Hi Delyth,
I am so happy to see that you started accepting your real self. I was in a similar position like you and was even thinking that I was sick, because of my difference between my body and my gender identity. Acting like a girl in school was considered deviant and sick behavior and most guys who were to some extent feminine were also tagged gay boys in small town I was raised.
I am actually 35. I had repressed my gender identity since early childhood. It was most of the time easy to control, but things went worse when I tried somewhere around 2012 to become a "real" masculine man and started weights lifting. I've lost about 110lbs and tried to make some muscle mass to be more attractive for women I am sexually attracted to. I thought that it was the only thing that was missing in order to get in a serious relationship. When I dated before I could never think of myself as a man dating a woman, but preferred to date a woman as a woman dates a woman. In the same time every time I looked in to the mirror, a chubby man showed his face at me. Well, I sort of achieved my first goal of loosing weight and being fit, but my face changed from bad to worse - looking like a ghost with a muscular and thin face looking manly, but in an ugly way that I didn't want it to be. My dysphoria and depression made me very introverted. I started to visit restaurants with transphobic and homophobic friends and their transphobia made me even more depressed. In the end of July I've stopped any contacts with these people, after I started experiencing suicidal thoughts. I visited a gender therapist and shortly got a YES for a visit to an endo. In the end of October I started my transition on a conservative dose of HRT and now my depression is gone and I am finally able to look in to the future and not get scared of what is awaiting me.
I wish you good luck and bright days in the New 2016 Year and hope that you will keep being strong as transitioning.
