Some twenty four years ago I decided transition wasn't going to work for me (even though all signs pointed to "yes") and after two years on HRT called it quits. I figured I'd just have to learn to come to terms with the fact id been born in a male body and "man up" (ugh, sorry).
Cue twenty two years of not really making a go of the masculinity thing, I knew I wanted more than anything to live my life as a women and be biologcally female. Since I couldn't have the latter I denied myself the former. What I didn't realise was that I was using any number of fantasy coping strategies. While I wasn't getting drunk or secretly cross dressing I was living my life vicariously through fictional female characters - either ones I'd invented myself or ones id coopted from other fictional works (movies, TVs, etc) and through sexual fantasies which I don't want to go into (TMI!!!). And I figured I was doing juuuuuust fine, thank you very much.
I saw myself as a woman pretending to be a man. But every time I was gender segregated into "one of the guys" I loathed it, utterly loathed it. What I didn't realise, because it was happening so gradually at first, was that I was slowly spiralling into isolation and depression.
Then at the beginning of 2013 a very silly thing happened at work. One of the previously unisex single stall toilets was made female only. And it must have been testament to how fragile my fantasy denial had been constructed because this silly little incident brought it all crashing down around my head and I was suddenly close to suicidal and depressed out of my skull. It was pretty evident to me almost instantly why I felt so distressed - all those years of telling myself I was really "one of the girls", especially at work where there were so many women, was all an ugly lie. I might have seen myself as secretly a woman but obviously no one else did and I fet horrible.
I quickly saw my doctor, who knew of my trans history - he got me off to see a shrink but even before that appointment, some two years ago now, I knew it was a case of "transition or bust". I couldn't continue to pretend I was a dude when I wasn't and I could see clearly how trying to do so was dragging me into misery. Having tried and "failed" transition the first time I was terrified of repeating history, that it wouldn't work that I would be a pathetic joke. Fortunately all those fears were for naught. There has been a fair bit of trial and tribulation along the way but it got me to a point where I can accept myself and live my life as myself.
So...yay!
