I keep  having this feeling of doubt. Not because I'm unsure about being trans, I have no doubts about that. My doubt is that my transition won't be worth it, that I waited too late, that I won't pass. Sometimes I look in the mirror and think I could be a very beautiful woman and other days, I feel like i'm Delusional and will never be the woman I want to be. I know some will say passing is not that important and I applaud you. I wish I was that brave. I just don't think I could handle that. I want to be pretty and desired and treated like a woman. The idea of transitioning, spending tons of money, surgeries, etc and coming out of it treated the same or worse by society sometimes scares me from going through with it. On the other hand, not transitioning and never knowing what I could become would be my biggest regret. The fear is part weakness from being afraid of how I'll be treated and part sadness of never living the life I want and never  having the experiences I've dreamed of since I was little. I'm doing my best to fight these thoughts, but it really defeats me sometimes.

I have struggled with doubt and fear as well.  We all naturally fear the unknown, its survival instinct.  And doubt means that you're asking yourself the right questions to make the decision that is best for you.  Focus on what would make you happy and start guiding the little decisions that will lead you to a place in life that will bring you the most attainable happiness.  In the end, you are the only thing in your life that's forever... You need to place some additional weight on your own feelings when deciding how to live your life...  People come and go, times change, and at the end of the day... does it really matter if a stranger approves of the things that make you happy?

Thank you Harley. My problem is I keep giving into the fear that true happiness (being a woman) is unattainable to me. I guess I'll never know unless I try.

Also, I do consider myself pretty thick skinned, but I guess my biggest fear is being alone. Will I have friends? Will I date? Will I have a family one day? Every little girl dreams of her  wedding day and I'm no different. Maybe I'm being too unrealistic on what to expect. I just want the experience the full spectrum of womanhood and I have to face the reality that that might never happen.

Quote from: Magnolia88 on March 13, 2018, 10:13:51 PM
I keep  having this feeling of doubt. Not because I'm unsure about being trans, I have no doubts about that. My doubt is that my transition won't be worth it, that I waited too late, that I won't pass. Sometimes I look in the mirror and think I could be a very beautiful woman and other days, I feel like i'm Delusional and will never be the woman I want to be. I know some will say passing is not that important and I applaud you. I wish I was that brave. I just don't think I could handle that. I want to be pretty and desired and treated like a woman. The idea of transitioning, spending tons of money, surgeries, etc and coming out of it treated the same or worse by society sometimes scares me from going through with it. On the other hand, not transitioning and never knowing what I could become would be my biggest regret. The fear is part weakness from being afraid of how I'll be treated and part sadness of never living the life I want and never  having the experiences I've dreamed of since I was little. I'm doing my best to fight these thoughts, but it really defeats me sometimes.

I really think your fears and doubts are entirely rational.  But like you said yourself - regret is a fear you also have to live with. 
Personally I think you should consider how important it is to have friends with or without a transition.  If you have or can make friends that will support you through a transition - I think that will make all the difference.

Sonja.

Hello Magnolia

We all have fear and doubts and both are completely rational.

On the other hand you quite logically refer to the potential regret if you do not pursue your feelings.

My suggestion would be to take the first two steps of seeing a gender therapist and then going on HRT. The former will help you explore your feelings further and the latter should give you a good idea of whether the female life is for you or not. We all start on low dose HRT.

As you may see, I have recently started HRT and it really is THE confirmation factor for me.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey.

Pamela

Quote from: Magnolia88 on March 13, 2018, 11:03:43 PM
Thank you Harley. My problem is I keep giving into the fear that true happiness (being a woman) is unattainable to me. I guess I'll never know unless I try.

Also, I do consider myself pretty thick skinned, but I guess my biggest fear is being alone. Will I have friends? Will I date? Will I have a family one day? Every little girl dreams of her  wedding day and I'm no different. Maybe I'm being too unrealistic on what to expect. I just want the experience the full spectrum of womanhood and I have to face the reality that that might never happen.

Magnolia, I think true happiness will rarely come from anything we do by ourselves.  For some it may, and most will receive some happiness.  But, how many cis-gendered people who start where we want to end-up and avoid all these sufferings -  fail to find much happiness?

I do think happiness comes from friendship, community, spirituality, and sense of a greater purpose.  There's plenty of research to back this idea up.

My thinking, standing on a precipice not too far from yours, is that I have to consider the realities of a transition, and compare them to the realities of non-transition and see how the cards fall.   

This maybe a minority opinion, but I think it's important we not over inflate the advantages of any decision.  Some people have a incurably strong desire to be true to themselves, others are more practical ---which one are you?

Hi Magnolia,

  I'm Laurie. As many have already said fears in pursuing transition is a normal think to have. Transition is a huge step not to be taken lightly and it is fraught with doubt of it being the right thing to do. For me it was.
  I started a little more than a year ago at 64. For me I had all those tears of wishing I were a girl/woman. My life was full of regret, self loathing, and failures as a boy, a man, husband father and now as a grandfather. In one way or another gender dysphoria has caused me to lose everything I held dear. It has almost cost me my life 4 times. When I discovered why and that I could transition I had almost nothing more to lose. I hardly ad to think about it. I am happy I did thought it has been had for me. I lost my daughter and 5 grand kids because of it. But it still was what I needed to do. I think I am beginning to emerge from a bad depression now and life it looking better everyday.
  It can for you too but you have to make your own decisions.

Hugs,
  Laurie

Quote from: Magnolia88 on March 13, 2018, 10:13:51 PM
I keep  having this feeling of doubt. Not because I'm unsure about being trans, I have no doubts about that. My doubt is that my transition won't be worth it, that I waited too late, that I won't pass. Sometimes I look in the mirror and think I could be a very beautiful woman and other days, I feel like i'm Delusional and will never be the woman I want to be. I know some will say passing is not that important and I applaud you. I wish I was that brave. I just don't think I could handle that. I want to be pretty and desired and treated like a woman. The idea of transitioning, spending tons of money, surgeries, etc and coming out of it treated the same or worse by society sometimes scares me from going through with it. On the other hand, not transitioning and never knowing what I could become would be my biggest regret. The fear is part weakness from being afraid of how I'll be treated and part sadness of never living the life I want and never  having the experiences I've dreamed of since I was little. I'm doing my best to fight these thoughts, but it really defeats me sometimes.

Sweetie, a lot of women spend their whole lives trying to be the woman they want to be. It's the reason behind a multi-billion dollar/pound cosmetics industry. I can't help feeling from your post that you're setting the end goal higher than you need to. It sounds like not only do you want to pass, but you want to be physically stunning to people. And if you can't, then you may as well not bother.

The thing is... beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It really is. You say you want to be desired... okay. But there are all kinds of different "looks" for all kinds of different people. Transition doesn't make you into the ultimate fantasy of womanhood. It makes you into you. Whoever that is. What one person finds attractive, someone else may not do. You don't need to be a supermodel to be treated as who you are. You really don't. You just have to be yourself. And that's what transition is. It's a catalyst to enable you to just be you. To not have to deal with dysphoria and a life you never asked for. It's a means to facilitate you being able to look forward, not backwards.

Once you get to that point... well... you're on the same playing field as every other woman. And where you go from there is up to you. Transition provides the blank canvas to live your life. It doesn't paint the picture for you. I know it's hard, thinking of things you missed out on. But sweetie, life is an unwritten story. It's what you make it. And writing that story without distractions of a life that isn't yours, has to be better than the opposite. However it turns out.

*extra big hug*

Welcome to the human race.  We all have days like that, even cis people.  Everyone is different for what works for them.  I prefer to set a goal and work to it.  Even if it's a small goal like running errands one day.  Baby steps.

I know that it will take a lot of work to pass.  If I could go around with a bag over my head I would be happy, but I can't.  So I will have to work on it.  I start laser hair removal next week.  I'm about to set an appointment with my stylist.  He is going to go over make-up techniques and other things with me.  Then I'll get my eyebrows done. 

Nothing happens over night.  Some of us have been on the path for years now.  Some of us have been fighting the dysphoria for a long time. I was 41 years old when I admitted to myself what I wanted to do to be happy.  There are people here in their 60s when they started.  Yes, we would love to have started earlier but sometimes life doesn't work that way.  I'm happy I started when I did.  I have a great family that is right by my side and will always be there.  If I had started earlier who knows if they would be here.  I know my children wouldn't. 

I'm not saying my path is the right one for you.  I don't know your situation but I know that you can be beautiful.  That you can do this.  It will be hard at first and you will have some bad days.  But the good days will come and before you know it your days will all be good.

Hang in there.  You have friends and support here.

I feel the same way as you. I'm possibly losing everything in my life to be a woman. I doubt whether this is all worth it. Telling from your username, we're probably close in age. I have the rest of my life, and you do too. But I don't think I can live my life as a male anymore. I'm almost 6 months on hrt and just recently within the past couple of weeks the "sirs" stopped. I don't know what changed at all. But it's been really cool so far to see this change. It motivates me more even though I'm very far from passing still

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Quote from: pamelatransuk on March 14, 2018, 08:34:23 AM
My suggestion would be to take the first two steps of seeing a gender therapist and then going on HRT. The former will help you explore your feelings further and the latter should give you a good idea of whether the female life is for you or not. We all start on low dose HRT.

As you may see, I have recently started HRT and it really is THE confirmation factor for me.

Sometimes reading these forums is like a broken record with the same themes going around and around again.  The only problem is that they are also playing in my head.  This thread like so many others is one of those.  Your advice to start HRT to figure out if this is the right life is something I have been thinking about.  Would you be able to elaborate a little bit on how even a low dose has affected you and clinched the idea that life as a woman is the right path for you?

      Thank you,
                   Julie

Quote from: JulieAllana on March 15, 2018, 07:40:38 PM
Sometimes reading these forums is like a broken record with the same themes going around and around again.  The only problem is that they are also playing in my head.  This thread like so many others is one of those.  Your advice to start HRT to figure out if this is the right life is something I have been thinking about.  Would you be able to elaborate a little bit on how even a low dose has affected you and clinched the idea that life as a woman is the right path for you?

      Thank you,
                   Julie

Ok I agree there but I definitely, personally, try not to repeat myself! I just won't post

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Thank you ladies for your encouraging words. I honestly appreciate it so much. I think the thing I need to keep reminding myself is that I'm already a woman and transition is only about making the outside match who I am inside. Being a woman isn't something I aspire to be, it's who I am. Even if I don't get the exact results I'm hoping for, I will have more contentment and feel more comfortable  in my own skin than I do now. There's at least the chance of having the life I want with transition, but if i give into the fear and give up, there's no chance.  Instead of tearing myself down, I need to remind myself how good it will feel and how happy I'll be the day I wake up and see my true self in the mirror.  I'll start wearing makeup, doing my hair etc to make myself feel beautiful. Then slowly, but surely I can erase any and all doubts and fears I ever had and just be me.

Quote from: Allison S on March 15, 2018, 08:36:57 PM
Ok I agree there but I definitely, personally, try not to repeat myself! I just won't post

Ack!  That was supposed to be a PM.  I didn't mean to imply broken record in a bad way, just that the same themes keep emerging because many of us are experiencing the same things and that I too am experiencing this.

      Julie

Quote from: JulieAllana on March 15, 2018, 07:40:38 PM
Sometimes reading these forums is like a broken record with the same themes going around and around again.  The only problem is that they are also playing in my head.  This thread like so many others is one of those.  Your advice to start HRT to figure out if this is the right life is something I have been thinking about.  Would you be able to elaborate a little bit on how even a low dose has affected you and clinched the idea that life as a woman is the right path for you?

      Thank you,
                   Julie

For me the effects of HRT go far beyond what you might expect in bodily changes.  HRT very quickly and quite profoundly flipped a switch in my brain.  An apt analogy is of an airplane in a flat spin on its way to final destruction with me as the pilot unable to do anything to stop the death spiral.  I looked forward to and prayed for the final impact and the peace of darkness that would come with it.

HRT nearly instantly stopped the spin and put that airplane back into a climb.  In short it gave me the ability to appreciate and enjoy life, something I had never really experienced before.  Three years into it and things are still on course. 

I don't think of it as life as a woman, or as a man, or as anything else other than as a life as me and as a life worth waking up to each day.

I have no idea how many others, if any, experience HRT as I did.   But it was truly a profound thing and left no room for doubt.


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Quote from: JulieAllana on March 15, 2018, 07:40:38 PM
Sometimes reading these forums is like a broken record with the same themes going around and around again.  The only problem is that they are also playing in my head.  This thread like so many others is one of those.  Your advice to start HRT to figure out if this is the right life is something I have been thinking about.  Would you be able to elaborate a little bit on how even a low dose has affected you and clinched the idea that life as a woman is the right path for you?

      Thank you,
                   Julie

Hello Julie

I think we both joined Susans a couple of months ago although I was regularly reading posts for about 10 months previously. I am happy to give you further clarification of HRT for me.

My therapist and I both agreed that I should try HRT as we both thought it was the logical step if only to find out if it was right for me. After 5 weeks I know it is right as I am already feeling the mental changes - I feel so much calmer, I do not feel so agitated or aggressive and I am less depressed and hence less dysphoric. Occasionally (as I have discussed on another thread with Cassi) I have even had laughing fits as I feel happier in myself and find minor things amusing. Physically the only change so far is that my skin feels softer and hence more feminine.

Therefore I know already HRT for me is right but I know I have a long way to go for more significant physical changes after which I hope to transition publicly.

It appears to me from your posts that like me you absolutely know you are Transgender and I think you may gain benefit from HRT but the decision is up to you and your therapist of course.

I wish you the best on your journey and don't worry I don't mind the broken record reference at all and I have no objection to repetition.

Pamela

Quote from: Magnolia88 on March 15, 2018, 08:39:05 PM
Thank you ladies for your encouraging words. I honestly appreciate it so much. I think the thing I need to keep reminding myself is that I'm already a woman and transition is only about making the outside match who I am inside. Being a woman isn't something I aspire to be, it's who I am. Even if I don't get the exact results I'm hoping for, I will have more contentment and feel more comfortable  in my own skin than I do now. There's at least the chance of having the life I want with transition, but if i give into the fear and give up, there's no chance.  Instead of tearing myself down, I need to remind myself how good it will feel and how happy I'll be the day I wake up and see my true self in the mirror. 

Excellent Magnolia - I can see you are clearly now on the right road to happiness - Pamela

Deborah & Bobbie Ann

It really is wonderful to read such successful wonderful stories of your HRT experiences.

They will serve well to motivate and encourage us all.

Pamela