That sound like some positive news from today.

Regarding the emotional problems.
I can relate to this so please get them sorted first so you have a clear mind for later and it is not clouded.

I tried to deal with too many life changing issues a few years ago unrelated to my TG feelings and it was hell and I ended up having a break down.
It can get out of control very easily and you don't want that.
My therapist was shocked to say the least by everything I was trying to cope with at once.
Now that it's sorted other doors can be opened.

Regards

Jen

Quote from: Jenny07 on August 06, 2012, 07:08:59 AM

My therapist was shocked to say the least by everything I was trying to cope with at once.
Now that it's sorted other doors can be opened.

That's exactly what happened to me. They were amazed at how much calm I looked despite everything I was telling about my childhood.


It's time to set some priorities. I myself know that the combination of poor social skills (currently working on them) and the inability to build new friendships and relationships can turn into a bomb when combined with going though a transition. I feel that prior to fixing my body, fixing my mind takes priority. You can't build a home without good pillars.

Spot on.

Get the mind sorted then the body.

Remember that there are others who have grown through adversity and you're not alone.
We all have a common issues and are all friends.

Happy to help when I can.

Jen

Hi Apples,

You are sounding a lot clearer in your thinking. And your posts are are more relaxed than previous ones. The early work with your therapist and the following introspection appears to be working well for you.

Good that you have made contact with local group, and clarified certain points. Now that your journey has really started, I feel things are going to work out well for you. Still a few barriers to jump, but I sense you are getting stronger in being able to challenge them more rationally.

I really believe you'll make this happen, whichever way you want it.

You asked a question as to whether you should attempt parallel paths. I believe you know the answer to that question. You know your strengths and weaknesses better than anyone else. Listen to your heart and follow it's lead. I've never known it to be wrong.

Keep up the fabulous job you are doing. And thank you for keeping in touch, letting us know how you are coping. Thank you for the trust you have placed in this family.

Huggs
Catherine

Yup. The feeling is like my several personalities are finally making an agreement and merging. I am starting to find my true self. Neither completely sure about any gender, moving between the two, but that's OK. Reuniting with friends also made me know what really matters on life, and what is that I have wished for in my entire lifetime.




My biggest issue was that the RLE here was no only excessive, but considered insulting, and forced you into an stereotype XIX woman. Since the 28th of June it is not required any more. In fact, after a few months you get a temporary ID card and on two years, If they see you are OK is when they will help you changing your name and birth certificate. If I ever have to do that, It will be a neutral one. Such as "Andrea", which is linked to a different gender depending on the country of origin.

About something the association told me... "You need to contact with the trans associations on your area, instead of believing outdated or wrong information, such as Wikipedia. Feel free to ask us if you have any doubt".

So, Thanks for everything, guys, girls... whatever you want to be.




Edit: So, in the end, life is good, and finding yourself is even better. Reyes is back from the hospital safe and sound, my libido is back, and I feel I can finish this anguish and go back to the things I like while I prepare for transition. And to fix what's still pending on my head, though.

Hi Apples,

Just so really pleased everything is starting to come together for you. Finding the real you can be such a rewarding experience. The opportunity to love and embrace yourself can be such a liberating feeling, that sometimes it can be very hard to explain to others just how good it can be.

I wish you every success and may the dreams of the real you, come true. You deserve it.

Huggs
Catherine

Well, to explain it in a simple way, yesterday was the first time on weeks I slept like a baby, and my digestive tract is working again (anxiety reduced). Now I can't wait to get into HRT, although looking too happy could cause me problems when I visit the GID therapist. Luckily the anxiety will come back sooner or later, as usual.


So, If more or less I'm back to working condition. It's time to start shaping the body at the gym

Hi Apples,

It's just sooooo good to hear that ray of sunshine in your writings. You'd be amazed at how your feelings are expressed in your posts. We are all so happy for you.

Quote from: Apples on August 07, 2012, 09:55:07 AM
although looking too happy could cause me problems when I visit the GID therapist.

I very much doubt that. If anything the opposite is quite true. Your therapist is going to be over the moon to see you sooooo happy within yourself. Just like all of us here.

Quote from: Apples on August 07, 2012, 09:55:07 AM
Luckily the anxiety will come back sooner or later, as usual.

Well let's just hope it doesn't. You must remember. Now that YOU are moving on, your "usuals" will have to change as well. So, if in the past, anxiety was a "usual", guess what? It's now no longer a "usual".

Liberation and freedom take up too much space to allow anxiety a place in your life now. And should you opt for HRT, that in itself will provide you with further calming and clarification into the real you.

As they say. In the transition marathon, YOU are a winner. Go for Gold.

Huggs
Catherine

Hey, its great that you've got your perspective and I agree with Catherine Sarah - your therapist wants to see you in a good state of mind (for one, it makes their job MUCH easier hehe!) so don't deliberately get down because you have a session coming up. If anything, I'd thank them for giving you a bit of mental clarity 

Anxiety comes to everyone, whether they like it or not. David Beckham, Barack Obama, Boris across the Road - I bet you that each and every one has had, and suffered from, anxiety. Its a fact of life. Being trans seems to heighten it, for me. But theres no way in Hell im gonna let it derail me from a) living my life and  b) having fun. Just because I have these feelings of misapprehension doesnt mean anyone else does, so why should I let it bother me? 

Oh - regarding your friend. Why not take up a hobby? It can be anything and if you find a group of like-minded individuals then you can organise a gathering and just have fun. Also, you said you like going to the gym. If you join a group session, you'll get to train with others and get to know them. Suggest meeting outside the gym and viola!

I really hope you continue feeling positive!
X

PS Out of curiosity, what are you planning on doing at the gym? I was down at my local gym today and my body is so sore! Its such a good feeling haha!

The last barrier I still had was being afraid to accept the fact I want to be a woman. That I couldn't let me go completely. But it's all lies, I want everything on it. When I read every transition story, I am almost on the verge of crying of happiness, accepting that this is wished for in my entire lifetime. At the same time, I feel sad. Of not discoverting it until so late, not doing it ten years ago when my body was different, of ten years hiding and just feeling bad, letting my body degenerate, unable to know what I wanted from life  and just putting something on my head to muddle the inner voice. I don't want to carry this mask anymore.


I have an appointment with my general doctor on monday. I'm asking him to send me to the G.I.D. unit, and not afraid a single bit. Enough with the lies. It's been too long trying to discover who I am and I'm not waiting anymore. This is my only ray of light in this dark world. I only hope I don't get rejected. I can't live like this anymore, it's eating me away, little by little.


What I need is a social hobby, that makes me interact with more people. I've been using hobbies as a way of evading myself from reality for years.. I'm trying to integrate myself into the circle friends of other persons, and for now I have direct contact with another person (which increasesmy friend counter from 1 to 2). Too bad that when we meet, I find too difficult to have a good time, still anxious about my body. My anxiety simply has changed on what creates it. Before it was the fear of being trans. Now is the fear of not being, of living until I die on this shell, looking like something I am not.


About the gym... I only use the muscle / fitness room. Since I have crappy working times, I can go 45 minutes before working, and there is not a lot of people there, everybody working on his/her own routine. Once I tried to go on the afternoons, to witness one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen: Some sort of macho contest against the mirror about who had more chest and muscles. That day I knew I absolutely did not want that.
I have requested to go into endurance training. Muscle cannot be reduced, but we can try to reshape it into something slimmer and lean. I will also need to keep with the hypocaloric diet if I want to kill more fat. I still feel saggy, specially on the thighs.

I feel you concerning the thighs. I looked in the mirror today and was actually disgusted at mines  I've stopped doing thigh strengthening exercises (bar the occasional set of squats), I havent played footbayy (soccer) competitively or for fun in well over 3 months, haven't done any hillwalking or mountaineering since March and yet I swear my thighs are the exact same size! Impossible lol!

I'm glad that you have finally came to this realization. Its a big improvement considering when you first joined here a few weeks ago you were still uncertain. If you convey your determination to your doctor then I'm sure he'll agree to your wishes. If not, then yoju find someone else that is amenable. If its what you want and what you need, then you have to fight for this.

Personally I am not too devastated at transitioning at this stage in my life. I know that if I started HRT before puberty I would find my transition much easier and the results would be more profound, but I would be dogged by the constant thought of, "what if?". Or agonized over the fact that I may have transitioned too early and live to regret it. Now, I've spent a few years being an adult male and fully 100% believe it is not for me, so I can focus on transitioning with my all, because I know this is what I want and need.

X

Yep. For now, my biggest worry is the exercising and legs, and getting so many different opinions. Build muscle, reduce it... I still need to kill a lot of fat, I don't know how to balance all of this. And it is already the first step!

Quote from: Apples on August 09, 2012, 02:47:43 AM
Yep. For now, my biggest worry is the exercising and legs, and getting so many different opinions. Build muscle, reduce it... I still need to kill a lot of fat, I don't know how to balance all of this. And it is already the first step!

I reckon you should relax, take it easy. This isn't a race. I'm feeling tense just reading your to-do-list. Get on HRT as soon as possible. That itself may solve many of your problems. If your main worry is exercising and legs, you don't have many worries!

My own approach to transitioning was very laid back, very organic. I had no timetable, I just went with the flow and whatever felt right at the time. But we're all different and have different constraints.

It's just that I keep being worried about my body. It will take months before HRT (still haven't had my firs real appointment) can be started, but I need to kill fat, and it's not easy for me. Those 5 kg I lost were probably caused by the anxiety and not being able to process food properly, so now I am even more worried of gaining fat again. I just want to get out of here and go exercising, but I still have several hours here until I can leave.

The fact is that I am obsessed about getting a perfect body on this, that probably I will never get with my build and legs, no matter how hard I try. I have the kind of body that earns fat non stop and never loses it. I want to start getting serious, but there is no way, there is always something blocking me. Work, friends, family... I hate it. I just want to hope I will be able to kill all the accumulated fat once and for all. From 1999 to 2009 I never did any exercising or dieting, and know I have to fight ten years of bad habits. But heck, I'm running out of hair and youth. I need to do this ASAP.

Once you're on HRT, you'll feel much more relaxed. You will literally stop running out of hair and youth.
Sounds like focusing on exercise is getting your mind off things.

Fact is, my life for the last ten years has consisted on going to occupation courses / working, growing my ass in front of a playstation, buying random things to ease my solitude and believing that internet was an acceptable replacement for social life. Even If I wanted, now I can't go back to that lifestyle. Going to the gym was just an excuse to ease my guilt, but I have never put any real commitment. Know I feel I need to work against the clock as I shed my old life.

PS, you know which was a I thing I have to start practicing too? Smiling. Those muscles felt like if they were paralyzed, to. Now I try to remind myself to smile more at people, although it is quite hard depending on how on my nerves I am.

->-bleeped-<-, I turn 30 on November. I need to start this as soon as possible.

Quote from: Apples on August 09, 2012, 04:28:45 AM
..... a  thing I have to start practicing too? Smiling. Those muscles felt like if they were paralyzed, to. Now I try to remind myself to smile more at people, although it is quite hard depending on how on my nerves I am.

Well Susan's has thought of that too. If you have a debauched sense of humour, you'll enjoy the "Bad Jokes" thread of if you wish to split your sides in uncontrollable hysteria, there's always "Aunty Cindy's Agony column in TG talk.

If they do not at least put a smile on your face, even out of mere sympathy for them, then, you're dead. 

Huggs
Catherine

On monday I will ask the doc to get me in touch with the GID unit, but... I'd rather ask them if they just can sort my life and try to convince me I am a male. I don't have any faith in myself, and there's no denying youth already scaped from my hands. If I already look like a monster now, the outcome of doing this will be even worse. This is more of an image of youthness I want to achieve and let's face it, I'm going to look the same with different fat redistribution, hooked to meds per life, and crippling my economy per life.

I don't believe I want to be a woman. I'm just thinking that this I only imagining this will turn me  magically younger like one of thos early transitioners, and me turn back in time until the moment my life went to to the rubbish at 18.

The only hope I have is to look something similar to Samantha_Marie, who started at 28. But for when I start this If I manage to do the therapy in 6-7 months. I don't know If with two more years all hope is lost already. I can work a lot of my body, but I don't know what will happen. Maybe is just that even witht HRT I cannot accept myself and I can't cope with the fact of having lost the best time of my life doing nothing but fattening myself in front of a TV, believing that internet could replace my life.


It's just... I wish in 2004 I had noticed this when I first had access to the internet. It took me several years to realize it, not knowing the posibility existed until just two years ago, and believing it was only some sort of sick fetish, until I had to stop lying. I feel old, lifeless and broken.



Well, and that's every night for me. Every day I enter into this state at the same moment, and that's why I can't sleep...

Quote from: Apples on August 10, 2012, 05:25:21 PM
... I'd rather ask them if they just can sort my life and try to convince me I am a male.

Unfortunately they are not in the business of "convincing" However if you feel there is any possibility of you not really wanting any form of transition, NOW is the time to work that one through to its conclusion.

Quote from: Apples on August 10, 2012, 05:25:21 PM
I don't have any faith in myself,

It's during these times of depression, anxiety and stress, that we have to borrow other peoples faith in us. Often times people who are close to you, as some are here, have a better understanding of you, than you have of yourself. We know you can do this, and from the pics you've posted you aren't at all as bad as you say you are.

Stop the pity party and just listen to what is being said to you. Believe it as the truth, we don't lie in this family, and use it until YOU take possession of it.

Thinking of you this Monday coming.

Huggs
Catherine