So, Im not fully out...my wife knows the real me...tried to tell mother...she doesnt get it. That was almost a year ago...and it knocked me down quite a few notches.

But no matter what I do...diet, forced MANization, anti deppressants...sheer will...nothing makes me happy.

I think that until I face my true gender head on and move forward with it...Ill never be happy.

Can any of you share your stories about how embracing your true identity helped your life...I need inspiration.

Im aware that my pics look as if I shouldnt worry about it, but Im a large person and that seems to really trip me up.

Thanks for your words.

Rita

Rita:

Seven words caused my world to shake to it's foundation:
"But what if you *are* a transsexual?"

I said this to myself after taking yet another one of those gender identification tests online.  For the most part the are crap but consistently time after time they all graded me as female.  And I would have a difficult or impossible time to have them register me as even slightly male.

With those words, the scales fell from my eyes and at an instant everything finally made sense.  I finally understood my feelings from my youngest days.  I knew that I did not have some outrageous hobby.  I never felt any eroticism from dressing up.  It was the only time I felt normal.

And then I knew that my life as I had known it up to then was over.

I went through the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.  I walked around in circles for days crying.

I finally accepted that thunderbolt of a realization the same way a cancer patient accepts their diagnosis.

And in that time my bleak depression lifted.  I stopped having thoughts of suicide.  I stopped trying to commit suicide (I was getting real close to doing the dead).

I realized that this caterpillar would soon go into her chrysalis and would emerge transformed.

While that life ended, I was born!

Alright, enough of the prose and poetry.

Rita, if you haven't done it yet, find a qualified gender therapist to help identify your issues and help you to plan.  Therapy helps a lot, and also, you'll need a therapists approval before a doctor can prescribe cross hormone therapy for you.

If that all there was, this would be easy.

Prepare to come out to everyone.  When you start HRT you will soon start to go through puberty (again) and your body will start to change.  People will start to notice.  You must prepare what to say to them.

You said you tried to come out to you mother, but she didn't get it.  Well you will have to try again.

And also prepare to lose *EVERYTHING*!  You very well could lose your closest friends, your relatives, your family.  You could lose your job, many have.  You could lose your wife.  Many cannot accept transsexuality as a medical issue that must be cured.  They will call you vile and hurtful names.

Those that accept you, treasure them more than gold.

You will face an uphill battle.  Changing gender is the most difficult thing a person can do.  Every phase of your life is touched by gender.  Everything WILL change.

It is an uphill battle, but one that can be won.  It is not insurmountable, just daunting.

But at the end is life in a way you may never have experienced before.  Color and joy that is beyond comprehension.  And also a feeling you may never have felt before.  Normal.

The hardest part is the first part.  Accepting yourself for who you are and coming out of denial.  After that it starts to get easier.

I wish you the best of luck, Rita.  Your sisters and brothers here can give you inspiration and insight.  We all must make this lonely journey by ourselves, but we are not alone.

-Sandy

Sandy put it so beautifully.  Once you accept you for you, and stop all this playing around at 'Manning Up", you will begin to develop into the person you were meant to be.

And as Sandy said, be prepared to lose "Everything", not that you will but that you might.  What if you when forward and became the real you, can you truly accept that?  Imagine everything that might happen to you, accept that and move forward.

That is a key to happiness.



Janet

Hi Rita, There are a great many things we as people are able to accomplish by using our will power. Keeping thoughts and feelings hidden that perplex us and cause us pain is not one of them. They always come back to haunt us until we face them and put them into their proper perspective. The truth is what sets us free-living up to the expectations of society as a whole will drag us down and leave us as an empty shell of a human being. I am married and my wife now knows, my manager at work knows, my doctor and my therapist know. Coming out to these people has caused me some measure of grief because I did not know how to do it in a rational manner. Also I have been much afraid to face the truth and live with the consequences of who I really am inside. Now that I have made the decision to examine this part of me I have to believe that this is somehow a gift that I should cherish. Why did I recieve this gift-I cannot say with any certainty. I have learned more what my wife goes through each day and have a deeper appreciation for her and the love that she gives freely. She does not approve of what is happening to me but she is taking one step at a time as I am and hopefully we will remain together as we promised to so many years ago. Looking back on the events of the last year and a half, I would not take back anything I have learned and look forward to the next steps in my journey. Though there will be difficulty ahead I go forward in my search for the truth. To do otherwise would only lead me toward madness. It's like someone else said-Though I travel by myself on my journey, I am not alone.

Randi

Hi Rita,
Like the others said, self-acceptance is the key.  After my spouse died I had a couple of years working through my grief.  I thought I had finished that but still felt stopped somehow.  It felt like things were dammed up inside me, with the pressure building.  I didn't know what would happen when the dam burst but wanted to control it as best I could.

I finally realized that it was time to deal with the fact that I am transgendered.  (I wasn't yet willing to accept that I am TS.)  I had told my doctor and my counselor and my minister, but I hadn't really opened up yet (to myself as well as others). 

I have known all my life that I am TG, but to finally begin taking control of it, I would sit in the park, writing on a pad of paper: "I am transgendered" "I am a ->-bleeped-<-."  "I am transgendered" "I am <insult>"  And so on.  I wrote "I am transgendered" and an insult on page after page until I couldn't think of any more insults.  And then day after day I would sit and read through the list until the words didn't hurt any more.

I also thought long and hard about violence and what I would be willing to lose.  I grew up in a tough neighborhood and am familiar with violence directed at those of us who are different.  And I considered what I would do if I had to move or if my family never talked to me again.  I made peace with my life and the possible consequences.

And then I was ready to begin to come out to my friends.  I met each of them and came out to them face-to-face, trying to be calm and upbeat and open.  After all, being transgendered is nothing to be ashamed of.  It was one of the hardest things I've ever done but one of the most rewarding.

It made me free.

Good luck, Rita.   The first steps are the hardest.  There are a lot of difficulties later, but you get stronger as you go along.

- Kate

I agree with everyone here about this topic...accept yourself and the rest will just flow.

Thank you all for your kind words