i was just thinking about this, and it doesn't seem like anything in particular. i feel so much more at peace and happy living in the female gender role. i don't know if it's the hormones or what it is. i don't know if "i enjoy being female" quite describes it. it's more like it was just what i needed to do to live, function, and enjoy life.

I really just can't wait to wake up in the morning and see a softer, prettier, cuter creature looking back at me. I hate my androgenic, rough skin, my rhinophyma-esque nose, my buttchin with dense stuble, my burly-man upper lip, my deep cheekbone bags, my horrid rosacea, my unbearable oil production, my rapid balding. I feel like a monster every time I see those features, not only because they don't regularly occur on young men my age, but because I consider those features ugly to begin with (did not like them on men when I identified as gay) and I think they make a woman look like some type of circus monster. I feel like I belong in a freak show, the bearded woman. I feel like a woman %100 on the inside, and it's why it makes it so tough to look in the mirror; you know who you are, and you think about what you expect to look like based on your soul. And yet it all come crashes down when I see my reflection, every single time I never expect to see such a masculine looking face staring back at me. I've had some time to get used to these androgenic aging features, and yet I still haven't.

And of coarse, I've very intelligent and stylish; I'd rather still dress like a man if it's what makes me more attractive to an outside crowd - I truly know I can't pull any fashionable looks off in female form with a face and hair cycle I have right now. I simply am not living as a woman at the moment and I know that my face is holding my emotions back; no matter how many times I try to dress like a girl, I simply feel horrible when I look in the mirror, I feel like crying every single time. When I put on various outfits, I want more than anything to look in the mirror and my face magically have somehow returned to at least what it looked like in my teenage years - a bit softer at least - but it's really horrible what I see instead. I just finally want to look transitioned and female like most of the MTF's here. I want to finally think "Wow, I look right in this outfit." Many female outfits already fit my body very well, and at times I can make my hair do some very sexy things, it's just always the face, always the bloated, androgenic male face that looks copied and pasted from an entirely different human.

I don't know, really. I'm happy that I'm finally allowed to be the person I am on the inside without shame, and happy to know that for the first time in my life, people are starting to see me for who I am. To be honest, though, I think my current peace of mind is as much the result of no longer having to be male as it is being allowed to be female. I like being viewed as a girl because it feels comfortable and natural. But what I like even more is no longer being viewed as a boy. Every day as a boy, good or bad, was a constant strain and effort. And at the rate I was going I was headed for an early grave, whether from suicide or simply from outright stress, depression and exhaustion. When I stop to consider just how heavy the burden that lay on my shoulders was back then, it's hardly surprising that I should feel light as a feather now that it's gone. Of course being out about things brings with it a raft of challenges of its own, especially when you don't always pass very convincingly as a girl. But compared to the hopeless, miserable war I waged on my real self for most of my life to this point, the battles I face now actually seem like ones worth fighting.

Valerie: Your avatar photo is so lovely! You look like my piano teacher.

Something I heard once: it's not so much a case of becoming more yourself, as of stopping trying to be anyone else.

I've spent my life trying to "pass" as a man. Now I don't have to pass any more, and it's such a relief just to be me. It's going to take a while for the hardware update, but that's just part of the journey home - and it was feeling like I could never return to my homeland that made me unhappy, so I'm very happy to be starting the journey.

It feels good, doesn't it? But for me, personally, I'll feel much more peaceful and content after FFS and SRS.

I'm content in knowing that I may actually have a chance at getting through this life now.  Peace?  That won't come to my body until after SRS.  I can't find any peace with my body as it is.

Quote from: JenJen2011 on September 14, 2011, 12:33:31 PM
It feels good, doesn't it? But for me, personally, I'll feel much more peaceful and content after FFS and SRS.

Why would you need FFS? You look beautiful in your avatar picture.

I'm still waiting for my first appointment in London so it may be a bit early to answer this question but i've been a much more peacefull person since I came out & told people.
Just the fact that I don't have to hide this anymore is a great feeling

Quote from: Jane on September 14, 2011, 01:54:38 PM
Why would you need FFS? You look beautiful in your avatar picture.

Thank you. Makeup, hair, lighting, and camera angles can really help in bringing out a great picture. I have a few masculine features that are more noticeable in person.

Quote from: JenJen2011 on September 14, 2011, 02:13:11 PM
Thank you. Makeup, hair, lighting, and camera angles can really help in bringing out a great picture. I have a few masculine features that are more noticeable in person.

This is one of the few pictures in existance of me http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7905178/Right-wing-group-clashes-with-Muslims-in-Luton.html
I'm holding the flag & as you can see i've got more than a few masculine features, I can pass but it's only for the first hour or so after putting on makeup, then the stubble starts to push through & the whole world can see what I am.

Quote from: FullMoon19 on September 13, 2011, 08:33:57 PM
i was just thinking about this, and it doesn't seem like anything in particular. i feel so much more at peace and happy living in the female gender role. i don't know if it's the hormones or what it is. i don't know if "i enjoy being female" quite describes it. it's more like it was just what i needed to do to live, function, and enjoy life.

I have trouble pinning it down myself. I mean, I'm still the same person that I've always been, but transitioning has finally just let everything feel right.

For me it first was getting my testes removed and getting rid of that nasty male sex drive which was a rollercoaster of hell. Then it was being able to start over and build new mental tapes of me where i could like me. Then It was having the mental freedom to acomplish things i thought i never could do. Then it was knowing my new sexual drive was all based on a feeling about someone and not just a sexual drive that had to be done like a dirty deed. Then it was the freedom to realize that i do not have to live up to any stereotype. Finally its just living my life and being able to experience my spirituality in a fullfilling way.

Quote from: Padma on September 14, 2011, 08:10:05 AM
Something I heard once: it's not so much a case of becoming more yourself, as of stopping trying to be anyone else.

I've spent my life trying to "pass" as a man.

This!  I really do feel more relief from not having to be male than presenting as female, though it's pretty close.

I think it was probably getting rid of the testosterone for me. Oh, and some of the effects of the estrogen (like the entire "more cuddly" thing).

Everything.

Really. There are so many things that make it better all around for me. It's hard to specify just one thing. Not having to pretend any more. Actually letting the world see the person that I was born to be. Just a more happy, calm, relaxed, laid back, and truer version of me.

the hormones have to have an effect on my mind this effect effectively cures the depression I feel otherwise. (more specifically the presence of male hormones makes me extremely depressed and unstable)

I recently had a few weeks without any HRT, it was horrible. for the first week or so it was only estrogen withdrawal that wasn't plesant nervousness, bone pain, hot flushes ect. but it was when my T level begun rising I experienced extreme and destructive mood swings laughing hysterically to crying uncontrollably to wanting to rip somone elses face off eventually focusing on my body wanting to rip it apart and die.

I guess I thought it was that but when my body begun changing all that time ago now It wasn't like with my male attributes where I was horrified at everyone of them. The strangest thing was looking down at my chest and thinking. "I wish they were alittle bit more substantial." not upset about the change I was undergoing I enjoyed it... I thought this was a mental stablity thing but that responce implies it's somthing more. Who knows I can't explain it.

I have no idea why it does, but it does. I didn't think growing up I would be at this point in my life. But I am...sometimes things don't have answers.