Call me a faker or something, but for some reason, I keep going through phases about transitioning. I'd spend maybe 1/4 to 1/2 a year in each phase, in one phase I'd be extremely bothered with becoming more masculine, sometimes crying alone, and I tend to act a but more feminine. I'd be unhappy about my inability to crossdress and pass well. Then afterwards, it's suddenly gone. No more depression, and I stop caring about how I look and sound masculine (although now my personality has turned into an awkward middle). This has just kept happening for 4 years, and now I just jumped into the not-depressed stage. Right now, everything seems fine and I question why I was so worked up about it, but chances are I'm likely to be hit with the depression again later. Does anyone else go through this?

I went though that for twenty five years.  I finally let go and I have never been happier.  I think that we all cycle like that until we reach the point that we have to transition

Janet

Sounds pretty normal to me too.  I tried to be my birth sex,  tried hard.  But finally there came a time when I was transisioning anyway.  My brain just said your a girl,  be the girl.  My friends noticed first too and kept asking me if I was gay.  Nope,  just me.

Beni

Hmm, sounds like me

I know exactly what you are talking about, I am stuck in the middle right now too. Two "genders" pulling me to my breaking point. It's definitely confusing, when you have no idea who you are exactly. It sometimes switches day-to-day for me, one day I'm fine, the next I'm in torment with myself.

Also, you're not a faker or anything .

Yep, Yep ... tell me.

I had everything a guy could possibly want, but more and more frequently the thoughts of transition would come back weekly, monthly and be harder to shake off.

In my younger days I could hide those feelings by using many defence mechanisms, such as education , sport and hobbies, but there came a time in my life when eventually no defence mechanism worked.

Part of the fear to transition was the comfort zone I was in, part was the fact that I was scared beyond belief about that whole concept.

Like most people, eventually those thoughts feelings would just not go away, they became constant, every second, of every minute, of every hour of every day, my life just slipped into depression, deep jealousy and I became further withdrawn into my own self pitty and unhappiness.

Those days are long gone, I finally realized that I had to change for my own (and families sanity) and believe me when I truly say, that the only time I am reminded of my past is here at Susan's.

Everything I hated about myself, my life is now a distant memory.

I am actually glad those feelings never went away.

Buffy

Sounds NOT like me. After understanding the possibility my feellings towards transition have been very stable. I know that I am a (trans)woman. I want to transition both physically and socially as quick as possible. But that just me.

This is my first post. Yay for me 

I am like this too.  For me it's come and gone my whole life... I didn't really realize I was trans until i was 23, and since then I haven't been able to get this out of my head.  I've gone through HELL trying to really figure out who I am since I realized this about myself.  I've had moments where I really feel like I should be a girl, and I've had moments where I'm just not sure at all.  I'm usually happier when I'm feeling more sure that I'm a girl.. I seem to just be really depressed the rest of the time.  Since I've been on Spiro the confused moments have been shorter and less often, and I've been feeling happier... though today was not a good day (I'm feeling pretty ugly, and hopeless, and kind of unsure of myself again)

Unfortunately, this is a situation many, if not most, of us go through. If you seriously think you are trans, you should get advice and help.

Don't go on suppressing it...it only gets worse, believe me.
If you do get help and  decide that it's right to take it further, you won't regret it.

Quote from: lostandconfused on September 10, 2008, 07:38:18 PM
Call me a faker...

You're not a faker! Stop that, lol!

I had my phases too. Not phases of GID, I mean *that* was always consistently there, driving me insane. But there were times I was happy enough with my life and all, and times when I wasn't. Thing of it was, even when I was happy "being a guy" (so to speak), I was STILL miserable that I wasn't a girl, lol. I know that sounds contradictory, but it's how I felt. The GID torture, the sad and lost feeling of innappropriately "living someone else's life" was always there, even if I was enjoying myself. Sometimes the GID was WORSE when I was happy, as I kept thinking, "I should be enjoying these things as a girl."

And as others have said, I had my obsessions to distract me. But the more I distracted myself, the more aware I became that I WAS fighting a battle to stay distracted. I just couldn't beat it. No matter what I did, how I felt, how I distracted myself... the GID was just unreachable, unassailable, impossible to please, impossible to ignore... it's one of the two absolute *constants* in my life that nothing but nothing could change or affect in any way.

Well... aside from transitioning

~ Katie Marie ~

I don't think it's fake, and I can definitely identify.  I've gone through periods of months, even years, where I felt like I really needed to transition.  Then something happens in my life, I get a new girlfriend, or a new job that preoccupies me for a while, or whatever, and I don't think about it for a while.  Then it comes back.

My recent conclusion was that I was really just both genders.  Male and female.  I embody both.  Sometimes one is more prevailing, sometimes the other.  Finding a balance has been where I'm at...  But having the feeling come and go is definitely not unusual, nor does it really say anything in particular about which way you should go. 


...Paul

I definitely relate to a lot of the posts here. I'm still in the back and forth battle, damn my  instinct to repress everything. *sigh*

Quote from: lostandconfused on September 10, 2008, 07:38:18 PM
Call me a faker or something, but for some reason, I keep going through phases about transitioning....

......(although now my personality has turned into an awkward middle).....

OK, the transition desire comes and goes for me too...

..but I'm also keep experiencing times when I feel like an outsider, observing and remotely controlling what my body is doing.

I'm not sure if the people I am with realise when these episodes occur, but I can feel damned awkward and clumsy when they do.

A typical trigger is when I am working with a bunch of guys, and the subject moves to the seedier side of girls and sex. My brain reacts like a female to the humour, and I have to force myself to work out what to say and do, so as not to seem out of place.

Every time I react instinctively to a situation, a microsecond later I end up checking I didn't react in the wrong way/gender.

...so being stuck in the "middle" scenario often leads me to the feeling of being a fake also!...

Chrissty

You are definitely not a faker...none of us are. Realisation of our condition doesn't come easily, and, because of conditioning by family and society, we tend to reject and suppress it because we are led to believe it is 'wrong'.

Accept what you are and take whatever steps you feel are necessary (with professional guidance, of course). It's your life after all, so never feel guilty about taking any steps that you consider necessary to improve it.

Hi Kate, aside from transitioning and one is living who they should have been all along, **it has been a good life.** There is no way one can live a double life and keep their sanity. GID will tear you apart eventually if you don't make a decision. Yes, being torn apart, literally, both when you are struck by the desire to be in the female mode when in the male mode as well as being torn apart from not wanting to change back to male mode once you are in the female mode. Once I learned that I couldn't continue to live a double life, and still keep my sanity, I knew I had to make a choice and I let go of the other self and became the only one true me. It became so much easier to live as the true me as I have for going on 9 years now. Geeee, the years are getting to close to double digits now, I don't like double digits . But on the positive side I look younger now than I did ten years ago. 

Cindy 

Quote from: Kate on September 11, 2008, 12:12:53 PM
I had my phases too. Not phases of GID, I mean *that* was always consistently there, driving me insane. But there were times I was happy enough with my life and all, and times when I wasn't. Thing of it was, even when I was happy "being a guy" (so to speak), I was STILL miserable that I wasn't a girl, lol. I know that sounds contradictory, but it's how I felt.

Not contradictory at all, but quite normal. 

And by 'normal' I mean just that: it has been that way for all my life. Until very recently I thought that GID is simply a matter of degree, so that everyone has it, and it colours all one's life, and if it gets severe enough one has to transition and is labelled as transsexual. It's not really that I didn't understand the concept of transsexuality, it was cissexuality that I didn't really believe in. I still cannot imagine how it would feel to have that condition, which probably is one of the main reasons why I don't have a pressing need to transition and perhaps never will.

  Nfr

Quote from: Karen_A on September 12, 2008, 01:43:28 AM
You are definitely not a faker...none of us are. Realisation of our condition doesn't come easily, and, because of conditioning by family and society, we tend to reject and suppress it because we are led to believe it is 'wrong'.

Accept what you are and take whatever steps you feel are necessary (with professional guidance, of course). It's your life after all, so never feel guilty about taking any steps that you consider necessary to improve it.

Quote from: Seshatneferw on September 12, 2008, 05:33:50 AM


Not contradictory at all, but quite normal. 

And by 'normal' I mean just that: it has been that way for all my life. Until very recently I thought that GID is simply a matter of degree, so that everyone has it, and it colours all one's life, and if it gets severe enough one has to transition and is labelled as transsexual. It's not really that I didn't understand the concept of transsexuality, it was cissexuality that I didn't really believe in. I still cannot imagine how it would feel to have that condition, which probably is one of the main reasons why I don't have a pressing need to transition and perhaps never will.

  Nfr

What they said.

N~

Thanks for the feedback everyone . Guess it's time to face the psychologist...

My explanation for why it comes and goes: the back-and-forth inner tussle between our innate urge to live our true gender, vs. the social conditioning to be the gender society tells us to be. The latter can be very powerful-- in fact, the only thing more powerful is innate gender identity. When socially-determined gender manages to pin innate gender to the mat, then we think we've overcome the desire to transition. Then in the next round, innate gender is back on its feet and fighting harder. And we feel the aching desire again. Each time innate gender gets pinned to the mat, it gets back up fighting harder each time. Eventually innate gender will win the bout. Every time. No matter how many times it's taken down, it always rises and keeps fighting. Ultimately, socially-imposed gender cannot hold it down forever. But until the issue gets sorted out, undergoing it can be awfully perplexing for the person who is being tussled over.

Hi  Hypatia, what you have posted is quite interesting and can identify with it. I am glad I mad the choice 10 years ago and as soon as I did my socially-determined gender surrendered and Cindy was born. I was free at last, but I didn't realy come out full time until two years later. I swallowed my fear and walked out to work that first day as my true self. I never looked back after that, I felt like I had finally arrived and my  socially-determined gender had helped me get there then was no more. The only thing is I wish I would have known ten years or more sooner.

Cindy

I knew I was a transsexual 4 years before I actually transitioned in all areas of my life.  That was 7 years ago.
My opinion is if you are 100% sure and convinced of the right and truth of your transition, then you will probably be more successful and more happy post transition than if you had hidden fears, questions, or second-guesses.
This is NOT an easy thing and there are always obstacles and crises that arise.  Work with your therapist to determiine the right and best time for you to transition.