Hi.  Okay.  So.  Here I am.

A couple years ago I began to seriously explore my gender identity, and I wrote about half of an introduction for a site like this, got scared, and went back to essentially ignoring it.  But here I am now.

I've crossdressed since I was young, but I always thought(or wanted to think) that it was a purely sexual fetish and essentially ignored it.  I was never happy when I was young, but I was diagnosed with depression(which I do have) so that's always what I pointed at as the source of all my problems.  In my teens I started drinking and smoking weed, which rapidly escalated to substance abuse, which led to a mini intervention and my introduction to a twelve step program, and I've been sober for nine years now. 

The depression has been by my side this whole time as I've tried to deal with things.  My difficult childhood.  The havoc I wreaked while drinking.  Failed relationships.  Just living life.  And I have made progress; stumbling, painful, sporadic progress.  But creeping up throughout all this is the growing realization that there is something inherent about me that doesn't fit.  That just doesn't feel right.

I've realized that the male identity I was born with doesn't fit.  But as I looked into things and explored my options, I realized that, for right now at least, female doesn't seem to fit either.

So I don't know where I'm going, but I can't stay where I am.

Which brings me to you guys. 

Hi, and an informal "Welcome!" to Susan's Place.  I think you might find this to be a good fit for you.

The background sounds all too familiar.  Many of us who were dressing in our youth have had the idea that it was a sexual fetish of some kind.  Our very transphobic culture, entertainment media in particular, promotes this idea as part of it's insistence on conforming to a simple binary gender/sex organ identity.  Humans aren't actually wired that way. 

The substance abuse is also a familiar story.  Substance abuse, self-medication to try and numb our discomfort, is very common in transgender persons.  There's a fairly famous study of the effects of the anti-transgender bias of our culture on us:

http://www.thetaskforce.org/static_html/downloads/reports/reports/ntds_summary.pdf

It's an eye-opener.  I saw some of my own experience reflected in that, as have many others.

Gender is a continuum, not a binary.  Lots of transgender folks don't identify exactly male, or exactly female (whatever THOSE are!), but on a range.  Here's the story of Kelsey, for example:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/when-no-gender-fits-a-quest-to-be-seen-as-just-a-person/2014/09/20/1ab21e6e-2c7b-11e4-994d-202962a9150c_story.html?utm_term=.e57565c1f830

I hope folks here can help you feel more comfortable with yourself.

Hi 

Welcome to Susan's Place    Glad to have you here, join on in the fun

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Hugs

V M

Thanks for the welcome. 

I realize I forgot about the regular introduction stuff.  I'm 33 and live in Maryland, a bit north of Baltimore.  As for my name...well... I like my given name, but it's very strongly gendered.  There is a feminine version of it, but that's just as gendered, so I guess I don't know what I'm ultimately going to want to be called, but it'll probably start with a 'B.' 

And I guess maybe they/them pronouns?  We'll see.  I guess that'll do for now.