This topic really touched a nerve with me today. I have mostly good days and don't like to dwell on the past nor regret that which I can't change. Today I was just having a one of those days. I started out the way I do most days away from work, got dressed, got made up and feeling pretty good about myself, went out for the day. While out I took a few selfies. Most of the pics came out pretty good but in one photo, I look like my old grandpa in a dress
I have to remember that looks are not what this is all about. It's what's inside that really matters.

I started having dysphoric feelings as a pre-teen. I was brought up to be a "manly macho man" and "knew" my feelings were degenerate and wrong. I tried to suppress my feelings by doing studly things like always taking the dare and drinking and drugging to excess. As an adult I added chasing women all the time and doing dangerous jobs for a living. All these things did not change me one bit, they just made me miserable. I was severely depressed and an alcoholic drug addict until two years ago, at the age of 54 I got clean and sober. With sobriety came clear thinking and I realized that all the misery of my adult life was due to my denial of my true feminine self. I'm seeking out a therapist and hope to start HRT soon. I just wish I had realized this early on. I feel I have wasted so much time and potential.

It's never too late, and we can never know what would have been if... but my feeling is that sooner would have been better.

Quote from: TinaW on September 16, 2016, 10:14:06 PM
I was brought up to be a "manly macho man" and "knew" my feelings were degenerate and wrong. I tried to suppress my feelings by doing studly things like always taking the dare and drinking and drugging to excess. As an adult I added chasing women all the time and doing dangerous jobs for a living. All these things did not change me one bit, they just made me miserable.

This sounds awful. Even a normal man who is not made to be a macho guy (if there really are such men) would have been miserable. I think living such a life, following that stereotypical masculine lifepath makes everyone miserable. Thos ethat follow it - if they are men or women - and those that are near who may have to suffer as bystanders.

Oh, this rings a bell... "Do this and that you are a man" it got even that far that my uncle used to grip my arms, shake a little and said wake up, you gotta be the man in this family, act like it! I hope it's behind me now..

Apparently this "bullying people into becoming more manly" works for a while. I would have thought that if this happens, the dysphoria must be getting even worse and one cannot stand it even earlier, but since I had less such pressures and transitioned earlier than those who did, I guess it is the other way round

Hey!! Okay so I know this feeling SO well!!

I was 26 when I first started questioning my gender (after years and years and years of clues I seem to have missed)

I started wearing girls underwear in private and experimenting with makeup and extentions etc. It still took me another 2 years to come out full time and start transition and I was stuck with the belief that even if I did transition I would NEVER pass.

Now I'm stealth and have been for over a year. I just turned 29 and feel more positive about myself than I ever have.

Its hard to beat yourself up over the "missed years" but trust me 26 isn't too late to state, as some of the other women here have said they started 20 years later than you have.

It'll all come right in the end. Promise.

If you ever want to message, feel free xxx

Thank you Keira, that means there is a hope and the light at the end of the tunnel

It was a little bit different for me.. I knew I wanted to be a girl when I was 7. But at that time, I promised to myself that either I tell my parents, or leave it be, since god probably don't want me to be a girl (christianity stuff, stupid, stupid). That's how I interpreted my existence in this world in my young mind. So I supressed it during my adolescence, all these feelings. I thought I was just experimenting, as they told me. And started to overcompensate will all those manly things. That's why I can's shake the feeling that if I came out at 7... And here we go again. Dwelling on past.

No more.

Thank you. I might message you later, if that's ok.