Actually, there's one thing.

I treat my "at work" identity somewhat like a role in a film or a television show and make it into a challenge and "act" my way through the day.

Well, I'm not late in life either (27), but I slept.  And slept and slept.  I didn't do much of anything except go to work and sleep.  I probably went through a ton of sominex and spent all my time in a daze.  I drank a good bit too.

Once I accepted myself as I am, it's a lot easier for me to just be myself.  Even though I'm not "out", I don't put on that girly act anymore.  You just do whatever you have to do to survive and not go crazy.  Mostly, I just decided to be happy, everyone else be damned.

I started this topic weeks ago and then I didn't respond to anyone. Sorry, I don't mean to be rough but I was buried in a deep depression and barely I could put two thought together.
So, that is my way to 'cope', I usually wrap myself in an anaesthetic fog where I feel no-pain but I'm disconnected from the rest of the world. I look at the world through a window, I mean. Once in a while I break out but then the life is unbearable and I go back in stand-by/sleep mode. I don't have a social life neither. I usually talk only to my co-worker about work stuff, otherwise I tend to avoid people. So, don't cope very well.

I'm verging into senior citizen territory (or I'm already there, depending on your definition). I've known I'm, ah, "not like other guys" since I was seven. I've considered transitioning twice in my life: once in college, and about a year ago. Both times I've ultimately rejected it, for a variety of reasons.

So how have I coped?

1. Throw myself into work.
2. Avoid personal relationships. With humans, that is.
3. Adopted a cat or two. Or three.

So I'm single, never married, respected at work, and financially secure. And if I dropped dead at home, it might be a week or two before anyone discovered my body.

I've avoided booze & drugs, fortunately. I didn't go the hyper-macho body-building/womanizer/jock route. Nor have I gone effeminate or even androgynous. Mostly just I present as your average computer nerd.

I've never been diagnosed as depressed, and I've never attempted suicide. However, the operative words are "diagnosed" and "attempted." I suspect I've been close to clinically depressed most of my life, and I've managed to muddle through by force. God knows, I'd just love to lie in bed all day, but I simply do not allow myself to do that.

As for suicide .... let's just say that rarely a week goes by without my considering it. I've never attempted it for the simple reason that if I attempted it, I'd damn well make sure I succeeded. When I was younger, I avoided suicide by taking on short term commitments: something to give me a reason keep on living for the next month or two. More recently, I've avoided it by adopting a cat or two. How does that avoid suicide? Because I couldn't live with myself if I abandoned them.

Came out to my parents at 13, crushed, left home. Drank. went to Australia 'cos I'd seen a Les Girls show. Drank. Got married to  a person who new me. Lived.
She had a terrible accident and we can no longer live togther. Drink.

Live in Hell
Feeling crap today, took the day off I'm quite low

I'm 48.  For most of my life I overcompensated and cross-compensated.  High school football was too wussy for me - I had to play tackle football without pads in games with college kids and adults.  Drinking wasn't enough, I had to take every kind of drug and get in bar fights for no reason except to fight.  I had to drive 110 mph with two radar detectors.

I cross-compensated by living a female life vicariously through wives and girlfriends.

I don't recommend it as a coping strategy.

31, fantasy books does wonders, probably half my life. And I go flying, without engine-another wonder, out in space one can say, all quiet. And dress mostly femme these days, except around my parents and friends, then in the middle. And I tend to stay around guys, my (few) friends, they make me feel girly, often get me drinks and so on. Might be because of lack of girlfriends. I tend to stay away from woman, that makes it a lot worse. Except a few, that I think look at me like me, that is the best. So in this flying thing I do, I tend to hang around with another girl, don't know why, but she dont reject me. It's fun, the two of us, drinking and eating from each other plates, and hugs and maybe small kisses if we get too drunk. While her boyfriend watches, he just smiles... .. well, that is like therapy..it's how it should have been. I've had these moments now and then. And think they have been important to me.

Quote from: GinaDouglas on April 27, 2009, 02:08:37 PM
I cross-compensated by living a female life vicariously through wives and girlfriends.

Me too, I tried to live through boyfriends. I don't like it, make me feel like a vampire.

I coped with lots of drugs early on, living life in my minds eye. Then switched to the macho man role.  Raising a family and working kept me busy for a while. Then if I wasn't working I was hunting, fishing, biking, hiking, weight lifting, gambling, and flying, anything with ING in it. Even tried to exercise my escape clause once (also has ing at the end of it). I finally started to find some peace with my long time therapist and friend.

Accepting who I really was wasn't easy for me.  But accepting and allowing myself to be me, actually worked where everything else failed. Who would have thought? 

Looking back at those early years, I now realize it was a total waste of time and just being in denial. That's not coping its wasting. Omg it's another "ing" word isn't it.   

Omg it's another "ing" word isn't it.
So is shopping, clubbing, and gossiping.

hahahaha, I agree. Those are enjoyable Ing's but, those Ing's stopped occuping my thoughts of not transitioning many, many years ago. I also believe they were covered in the general statement I had made about trying   "anything with ING in it".   

I dont want to rain on anyones parade. If those things will keep someone content and their mind distracted from not transitioning for a life time. God Love Them.  I wish them all the best. But the difference is I know of, where as I speak. The school of hard knocks is what my father used to call it. Ive lived it for the last 55 years.       

At 45, Ive suffered too long for not having transitioned years ago when I had the chance. Would have been real easy in my 20s, but I was on a destructive path that damn near did me in. Thought I could solve it by burying it deep inside, moved, got married, job, kid, divorced... but it never really goes away. Worse, it eats away like battery acid, the more you try to live status quo, the harder it becomes.

I could pontificate all day on the pros and cons, what I would lose, what I would gain. But at the end of the day it comes down to a simple choice... to paraphrase my favortie movie:

"Get busy living, or get busy dying"

I choose to live! 

"AMEN!"sister.

Cindy

I know everyone has seen it but the use of drugs to suppress feelings appear to be very common. Depression, which is not helped by alcohol, appears to be also common.

I also note the lack of friends. I don't have any. Prefering to have a very private social life.
Weird mob aren't we?

Cindy James

I am late in life and because of fear of losing my job and the crappy job market I am not transitioning and I am having a hard time coping, or better yet not coping. I have a job where I really need to pay attention to what I am doing. I cant keep my mind on my work and spend all my free time home, no friends. I have tried many things to try to cope but like my therapist has told me the more I try to cope and not transition it will only get worse. I never thought of sucide or attemped it but some times I wish I would get sicken with something that would end my suffering, I would not take my own life. I am only out to my mother but I am not sure if she accepts it since she asked me not to use make up or go out dressed, since she told me my father was transgender too and her family teased her badly about it. so I cant hurt her. But from what I have been reading here you are only kidding your self if you think you can cope with not transitioning.

I nullified my life in function of my boyfriends. Tried to dress in the way they liked me, tried to behave the way that they wanted me to. Also, I drunk, I was really depressed and risked to leave my studies, I tried suicide. After, I decided that my life wasn't fot me and tried to restart it in the way it was good for me. Also, after one or two years of being an ultra-butch lesbian, I admitted to myself that I'm FTM.

Quote from: twospirits on April 05, 2009, 07:17:14 PM
Hello.
I've a question for people come out 'late' in life. How did you cope living in your birth sex for many years? I'm curios because I've tried for many years to do the same, filling the box, ignoring my issues.

sometimes it can be alcohol on other days it can be staying in my bed and cry.

The problem is the more you fight it, the worse it gets. I tried everything from the time I was a teen, including alchohol, destructive behavior, attempted suicide, purging, and trying to live "normal" as I got older. In the end you have to come face to face with your demons. And more important, realize that being TS is not your demon.

For some coping may be acheivable, for others there is only one path. In any case, you need to come to terms with finding peace within your psyche as transitioning alone wont solve your other issues or guarantee happiness. On the other hand, ignoring the fact you are TS is an exercise in futility as well.

I guess what Im trying to say is that its all about balance... finding the right recipe to end the battle raging within ourselves. To that end, while the wrong therapist can be disasterous (and for me nearly cost me my life), the right one can help with the coping issues - and for myself, Im happy to say I finally found one who has been a tremendous help to me as I continue on my journey.