It's OK.

Everyone is different, and the mind is a wonderful thing... it can also protect itself from being hurt, by gradually coming to terms with something traumatic. Can take a week, a year or six decades. But soon you'll start to see the clues and knots throughout your life.

Gradual. I knew I wanted to be a boy when I was 4 or 5. At 17 I saw a documentary and realized I was trans but knew nothing about transitioning. I didn't know anything about HRT, and thought the only way to achieve what I wanted was hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of surgeries which was definitely off the table. My disphoria was so minor that I just mistook it for low self-esteem.

At the beginning of this year I learned about HRT and knew I wanted it but also KNEW I would never do it because of my family and I'm just a chicken, lol. Well, somwhere between then and now I slowly changed my mind. Really don't know when, but   I have my first appointment to start HRT in less than two weeks. 

Even if I don't continue or follow through with it I know I HAVE to try it.

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Gradual, leading up to the certainty I was going to transition (i.e., HRT) which was an "A ha!" moment...then it was gradual again, as I considered "how far is this going to go..?"

Definitely light switch. It would ebb and wane as I fought it off over the years but eventually it was too much to handle and I resigned myself to it.

I've always felt like a girl.  But, I used to think that it didn't really mean anything.  At one point in time, I learned about the whole gender spectrum, and what cis and trans mean; I decided, "well, I'm not cis."  I still thought it pretty much meant nothing.  One day, it just hit me out of nowhere...I've gotta do something about it.  The entire framing of my identity changed in one sudden epiphany.

Realizing who I truly was was gradual, but the decision to start medically transitioning was like a light switch. One day I was just like "Yea I can't do this any more it's time to go talk to someone." Started T two weeks later.

For me it was a gradual thing to transition, I had tried to convince myself that I was a ->-bleeped-<- for most of my life until very recently I decided I needed to become the woman I knew deep down I was.

In my case, neither.

First, I have to explain that the conscious "me" isn't really the boss in my life.  My conscious mind is only one corner of my mind/soul/psyche/whatever.  I've learned over the years that something inside me seems to be guiding me, and it sure as heck isn't my conscious mind, because with most of these things, my conscious mind has no clue what to do, yet my life seems to have a clear course, one which so far has turned out to be the right one.  Sometimes that "something" communicates with me, and then I call it my "inner oracle."

Anyway, I only started thinking of myself as trans about 3 years ago (thank you, Zinnia Jones!)  I found a decent therapist and was talking to her about 2 years ago, and it was like my "inner oracle" was talking to me without words:

Inner Oracle: you're going to transition, you know.  Just thought you'd like to know.
Me:  WTF?? ??
Me:  And just how is that going to happen?  What do I do?
Inner Oracle: (mischievous grin) Oh, you'll figure it out.
Me: Gee, thanks for nothing!
Inner Oracle: (fades out like the Cheshire Cat)

Sometimes I really hate my Inner Oracle.  (Okay, not really.)

EmilyMK03, I feel similar to how you described yourself, although i'm about 2 months in since my "awaking" and have been crossdressing every time I have the chance, about 3-4 evenings a week, so I feel that I still have a long way to go until I get a better understanding of myself. Thanks for sharing!

my decision was all about not taking my own life

More like getting hit with a sledge hammer.

It was fairly sudden for me.  It came with the realization that not transitioning meant that I would be stuck in the same masquerade, pretending to be male and hiding myself, that I had been in for the decades that led to my suicidal depression.

The act of deciding to not transition was effectively surrendering to the dysphoria, giving up hope for transitioning.  Hope  was what I used to drag myself out of depression.  Without hope, I'd be wrapping myself in that dark blanket for the remainder of my life.  Without purpose, the end of that life would be very near.

I choose hope.


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The final realization that transition was the only option for me was like a switch was thrown. I did not fully come to it myself though.

I fought against my inner self since I learned how to be a boy to not get picked on. Somewhere around kindergarten and first grade. I learned to emulate whatever the boys were doing. How to be cold to each other's feelings and all that. I always had this want to play with the girls. I remember watching them do jump rope for entire recesses in those first few years. I did try it a few times but it wasn't the boyish thing to do at recess. I actually hadn't thought about that in a long time. Anyway I had the praying to God to wake up a girl, the wishing I looked like every pretty girl I saw. Disgust in how the boys talked about the girls in school. By that time I knew how to keep everything to myself and not let my feeling show at all. So I have always known that there was this girl in my head that wanted out so badly. I just came to the logical conclusion that such wasn't possible. I learned to focus on logical things like work to prevent my feelings from being at the front of my thoughts.

Since the internet (yes for the younger crowd, there was a time before the Internet existed lol😆)  I have often watched video progressions of mtf transitions. I just kept feeling like I was way to old to bother changing and how would I make such a huge change anyway? Eventually I married and had kids. My female thought patterns have had some negative impacts on my marriage as my wife had expectations of how a man should act. How she thought I should want her in the sexual context. I on the other had always needed an emotional jump start to get spunky so to say. Finally after ten years I broke down, woke her up in the middle of the night and told her my deepest secret. She took it in stride. Even got out clothes she didn't fit and told me to put them on. She said it was the happiest she has ever seen my in our life together. That night I knew that transition was my only option to dealing with my mental state. Don't get me wrong she has had plenty of feelings of loss over the man she thought she knew. We are still trying to figure out where we are today. It may not end the way I hope it to but right now I just hope to remain friends as she is the only true friend I have had for a couple of decades now.

A lifetime of depression and repressed emotions is nothing more than existence. I for one want to live now not just exist. (I'm going to add that to my signature line just to remind myself of that thought when the doubt appears again.)

Both.

It's a switch when you realize there's options. Before I didn't know there were options.

It's a gradual process of allowing that to settle in and believe it.

Both.

It felt like a bolt of lightning, actually, and I knew deep in my heart as soon as I saw what facial surgery could do that I was going to go all the way.  But I still played my cards close to my chest -- I spent the first six months doing therapy, support group, electrolysis, and voice work before getting started on HRT. 

And then I ran like hell towards the brass ring.

definitely light switch

It was a light switch. For years I didn't think anything was possible because I have so many health problems. Health problems by the way,  caused by my being Transgender. DES Son. When I finally was honest with my Therapist and by my third meeting she was asking me, if I wanted to go on HRT. I thought about it for about two minutes. I diddled around the subject since 1980 but could not be true to myself. Therefore I spent many years of self loathing, anger and disconnection from the real world. I am starting to come out of my shell and accept I am not mentally ill, weird, strange, perv, a bad father, a loveless fool, a crappy husband.

Quote from: link5019 on July 01, 2016, 03:19:43 PM
It was kind of like a light switch for me. I was always dysphoric, but it basically it would come in waves because I tried to push it down. Each wave came in stronger than the last until it basically just was like "Okay, I can't keep putting it off, I need to do this if I ever want to be me, be comfortable being me, etc.

This is how I would describe it myself, from waves to 24/7 and just knew I can not continue like this and it was time to accept and sort myself out.

The deep knowledge that I was always a woman was always there from the outset.  But growing up in a transphobic garden it was always suppressed, never supported, always discouraged.  Yes there did eventually arrive my moment where "the light switch was thrown." I can remember the day it happened. But it had been building up my whole life.

I liken it to how a rocket reaches escape velocity.  X amount of rocket fuel is needed to reach that specific velocity.  An ounce less and it falls back to earth. But when the proper amount of fuel is supplied to the engines. Then there is that one moment of release from the surly bonds of earth. And it is glorious.

I always likened it more to when a car crashes under the water in the movies and sinks to the bottom, while I'm watching the glass slowly cracking and the vehicle filling with water, then finally just kicking the window out and holding my breath.. lol