You'd think after 36 years I'd learn to stop wishing to be normal but today's therapy session was me being pissed off.

As I approach my HRT appointment I find myself hating all of this.  Everything in my life is terrific except the fact that I can't live as a man.   I also know that I can't learn to be and be accepted as a woman.   It eats at me all day long.   I try to explain how I'm so happy and yet there is an undercurrent of hopelessness.   My body has  always been foreign and disappointing.   When I try to cope..to go through the motions of life..I'm successful but get fatter and fatter and secretly wish for a heart attack.    I'm such a coward.

I thought that I was really accepting myself as trans...but just can't embrace it fully.  I so don't want to be this.

Quote from: japple on February 17, 2011, 10:22:12 PM
I thought that I was really accepting myself as trans...but just can't embrace it fully.  I so don't want to be this.

I don't want to be trans, either.  I don't want to transition, either.

But if there's anything that I want less than transitioning, it is spending my entire life in pure misery.  Transition is heaven by comparison.

I don't normally recommend using the "lesser of two evils" mentality.  But when it comes to being trans, I find this a very useful approach.  Transition is hard, but so is dysphoria.  But transition at least has a potential outcome that doesn't involve complete misery.  I'd rather take the chance of not having complete misery than make the choice to not transition which I already know will end in complete misery.

Quote from: japple on February 17, 2011, 10:22:12 PM
You'd think after 36 years I'd learn to stop wishing to be normal but today's therapy session was me being pissed off.

As I approach my HRT appointment I find myself hating all of this.  Everything in my life is terrific except the fact that I can't live as a man.   I also know that I can't learn to be and be accepted as a woman.   It eats at me all day long.   I try to explain how I'm so happy and yet there is an undercurrent of hopelessness.   My body has  always been foreign and disappointing.   When I try to cope..to go through the motions of life..I'm successful but get fatter and fatter and secretly wish for a heart attack.    I'm such a coward.

I thought that I was really accepting myself as trans...but just can't embrace it fully.  I so don't want to be this.

Please don't eat yourself to death. For a few years this was my preferred path to ruin.

Honestly, I don't want to be transsexual either, but I'm much better to myself now that I've come to terms.
There may be many contradicting layers to this condition and mine looks kinda like this:

- I'm transgendered (the umbrella term is easy to grasp)
- Ugh I wanna throw up being a man.
- It's easy enough to get along as a man - - >
- Not if I run like a girl, wear bright girlie colors, talk like a woman, and hang out with women
- My best friends are men, well, except for one (weird)
- I look good as a man, I hate the way I look
- I can shock people as a woman, I hate the way I look much less
- I know that conventional success will be easier to achieve as a man
- I would feel much more validated to achieve success as a trans woman
- I'm bisexual
- I married a woman and fathered a child
- I'm out of the closet to all important individuals in my life and operate in male appearance mode 60% of the time anyway, due to my being early on and "the curse."

The list really does go on and on and on. It's not always a thing to embrace, it's more of a thing to accept and then adapt to. Just learn to tolerate it first. Try telling yourself something like: Trans is an adjective. There are black women, white women... trans women. It helps me.

Quote from: MarinaM on February 18, 2011, 02:11:20 PM
Please don't eat yourself to death. For a few years this was my preferred path to ruin.

Honestly, I don't want to be transsexual either, but I'm much better to myself now that I've come to terms.
There may be many contradicting layers to this condition and mine looks kinda like this:

- I'm transgendered (the umbrella term is easy to grasp)
- Ugh I wanna throw up being a man.
- It's easy enough to get along as a man - - >
- Not if I run like a girl, wear bright girlie colors, talk like a woman, and hang out with women
- My best friends are men, well, except for one (weird)
- I look good as a man, I hate the way I look
- I can shock people as a woman, I hate the way I look much less
- I know that conventional success will be easier to achieve as a man
- I would feel much more validated to achieve success as a trans woman
- I'm bisexual
- I married a woman and fathered a child
- I'm out of the closet to all important individuals in my life and operate in male appearance mode 60% of the time anyway, due to my being early on and "the curse."

The list really does go on and on and on. It's not always a thing to embrace, it's more of a thing to accept and then adapt to. Just learn to tolerate it first. Try telling yourself something like: Trans is an adjective. There are black women, white women... trans women. It helps me.

Emma,

Thank you.   I think about you a lot.  We have somewhat similar back-stories (bi, married, parent) and you're just going for it...I envy you. You're pretty, you seem so strong.  I don't see how I can pass.

I am feeling better overall but like this perspective.  I'm a trans woman.  I can kind of define that for myself but I can't fully form what it means. 

On problem I have is that why I'm empathetic, I am also prejudiced.  I don't want to be a Jerry Springer clown.  I don't want people to make fun of me. I don't want people to laugh at me when I walk into a restaurant.

I tried to live as a woman in my early 20s and heard wolf whistles and people yelling indistinguishable things when walking across the street.  It didn't matter to be then but I am too vulnerable to handle things like that now.  I didn't know what trans was then...or anything about hormones or support, I just felt better wearing girl's tops and makeup.

When I was 16 I both went bald and grew breasts (I was thin and until then played sports.)  I am a hormonal mess.  I've worked so hard to avoid the ridicule I faced during puberty, and won.  I have an amazing career.  High school bullies are now writing me telling me they're a fan of thee stuff I work on.  I am so not ready to open my life back up to scrutiny and ridicule. 

I need to be female but don't know what kind of woman I can be.  I can't picture it fully. 

Quote from: VeryGnawty on February 18, 2011, 07:15:16 AM
But if there's anything that I want less than transitioning, it is spending my entire life in pure misery.  Transition is heaven by comparison.

I don't have pure misery. EVERYTHING in my life is amazing except for the trans stuff.  I have an awesome job, a house, a beautiful wife, kid, tons of friends, I get to travel...I have validation every day. 

The really messed up thing is that I have this subconscious desire to sabotage all of it just to hit a wall and get the body I need.  As if I can rise like a phoenix.  Very very dumb.  IT'S JUST A BODY.  How many people are born with the body they want?!  Like 1%?

Quote from: japple on February 18, 2011, 10:11:13 PM
Emma,

Thank you.   I think about you a lot.  We have somewhat similar back-stories (bi, married, parent) and you're just going for it...I envy you. You're pretty, you seem so strong.  I don't see how I can pass.

I am feeling better overall but like this perspective.  I'm a trans woman.  I can kind of define that for myself but I can't fully form what it means. 

1. Your body is not just a body, disassociating is what got you where you are in the first place.

2. Let's see if I can help you by delving further into my psyche, (thank you sooo much by the way, you made me teer up)

Japple, I fear I have a complex that every girl carries with them - a lack of confidence. I feel like my life is slipping away, and certain things will be out of reach if I don't start now. I long to be held and called soft, to be called pretty, to be called smart and lovely (just for starters)... I have to do this head first, I have to get started at the beginning of my body's prime, my body is now quicksand. Every masculine reminder is being methodically rubbed out. I use facial cleanser, face lotion, body lotion, shave almost every hair off my body, shave my face until it invariably bleeds, I throw out my male clothes, adopt androgynous ones for now, I will die if I go bald (I promise you), I can't continue to allow testosterone to destroy my skin, I will align my body with my mind.

I wish to God that that were a good consolation, being pretty. But being pretty doesn't solve my problems. I don't think being pretty ever solved any girl's problems by itself. I have a past that must be addressed, I have a future that needs to be thought out. This is why I must work to be strong. I practice here, I practice outside sometimes. I am partly in therapy because I can view myself as a weak woman. I don't think I pass, and I really don't think that people care - they still see me as stunning- they don't want to talk about the environment or dresses or basketball or their relationships; they just want to be around something exciting. This belief is at the core of my problem with objectification. I am certain that HRT and going full time will help me to move past this.

Going for it is the necessary first step. I will evolve as I go along, become stronger, be beautiful (by MY definition) and be able to establish meaningful relationships. I do this because I must, if this were not my path the alternatives would all lead me to a deathbed with a sad and regretful shell of a (wo)man lying in it.

I hope that you make the right decision for you, and that you gain insight by reading these overlong ramblings. I have a feeling that you will find transition is not at all like a phoenix rising, it's more like letting the phoenix out of her cage. I'm sure that she has died by fire and re-arisen inside of you many times.

Oh, and all of this: "I have an awesome job, a house, a beautiful wife, kid, tons of friends, I get to travel...I have validation every day," means a hell of a lot more to a person who is not living a lie.

You seem so self aware. 

I have been doing some of this but am almost as dissociated from it as my body and have to remember that I'm doing it.  I've been erasing the masculine. I dropped 30 lbs.  I shave my body. I have an HRT appointment. I have been wearing makeup, little "stains" during the day, a little more by night and weekends. I have been wearing more androgynous clothes. I have come out to my friends and my mother.   I've gotten support.  I love it when the transgender health nurse calls me sweetie or hun.

All of these things make me feel good. When I came out to my Mom, i had a four hour conversation where I never felt happier or more alive.  I know I am on an inevitable path but can't embrace it like you do.

You have made me feel better. 

Can you give me more perspective?....A thing I deal with is that I LIKE women..I respect women.  Thinking I could become one is the most egotistical thing I have ever felt. I don't expect them to accept me as their own.  I've been asked what pronouns I'd like to have used and I can't say "her" and "she."   I feel like a liar.  My 2 year old calls me Momma a lot by mistake.  My wife asks if I like it...I do but I also feel like I'm taking something from her.  I don't deserve it.  I don't want people to feel uncomfortable. My HRT doctor is at an OBGYN but I scheduled to see her at another location so I don't make the other women uncomfortable. (I've spent plenty of hours in OBGYN waiting rooms waiting for my wife..so I'm not uncomfortable..but feel like it's for real women)

I feel like such a fraud. I don't identify as Androgyne at all but feel like that's what I need to say I am because calling myself female seems so disrespectful.  "Trans" has been much comfortable to me, but it's as far as I can go.

I still have so much shame over how I feel. I am a coward.

Quote from: MarinaM on February 19, 2011, 01:17:53 AM
Oh, and all of this: "I have an awesome job, a house, a beautiful wife, kid, tons of friends, I get to travel...I have validation every day," means a hell of a lot more to a person who is not living a lie.

This is the hardest part to crack. I KNOW you're right.  Being with the people I am out to is so so much better.  I am happy and knowable.   I love those relationships.

However, relationships haven't meant a ton to me and I see so many women on here giving up their entire lives to live their life.  I would be giving up a lot.  I am on a path career wise that people dream of....and that gives me happiness too. I am so so so afraid of losing what I have...I've had nothing and didn't like it. 

Quote from: japple on February 19, 2011, 01:38:54 AM

Can you give me more perspective?....A thing I deal with is that I LIKE women..I respect women.  Thinking I could become one is the most egotistical thing I have ever felt. I don't expect them to accept me as their own.  I've been asked what pronouns I'd like to have used and I can't say "her" and "she."   I feel like a liar.  My 2 year old calls me Momma a lot by mistake.  My wife asks if I like it...I do but I also feel like I'm taking something from her.  I don't deserve it.  I don't want people to feel uncomfortable. My HRT doctor is at an OBGYN but I scheduled to see her at another location so I don't make the other women uncomfortable. (I've spent plenty of hours in OBGYN waiting rooms waiting for my wife..so I'm not uncomfortable..but feel like it's for real women)

I feel like such a fraud. I don't identify as Androgyne at all but feel like that's what I need to say I am because calling myself female seems so disrespectful.  "Trans" has been much comfortable to me, but it's as far as I can go.

I still have so much shame over how I feel. I am a coward.

Women are people too, they are not some mystical creature that everyone must revere, they're human. People must earn respect on an individual basis, not have it gifted as part of a wholesale. I'm afraid that our society does not allow for a compromise as far as pronouns; you can say, "call me whatever you like," and if you can handle being called "he" with boobs, long hair, a purse and a dress, then more power to you. I'm afraid that passing involves you being called by female pronouns, however. I assure you, at some point you will feel as though you have earned it, people will give you these titles freely, you are not stealing anything from anyone. A woman who would suggest otherwise is almost always a cruel and insecure person.

My suggestion for work is to begin working harder, make yourself invaluable. Strive to be trans AND succeed.

I'm still working on what my daughter will call me. Emma sounds alot like momma, but I don't know, I feel like I need a title. I have the same hangup about using the words mom or mother.

Tell them you're a trans woman. Just do it. See how it feels. My wife, who hates everything about this transition, concedes that I am indeed a woman. She even slipped and said she can't hit a girl in our last fight (but she can!). It's not easy to be proud, this takes time. Baby steps, just breathe.

Thank you. 

You've made me feel much better.  I appreciate your POV.  I'm nine years old than you, I should be giving you the advice  

I am going to resolve to keep my sights set for the here and now.  Work on removing the man and worry about what the woman is as she learns.