Quote from: anjaq on August 30, 2017, 02:24:28 PM
... I am still in this whole contemplation and decisionmaking process. It is taking so much energy
I hear you... I agonized over the decision for years... I know that feeling.
I knew FFS was for me when I first learned of it but there was so much baggage that slowed down my decision-making process. The short version of the story is I learned my personality only finds progress in this area with an incremental approach.
On hindsight I would have saved a lot of money and time by scheduling one small procedure after another, each several months or some minimum time apart. Sounds counter intuitive since separate procedures usually means more time/money but I found it was more wasteful not to move forward incrementally. The reason? ...
Well, when I was confronted with a huge list of FFS procedures, I became stalemated because, on one hand, a big list like that was going to cover everything and was the most efficient "proper" way to do things in concert under one surgery—many speak of the benefits of this. On the other hand, it was a lot of stuff... what if it's too much? Am I ready for such a change? All that stuff.
What I noticed is that considering the big lists of FFS procedures was simply a blocker in the way of progress. Once I got incremental, things just rolled forward.
What I see now is that it's highly unlikely that I'd ever have an issue with too much feminization so doing all of the procedures at once would have been fine ... but that hindsight means nothing when initially going through things so I'll take incremental for the sake of progress instead of endless blocked consideration of the "proper" full list of all I should do. Without having hindsight knowledge, it's like choosing the former moved me forward while the contemplating the latter "correct" approach led to zero progress and a bit of agonizing.
I now view forehead contouring as an incremental step... I used to make a big mental deal out of forehead work. No doubt, it should be considered carefully as with any surgical procedure. All plastic surgery is imperfect and has risks. I went into it accepting the risks. FT (and I assume other top FFS surgeons) has things systematized in a way that makes the procedures fairly standard... each person has different "reference points" so it's not a cookie-cutter thing—each person represents a different set of possibilities within the systematization of things... this is what I only generally understand.
My experience tells me forehead/chin work just another feminizing step... I go do it, I see how I feel, I continue forward with next steps. Risks? Well, assuming life and result issues are a low probability, it seems the highest probability is one's own regret or otherwise. I wasn't worried about regret ... I was so darn tired of wanting changes, agonizing in overthinking, that just wanted to get past it to discover how I felt afterwards. I was ready to accept full responsibility for the choice regardless of the hindsight perspective... turns out that hindsight tells me it was really a "no brainer" ... forehead/chin were—as I had initially thought years prior—always right for me... could not too feminized.
I now see my rhinoplasty decision-making process along with the recovery was much more involved than forehead/chin with FT. If someone goes to a top FFS surgeon with a history of excellent results, I'd recommend trying to view forehead/chin as "just another transition" procedure. Yes, significant, but in the spirit of taking risks in life that one is willing to live with one way or another, I don't view forehead/chin as any more or less drastic than a feminizing rhino.
Prior to finally getting forehead, I was under the misconception that forehead/chin were like launching a mission to Mars, while a feminizing rhino was a walk in the park. I was wrong, I was exaggerating forehead/chin (assuming we're talking about top FFS surgeons with a history of good results... I'm not referring to someone who goes down the street to someone who uses the label "FFS" and then burrs the frontal sinus).
So I don't l know your circumstances but I feel for you when hearing what you say about the decision-making... considering procedures has been daunting for me. Simplifying on hindsight obviously doesn't help either!