 2014, 04:11:38 PMI went into SRS with doubts; in the last four weeks before surgery I debated canceling. Only the fact that I would be denied HRT from the providers in my area and would lose support from gender therapists (they would have encouraged me to detransition since I declined SRS) and a lack of a viable Plan B pushed me to continue in spite of the doubts . . .

. . . my gender therapist and HRT doctors had given me a hard sell on SRS . . .

A very interesting and detailed post.  I appreciate you taking the time to share.

Do you mind if I ask whether you aired these doubts and concerns to the gender therapists or surgeons at any point before SRS, and if so, what was their reaction?

Also, did you ever seek a second opinion from an independent therapist (one outside your immediate chain of treatment) before proceeding with the surgery?  Do you think it would have even helped if you had done so?

I don't want to put myself in your shoes and second-guess your decisions, but the level of discomfort you had with the idea of SRS before you underwent the procedure looks like a giant red flag, and one which would have warranted taking a step back and reevaluating.  The fact that nobody in your chain of care picked up on this discomfort is worrying, to say the least.  Again, not criticizing your choices at all; just trying my hardest to avoid regretting my own decisions, and learning from those who have gone before is extremely useful when figuring out where my own healthcare professionals are coming from.

Also, what kind of follow-up have you had with these therapists and the surgeon?  Have they checked in to ascertain your level of satisfaction and how well you're coping, and if so, have they shown any level of interest in changing the way they themselves go about pushing transitioners through the system based upon your feedback?

I never openly stated anything about my feelings as the slightest hints of that early on lead to very negative reactions making it clear I had to toe the line or lose access to any and all parts of transition.

Unfortunately, I was in an area where there weren't other options. When I moved to the region in 2008 there were two known gender therapists, both of whom used the same endo, and two known endos who would prescribe. I decided against trying the other gender therapist when a friend had even worse experiences - she was transitioned at work for more than a year and in therapy for far longer with that one before she was able to get her HRT letter (the prescribing endos in the area then strictly required the HRT letter - they wanted RLE in addition, but they would not prescribe even if one had been FT for years without the letter.)

I saw both endos in the course of my transition and had serious problems with each. The first tried to convince me that the lack of physical results from an extremely low dose of Estradiol (less than the minimum of the guideline suggests) and no anti-androgen proved that I was one of the people for whom HRT would never be effective. The second was constantly worried that I'd have a DVT and looked for results that supported her bias (she dismissed two lab results as "defective" in favor of the one that fit her view that the dose was too high for me, seriously reduced my dose, and then, when the subsequent labs showed that my levels were extremely low, became critical of me, asserting that I wasn't taking the doses before the labs, etc.)

I began seeing a Nurse Practitioner at Planned Parenthood after that (and the above represents nearly 4 years of navigating transition.) She did Informed Consent and I was able to get on reasonable doses at long last. The only negative experience I had with her was after SRS when she required that my E dose be reduced by 25-50% in addition to ending Spiro, and refused to consider ever adjusting it higher than that. After months of feeling miserable I made the 800 mile round trip to a provider in another state who was willing to work with me on dose and, when they ran my labs to determine where I was already, found that my serum Estradiol was lower than the lab was capable of detecting (less than 11.8 pg/mL.)

After SRS I learned of another provider, a GP, in my area who would prescribe HRT. I also learned that my gender therapist had referred people to him for years. However, when I had trouble with the endo to whom she referred me and I requested that she refer me to someone else she directly refused, stating that only that endo was capable of supervising HRT. The way I got to the other endo was to use my GP to get a referral and not let my therapist know that I had changed doctors (that was also the only lie I directly told for my surgery letter - if she knew that my HRT was not being prescribed by the first endo she would have refused to write my letter.) There were a few other options I learned about in the region after I had SRS - suddenly, a lot of people I'd known for years in the local trans community were saying "why didn't you just go to X" but they had not responded when I directly asked for other providers before I had SRS.

At the point that I was asking for letters and scheduling with Dr. Brassard I had so deeply and for so long buried those doubts in my psyche that I no longer realized I had them. I really don't feel there is any blame that Dr. Brassard does or should shoulder - by the time I saw him I was so shell-shocked from dealing with a horrible system that there wasn't anything he could have done to make me trust him with discussing it, and there certainly wasn't anything about the situation where I lived that he was capable of changing.

I have not talked to any of them since SRS. I truly don't believe it would be productive; I don't believe they'd be willing to change their bias that SRS is a mandatory part of transition and all it would accomplish is making transition even more difficult for others in my area.

I would like to thank everyone for their experiences and information.  What I am particularly confused about is the post about where it seems that the more successful GRS is about gender over sexuality. To this I am a bit confused and would like a bit of clarification, as to me they blend together.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: Removed personal information.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like I initially stated I plan to get GRS early next year if possible. I will tell you my expectations.
(+) Capacity to still orgasm after surgery
(+) Aesthetically pleasing to me (from what I've seen from Brassard) this seems very doable.
(+) Depth of at least 5.5" after healing process is done. (At this point in HRT, erect I am probably 4.5-5" with small to average girth) [sorry quick estimate]

I think those are very reasonable expectations. No?  I want this surgery so that I can feel a man inside of me, stop having to tuck, and to feel complete as a woman. I look at my penis now and my brain somewhat recognizes it as a penis, but not really. It's really hard to explain. Just that yes it is indeed a penis, but it doesn't seem right in that location of my body and that something else should be there instead, a vagina.

I feel I will be a very successful patient for GRS. I have maybe a 5% or so doubt, just because I've recently been reading negative effects and outcomes to get a realistic view of what to expect.  I plan to follow my aftercare very religiously, and hopefully I will have found a OB/GYN by that point as I think it will be most helpful to have a local physician helping me along with this. Normally I do not have a PCP, because I am very capable of self diagnosis and remedy.  I expect there to be a weird pain when my cath is removed, and that I may have to stay a day or two longer in the hospital if something goes wrong (but it won't). I expect dilation to be uncomfortable, or at least to begin with and possibly for 3-6mo afterwards.  I expect numbness may stay in that area for upwards of a year.  Acknowledging all of this I would still go through with the surgery.

~~So, what do you think? Success? Disaster waiting to happen? Reason = gender? Reason = sexuality?~~
If I had to answer it would be: Yes, No, Yes, Yes (why do gender and sexuality reasons have to be different?)

The way I see it is that only you can say if it is or isn't right for you. I suspect having gone through FFS will help you have a more realistic view. I will note that orgasm is a variable one. I'm struggling right now because I was lead to believe that I would be able to orgasm within 6 months and that there was no way they would be lesser than what I experienced before SRS. Neither has proven to be the case - I was only able to orgasm after a year and they are very disappointing to me, though I do not doubt a lot of that is frustration with my very high sex drive (I need to get off twice per day, just like before I started HRT.)

I had wanted to do FFS and BA before I had SRS [if I ever did.] My therapist and endos were adamantly opposed to me having either FFS or BA at all. I went into SRS believing that regret was likely but lacking any good other way out of that bad situation, and having been heavily sold on unrealistic results by my therapist and endos: a case that isn't exactly suggestive of a good outcome.

Next week I have to have a physical that will include gyn exam. I'm terrified of just the idea of such an examination and expect to have to take the day off of work because I will be that mentally hurt due to the exam.

Agent J,
I totally agree with you that only I can diagnose myself properly and know if something is right for me. I am opting for GRS before FFS because in all honesty I really don't get misgendered and at this time I feel like I have the resources and ability to take off 2-3mo. However I do like input because some angle might have eluded me. And to me, being well informed is looking at all angles/aspects of a situation.
Lucky me therapist and endo have not pressured me and I'm the one pushing through. In all honesty my endo thinks i should also do FFS first. But i rejected that notion. And orgams have gone from 4-5x a day to only about once a week needing release.
I wish you well on your GYN visit. But why are you aprehensive about it? Sorry, in medical field so surgeries and dr visits no longer cause me anxiety, i just overpower it with happy thoughts

Quote from: Jennifer.Alexandria on June 20, 2014, 10:08:01 AM
Agent J,
I totally agree with you that only I can diagnose myself properly and know if something is right for me. I am opting for GRS before FFS because in all honesty I really don't get misgendered and at this time I feel like I have the resources and ability to take off 2-3mo. However I do like input because some angle might have eluded me. And to me, being well informed is looking at all angles/aspects of a situation.
Lucky me therapist and endo have not pressured me and I'm the one pushing through. In all honesty my endo thinks i should also do FFS first. But i rejected that notion. And orgams have gone from 4-5x a day to only about once a week needing release.
I wish you well on your GYN visit. But why are you aprehensive about it? Sorry, in medical field so surgeries and dr visits no longer cause me anxiety, i just overpower it with happy thoughts

I've never gone to a GYN unless you count going to McGinn seeing if she could still help me. Her touching me there was triggering. Same deal with Miro before the 1st surgery where he extended my urethra.

He still has not given me a date yet for 3rd surgery. Growing angry and sick of waiting. Going to send one more polite (albeit firm) email to his assistant Monday if I still haven't heard back then the gloves come off with the I've been quite patient, you've put me through 2 surgeries, 2 trips across the world, and still have nothing to show for it and you can't even get me in soon / give me a date?

So if I'm understanding the experience of most, basically it seems that most of the regrets are coming from people who were generally okay with what they had beforehand, but were looking to do it because of social expectations to do it, or just because the individual was seeking to look or feel more womanly, and the surgery didn't live up to their expectations. I still don't think I've seen any regrets posted from people whose former anatomy was a constant source of dysphoria, and something that actively bothered them.

Is that about right? Or did I miss something? Or am I oversimplifying it?

While what pushed me to it is different, I agree with your conclusion - I was generally happy with my body before SRS.