What factor(s) was the one (or several) the ultimately pushed you over the edge to transition?

Mine was age. I felt I wasn't getting any younger and every day dysphoria had been growing stronger. I couldn't stand to pretend to be a guy any longer right before I started hrt.

The anger that was building, building and finally blew.  Also I could not concentrate on anything but gender issues.

Six weeks on estrogen injections and I feel better today than at any time in the past 50 years.


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Korra,

Yes, age and relentlessness...my inner woman simply would not quit. Regardless of how much antagonistic attitude I received, I continued to paint my nails, shave and beautify myself. It became almost unconscious.. an undeniable force within me to let me out. There's no stopping the true you.

~Trystlynn

For me it was several different factors {age, depression, increasing dysphoria, the feeling of just being stuck / paralyzed} ...
Ultimately it was acceptance, realizing that no matter how much I tried to repress it, it's just who I am, and that will never change.

I transitioned back when TSRoadmap was becoming a thing.  Andrea James had her facial surgery pics up, and I found the site while doing research on hair removal.  I saw those pics, and at that moment I absolutely knew in my heart (despite some "rational" misgivings) who exactly I was and what I was going to do. 

And then I did it.

Quote from: Sophia Sage on December 16, 2016, 07:25:07 PM
I transitioned back when TSRoadmap was becoming a thing.  Andrea James had her facial surgery pics up, and I found the site while doing research on hair removal.  I saw those pics, and at that moment I absolutely knew in my heart (despite some "rational" misgivings) who exactly I was and what I was going to do. 

And then I did it.

I can relate to this so much. When I was doing some research on transition I came across a few amazing timelines that filled me with lots of hope and motivation to transition my own self even though at the time I was unsure and had a few reservations. So glad I did and wouldnt change it for anything.

Age. Finally having health insurance. Finally having money saved up and a job I was certain I wouldn't get fired from. Not really having anything left to lose.

The relentless dysphoria, and the depression and anxiety it caused, combined with time led to a severe crash for me.  As I worked with a therapist for the next several months, my thinking on the matter cleared up, and I realized that not transitioning was a surrender of hope, and would inevitably lead me back to that terrible state. 

Transition, moving forward, was the only way for me to move away from dysphoria and depression.

I'm doing much better now, and despite the troubles still in my life, I am happier than I have ever been in my adult life.


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Seeing a transgender person in real life behaving like a normal person and being treated as a normal person dispelled a lot of my internal transphobia.  Then thinking about my future and what it would be like if I didn't transition.  I couldn't bear the thought of never getting to be myself.

Realizing that transition was a real option. For so long I didn't see an option aside from repression of almost all emotion. Without turning off emotion I wouldn't be here today. I know that. The day I realized there was an option, anything aside from death to deal with my feelings was a true awakening for me.

I know this sounds so morbid but it was my reality. I say was because I feel hope for the first time I can remember. I have felt at least pieces of true happiness in myself. I guess I never knew what that was so I didn't realize how much was missing from my existence.

I'm still waiting for the letter and the endo appointment. My therapist thinks she can write the letter for me but she won't have it done until after Christmas. She asked me to write my history and feelings down. So much stuff it brought back. I started writing and ended up with 9 pages in small print so far. I hope that will help her get the letter done. I thought about posting a lot of it here. My wife thought I should think twice before putting things out so public. I have already put a lot of my history here in small pieces anyway I don't think it would matter to just put it all here. Anyway my new general practice dr had no issues with giving me the medical diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria so at least that's official for future insurance usage.

The seemingly endless waiting to just get started seems unbearable at times but I have an action plan and I am following it.

For me it was loosing, or on the precipice of loosing, about everything else about me that made me Me. This also meant loosing about everything that helped "Quiet the Noise". This led to my noise quieting stand-byes, food and booze. That led to gaining a ton of weight, something totally easy for me to do, as in breath too deeply walking past a bakery and gain 5lbs easy. I was soon to tip the scales into a territory I swore never to even be close too again some 30 to 40 years earlier.

Feeling sorry for my sad state led to feeling even sorrier for not being able rely on my one last "feel-good" activity, presenting as a female. Not being able to fit into my clothes rocked me to my foundation. I needed to take the Trans-Beast on for real

I spent a lot of time running from it, a good 17 years or more. I was finally in a state where I'd been putting 'hashmarks' on the back of my hardhat at work, every time I'd thought about just throwing myself to my death on site but didn't. There are a lot of them, and everyday I'm asked what they're for. My girlfriend knows I constantly battle with depression, albeit normally high functioning but now It got to a point where I could barely function, If I weren't working, I'd sleep all day and night. I wasn't eating normally, and told her about my own constant thoughts of wanting to be someone else, and suicide. Finally I'd heard of an iron worker on site who actually did kill themselves. The only reason anyone even knew they were dead was they'd just 'stopped going in to work one day.' They found the body in a hotel. They didn't even pass at home. I didn't want to end up that way.

For the last 40 years I could suppress my true feeling's with the odd bit of shaving and cross dressing that was till this last 6 months when its been on my mind 24/7, this also has caused me to become withdrawn and moody with a bad temper which in turn has made me think not of just the mental damage I'm doing to myself but what impression this also sets for my 4 year old daughter.

All this came together and made me realise that this issue needs sorting out once and for all and I need to accept the real me.

for me.. it was the fact that i had this issue deep in me (im a very introverted person... dont talk or rarely do, and to very few people about my issues) and for the 22 years that i known that ive been feeling this way, ive never actually spoken up or done anything about it...

perhaps for the past 10 years the only or one of the things (the other was mostly losing weight...) i wished for during new years eve was to get on this and do something about it... i kinda felt crappy about not doing anything about it... what pushed me over was that i realized that after having a stable job for 1 year... i finally had the resources to do something about it now... sure, my savings are existent.. but at least i feel better about myself and where i am...

That it was never going away. Dying didn't scare me but I didn't want to die a man having lived a miserable unfulfilled life. My hair was thinning & I was told the longer I put it off the more difficult it would be.
I quit doing speed & weed, cut back on my drinking, ate properly (I never ate at weekends & dropped to 155lb). I started to live as a woman at night after work & at the weekend socialising in a gay club as the HRT & electrolysis started to work.

I don't want to regret anything in my life.

Too many people I know have regrets or die without trying to make themselves happy.

I don't want to be one of them.