This is another part of my story on my journey of life that I regret. I regret not transitioning earlier in life and living my the rules of my dad and what he wanted me to be. I could have transitioned as a teen if he allowed me too or when I left school but his control in my life was so much that there was no room to follow who I am.

As a teen I was really feminine I shaved my legs got a belly button ring when I was 16 I had no male friends because I just could not relate to them and they saw me as weird and gay. I was pretty alone. My step mom saw how I behaved and acted. She asked me a couple of times are you sure you are not a girl. Until one day she asked me do you want to be a girl. I broke down in tears and talked to her about my feelings and that I want to be a girl. I sat with her while she was doing makeup and she used to touch up my pimples with a bit of concealer. She treated me like a girl and asked me what would my name be and what would I like to be called. I told her Amore.

At that stage I thought my dream would come true and that I would finally be able to be a girl. One day I told her I really want to transition. I want to do this and become a woman I want to be because I don't want to grow up to be a man. She said she would talk to my dad about it.

The night happened when she talked to him and he blew it of he said there is no way in this world I would be a girl and he wont allow it. He would stop this behavior and he told her she is not allowed to support this idea and that she must stop supporting it and that she is putting this idea in my head making me believe I am a girl. After they had a couple of fights about it and my dad was really cruel and nasty towards her. She told me after that that my dad is not going to change his mind and support the idea and he is going to be extra hard on me from now on to behave in the correct way that a boy should.

From there a lot of things changed my dad forced me to do man things. He forced me to get a girlfriend the woman that ended up being my wife. He forced me to man up and would pick fights with me and told me I must be a man and not cry and hit him back when he was drunk. My step mom became really distant towards me and any sign of her paying attention towards me ended up with my dad and her fighting and my dad bashing her that she is going to make me believe I am a girl again. She became resentful towards me from then on and treated me like crap because that is what he wanted. Her best idea was for me to transition after school because then my dad had no control over me.

My dad ensured he had control by forcing me to take a job that he organized at the company he worked for. He wanted to control every aspect of my life and how I live. I was stuck I could not get out. I lost hope of transitioning and thought I might as well do the right thing. The right thing he wanted me to do and live as a man. Well it all came crashing down the day when I resigned from the company and he is not my boss anymore. I had freedom although I was married and had a child I was rid of him. With my freedom I had a choice to life the life I wanted to finally.

The only thing I feel that that freedom came 12 years too late. I was 28 back then and I could not keep up being a guy anymore.

Today where I am sitting I am looking back at the situation I was in and wished he behaved differently. I wish he could have supported me and let me transition. I feel that I wasted so many years of my life keeping him happy and doing what he felt was the right thing for me when I should have done what was the right thing for myself all along.

The only good thing I got out of that 12 years before transition was my child. I won't trade her for anything in this world.

Today here where I am sitting in a wonderful relationship with the most amazing fiance on earth I feel that I missed out on my life I missed out on myself. I regret not giving him the finger after school. I was really intimidated by him and did all his bidding.

I could have had this life 12 years ago.

"The only good thing I got out of that 12 years before transition was my child."

Sounds like positives all round to me.

The quote from you that Joanne posted was the one that stood out for me too.

I think many of us have similar regrets.  I understand your father was awful to you.  I'll tell you a bit of my history, which I'm sure some others will be like horse dead, enough with that story.  It might be a different perspective for you.  I had the opposite and was offered the opportunity to transition around age 12.  My father even had the hormones stored in the fridge at the ready.  He was waiting for me to say okay.  I was too scared and repressed to do so.  I continued that for the next 30 plus years.  The dysphoria became too great at times and I tried to transition secretly on my own a few times over the decades.  Each time I got scared again, became repressed again till I quit.  The dysphoria always came back though.  Now I'm mid to late 40s and have chosen openly to transition to alleviate the fear, shame and repression.  Like you I've accomplished great things in between.  Mine were all art based and I 'might' have been able to do them as a girl, but I doubt it.  Every company I worked for was a boys club until now.

I'm learning to forgive myself for this regret.  It's probably the hardest thing since it's so painful, so personal, but that is fading.  I look on it as I've needed that in between time to mature.  I needed to fully understand myself and what I'm going to do.  If I transitioned as a child sure I'd have looked way more like a girl, but I probably could not take the bumps needed to get there while transitioning..  If my world closed in on me, I would have probably ended it.  So like you have done I've grown in experience and accomplishments.  I better understand myself and now I've chosen that I must do this now.  The regret is still there, but is only a whisper.  Whisper back what you are proud of.

Bari Jo

Quote from: Amoré on October 29, 2017, 06:59:09 AM
The only good thing I got out of that 12 years before transition was my child. I won't trade her for anything in this world.

Today here where I am sitting in a wonderful relationship with the most amazing fiance on earth I feel that I missed out on my life I missed out on myself. I regret not giving him the finger after school. I was really intimidated by him and did all his bidding.

I could have had this life 12 years ago.

I won't deny that 12 years is a long time to be unable to be your true self.  On the other hand, many members have gone for well over half a century without feeling able to transition.  And, as you said, you wouldn't trade your daughter for anything, and I'm sure that includes being able to live those 12 years as a woman.  I'm glad that things have finally turned out so well.

Quote from: MaryT on October 29, 2017, 08:14:21 AM
I won't deny that 12 years is a long time to be unable to be your true self.  On the other hand, many members have gone for well over half a century without feeling able to transition.  And, as you said, you wouldn't trade your daughter for anything, and I'm sure that includes being able to live those 12 years as a woman.  I'm glad that things have finally turned out so well.

Well, I am one of those who is over 50 and have not transitioned and unfortunately most likely will not as sad as that makes me.  Not that I don't/didn't want to but "life" gets in the way as I think many can attest to.  Now that life has happened, current circumstances prevent me from being able to be who I am.  My wife and I have 3 great kids, two of whom are special needs with one being more so, our youngest.  I have to be able to support her and take care of her as a parent.  I cannot and will not jeopardize her health for mine.  With that said, had I had the chance to transition years ago I would have!  Especially knowing more about me and what being trans really is.  Like so many others here, I always chalked up my crossdressing as a fetish or fantasy and felt ashamed because of the way I was raised.  Much of that thought, while still existing, is changing but time keeps on slipping into the future.

Please don't get me wrong, I am not trying to take over your thread and I am definitely glad you are where you are today!!  I wish you the best as you continue your journey!!

Paula

Quote from: PaulaLee on October 29, 2017, 09:10:40 AM
Well, I am one of those who is over 50 and have not transitioned and unfortunately most likely will not as sad as that makes me.  Not that I don't/didn't want to but "life" gets in the way as I think many can attest to.  Now that life has happened, current circumstances prevent me from being able to be who I am.  My wife and I have 3 great kids, two of whom are special needs with one being more so, our youngest.  I have to be able to support her and take care of her as a parent.  I cannot and will not jeopardize her health for mine.  With that said, had I had the chance to transition years ago I would have!  Especially knowing more about me and what being trans really is.  Like so many others here, I always chalked up my crossdressing as a fetish or fantasy and felt ashamed because of the way I was raised.  Much of that thought, while still existing, is changing but time keeps on slipping into the future.

Please don't get me wrong, I am not trying to take over your thread and I am definitely glad you are where you are today!!  I wish you the best as you continue your journey!!

Paula

I take my hat off to you. It must be really hard an tough.

Most people have regrets. I'm over 50 also. I wish I could have transitioned in high school. Or in my 20's. Or in my 30's. I can never live the life of a young woman. That really sucks.

Yet, I also regret not going to Annapolis. I regret not picking a different major in college. I regret that a certain girl broke up with me. I regret lots of things. We can't keep looking back. When you focus on the past, you rob the future.

Quote from: Amoré on October 29, 2017, 12:27:29 PM
I take my hat off to you. It must be really hard an tough.

Thank you, It is, but like life, you make adjustments and keep my head up and buy more heels!! 

If's, but's and maybe's

I have very few regrets in my life, can probably count them on one hand.

15 years ago I had some therapy for what I now know was GD, but didn't know it then, and I wasn't ready/able to admit to my cross-dressing and gender confusion.

I did this when I was ready and needed to, and not before. Some are ready when young, but I wasn't. Only now do I have the maturity and self-confidence to do this, and I probably would have failed if I'd tried sooner.

So I'm curious about how my life would have been, but I don't regret living that life.

Megan. X

My regret is strong on this as well, but like you found solace in your child I do have one thing that helps make me feel as though it was worth it as well...

(Similar to Bari Jo, for those who have heard this before, I apologize. ) Because of the path my life took, falling into agoraphobia and anxiety, I was able to be there for my mother, who was an absolutely amazing person, when she needed me. Both after my parents divorce through her depression and struggles, and then later when she was diagnosed with cancer. My younger brother was in no situation to help financially or emotionally and lived 5 hours away, while my older brother had young children and other concerns including my sister-in-law still not being past the 5 year mark on her own cancer. But because I was there and available, I was able to serve in a caretaker capacity as her cancer progressed. If I had been out, living my own life, male or female, it pains me to think that she would have been left to her own devices on a daily basis, either alone or winding up in a nursing home. (Even as is, my older brother pushed for that a few times.)

Maybe if I would have found the inner strength to transition when I was a teenager I would have still been there for her, I don't know. But I do know that I will never regret the time I had with her and was able to offer her as some small token of what she offered me over the years, and I feel that no matter my regrets about this issue nothing will change that good that did come of how my life did progress up until this point.

I can't say I have any regrets about not transitioning sooner but it for sure would have saved me a lot of grief and violence.

It's easy to look back and wonder what if, I certainly do, but I manage my feelings about this by knowing that even if the stars had aligned and everything else had fallen into place, it still would have been completely impossible. It's not something 10 year old kids did in 1965 but after the 4th grade is when I wished I could have done it. It would have made the remainder of my school years less dramatic (traumatic?) and "normal".

I was already in therapy at that age suffering with severe social fallout due to my obvious gender atypicality. I would have fit into the world so much easier as a girl and probably avoided most of the unfortunate things that happened to me as I got older and became even more of an anomaly.

Another way I try to reconcile this is knowing that when I did start HRT in 1972 as a 17 year old before my senior year of HS, apparently I was among the youngest to ever do so at the time? I finished social transition immediately after graduating. As much as I wish it would have been possible to do it sooner, the world just wasn't ready for it.

So, even for someone that did go through all this early in life as I did, I still wish it could have been sooner. I think that's pretty universal? We all have to find when it is the best time for us to do this. Don't beat yourselves up if your situation or lack of understanding forces you to wait and make the best of where ever you are now or are headed.

It's easy to look back and say I should've done this or that. My first real chance was back when I was 22. Dad can home and found me cross dressing. I was just to scared! I look back and say damn I should've stepped it up. Almost 30 yrs later I'm still dealing with it and that sucks but it's better than being 6' under ground. Push forward!

I don't like to look at it as regret.

I still had a lot of life experiences and I choose to not think badly of those decades. They were rough and I mostly managed my dysphoria with alcohol but this wasn't entirely not fun. I had a lot of wild times.

I didn't feel transition was an option for me when I was a young adult 20ish years ago for various reasons.

I just wasn't ready. I wasn't even ready four years ago or so when I joined this site, and a good part of why I have taken this so slowly is because I didn't want to hurt my family.

You cannot control what your parents do or think.  Mine are not any more accepting than yours, I came out to my mom when I was 8 years old and and she said to never tell my father, so I didn't. I buried this inside, and I guess she thinks it was just a phase. My dad may have reacted similarly to yours. I thought maybe their position might have changed, but they are in North Carolina and supported the bathroom bill, so I got my answer without even having to come out to my dad.

I just chose to mostly cut them out of my life rather than discuss this with them.  I think I may have to completely once I am further along in my transition. Trying to figure out an excuse to not come home for the holidays. I may just come out to them anyway, really in any case they live all the way on the other side of the country and shouldn't have the impact on my life that they still do. It's only October and I'm thinking about Christmas.

We cannot change the past. Maybe I could have started my transition a bit earlier, but I didn't. It's better focus on the now and the future rather than a past we cannot change.

I think we all transitioned when we could. For whatever reason we did what we did when we did it. It is time to forgive ourselves. This is what my therapists said to me. I think everyone has regrets about a lot of things.

I'm not sure how old you are, but until very, very recently, transitioning was considered a drastic step and there were multiple gatekeepers in the way.

I used to read psychology books as a kid, and I remember that Gender Identity Disorder (back when they thought there was such a thing) was only diagnosed in girls as an absolute last resort.  You had to be 100% masculine in everything you thought, wore, and did.  I wouldn't have qualified for medical or psychological help back when I was young. 

There's no point in beating yourself up over things like this.  It would be great if we were all born to understanding parents in 2017, but we weren't.  Even if those brick walls in the way of transition aren't necessarily there anymore, they used to be, and there's nothing that can be done about that.  As others have said, try to let go of the woulda, coulda, shouldas.

I get you Amoré. My issue was just that I didn't know. I always felt something was wrong but couldn't know what it was. I'm 29 now and of course I think how amazing it would've been had I realized about this when I was 19.

But there's nothing any of us can do about that now. We just have to transition and enjoy life as much as we can at the moment.

Quote from: amandam on October 29, 2017, 12:35:09 PM
Most people have regrets. I'm over 50 also. I wish I could have transitioned in high school. Or in my 20's. Or in my 30's. I can never live the life of a young woman. That really sucks.

Yet, I also regret not going to Annapolis. I regret not picking a different major in college. I regret that a certain girl broke up with me. I regret lots of things. We can't keep looking back. When you focus on the past, you rob the future.

this. 

There's NO point in wasting minutes of your life being wistful about what might have been.  So really, while I knew in my early 20's and chose not to act on it, I'm grateful for what i accomplished and what I have.  And while I didn't get to live the life of a carefree young woman in her 20's, I did get a pretty good education, a decent career and living, a family I would not trade for anything, and a spouse who would not been able to deal with me being tg 25 years ago, but today is very supportive.  Plus, the world is a little kinder to trans people today.  A little

Live in the present and look forward to the future.

Quote from: Another Nikki on October 30, 2017, 12:43:21 AM
this. 

There's NO point in wasting minutes of your life being wistful about what might have been.  So really, while I knew in my early 20's and chose not to act on it, I'm grateful for what i accomplished and what I have.  And while I didn't get to live the life of a carefree young woman in her 20's, I did get a pretty good education, a decent career and living, a family I would not trade for anything, and a spouse who would not been able to deal with me being tg 25 years ago, but today is very supportive.  Plus, the world is a little kinder to trans people today.  A little

Live in the present and look forward to the future.

Very well said.

All of you is right about wasting time looking back and wondering what it would have been like now if I transitioned when I wanted to that time. I was ready believe me but scared of my dad. I should have had the balls to stand up against him like I did two years ago and say this is what I want and going to do. I am 30 now and started transitioning at the age of 28. I just look at my life now and think I could have had this all that years.

Quote from: Amoré on October 29, 2017, 06:59:09 AM
I could have had this life 12 years ago.

Ahh... there are so many regrets in my life.

I could have had my present life 50 years ago. Think of it, ladies. That is one-half of a century! 

I do have NO regrets transitioning. Better late than never.