Hi all I thought it would be nice if we can share what we feel and think is great when we are our authentic self.

For me it is less gender dysphoria and depression about it. I get to have long hair. Breasts feels just at home on my body and I am proud of them. I can act more feminine that comes naturally to me instead of putting on an facade. I love the clothes that I can wear. I feel more at home in my body now. I can drool over men without bashing myself that I am gay.
I love being treated as a woman.

I can be open with my feelings, like you the facade is gone, having my hair long, being able to enjoy shopping.
Have nice clothes for once, and truly feeling like I am female now, my body has come right.

Hi Amoré!
Clearly I'm no where as on a advanced stage as you, but coincidentally I was thinking about that this morning. As many of us, I see my transition as a series of milestones. Despite being 44 years old, I'm still a juvenile in the transition scale. But I already have an opinion. In my case:

- I'm ecstatic because of the fact that my wife and two sons finally know about my struggle with gender and that they actually support and encourage my transition, so I no longer have to hide my real self from them. They are the most important persons in my life.
- I feel happy to know that all along the problem was not that I was nuts, but that Sarah was being muffled inside a man's body. So much of my past finally illuminated... So much reconciliation with myself...
- I feel happy because the lack of testosterone and the flood of estradiol makes me happy by itself. I suffered from depression for many, many years. Now, I haven't been so happy and zen for so long!
- I feel happy when I use clothes in conformity with my gender. A skirt (still only at home), a nice blouse, women's shoes... I feel then "in the zone".
- I feel happy when I see and feel that my breasts are growing...  I rose to Nirvana when my kids told me: "Huh, Sarah... Your boobs are, like, visible... You might wanna use a bra?" And I enjoy their sensitivity of my nipples, even if almost painful at times...
- I'm not yet trying to pass publicly and I still only go out "en homme" (albeit a decidedly androgynous one), but I feel super happy using women's skinny jeans, socks, panties, shirt, women's jean jacket, wearing a bracelet... I sometimes get second looks and it makes me happy because at least for some people I am not "just" a man anymore... For some people, I am already "something else". I think people begin to see feminity in me.
- I'm happy because my hair is slowly but surely regrowing, thanks to the lack of T, finasteride, minoxydil and lots of care. I'm also happy because in a few months I'll get a hair transplant for the more problematic areas.
- I'm happy because a good 40% of my beard is gone, thanks to diligent electrolysis and because I foresee that in a couple of months I will no longer have a 5 o'clock shadow.
- I'm happy because my skin (especially face) has never been so smooth since puberty, thanks to the medication and proper skin care. And as a bonus, my eyelashes, which were previously always shedding, are now much stronger and fuller.
- I'm happy when I look at the feminized version of myself, on FaceApp (see below), even if I won't be so cute as that! [emoji23]
- I'm happy because my dad, whom I thought I'd lost forever, wrote me back and basically told me that he might come to terms with all this... My mom, alas, is a different story.
- So, in conclusion, I'm super, hyper, mega happy with being my real self, Sarah, despite all the social turmoil I'm causing around me, the physical pain, the psychological pain, the financial cost... I would do it all over again! Just sooner, this time!

Sorry for the length, but if the idea was to share how happy I am with transition, then I actually made it quite short!

Hugs, Sarah

Sent from my SM-T810 using Tapatalk

It feels like being free.

After a very long prison sentence.

I can take the suit of armour off.  I no longer have that heavy feeling of being confined all the time by my self-censorship.  I'll pick up a colourful item of clothing in a store and feel my old censor start to kick in, saying "no, that's to bright".  And now I just tell it to eff off 'cause I can buy it if I want.

It's like returning to a time when I felt comfortable in my own body, back before puberty really destroyed my image of myself.  I still have a lot of body dysphoria, but it's better now that I dress and cut my hair in a masculine style.  This is me as a little boy, about age 4 . . . I seem so confident and happy in my body:

Quote from: Kylo on April 25, 2017, 05:57:45 AM
It feels like being free.

After a very long prison sentence.

Yes, that's how I feel.

It still doesn't feel quite real, though.  It reminds me of how some concentration camp survivors described walking around in the months after they got let out.

And I still bear the (scars) of the horrible treatment in that prison, "punishment" for being unable to turn myself into the kind of prisoner we were supposed to be.

I look in the mirror and I see an  ugly person.  But at least I sometimes see an ugly old woman, and not an ugly old man.  I may be old, but I'm looking forward to being a "->-bleeped-<- granny" (at least if my kids ever had kids before I die!)

But when I'm not looking in the mirror, and when the heavy load of managing my life and the terror of being outside the prison aren't flattening me, I find myself, without meaning to, singing and dancing and saying, "I'm so glad to be me!"

I'm reminded of a scene in the film "Out and In", the one with Kevin Kline, where he's listening to a learning cassette to learn to be a Real (i.e., straight) Man, and it puts on some music and says, "don't dance.   Real men don't dance."  And he holds himself rigid, but after a few minutes he starts to twitch, and his feet start moving in spite of himself, and then his hips, and before you know it, he loses control and he's dancing, and the tape is saying, "don't dance!  Stop moving that bootie! Do you hear me?  Stop dancing!"  but he doesn't hear it any more, all he hears is the call of the music and all he feels is the dancing inside him that won't fit inside him any more.

That's what I feel like.  I may be one of the walking wounded, but I dance!  I laugh! I sing!  Because I'm free and I'm alive!  They tried to kill my spirit, they tried to bury my joy in a coffin, but they failed!

I like being alive

To have emotions, physical sensations, being able to dream, sing & dance.

To truly feel love and feel being loved.

To finally understand other people and actually "get it" as to why people care about things.

Knowing I'm all better and not having to worry about dying that way ever again.

It's good to be alive <3

As someone who has known for some time, but only just fully came to terms with myself as I truly should be, I really like that I am finally able to face reality and not only accept it, but embrace it.  Oh, the mental gymnastics I had to go through to get there, but I love that once I accepted it, a slow wave of love has started to envelope me and I am finally on the road to loving myself for the first time ever.  I love that I have been able to be so accepting of this community because I have embraced my feminine side and all the love she has to give that's been repressed so long.  I love that I am ready to start taking baby steps toward doing what is right for me despite the challenges I face.

I think it is great that the duplicity is gone forever.

It feels like I can finally breathe again.

Full. Not scared to show the world I'm not the toughest person around. I have confidence in being warm, kind, approachable. While I wasn't unhappy. I feel like I can smile again.

I can be myself finally.

Don't have to think anymore what to say, how to behave, how to act, how to sit, how would man do this, etc etc.

I can be just me....