Quote from: michelle_kelly on April 05, 2015, 05:31:30 AM
I like to think its possible to live a functional life and not transition. If not then I took the wrong fork in the road 
For me its not about my body and how it appears or that it is passable. Its more about being the person I am and not live up to the expectations of others based on how my body appears to them. But that is just my journey and maybe that allows me to live a functional life without physical transition.
But that doesn't mean my way of viewing it is right for anyone else. It is just right for me. So maybe that question about a functional life has different answer for each person and all of them being the right answer.
I also came to the fork in the road and took it. Twice.
The above precisely applies no matter which fork you take. One can never live up to the expectations of others. We started our lives trying that route and where did it get us? And when looked at "Transition" as a path to happiness, just what was the driver? It was to be "Yourself". Yourself, however, is far far more then what that person is dressed in and looks like.
When faced with any major life decision I found asking one simple question and HONESTLY answering it will tell you what you need to do:
Which Pain is Worse?
Gender is just one aspect of how we see ourselves. Many other factors go into making us, us. If Not achieving the things you want in life is more painfull then not living a life in your desired gender, then you have your answer....maybe. It just may be today's answer. When asked again in the future you can change your mind.
I spent 50 years living up and projecting an image of what I believed others "expected" of me. I spent 50 years "Achieving the things I want". By any measure from any other observer I achieved far more then my own expectations for what I wanted. I am sure my life and abilities were envied by others. Only one small problem. I could not believe I had. I could not take ownership of those achievements. I was not Me, therefore Me did not achieve anything. Except all the disasters that came about from how I was Not handling being trans.
I spent 5 years now learning who Me is. I took the trans-beast head on. My End-Game was to figure out how to get these two seemingly divergent, yet core, aspects of myself to join together into one whole healthy and happy person. I knew from two previous experiments No-Way could I transition. No way could I ever pass. Besides loosing the gene pool lottery, I did win the T lottery. Burying or suppressing to the best of my ability the female side of me was not working, big time. THe only way to continue on living as a male, not falling into financial ruin by loosing a job that I love, that defines me, likely loosing my wife, who is my BFF and reality therapist, the only way to make it all work was to make it all work together peacefully.
Plan A worked. Not without a few hitches though. HRT helps, A Lot. A couple of angels in my TG support group were instrumental in helping me turn my life around for the better. A for real gender therapist also is helping me hang in there. A general therapist helped me to shed a ton of emotional baggage I accumulated for those 50 years.
Today I feel mostly 90% genuine and present male. I wrestle most days about the potential cost to get to 100%. To see Joanne in the mirror more then just a couple of times a day. That cost can be a good 50% of genuine as I loose other very important aspects of my life.
My wife constantly says "The heart wants what the heart wants". She fully expects me to drop the thermonuclear T-Bomb announcing I am going full-time and dumping her because I either want a man in my life or fell in love with another transwoman. Only on one count is she right. I would love to go full-time. Today I am so lucky that I do not Have-To go full time to manage my GD. Though there have been some close calls.
