I'm curious, I was thinking today that it might be something good to write out a history of feelings of gender dysphoria, or rather, any memories that relate to desires to be the opposite gender, etc, before seeing a therapist, or just for yourself to put things into perspective.  Is this a good idea, perhaps?  Kinda came to me while I was driving tonight...

It absolutely IS a good idea.  Here in the Toronto area, if we go to the clinic at CAMH (a necessary step if we want our surgery covered by gov't health insurance), they suggest you write out your Life Story from a gender perspective.  Not mandatory, but helpful.  And I did that (18 single-spaced pages... hey, I'm almost 55...), and I'm sure it helped them, but it also helped ME.  It really helped me put all the puzzle pieces together, and that might be one reason why I'm already going fulltime in a couple months, instead of waiting till I've been on hormones for 8 months or so.  It really helped me clarify my thinking and realize my needs and what I'm all about.  Go for it!

The reason i want to is more because I didn't come to a realization about myself until september of 09', but as I sit and think, I know I started thinking about being a girl far before that, even if it didn't cause me the depression, anxiety, dysphoria, etc, that it causes now.

Before seeing a therapist for the first time I've written down some history and important events in my life. It helped me to just talk about it and not have to remember on the spot or miss important things.

The other big thing that was helpful was writing down what I wanted to get out of therapy. Whether is was to figure out my confused gender or get help dealing with my social anxiety or getting HRT started. That way I could let them know what I needed.

Like Colleen said, thinking about this stuff for a little while and writing some things down can help you get things clear in you mind and maybe give you some insights into yourself.

Good luck!

Yup, i have a whole list Ive started. I like to write a lot anyways, but i thought that was a good idea.. for me personally and a therapist or others

Tell me what you all think.  I mean, is trying to suppress it, denial perhaps, a normal thing at first?  Or am I just screwed up seriously?

Quote[Disclaimer: Names have been omitted as far as family and friends go, as I do not have their permission to publish them in this.  Heck, I don't even think they know I'm writing this.]

//My life leading up to and encompassing my Gender Dysphoria\\


   As far as I knew back in September of 2009, the idea that I was not truly a guy, but a girl trapped in a guy's body (for lack of a better term) seemed a bit sudden, at least, only stretching a year back as far as doubts, questions, etc etc, went.  I think the question that made me finally realize it all was asking myself why I had decided to crossdress for an anime convention.  I know it seems silly, and to me it did at first.  I have friends who crossdress, and they just it purely for ->-bleeped-<-s and giggles, no attachment to it aside from wanting to do it for fun.  I had wanted to try something like that earlier, but at the time I judged myself far too overweight and well, unprepared. 
So come August/sepember, I'm working on this costume, and slowly the idea of doing this for fun just seemed to slip away.  I don't know what it is, but it seemed more, how to put it, right?  That I was dressing as a girl, even just for a weekend, than the joke it was supposed to be.  Well, to be honest, it freaked me out.  I had for many years fantasized about being a girl: I tended to play female characters in roleplays, I had dreams about being a girl, I even would wonder what it would be like to be a girl, and sometimes I prayed that maybe God would make me one for a day, but it was a fantasy, nothing more, right?  I was a sheltered Christian boy at the time, so anything but fantasies was out of the question.
I'll admit before 09 I had talked with a MtF at one point, asked her what it was like, and confided some of my fantasies to her.  We laughed, and I learned a bit more, but it didn't come up again until that costume, that first time dressing as a girl.  Suddenly, it seemed like my life was flipped upside down.  I thought it was stress, I mean, I had been kicked out of my house a month prior, and my best friend's husband was falling more and more ill with cancer.  So I did what any Christian would do, and I prayed.  I also read into info on Gender Dysphoria, talked with other transgender individuals, and slowly it dawned on me that the fantasies and such I had in the past, and the questions, weren't just that, but a subconscious yearning to be my true self. 
So a week or so later, I came out to my friend.  Turns out, she had been wondering a while about me, she said I was Gay, Transgender, or Both, and when I said I was the middle, she just laughed.  This woman is a good judge of character, by the way.  So I talked with her a bit, and well, it's hard to describe the feelings I had at the time, maybe a bit of relief?  I wasn't sad; it was more of rejoicing because I accepted who I was. 
Well, even though that all happened, I'm the type of person to mull things over till they're beaten dead several thousand times.  Mental masturbation is what someone called it, it feels good sometimes, but it gets you nowhere.  I continued thinking and thinking, and of course I had my doubts.  I was afraid if I was right, and telling my parents, well, at the time I still was on their ->-bleeped-<-list to a degree, what for why I got kicked out of the house, that even more ->-bleeped-<- would fly.  I love my parents dearly, and any fear, doubt, you name I, that I have stems from the desire to not lose them.  Well, by Christmas, it was eating at me, and I knew I needed to see someone, so I sorta came out to them, more in a half-dazed insomniac state of awakeness, but that was when I felt I needed to say it, or I was gonna burst. 
Long story short, they took it well, said they'd always love me, and told me to go sleep.  So I slept, and then a week later I got confronted by my mother in the car over it.  It's what I have heard a thousand times before, mostly because of my history with hypochondria:  Are you sure you didn't just read something and convince yourself?  I just told her to forget it after that.  I didn't know what to say, I mean, it was scary enough telling them, did she really think I had made it up and convinced myself?
Well, the end of that month came with bad news, and my friend's husband was dying.  For the sake of my own sanity, and for theirs, I tucked my little problem away for a few months and made sure they got the attention they needed.  He passed on, we all carried on.  The stress was hell, and I still miss him. 
A month or so after, in a bit of a hormone driven decision, I ended up losing my virginity.  This is where things started to fall into place, and the doubt slipped away for the first time.  I had intercourse, and you know, every guy says that it's the best thing, sex sex sex, that's what most college guys have on their minds. 

I just wanted to cry.

As it finished, it just seemed, wrong.  I think I scared the girl I was with, I was silent for so long.  We talked, she understood, and all was better.  A month or so later I tried again, and in the end, it was the same.  I felt awful.  It felt the same way as it did after I masturbate: guilt, and sadness.  I thought back in my highschool and middleschool days that it was just guild because what I was doing was wrong, and I was sinning, of course I'd feel guilty.  That notion went away as I became more open minded, but the guilt didn't go with it. 
So here I was for an entire summer, not knowing what to do, or rather, knowing what I needed to do, but too afraid, or too lazy, to do something about it.  I needed counciling.  That didn't go well, I let myself grow unhealthy from depression and anxiety, and I was kicked back home.

I started classes for school that august, 2010.  A month later I dropped, it wasn't what I needed to do in life.  I fell back into that hole of depression and anxiety, and for a time tried to convince myself that maybe the whole gender thing was fake, and I was just deluding myself.  But every night I still prayed that in the morning I would wake up as a girl.  I think I would have cried myself to sleep on many occasion if I could actually cry more. 

So now I think, wait, I tried to suppress it but still every night went to bed hoping I'd wake up as a girl and that being a boy was just a bad dream?  It's been a spiral downward for a while now, since Christmas in fact.  Im trying to put together words here, but I can't think of the best way to say it.  More mental masturbation, but this type hurts like the guilt and sadness that follows my real life masturbation.  Each day I realize I don't want to see myself in the mirror.  Shaving is about what I can tolerate.  A day without erection is a good day for me; it means I don't have to remember I'm still a man physically.  I've wanted to cry the past week, I don't have the will to get up and do what I need to in order to make money, and to do what I love.  I sit in the shower every night and just try to wash it all away, and on the nights where I give in to my male hormones, it feels even worse, like someone punched me in the stomach.  And so now I patiently await a visit to the Psychiatrist on Wednesday, hoping that he will be able to send me the way of a good therapist, a gender therapist, so maybe I won't have to try and tell my parents again too soon. 

~Monday, February 14, 2011~

I just finished a whole catalogue, by years and age, of what I can remember that might be pertinent to my dysphoria.  I swear I type too fast for my own good.  It isnt 18 pages like Colleen, but it's 5 pages of what I can remember right now.

You are not screwed up honey! I think writing this is a really good thing to do. To help clarify your thoughts. Thank you for sharing this.

You sound like you have significant persistant issues with your gender identity. And you can see yourself spiraling down, it is a great idea to find help at this stage. Well done you. I hope you find that therapist you need.

All the best!
xx

Quote from: Nicky on February 14, 2011, 10:54:54 PM
You are not screwed up honey! I think writing this is a really good thing to do. To help clarify your thoughts. Thank you for sharing this.

You sound like you have significant persistant issues with your gender identity. And you can see yourself spiraling down, it is a great idea to find help at this stage. Well done you. I hope you find that therapist you need.

All the best!
xx

Thanks, Nicky ^^  It feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders in a way. 

It can be a bumpy road, but in some ways this first step is one of the hardest - admiting there is some sort of problem and trying to resolve it. I think it is neat that you reaching for what you really want.

Quote from: Nicky on February 14, 2011, 11:03:10 PM
It can be a bumpy road, but in some ways this first step is one of the hardest - admiting there is some sort of problem and trying to resolve it. I think it is neat that you reaching for what you really want.

The hardest part was writing down all of the little things I did over the years leading up to all of this.  It was, well, freeing, but at the same time, it's admitting to a lot of sexual tension, and openly talking about it isn't easy, nor will it be in the future.  Some of it is embarrassing, or well, would be if it didn't all make sense now.