Hello everyone,

Sorry if this topic (an my mood) may be annoying.
Since I discovered to be a transgender girl, I found myself in the middle of a Ph.D. in Informatics (I used the computers - mainly for playing - since I was a child, and liked maths), which I'm doing abroad.
Since I started this work, I had always a kind of obsession with deciding very well what to do in my life, to improve myself and to be "international".
This probably was related to the fact that I always felt stupid, for not being as the rest of the people.

The last year I discovered why I always felt like that, and I discovered to be a man-bodied woman.
I was 31, turning to 32.
Now I'm 33, still in this PhD, still working in projects to get to the end of the month (I have no grant anymore) and still have to manage to finish it (although I'm near to the end - 6 months?). Meanwhile I came out as a transgender, but only in my family and with few friends. My colleagues do not know about me.

The fact is that I don't know what am I doing here.
I need to reset my life.
Is this normal?
Do you also wanted to change life, when you found yourself transgender?

Please, share your experiences, it may help a lot...

Thanks,
I.

I can relate on two levels.

Discovering my femininity changed my priorities. Things that were important before, I now want nothing to do with, and thinks I never cared about began to bring me lots of pleasure.

Also, long before I was in touch with my gender, I tried to get a PhD in Computer Science. I was there for four years, had passed all my exams and already gotten my master's degree when I realized that I wasn't cut out for research. I left the program with my degree unfinished. It took me another couple of decades to find my current career - teaching high school students how to program. Trans or not it takes a lot of people several tries to find the career that matches their soul.

Rather than telling you what I did, I am going to tell you what I learned. I learned computer programming in school even though I was battling transsexualism long before that. It turned out to be wise as  I enjoyed it and medical expenses burned money as fast as I could make it. If you enjoy what you are studying, get your degree and then put your full effort into solving your problem. If you do this, transsexualism will not always be with you and you will have an enjoyable profession in your new role.

I agree with Dena. I struggled through being transgender while going to night school for ten year to get my bachelors in engineering. So glad I finished what I started.  6 months is nothing after all the work you have already put in. Finish up and then address your issues. You can do things as you are finishing without coming out to your colleges.


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Its very possible an emotional and caring side develops.

Its also possible you become a bit more outgoing... feeling more at ease with yourself, more likely to talk...

Well its up to you... you could take an hour for one or two days, maybe over a weekend...
spending a bit of time thinking about dreams... what comes up... what you'd like...
taking down a few notes...
don't do this if in a bad mode... just like kind of expectant...
take the time you need...

a good therapist might help... and, like here, writing down some of your thoughts...
often doubts come up... don't listen too much to doubts... I'd say try to find a balance... and possibly some kind of feeling of joy (of course within reason).


hugs

By the age of 5-6 for sure, I had two great (positive?) passions, or driving forces, in my life. The first was to wake up in a world in which I was born a girl.  OK, little hope of that but I had a dream. The other was my love of how things worked, especially electricity, even more especially the magic of radio and electronics. For that sort of came to symbolize a world where things (mostly) followed neat, well defined rules where outcomes were predicable. Totally unlike the whole gender thing.

I got to follow one of those dreams, eventually getting my BSEE which led to an adventure filled life. I think it is GREAT how I get paid to have fun. Yeah yeah yeah, I dislike the paperwork, perhaps more so than the average engineer. Which is why I strive to make sure it is absolutely right the first time around. Much like my designs.

I doubt, that there are many humans on this planet who did not wish they can have a "Do Over". Lacking a Get Out of Jail Free card, the best we can do is roll the dice and keep on playing. With the occasional kicking over the table out of frustration.

I followed one great passion in my life and found joy in it. Not just the distractions it also brought which enabled me to get by as a guy. I have been standing on the precipice of following another great passion. Which may result in a great loss, my other passion, amongst other things. For now, I not just tread water, but inch my way towards that goal knowing how much better my life is today now that I am doing something about being trans.

thinking about it now, I wish I'd have done something  my transition while I was in college. Student access to therapy as well as HRT is provided on a lot of campuses.  Now I've actually considered going back to work on my PHD just for that reason. But I've kinda found myself settled with a pretty good job that I like ( at a university, coincidentally) That is where my biggest concern arises though. I fear I would be eventually be forced out of that job after also facing whatever awkward situations my coming out there would produce. So I am also considering a "reset"  Possibly starting my own business (mail order and online), finding a trans roommate perhaps, or even opting for an offer to move to different town and live with a CIS female and her boyfriend (which is a wonderful offer, but I'd still have to find a way for income)

I think you are ina good position for doing whatever you feel you need to do. It may just mean a shift to the path you are currently on a bit though.

I was dealing with gender issues while I was in college. I came out in 2005 while still in college. I graduated in 2008. Writing has always been a passion of mine. I'm currently writing plays, have an internet radio program, will be acting in a play that a group of us will write in the fall. I'm retired now but my life is full and active.

I've changed the course of my life many times and have discovered much about others and myself. Do the things that you have a passion for.  

I've reset totally. I'm retired on disability and transitioning into beautiful butterfly.

I went through a masculine to feminine education/career reset in my third year of college at a time when I was still in denial about being transgender.  I just knew something was wrong, and things had to change.

At the end of high school I chose to study aerospace engineering, with an eye toward becoming a pilot.  In college it turned out I could not handle the calculus and the advanced physics, and I was miserable.  So I changed my major to history, which I loved, and eventually studied law.

So yes, coming out to yourself can produce changes in career and education.  Only in my case, the process of coming out to myself took more than thirty years.

Before I found myself, I went through many phases in my school life.
After being out of high school for 9 years, I had decided to go back to school. I excel in the maths and sciences, as I had tested up towards the college algebra and such. But as I was going to school with a first intention for electrical engineering, once I started taking my sciences classes, then I had developed a short lived liking to physics, then to chemistry, which I enjoy very much (Have a poster board of the periodic table of elements, and planning on eventually getting a tattoo of Carbon in its table sense).
I eventually took my biology classes and genetics, aced them without even trying, and found a passion in the ways of biology. But then took a turn in a forest, off the beaten path...
Okay story time for this. One day I wanted to go on a hike, at the time my significant other had an idea to go to a certain place, so we take a drive that way. When we start to hike, we stay on the path for a bit, find many interesting things, as a standalone tree with rocks at its base about at its drip line (where the leaves extend outward) and the word LOVE also designed by placed rocks. About a mile out we decide to branch off the path, just to go in a direction and see where that leads us. We keep delving into the brush and more compact trees and then come to a more fixed open area. It was quiet, other than the sounds of four wheelers on the path behind just being faint. Slowly we keep on trekking down a bit further, then out of nowhere, the faint sound of b->-bleeped-<-ipes playing taps is in front of us. This is where something just decided that it wanted to enter my brain, that I wanted to do something involving forests, nature, trees, animals...
I am currently pursuing a path through college with the milestones as a B.S in Forestry, Masters and PhD in Wildlife Conservation.

Even just about 8 months since that incident, this path is my forward outlook to a career and betterment of the balance of industry and nature in my own stance. I've always been fascinated with nature and animals, and though my male side has been lazy and not friendly to a proper balance of school to life ratio, my female side wants this to flourish and get going again.
Tomorrow I get to go to my local college and so I can get started back getting my general education out of the way, and then once I can do that, then apply to Michigan State University to the department of Forestry.

With this in mind, I still need to figure out my balance of getting my progress going for my life path, as well as my transition to be who I truly am.

Kate <3

Quotethen to chemistry, which I enjoy very much (Have a poster board of the periodic table of elements, and planning on eventually getting a tattoo of Carbon in its table sense).

Sorry to totally derail the topic, but if I got a tattoo (maybe a temporary tattoo) I would choose a to do a 4 ringed molecule with a hydoxyl and methyl group attached to the A-ring and a hydroxyl group attached to the D-ring

I would reset my life in some ways but not in others. i wish I could have explored my feelings at the first hint that I wasn't really like everyone else. maybe I would be a little happier and be able to focus on what I love. If I could go back, i would still have my interests + expressing my femininity, rather than having my interests and regarding femininity as something I could express in another world. Oh yeah, I would have been a little more serious about school.

well i can understand you completly cause i am in a master's degree and i am working for 10 years in the same field as my degree is. i have a wife and a beatiful daughter and i feel like to reset my life most of the times. i thing that my routine life (work, collegues ect) don't let me express my self as i want and that brings me some unpleasant feelings. yes sometimes i am considering if i have the same passion for my work as i had it before some years. but i am thinking that if i am going to transition i need more than ever a professional status so that i can have the oppurtunity to work and transition cause without work you can have limited things. you can see your work as a "tool" to do other things you like! what is your priority? you must think of that. 

Hello everyone How are things going with you?

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I can definitely relate. I came out at age 28.

Had a house, wife, family, and computer job.

I lost the house, the wife, the family and I started over.

I did consider moving away and starting over though....even going back to school to study psychology to be a therapist but at some point, I just didn't take it that far.

Nowadays I have a husband, new family/friends, and a different computer job.

Hi - 

You are pretty much in your own unique situation that has sooo much in common with many, many of us. 

Now here's something pretty wild to consider: You are trans (MTF) per your post and then, well . . . WOW!  What a terrific gift to be given  You can and always will see life so much more completely than those who are 'normal' if there is anyone like that or ever was!  The world needs you and though it may not seem like it at times wants you.

It'll take something to embrace your gift and share it with the world, but evidence strongly suggests that since you reached out here you are on your way.  I truly admire you for being you.

Take good care,

Rachel

Hello everyone,

I'm sorry if I didn't reply to your answers.
I feel very grateful for you to share your life with me.
Your bravery is inspiring.
I feel that I have a long way ahead, also in terms of being a mature person and focus on what is really important.

It is strange. In these days I concluded my PhD, which I discovered I didn't want along the way, in a place that I don't like, and the only thing that I think about is to go back home and start a new life as a woman. Forget the past, build my life.
How immature I feel, but how strong this feeling is.
I'm rarely able to see the big picture: I'm very lucky, had a work until now, part of the purple that I know are aware I'm transgender and support me, my family is knowing about me and I can only think about myself.

Let's see what happens

I have lot of fear to start over in some new place...

Many kisses,
I.

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I think if I was after a career barred to be for being AFAB (e.g. certain military careers etc) then I'd want to 'reset'.... but honestly I'm always evaluating my life all of the time so I'm never at a point where I'm not moving toward what I want in some way. I think that's why I've never had a 'mid life crisis'... there's always been a constant series of little crises and resolutions each and every day for me.

I don't think it's wise to jack in a PhD halfway through though... think carefully because a career in demand isn't something you should throw away lightly unless it really is something you've discovered you can't stand doing. Not with job markets as they are in many parts of the world right now.

Hello TKGW,

I agree with you, but on the usher side in this right moment I really cannot stand doing this job. I need to take some time, recover from these 6 years (it was tough for me to live where I lived for the PhD, so small place, so different people - and my family more and more away) and yes, reset, if I can. I think this is not the thing for realizing myself in this life. Of course, one cannot think only about this, but also to surviving, in the best way possible.

As for many of you, when I was a child I felt always a little different, and at school I was not interested in almost everything.
At a certain point I sticked to computers and maths, when every friend of mine was starting to show their interests. At that time I saw this as my only interest..and hope. I got a bachelor and a master in Informatics Engineering with the best grade. I enjoyed at the time, but at searching for a job I wished to pursue something with which I could wake up in the morning happy to work. Everyone should try to do it.
I did with a PhD, but soon I discovered that I didn't had that much interest in informatics (any more?), I didn't want to be a professor, and the place I was soon became a cage. On the contrary, I could not come back because I had to abandon something and accept the critics, but mostly I knew that I was in a crisis, and didn't want to be another little number in a software company.
I tried to enjoy but it got worse and worse: I got terribly divided inside, doing something that I didn't want to.
It got possibly worse: my experiences with girls were terrible, and eventually I had to come to terms with ask these crises.
One day I understand...

And then you know the story until today

I don't say that in some months I could not re-evaluate my path in informatics and start to like it, but now I have to reset...

What do you think?

Kisses,
I.

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