For me it was hitting bottom.  I was on one of my DIY herbal hormone binges just to feel normal.  My GD was becoming a monster I couldn't control.  I had to isolate myself and be me hidden away from everyone.  Then by day put on the boy suit making me feel terrible.  Then one day a coworker told me in an old picture I looked like a girl.  That was it, no more fighting, it was just like somebody popped my bubble.  I vowed to quit the herbal stuff and went for real HRT.  Within three weeks I was on it.  Within two months I had an endo managing my transition.  I feel more normal now than I have ever felt before.  It's been 6 months on hrt.

Bari Jo

A near mental breakdown after 64 years of questioning. Deepening depression. I had to save my family and the only way that was going to happen was to come out of the closet. I know transitioning can tear families apart. It has brought mine together. I have become civil. caring, more involved, no longer depressed. I'm starting to come out of my shell. And I now have shoulder length hair just like 1970.

It was three things for me:

1.  My dysphoria got steadily worse over time.  The distant hum had become a scream by the time I was 40.  I knew, finally, that it wasn't going away.

2.  The faith that had held me back crumbled away (for unrelated reasons).

3.  I developed symptoms suggestive of ALS, and had to go through a 4 week workup.  I realized that I was not afraid to die (in some ways I welcomed it at the time), but I was sick about the fact that no one would know who I was.


All this was churning through my head, and my wife and I were having regular conversations about my gender expression.  One day, we were buying blinds for a window and in the showroom, they were playing Iris, by the GooGoo Dolls:

I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's built to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am

The dam burst, and I knew I could never patch it again.

Quote from: Shambles on January 18, 2018, 09:35:56 AM

That number 2 really crept up on me. I know its not a subject that many will talk about or ammit but i bet it goes though alot of peoples minds when thinking up all the options going foward

Yes, it was a huge wake up call for me. It pushed me to find my therapist.

Ultimately, I think progress is made one step at a time. The impetus is authenticity, the method is a serious of steps towards that. Coming out is a huge step I think. It's as if we give ourselves permission to be ourselves.


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Two things:

Hearing a lecture (that had nothing to do with gender) delivered by a trans scientist and realizing that being trans didn't have to be freaky and did not cause (most) cis people to go insane.

Contrmplating the dwindling number of years left to me and how depressing they would get if I didn't transition.

I was falling apart, much worse than I am in my depressing posts now. I ended up in jail for a day. I was dressed in women's clothes and even though I had my wig taken away from me I didn't want to leave. That one day in the jail cell I could be myself and I didn't care.

After that I struggled with discomfort of going back to being a male. At my lowest point I had thoughts that I would steal jewelry or anything to go back in. It made me really question everything. Why would I ever think something like that?

I realized repressing being a female was taking me into a downward spiral.

Ever since starting hrt and doing something about my dysphoria, I barely drink alcohol. My life has a direction again.

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I know my wife would like to know what changed that so that I needed to transition, but I can't point to any one thing or event.

The lead up though, was my last attempt to "man up" and quit crossdressing. 

Summer of 2016 I was in a low dysphoria period so I thought I could do it.  Purged my womens clothes (again) and I tried taking a DHEA  supplement.  It worked for about 2 months. But of course it came back.  And with a vengeance. It was as bad as it had ever been.  It was my urge or need to be female and the why is that not me feeling.  I didn't know it as dysphoria then.  I had heard the term and knew it meaning but never applied it myself.

So this time rather than crossdress when I could and feel bad and hide it when I couldn't, I went to a therapist.  I needed to know if it was dysphoria or a fetish or what.  Since age 4 or 5 I had always wanted to be a girl. Somewhere in the next few months I realized not only that I wanted to do it, but that I could do it and,  most importantly, that I needed to do it.

No ah hah moment, just gradually realized that I needed to transition. 





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Quote from: TonyaW on January 20, 2018, 11:54:52 AM
Somewhere in the next few months I realized not only that I wanted to do it, but that I could do it and,  most importantly, that I needed to do it.

´
Ha, this!

I was convinced there was something majorly wrong with my heart and I was going to die.  I had every test done.  Turns out, it was all in my head.  After that experience, transitioning didn't seem so scart.

Second, my homophobic/transphobic roommate asked me to move out because he needed my room for the new baby.  Suddenly, all my emotional and practical excuses were gone.

Age. At 44 years old, I really started realizing that my male persona just sucked, I looked normal, but mentally I hated life. I realized that if I did not pursue what I wanted and at 44, with a college degree, macho military experience, I was old enough to know what I wanted without anybody telling me otherwise, I just went for it, don't regret it.

Planning my suicide in detail and making everything ready, the feeling I had at that point....I have never ever experienced such a deep feeling, that this is it, I don't want to continue like this, life has been a living hell for 40 years. Constant anxiety, depression, being told nasty things etc. I want this to end now, being a living dead or just being dead, it's all the same. Never had such a deep feeling, that my life ends now, even though I've tried suicide in the past and have been very self-destructive.

Then however I woke up one morning to the thought, that if I kill myself now, I never picked up the last playing card on the table. I didn't know if I lost the game or not, I just assumed that I lost.

Thought that about half a day and finally gathered my very few male clothes, some from the late nineties believe it or not, and threw everything into the trash bin. That's it then, no turning back. And transition done in few minutes 

In the next few months I managed to secure hormone prescription and got my name changed after a struggle with the officials.

So yeah, my transition was really quick, but it was either that or being dead.

And what comes to other people, my attitude has been, that yeah, go ahead and stare, you don't know the hell I've crawled through and managed to find my way out, just barely alive. You can stare all you want, but don't come and say a thing to me, before you've gone through the hell too. If you get out alive, then you can come and say whatever you like to me, not before!

*
Dawn, you're old enough to understand.  I had been living in really small towns - a wide spot in the road 90 minutes from nowhere.  There was no internet 40-some years ago, just marginal small-town bookmobile libraries.

I met Denise, my mentor, in 1974.  I did as she told me - think through my plan.  She referred me to Stanford; I consulted them when I was ready.

Amazingly, as others commented here in this thread, I simply asked my doctor to start me and he did (1978).

I began taking care of paperwork - Social Security, legal ID, drivers license.

I eventually found counseling to approve my hormones - bingo - I got them next.

This seemed too easy.  It was.  My job moved me to Utah where there was nothing.  Back to scratch.

Good fortune again when I took a business trip back to California; I located a supporting physician who restored my hormones.

Trouble.  My federal employer knew something was odd.  They charged me and initiated termination action as I was entering 'male fail'.  That was the kick that did it.  I knew that I would be making my break, leaving that job, so my last step was planning to go full-time once I walked out their door.

I realised that I could no longer make excuses if I did not change at this most opportune time.  It was quick and painless.

That first step was still a doozy, still scary, yet once I did it, it was done, no looking back.  I was fully prepared.  Full-time forever was about 35 years ago and no serious regrets since then.

*

I can remember what the "push" was, my desire and feeling to transition and my goals and plans to actually transition blurred together with the 1 year or two of questioning to officially coming out to myself as transgender.

I think the big push was my overwhelming fixation on wanting to present as male, but all the restrictions of living at home and not having any financial means to move forward. I was in a really toxic, controlling relationship with my parents where not just my gender dysphoria hurt, but also my free will, education, and interests were falling apart. I desperately needed to escape and make my life better by taking control of things. When I left, I finally had my own place to be myself, freely express my hobbies and interests, dress in what felt natural, and transition. The break to freedom is basically what drove my transition, and transition came along with all the other goals in my life I was pushing for. Transition helped me build the ground framework for my motivation to want to succeed in all aspects of life.

Attempting suicide, pretty much a year ago today. After failing that, I started thinking 'really? I just tried to end my own life, what do I have to lose by trying transitioning?'. After all, I still had all my women's clothing & such in my closet, so it's not like people clearing out my things wouldn't have found out.
It still took me 4-1/2 months of research and coming to grips with it before I finally came out to my friends & family. It was absolutely the right call, because I've never been happier or felt better in my life.

So a note for those in the closet who may be reading this: DO NOT WAIT UNTIL YOU REACH THIS POINT!!! The moment you even start THINKING about suicide, TALK TO SOMEONE!! Believe me, I know it's hard, but it truly is better than the alternative. I look back now, and truly can't fathom why I ever considered suicide a good idea.

A combination of many things, I spent the years from 21 to 31 drunk or smashed on speed, weed & coke or both to blot it out & it didn't work. I still felt the same way, it was like an itch that never went away. I met a local TS who was in her early 50s when she transitioned & she told me it never goes away. I lacked the courage for suicide but was heading for death by accident, I set the chip pan on fire drunk, fell through a glass door (got away with minor cuts), knocked a radio into the bath etc while out of it. I knew about the long waiting lists for the NHS (20 months for a first appointment at Charing Cross).I was also going bald, I had a small bald patch which filled in before going full time. I self medicated & did electrolysis while growing my hair out. I was living as a woman after work & at we.ekends, hitting the gay clubs & realising how much it felt natural. I was getting male fail 18 months later, I had done a lot of electrolysis, had dyed red spiral permed hair to my shoulders & plucked eyebrows & manicured nails. Going full time was a lot easier than I thought

Realising transitioning was actually a thing.

I was young and didn't know transitioning was a thing I could do, I just thought there was something wrong with me.
One day I somehow came across a video on youtube and then I was like wow that's what I feel like. Did more research and came across this forum! Lurked for a long time but this place helped me transition.

As soon as I learnt it was a thing, I went for it, and it has been about 7 years now. Time flies.

Stuff like this:

http://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/calls-stop-taking-new-patients-858926

And that was back in 2015, I felt it was already a problem then (this is my GIC). This article is 2017

I was talking with one of my closest friends and just smoothly moved into talking about if I ever would transition; would I ever have the nerve.  My friend said to me
"We've been talking about issues your passionate about. I know this because I know the work you do.  But right now this minute I learns this is a passionate topic for you because you become animated, your smile natural like we haven't seen for ages and your voice is full of intention.  I had a dream about you a couple weeks ago but you looked different.  You were about 50 pounds lighter and a male and you never ever looked as great as that since I've known you.  Dude you are going to rock as the dude you authentically are. ".  I cried. I didn't care if she saw. I cried hard for 15 minutes.  The next day I made my appointment at Iowa city gender clinic.  That conversation made me realize I was just wasting time.  I had that same dream several months ago.


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The big push for me was my wife finding the herbals supplements I had taken sporadically  and confronting me about it, which effectively ended my marriage once I tried to talk to her about what I was feeling.  Then after about 5 months of limbo trying to get used to my new life without her there, I realized that it was now or never to see if that is what I really wanted for myself.  Fast forward to 8 months from them, and while certainly I don't feel any worse for wear, I'm still stuck on the fence if this is the real me.  I just don't want to stop...  I'm starting to notice real changes which are really encouraging to me and also a bit scary given my bit of uncertainty.