Quote from: Roll on September 01, 2017, 08:06:29 PM
"You're doing (insert laundry list of changes here), so who's the girl?".

If this question happens again, give them your preferred name. If they ask when they can meet her, you can say she is the shy type and they will meet her soon enough. You can talk about how much you have in common without lying and to deflect a question, you can say you really don't know her all that well yet.

Quote from: Dena on September 01, 2017, 09:31:14 PM
If this question happens again, give them your preferred name. If they ask when they can meet her, you can say she is the shy type and they will meet her soon enough. You can talk about how much you have in common without lying and to deflect a question, you can say you really don't know her all that well yet.

That would be fun, if I only had one yet. I'm really bad at picking names, even for games or whatever I just rip off existing characters for names. My cat is literally just named "cat" in Japanese (Neko!). Used to have a female name I loved when I was a kid, but it is waaaaaaaaay too close to my sister's name to not be creepy to use.

Funny to see the comments about people noticing the change in appearance - I too lost some weight, and generally have been paying more attention to my appearance.  Since coming out to myself about being a woman, suddenly I look better as a man than I ever did. That's a horrifying irony indeed.  I've got married, straight, male coworkers complementing my looks - it'll be interesting to see what they do when I get a boy cut.  At some point they'll figure it out, probably before I'm ready for them to, but I'll manage.

I also think they notice the weight lifted from me.  Several people comment, "I can see your eyes now!" I see it in my photos too - my eyes are open, I'm part of the world, even in male drag.

The difference is that, at least when the dysphoria isn't too debilitating, I see hope when I look at the mirror. For the first time ever I give a darn about my body. Before, it was just, "QUICK, do the fastest thing possible to get done" when I was grooming and the like.  Now there is some hope, even if sometimes the path looks so incredibly long and difficult I don't know how I'll manage. But hope is pretty powerful.  Before, when I didn't have that, I also didn't have the dysphoria as much - I just had disassociation and avoidance, as if the body wasn't me.

Exactly! In my case there was actually a cause and effect at play, in that looking better as a man was a big part of me admitting that wasn't what I wanted to look like.

Though I was a bit extreme in the past that I never took care of myself in even basic ways, because at some fundamental level I just didn't think it was worth maintaining what I saw. I am now thinking of it like how some people won't hesitate to trash a hotel room or someone else's house during a party, as though I was a guest without any stake in what eventually happened to my body. Coupled with some good old depression it was a recipe for disaster that I am now desperately trying to clean up.

I mean... I've gotten up early for a week to do some yoga (I suck at it, but the feminine association, even if that's a stereotype, has been appealing to me and made me give it a try to work on my severely lacking flexibility and posture) and go for a run. I've never done anything remotely like that before, even when I was actually healthy and in shape. (In those cases it was a grudging "ugh, fine, I'll go to the gym but I'm eating McDonald's fries after".)

It's a strange thing to think that working towards "being a woman" (in the physically feminine sense) in turn makes you more attractive to women... But then I guess that is sort of the entire concept behind being metrosexual.

I think it's a normal reaction.

Before you have a diagnosis can be a different mental state than after you have a diagnosis. Same with figuring out if you have the trans condition. Before you know, you can put your negative feelings down to any number of other causes.

I didn't think much of my height before my "diagnosis". I don't think a great deal of it right now, but I have thought about it more than at any point previously, for obvious reasons. You're going to think about whether you measure up, in my case literally, to that which you feel you are. Creating a new source of anxiety for things that didn't so much matter before.

Like you, I was indifferent to many things I'm now much more aware of. I haven't allowed them to beat me down, though. I always felt more unique than typical, more odd than normal, so 'measuring up' to others' standards isn't that important to me.

N.B. - I would also suggest that dissociation from the body is a fairly common reaction in trans individuals as well. The less dissociated from the body you become as you get closer to what you are in transition, the more attention you pay to your appearance, or the more comfortable you are with examining it.

Quote from: SaraDanielle on September 01, 2017, 06:55:42 AM
I found this program called Faceapp on my phone which does a gender transition on the face.  And it was really cool seeing a picture of her/me.

  I can't even imagine in my brain my body looking feminine,  but this picture is a nice start.

Oh my god, this app. Firstly, I was mega-happy to see that the 'female' version of my face isn't much different, while the 'male' is unrecognisable. Secondly, I realised the potential for doing this to celebrities (google images) and friends (facebook photos). Been giggling for the last half an hour at how much the female Stephen Fry looks like an old schoolmate of mine.

Also, Roll, I sympathise with everything, especially the crying bit. Many times recently I've really needed a good cry but couldn't summon one.

Forewarning: This is going to be long and not particularly worth reading. I just needed to vent.

So It's been over a month since I posted this thread originally and I've had another huge bout of increasing dysphoria and just need somewhere to vent. As I've mentioned elsewhere I've been doing my makeup and pretty much dressing every second I can be in private. It's gotten to the point though that I'm scared it's on the counter productive side, because I have been actively avoiding leaving my little loft area because I can't bring myself to change out of what I now consider my real clothes. Taking off my cute little wig (short one I've been wearing in pictures) is even worse. A day or two ago I thought I was in the clear for the night at around 10pm, so I did my makeup and was really happy with it. Then my sister surprised me by calling upstairs (no visibility to where I am) to ask for help with her homework (she is failing calculus and I am her defacto tutor as the only one in the house who can do math), and as a good sister (I like saying that) I love to help out as I can. But this meant a fast scrub of all my makeup and a clothing change.

Oh my God I had no idea how hard it would be. I could feel that drop in the pit of my stomach like I was on a roller coaster, watching myself rush scrub away my face without having time to enjoy it for a while. And yet again I wanted desperately to cry but just couldn't, which made me feel even worse. I want to cry so badly. Just a good, healthy soulful cry. So that triggered something I've never really experienced before: Pure spite for testosterone because I can't just let it all out.

What really got me tonight... So I'm sitting here, no makeup on yet since its still early and I learned my lesson, but well shaved and in full regalia so to speak, doing vocal exercises and just seeing how my voice is going. Turns out not too bad. I downloaded a feminizing app for comparison, and my unmodified voice actually sounded more realistically female than the apps for the most part. So I got an idea, opened up my webcam and recorded myself speaking in that voice. It felt good. It was a neutral voice and still needs a lot of work in speech patterns and what not (I have unusual speech patterns in general though courtesy of spending more time reading than talking with other human beings combined with a very slight impediment, so it helped it didn't really sound male either). So I have no real need to keep the video, so deleted it. Now, at this point I should say I never use my webcam for pictures, video, etc., so my gallery is virtually empty. So when I deleted the video and it jumped to the next picture in the gallery, it was an image from about two years ago when I had my head shaved and an extra 60 pounds. I went from a video of me all dressed up, even if sans makeup, to that. I felt like I was walking along in a park, smelling flowers and enjoying the sun then tripped on a decomposing corpse. The shock was unreal, and I hit delete so fast it was like I was squashing a bug that startled me. But now it's in my head. So yeah.

Rant all you need, hon. I'm sure we've all been there. I used to only dress completely in secret at home, and there were many times over the years when I'd get all made up & then my friend (one of the only ones I had left) would call up & want to drop by or go to dinner or something. I started to really resent him after a while, since he was keeping me from being myself (plus I had the stress of hiding everything before he got there).
Be careful you don't turn your frustrations on your family or friends. I was just lucky my friend wasn't the kind to easily offend, so he's still my friend.
I've managed to get rid of all my old pictures, so the odds of me running across one is highly unlikely. I hated looking at myself. If I had to look in a mirror, I'd look without actually looking at myself (not easy to do).
Hang in there sister, it gets better!

Quote

I've managed to get rid of all my old pictures, so the odds of me running across one is highly unlikely. I hated looking at myself. If I had to look in a mirror, I'd look without actually looking at myself (not easy to do).
Hang in there sister, it gets better!

I have one big benefit going for me on looking in mirrors lately: I have terrible vision without my glasses on, and the glasses aren't very feminine so I take them off to gauge myself. The result is a nice blur effect that makes it more difficult to see beard stubble and imperfections.

The picture thing makes me extremely sad, as I have a few that I really love aside from looking at myself. Primarily of me with my little sister and nephews when they were all little (they are about the same age because of 18 year gap between my brother and me, then another between me and my sister). More recent stuff I at least have my hair grown out some, am typically shaved, and have most of the weight off, and I can accept at this point (since I see the potential), but the 12 year old photos are just brutal since they were in the height of depression. I hate the thought of getting rid of records of what truly good memories I had during that depression, but it's just so hard to look at myself in them.

Roll,
Don't make hasty decisions!

Your post has given me pause to dwell on this... and I've found something. Maybe it might help. This is hard to let out without fearing ridicule... safe places feel strange at first.

You are a flower, Roll. Only you just found out. We all are flowers. Like any flower, your journey from an indiscernible bud to a full bloom will take time.

As much as you might be in discomfort now, all the amazing things you are learning about yourself, the little and big discoveries will be amazing moments of growth I believe you will cherish when you look back over your story later.

Don't rush your bloom or you'll gloss over everything that will have been accumulating to make that moment truly beautiful, truly transitional.

Those photos that bother you right now, I believe you will see them differently in the future. Much like anyone looks back on their school photos and photos of lost loves. I used to hate the school photos, they showed how terrible I was, this thing kids hated and lost loves just filled me with sadness. Now they fill me with a kind of glowing nostalgia as I have worked through those past hurts and can more clearly see my journey for what it was. Each one an integral piece to my overall puzzle. I threw away a great many photos and writings frivilously, and I regret nearly all of it. Maybe put them away and lock them up to be found on some future rainy day, and see how you feel then when your a bit further down your path.

You were no less that beautiful feminine flower in that boysuit before. You just didnt know it, yet. You just needed the water of realization, acceptance, and bravery! All of those moments led you to here and to all the steps you take, little and large, from this day forward.

We dont get to have the same story as the people born with the right bodies but we are no less our souls intentions and our stories are just as filled with trials, tribulations, and triumphs! We're pioneers and our pioneer stories will and can be something for those who go after us and maybe they will have a better time. I hope they have a much easier and better time!

Youre becoming (physically), and its incredible!

Quote from: katiekatt on October 06, 2017, 05:10:14 PM
Roll,
Don't make hasty decisions!

Your post has given me pause to dwell on this... and I've found something. Maybe it might help. This is hard to let out without fearing ridicule... safe places feel strange at first.

First, thank you for your post, it was very touching!

When I first started posting here I had the same feeling. I've never been anywhere else that ridicule wasn't on the table, and being able to express my thoughts and feelings on such a sensitive topic has been so liberating. It's definitely strange (and pretty addicting too ).

I am fortunate enough that my dysphoria (the recognition of which is still very new to me) is not extreme to the point of throwing away photos that matter (though I was certainly fast to delete the one that didn't), and I do hope in time I'll be able to bring the disparate parts of my life together in a way that I can accept the now (or rather, the future) without shame for the past. It's not an easy road unfortunately, and even if I didn't know why at the time I still felt that shame even as I lived through the past (in other words, I never liked looking at myself in photos and I never, ever voluntarily took them, there is actually very little photographic record of me for the past 20 years, maybe 10-15 pictures tops). But yet I do think that in the end my love for my family and the memories will win out. Whether I will be able to actively look at them or not, I know I can't truly discard them.