Sorry. I was like a kid in a candy store when I signed up. Got so distracted by random things, didn't even think to find the intro forum.
My name's Orion Jo Douglas. You can just call me Orion, or Prussia. I'm a recently out FTM. Recently out to family at least, friends pretty much had it figured out before I told anybody upfront. I'm 20 years old, and I'm a university student majoring in Global Studies and German and minoring in Russian Studies and Russian. Foreign culture, politics, language, and history is my passion. I hope to one day work as a diplomat or a foreign politician, and my ideal job would be in Russo-German relations. I would most like to live in Berlin after I graduate. I studied abroad in Berlin this summer, next summer I plan to study abroad in Ukraine and Poland, and hopefully visit my friend in Puerto Rico for a time and learn some Spanish. The summer after I plan to study in St. Petersburg, and then take an academic year at Humboldt University in Berlin, followed by an internship.
As far as what brought me here? Well...Google actually. In doing a lot of research leading up to the start of my physical transition this site kept popping up again and again and again.
My story is a long and mentally complicated one. Basically I had a rough childhood, suffered from dissociation for most of my life, tried forcing an identity on myself and drove myself into severe depression, got a much needed reset after the shock of a car-wreck and almost dying, realizing I was horribly unhappy with my life, and found myself afterward.
I struggled for most of my life with living surrounded by strong, unwavering religious rules from my bible belt town and the stubborn Baptist beliefs of my mom's side of the family, and only got the chance to find myself after going to college. Most of it was just, self-acceptance, rather than discovery, and realizing that I lived almost my entire life according to what the people I cared about wanted, everything from my gender and sexual orientation to my academic path and career choice. First step was accepting that I was attracted to women, and coming out to my mother even after her statement "I'm fine with you wearing guys clothes. Just as long as you don't start dating girls, y'know?" (at that time, I was already with my first gf). Second step was finding the psychiatric help I needed to deal with panic disorder, during which I discovered the truth about my dissociation. Through some medication, attention to my physical health (food, sleep, etc.), and some much needed "tough love" from my girlfriend, as well as support, I came to a point where I could start taking the steps towards becoming someone I could be proud of, someone
I wanted to be. I started exercising and weightlifting, started organizing and scheduling everything, finding my priorities, and before I knew it I was out of therapy and given the green on my mental health. I was able to finally ask myself the important questions that I felt I'd never had the time or the freedom to ask myself before, "Who am
I? And what do
I want with my life?"
The question "Where do I see myself in the future?" had always been one that I'd get a headache and throw myself into a panic attack thinking about, to the point where started to avoid it altogether. So my third step was a change in my major. At the time, I was an art major. From the time I was young that was all anyone had ever told me about growing up, "You're such a good drawer, I bet you're going to be an artist when you grow up!" So I was an art major. Though I did enjoy art, I couldn't picture a future in it, I figured it was one of those things that would just....come....eventually. But through an anime series called "Hetalia" and the friends I made through it, I found a community that I could actively voice my love for everything foreign in. I was already taking a history class as a gen-ed and a German class, having declared German as a minor, and my grades and enthusiasm in both were exceptional, while I couldn't say the same for my art classes... I stumbled upon a display of flags and from there, I applied for study abroad in Germany and eventually went with my gut and changed my major.
My fourth step, was one that started the earliest, and took the longest. It took my finally asking myself who I was and where I saw myself in the future, as well as two close friends and a lover who all somehow knew me more than
I knew me to finally fix the biggest piece of the puzzle that was my life. I hid in claimed androgyny for longer than I could remember, claiming that I "felt more male than female" so I was "masculine androgynous". It seemed like it was more acceptable than being transsexual. In my spare time I researched, everything from testosterone therapy and top surgery, to hysterectomy and GRS. I lightly pushed at it by suggesting that I'd like to have top surgery, and using my frequent ovarian cysts as justification for an eventually hysterectomy/oophorectomy. Both of which gained immediate approval from my close friends and at least tacit approval from my mother. After my therapy, and a little more clarity, I was able to formally accept that I had already known I was trans. My girlfriend treated me as male from the very, very beginning, which helped a lot. And after a month of "trial RLE" in Germany, introducing myself as male and even correcting a flight attendant on the way back, I just couldn't let go of the confidence I'd gained from it upon returning home, so I came out to my friends (who apparently already knew or suspected and were just waiting for me to say it) and recently came out to most family (with the exception of my grandparents...for religious reasons and distance reasons). I've got the go ahead to start gender therapy and start the process to apply for hormones, and I just feel, generally
good.
With each step I took I became more and more confident in myself, more aware of the life that had been passing me by, and my vision for the future became clearer and clearer. For once in my life, I am who I am, and I'm happy. Yea, I've found there are difficulties and obstacles, and I know there will be plenty more down the road, but now, I don't just think, I
know without a doubt, that I have the strength and the personality to keep going.
So I'd like to say hello to this community, as part of saying hello to the world, and I hope that I can make good use of your support as I take what will likely be many more steps of my life.
Mein Gott. Way to end this with a long-winded power speech! xP
