Hello there. I have been lurking on this forum for a few weeks or so, reading up on various people's stories. And I decided to share my story as well. (Or rather, I just need an outlet. There's nobody I can talk to about this.)
The story begins with a young boy. He liked to play with toy cars, didn't understand the appeal of dolls, and made mainly male friends. A pretty normal young boy, one would say. The only oddity was how incredibly emotional and quick to cry he was. But something like that barely means anything. After all, emotional guys exist, right?
At only the age of four, his parents had a violent divorce. He and his older sister didn't take it well, and he himself established a first real belief for himself: 'Fighting and arguing is bad, everything should be solved peacefully.'
After that, the days consisted of living with his still agitated mother and a withdrawn sister, and school days with classmates who liked to tease and (only verbally) bully the boy.
A series of movings followed, which made the boy lose the few real life friends he had and his quiet nature didn't allow him to make new ones in the new homes. He turned to the internet and made a few friends there instead.
The boy learned to 'survive' through the everyday real life and enjoy every moment of the 'virtual' life, playing games, browsing the internet and chatting with his friends. He let his real life be controlled by his family and felt indifferent toward his own success and happiness outside of the computer. A form of addiction formed.
But a lifestyle that only drew happiness through digital means wasn't healthy. And because his family wasn't very good at parenting or even just being a family (communication, emotional support, etc), he fell into depression for several years.
And finally, after a very long time of simply 'surviving', he decided he wanted it to end. He went outside with the intention to jump in front of a train and die. Even wrote an extensive suicide note before doing so.
But, it couldn't be done. Every time a train approached, his feet froze, and he told himself 'I don't want to die'. Fourteen trains later, he realized it was impossible for him. Why? What is this contradiction? He wanted to end it, yet he doesn't want to die? Nonsensical. Illogical. Is he really so weak that he can't even decide what he wants?
Years of an internal battle followed. Between the emotional him, and the other 'him', who always diligently reminded him of all his failures and missteps. And even though he had the help of a therapist, the constant degrading and verbal abuse from his family prolonged everything. He soon realized that his family, who he trusted so much, didn't care about how he felt. They only cared about appearances. 'Find a job, don't be lazy.', they said. Due to this, he developed a habit of mistrusting everyone he met.
But at last, the battle came to an end. Though, not with one of his 'selves' winning. But, staying true to his very first belief, coming to a truce. He learned to accept and empathize with his 'evil' self, who wasn't actually evil, just too loud and insensitive. And his other self, in turn learned to not pointlessly repeat things that would fuel his depression. At last, the two weren't just 'roommates who annoyed one another', but dependable allies, a team of two. And together, they were ready to finally try hard and live a life.
Except, not.
Even after getting rid of depression once and for all, there was still no will to live. No drive to try hard to achieve anything in life. Why was it, that made any achievement he imagined seem completely meaningless? Almost as if, he would be doing everything for someone else. For someone, who doesn't even want any of it. Someone, who just wants to disappear already.
But even with this dilemma, the boy continued surviving while looking for the root of all his problems. Anything that might ignite the light within him.
He found a job as a cashier, which he found surprisingly fun. But he soon quit it and began going to a university. And thinking back, that job might have been pretty good, but, so what? What's the point of it all anyway? To get money? To survive a bit longer? When does this cycle end?
And then, it happened to me. About three months ago, I found myself at a wiki article about 'gender dysphoria', again. Telling myself 'it must be hard for these people', again. And finally getting to the list of symptoms and confirming that I match pretty much all of them. I said to myself 'How unsettling... It's almost as if...', again. All of these steps happened at least once in the past, but this time, I didn't wave my hand and decided to look a bit deeper into it. I searched for online gender dysphoria tests. I found three to four, and all of them returned a positive result. At that moment, I realized, this is it. This is what I've been ignoring for so long. This is what I've been suffering through all this time.
But I still needed certainty, so I dug into my memories.
Why did I feel so weird in male swimsuit last summer? As if I was 'exposing' something? Must have been my fat belly.
Why have I always loved genderbender stories? Especially the ones when a boy turns into a girl? Novelty, the shock factor?
Why do I hate being called a 'man' so much? Maybe I still want to be a kid and 'man' is too adult-ey?
Or maybe not.
In each of these instances, I waved my hand and quickly threw another explanation at it. But what if all of these (and many more) have the same explanation? What if... I'm just a girl?
I told my mom about it. She was confused, didn't understand it and 'disagreed' with it. And as always, gave off the vibe of indifference. I then told my older sister, who said that maybe I'm just looking for a 'culprit' to stick everything to without really trying to solve anything, and I gave this opinion some thought.
But not for long.
I visited my doctor and told him about this, and he pointed me in the direction of a specialist sexologist. I called there and made an appointment in december.
And. Just by doing that. I experienced a surge of euphoria for the rest of the day, as well as the two following days. It felt strange to be happy for so long without an obvious reason.
To me, who is indifferent about almost everything, this seemed very meaningful. The first concrete proof that I am, indeed, a girl living in this boy's body. And I accepted it.
But my surroundings have not.
About a week ago, my sister's husband dragged me out to have a private conversation. He said that my sister has had depression for some time and that he eventually forced her to tell him what was going on. It was because I told her I'm probably trans.
I was betrayed once again. That, and I had to deal with my immediate situation. In front of me stood a man raised with religious standards, who has a short fuse. I was afraid of getting beaten up if I keep insisting that I'm trans, and talked to him, pretending I'll be 'Looking for other ways to live', even though I knew that was impossible for me. The worst part is, he seemed like he genuinely wanted to help me, saying he would aid me with finding a job and an apartment. But that's wrong. He wanted to help the guy he sees in front of him, the boy who just wants to stop existing already. And not the girl who I really am.
Since then, I came out to most of my internet friends (we meet in real life about once or twice a year). And one of them, a girl, was by far the most supportive person yet. I even cried from happiness for the first time in my life when she called me her 'first female friend'. To me, that was the definitive, indisputable proof that I'm a girl. The first time I ever felt 100% certain about something.
Strangely enough, my worst fears aren't being abandoned by my entire family, or getting beaten up a few times. My greatest fear is hearing the specialist say 'you are not transgender'. Of course, I could then try other specialists, but what if they all said that? What if I'm denied transition? (In the country where I live, you cannot change your gender on a whim, you have to get an approval of several professionals.)
I thought of all sorts of ways to make myself seem more feminine, but I realized that doing that would be putting the cart before the horse. I want to transition so I can be myself, so why should I adhere to the stereotypes of girls? If I transition only to move from one box of stereotypes to another, then what's the point?
But even if I say I'm looking forward to the transition, I also know it's going to be the hardest, most painful process I will ever have to go through. Without any family or real life friends to support me, I'll have to live on my own, trying to find a job, while surviving the inevitable encounters with transphobic people. It's going to be horrible. But if the other option is to 'live' like 'this'...? There might as well be no option.
Thank you for reading.
