So I'll let you in on a secret: I suffered from debilitating OCD for most of my life (beginning at Kindergarten). These weren't some quirky 'Monk' type antics, this is 4-5 showers a day, wearing surgical gloves in my daily functions, unable to touch literally anything without having to wash my hands afterward, unable to eat anything my parents directly or indirectly touched, zero physical human contact psychosis.

This OCD was obviously a fearsome beast, and extreme GD anxiety only served to exacerbate the issue. It was almost a comfort in a way, having something trivial I had complete control over and could obsess over when I was so miserable with my own body (with which I was obviously powerless). Once I came out, and began pursuing my transition, the symptoms of my OCD finally began to fade. Medication had failed in treating it every time, but unsurprisingly being content with myself brought a serenity more powerful than all the paxil/Zoloft/Lexapro combined. I've been getting better and better, since coming out roughly two years ago, and being on HRT for one; I can let people touch (some) of my things, I can hug (some) people, and I can eat food prepared by (some) people. The progress has been tremendous and it appears to only be improving.

Unfortunately, OCD doesn't really work that way, being more something you get under control than 'defeat'.

You see I am extremely fortunate for a transgirl: shorter side, small framed, high voiced, zero body hair, could never grow facial hair to amount to anything, etc.; I have a great starting point, but despite repeated assurances to the contrary from my friends and SO, I cannot accept that my face is anything other than rigidly masculine. I've been trying to overcome the perception by forcing myself to confront it (using a picture of myself as my avatar for example) but have been pretty darn unsuccessful. It doesn't matter how many good pictures I take, the second I catch myself at the wrong angle I see Ted Danson, Ron Perlman, and any other super-macho faced dude you can imagine.

I'm not so far lost that I'm blind to the consensus of those around me, which is why I'm worried the OCD has just manifest itself in a new, particularly troublesome way. What if I fix my face, then immediately begin focusing on some new imperfection?

Has anyone else similarly dealt with a specific, pervasive obsession related to transition? Has anyone found a way to overcome those obsessions? I'm terrified that I'm not seeing what the rest of the world is seeing, and I'm just magnifying my perceived flaws in my mind to ludicrous, impossible, unhealthy extremes. I don't want to end up like one of those people with 120 million plastic surgeries who look like pool toys in their crusade to combat their own insecurities. I'm worried, however, that just the way my brain functions/my brain chemistry will inevitably fixate on something and I'll never be happy with myself.

I don't want perfection by any stretch, in fact I'd very happily settle for 'homely'; but no matter what I do, no matter who reassures me, all I see is horrendously ugly. (and let me keep this clear in stating I know I have a problem; I know deep down I look friggin' normal but I just can't see it)

Based on your avatar you have a very female face. Based on what many people say on this forum, a lot of people have trouble believing they look female despite the assurances of friends and family. I don't think it really has anything to do with OCD, it's just a version of self-sabotage.

I also think you look very feminine, I can see some slight hints of masculinity but no more-so than I see in many cis-women. I have the same problem looking at myself these last couple of days and realized after something someone commented that as a transwoman I am going to want to not just look female, but look SUPER female, in order to reinforce my identity, and that there is a wide variety of facial structures in women.

Personally I don't think you should feel bad about your feelings, and I don't personally see any problem with considering FFS or similar to make you happier with your face (it is your face after all!) but given your OCD definitely investigate it under the supervision of a licenced professional because of the risk of surgical addiction or over-correction.

Well is it OCD?

A lot of trans people suffer from this. It's actually pretty normal. You've been conditioned to view your features as male, then you see them and so you do.

With no ill will to the people around you--the people around you are never going to tell you the honest truth. It's not even that they want to be nice, though they may want to be nice, but... they might not even know the truth. Most cis people just don't have that clear an idea of what visual masculinity/femininity is. And most trans people err on the optimistic side... because they want to be. But they know the difference, they know when someone looks too good to be true vs. just normally passable. It's just ... not exactly a rare occurrence for someone to get told they're sooo passable and pretty then go out to find that isn't the truth.

The truth is, trans women almost always look different than cis women in one way or another. That doesn't mean they don't pass, but why wouldn't they look different? They went through a different physical development and a different process gives different results. You can reason with it any way you like, but your brain sees something different than it sees with cis girls. Maybe it's your brain's fault, but again, it's not at all unthinkable that something would actually be different.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that you can see something different without seeing something that makes you look like a man... the difference is a self-esteem issue. If you always pass, then it's hard to say you look like a man. If you have a gaping ego wound over the possibility that you might look like a man, then you're going to see that even in just some minor differences. It may be not that you look like a man, but that you look a little different than a cis girl, which, I mean, to an extent is just a part of being trans. You have to accept that.

I'm not trying to be all preachy though, bc I never learned to accept that personally. I struggled/struggle from this even though I've never had the slightest indication that someone saw me as anything other than a girl, I had never been clocked even pre-HRT. Yet I always swore that I looked like a man. Well, I didn't look like a man, that would be ridiculous given that nobody ever thought that. But I may have looked just a little different and that was all it took to hurt my self-esteem. I still don't think I'll ever be able to fight that internal battle. But some people can.

I guess I just wanted to point out that it might not be OCD but a self-esteem issue. It's not really that you have to agree with anyone, you just have to accept their opinions as their opinions and learn that you pass to other people if not to yourself.  I know it's pretty hard but I don't want to be overly negativistic about it.

It helps to get out in crowds and look at lots of everyday people, you will notice that not all females are pretty princesses at all.
You will start to notice many masculine faced women that have excepted their looks and many that have attempted to change their looks. I've even seen supermodels and actresses whose claim to fame is their overly male-ish looks.

  Miss Handy, I totally agree with Grace and think you have a very feminine face, and with your other desireable assets you should be happy happy happy

I'm quite tough on myself as well and often find myself letting out a big disappointed "sigh" when I see a really cute face in a crowd and wished I could be just half that pretty, but I just try to focus more on my good attributes and move on.

That's the problem through all of this; I realize that some insecurity is just par for the course for a transwoman. We'll always wonder what 'might have been' had we been born cis, and how to reverse the years of damage T inflicted on our bodies regardless of how successful we are.

But my past experience with OCD has left me feeling extremely paranoid; I constantly second guess my emotions and suspect I'm just spiraling back down that vicious cycle of obsession, magnification, self-loathing, repeat.

And of course, the paranoia you get when your friends compliment you: "You only think that because you like me", "You just want me to feel better about myself", "You just aren't observant enough to see these glaring flaws", etc.

Don't worry about me too much though, because I definitely AM improving; the longer I've been on HRT the better I've felt about my face (almost unrecognizable from where I started) and am much more confident presenting in at least an androgynous manner. I'm hoping that is proof my insecurities are not totally unfounded at that there is indeed a light at the end of this tunnel.

Have you tried doing a reverse image search on your avatar picture?  All the matches are female, one of them is Cindy Crawford.  Based on this highly scientific empirical metric (ahem), I don't think you have anything to worry about.

Rosie

Then you should be happy because you are just like most of us trans women, hell, just like most of us women; constantly self critical about our appearance. :-)

That's good news.... I think!

I have that problem all the time. It attacks when I'm in a very busy and crowded  store. My male seems to like to pop out at the worst times.

This has a lot to do with how brain works. Most people believe that what they see is what is there. But our brains do a very good job at falsifying information so that it can associate it with previous experience. Especially when you consider what you have been seeing in the mirror for the time before HRT.

But don't worry. Once the changes pile up the existing associations will get gradually weaker. The same is also for family, friends, colleagues at work... This is the advantage of the people who never knew us before: no existing image to match current look against. So yes, when we look at other girls' avatars here we see much better looking girls than what they believe they are.

To add an example like a month ago 3 colleagues and I went to a restaurant for lunch. The waiter knew us pretty well as we visited that place since like last September. He came to our table and asked: "Are you ready to order gentlemen?"
I said: "Am I supposed to understand it that I can't place my order?"
He looked at me and only at that moment he realized how my appearance actually changed in the past few months. He just stared in shock until one of my colleagues reminded him if we can make our orders. I guess I really threw him off as like 10 minutes later another waiter came and said that our order is messed up so we have to order again :-) .