Confused or Regretful? (REAL, HELPFUL POSTS ONLY, PLEASE)

[eyesk8rboi]

I was already afraid to post this, because I didn't want people to chew me out, or call my journey invalid, and now I'm really debating it, but I really just need some genuine outlooks.

The question at hand: Am I actually trans, or am I just unhappy and applying social construct gender roles to normal disphoriya?

Yes - only I know the answer to this. Yes - This is a question for my therapist.
But I really just need some unbiased opinions and support with this until I can manage to get back to my therapist, which is something I've had to neglect due to money issues and just being too damn busy, due to the time of year.

This is going to be long, so buckle in. Will post TL;DR at bottom.


I didn't just KNOW something was off all of my life, I started getting confusion around the time I was 16, and at the time, didn't even know the word Transgender let alone that it was a thing, I just thought about how I wanted to have a penis, and be a man instead of stupid girl. I felt like it would be right, and life would be easier, but that was a bass akwards point of view, but it's just what was in my 16 year old head. I never acted on it.

I continued to have spurts of this on and off, until now...Now I'm 24 years old, 4 months on T and I'm doing the same thing I've done every time before. I get masculine for a while, I see old pictures, I remember that I was pretty, and I wonder what happened, and then I long to be like that again.

I just have no idea what's going on inside of me. Obviously there's a part of me deep down that's unhappy with my gender, but I'm unhappy whether I'm presenting female or male, I don't like the way I look, I don't like the way I am, I feel like I have to be over masculine or over feminine to be one or the other and I can't just find my balance.

Honestly, life would be a lot easier if I could just find happiness as a female, not transition, and just live my life with my odd ball balance of femme and masculine traits, but there's just the old fashion breeding in my that I have to be one or the other.
Maybe I'm not meant to be one or the other, maybe I'm just meant to be me? And I don't mean fluid or non-binary, I mean, me...Who I was born as, but just maybe find some androgynous style that suits me and helps me get out all of my femme and masculine at the same time, all the time, and just be ME.

Not trying to be one or the other, not trying to fit any kind of mold, just me.

I already talked to my girlfriend, who as a cis female can only weigh in so much, but is a nice unbiased source of honest advice, and we already talked through the following.

It's not due to my results - I actually am having very GOOD results, visible facial hair and all. So it's not that transitioning is going too slowly, which obviously it's different for everyone and takes patience and time. So it's not that.

Fear of letting go and change - I've always been a sentimental person. Maybe looking at old pictures, I'm just scared to let go? Scared that there will be no going back if I do change my mind?
It's obviously better to stop transitioning early on, if you have any doubts. And I could always go back to transitioning later. So maybe it just isn't the right time for me? Or maybe I'm just nervous and scared about all the change?

Last but not least, and I just want everyone to know that this is MY personal feeling, this is MY journey, and this in no way shape or form is me demeaning or invalidating anyone else....

Obviously my feelings of being a trans individual are valid...They were valid enough for me to seek help and start transitioning. But as I return to the topic at hand. Am I actually trans, or am I just unhappy and applying social construct gender roles to normal disphoriya?
As I stated, I can't seem to find happiness as a female or male.
My male "phases" for lack of a better word, the time that I feel masculine and begin to dress, and act and present that way, before doing ALL of this crap, and returning back to being cutesy, girly, girly - Always seem to be sparked around the time that something hard, depressing, life changing, or stressful happens.

I have this thing, that I've always done, and really had to think about to deduce, that when crazy stuff goes on and I feel like my life and everything around me is out of control...I change something. I get a piercing, I get a tattoo, I change my hair, I clean, I rearrange, I redecorate, etc, the list goes on and on...And I do this, because this is a thing I can CONTROL.

My life has been my own little slice of hell, emotionally, this past year, starting about exactly a year ago.
Everything seems great. I moved to a new state. Lived with someone I loved. Had a nice job.....Well, he wasn't happy anymore. I moved away from the only place I'd ever known, all of my family and friends, because we wanted to be closer to each other and be together, and he tosses me aside like chopped liver.
He kept me on with false hope that maybe things could be mended, but kept me at arms length, pulling every string of hope in my being. Then he got more and more distant, we were technically broken up, but the words were never said....He stayed until February, in our one bedroom apartment, where we had to share everything, until he left. He left, and he took my dog.

I struggled monetarily, because I was not prepared to be alone, and I didn't make enough money to live alone in a big city like this. I thought I was going to have to move back to Alabama...Worse so, back home with my parents. As an overachieving perfectionist who hates accepting help, that would have CRUSHED me, but I was going to do it, because it was my only option.

Work gave me a raise because I informed them that I wouldn't be able to stay, and even with the raise I have had struggle after struggle. This bill being raised here, car breaking down there, losing my insurance and getting extremely sick twice (a UTI so bad they thought I had kidney stones, and Pneumonia that would have hospitalized me if I hadn't been treated when I was) of the course of not having it all, dog having to go to the emergency vet (I got her back, btw, because he had to move back to MY home state [IRONY] and the apartment was strictly no pets allow [MORE IRONY - THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR TAKING MY DOG!]) and just one thing after the other.

I am in a new relationship with someone who loves me very dearly, and I have my dog back, but my aunt passed away tragically and unexpectedly, something our family is not built to deal with, a month after her my grandmother's aunt, and after that, my great grandmother, the latter of whom's funeral I did not even get to attend because all of my vacation and sick time was used as I spent a week in Alabama, waiting for my aunt and her unborn son to be transported back to us all the way from Montana.

I am not invalidating myself, because obviously the feelings are there, but I'm just wondering if maybe I don't know myself like I thought. Maybe I am misconceiving my own feelings in an attempt to gain something that vaguely resembles control.

Every time I get ready to transition, or in this instance actually starting to transition, I always go back to how I was.

I am so confused. I just want to be me, and I just want to be happy, and I just want to figure out what it is that will get me to that place.


TL;DR
I'm confused. I'm not happy female. I'm not happy male. I just want to be happy and know who the hell I am.

[Roll]

I say put aside everything else for a moment and ask yourself one simple question: Are you happier than you would have been given the exact same circumstances as male than female?

For what it's worth, all caveats as per usual, what you said sounds trans to me.

[zirconia]

Hi, Mac

It sounds like what you've been through since February has been crushingly difficult. If you don't mind, I'd like to understand your current dilemma a bit better.

I didn't just KNOW something was off all of my life, I started getting confusion around the time I was 16, and at the time, didn't even know the word Transgender let alone that it was a thing, I just thought about how I wanted to have a penis, and be a man instead of stupid girl. I felt like it would be right, and life would be easier, but that was a bass akwards point of view, but it's just what was in my 16 year old head. I never acted on it.

In terms of difficulty, how did the time when you were sixteen compare with your situation now?

I continued to have spurts of this on and off, until now...Now I'm 24 years old, 4 months on T and I'm doing the same thing I've done every time before. I get masculine for a while, I see old pictures, I remember that I was pretty, and I wonder what happened, and then I long to be like that again.

Does this fluctuation seem random, or do you think there's any pattern that the swings toward male and female seem to follow?

Maybe I'm not meant to be one or the other, maybe I'm just meant to be me? And I don't mean fluid or non-binary, I mean, me...Who I was born as, but just maybe find some androgynous style that suits me and helps me get out all of my femme and masculine at the same time, all the time, and just be ME.

Not trying to be one or the other, not trying to fit any kind of mold, just me.

Hm. To me that sounds rather like what I think someone who never felt unease with gender would probably feel either most or all of the time where gender is concerned.

As I stated, I can't seem to find happiness as a female or male.

My male "phases" for lack of a better word, the time that I feel masculine and begin to dress, and act and present that way, before doing ALL of this crap, and returning back to being cutesy, girly, girly - Always seem to be sparked around the time that something hard, depressing, life changing, or stressful happens.

I'm not sure I understood. Is it the time you feel masculine or the time you return to being girly that seems to be sparked by the advent of something hard or stressful? Or both?

I have this thing, that I've always done, and really had to think about to deduce, that when crazy stuff goes on and I feel like my life and everything around me is out of control...I change something. I get a piercing, I get a tattoo, I change my hair, I clean, I rearrange, I redecorate, etc, the list goes on and on...And I do this, because this is a thing I can CONTROL.

So you start something you can control when something external happens that you don't feel you can? It sounds like at least some of your switches occur then. Is this correct?

I am not invalidating myself, because obviously the feelings are there, but I'm just wondering if maybe I don't know myself like I thought. Maybe I am misconceiving my own feelings in an attempt to gain something that vaguely resembles control.

Every time I get ready to transition, or in this instance actually starting to transition, I always go back to how I was.

From this it would sound like the switches at difficult junctures seem to generally be toward the female. Is that right? If so, why do you think that might be?

I am so confused. I just want to be me, and I just want to be happy, and I just want to figure out what it is that will get me to that place.

If it's peace you're looking for, with the stipulation that you may change your mind whenever you want, which of the directions available to you does it at this moment seem most likely to lie?

[KathyLauren]

Q1: Are you trans?  Not much doubt of that from what I can see.  I'd say yes.

Q2: Are you happier as male or female?  Your answer is apparently No. 

So maybe you aren't either.  Maybe you are nonbinary or gender-fluid.  Maybe that's what you need: to switch back and forth between gender roles.  Or maybe an in-between state is more comfortable for you.  All that is stuff you can experiment with and work out over time.  Just don't feel like there are only two options.

[SailorMars1994]

Sounds like you're most certianly on the trans spectrum to me. Where however, that is something only you will decide through much blood, sweat and tears. Took me forever to figure this out too. I was all over the map with doubt, shame and confusiopn. I looked at old male photos of me, and either got physically ill if i felt a connection or, if it was say pre-2008 or so felt doubt as i was not dysphoirc so much prior to 2007 at age 13. Then that is what got me. I think it will take time, but you are a head of the game by asking the serious and tough questions. Much hugs!

[eyesk8rboi]

Yeaaah.....This was a really short lived feeling, I got over it almost immediately after I vented it.

Like within 30 minutes I was cringing at the thought of being girly, my brain is just so wired to force myself to fit a mold that I've accepted that I'll occasionally wonder those things, but then I realize how happy I am with transitioning and it melts away.

To be fair, I also just went through a lot last year, and I still haven't really recovered. A lot of depression, and for me that almost always translates into finding things to hate about myself.
It doesn't help that my mom likes to rub it in my face that being trans is technically a form BDD and compare me to people who are addicted to plastic surgery because they're never happy with their appearance...Like...thanks, am I right???

I am in a much better place and most definitely trans and happier as a man...I still panic and worry sometimes just for the fact of the road ahead and I feel like I'm never going to have the means, time or money to do name change or surgery or anything, but that's a whole other ball game.

Thanks for the responses and the support! ♥

[Rachel]

You have been through an awful lot in the last year.

I am glad you have someone that loves and cares about you. Having support is so important. Make sure you tell her how important she is to you.

I know for me stress and relationship issues always exasperated my GD. I do know from my experiences that changing presentation and roles by itself is a major stressor. Let alone navigating the world as a different role and dealing with transition.

There was a time I needed medication for depression and it helped. Group helped and well as my therapist. I think what helped the most was realizing I can do this. I am wearing female cloths at work and I did not get fired. My wife would divorce me and I will survive. My daughter can remain in my life but that she has a life too and can chose to have me in it or not. There was so much I can control and so much I can not. I stopped worrying about what I can not control. Also, I distanced myself from negative people and things that bring about negative memories.

I know you have had a lot to deal with and need time to sort things out. Trust in yourself, remove yourself from the static and negatives and listen to your inner self.

Best of luck,
Rachel.

[HappyMoni]

Yeaaah.....This was a really short lived feeling, I got over it almost immediately after I vented it.

Like within 30 minutes I was cringing at the thought of being girly, my brain is just so wired to force myself to fit a mold that I've accepted that I'll occasionally wonder those things, but then I realize how happy I am with transitioning and it melts away.

To be fair, I also just went through a lot last year, and I still haven't really recovered. A lot of depression, and for me that almost always translates into finding things to hate about myself.
It doesn't help that my mom likes to rub it in my face that being trans is technically a form BDD and compare me to people who are addicted to plastic surgery because they're never happy with their appearance...Like...thanks, am I right???

I am in a much better place and most definitely trans and happier as a man...I still panic and worry sometimes just for the fact of the road ahead and I feel like I'm never going to have the means, time or money to do name change or surgery or anything, but that's a whole other ball game.

Thanks for the responses and the support! ♥

You are so young, don't give up on your hopes and dreams easily. Fight for what you want! Glad you are at a better place though.

[Mendi]

I´ve gone the same thoughts through, and still do.

But the most important question that I ask myself is: Am I happier and more me, to live as a woman.

And the answer is yes.

The rest of the questions, thoughts and analyzing myself, doesn´t really matter. All that matters is being happy about myself.

[eyesk8rboi]

You have been through an awful lot in the last year.

I am glad you have someone that loves and cares about you. Having support is so important. Make sure you tell her how important she is to you.

I know for me stress and relationship issues always exasperated my GD. I do know from my experiences that changing presentation and roles by itself is a major stressor. Let alone navigating the world as a different role and dealing with transition.

There was a time I needed medication for depression and it helped. Group helped and well as my therapist. I think what helped the most was realizing I can do this. I am wearing female cloths at work and I did not get fired. My wife would divorce me and I will survive. My daughter can remain in my life but that she has a life too and can chose to have me in it or not. There was so much I can control and so much I can not. I stopped worrying about what I can not control. Also, I distanced myself from negative people and things that bring about negative memories.

I know you have had a lot to deal with and need time to sort things out. Trust in yourself, remove yourself from the static and negatives and listen to your inner self.

Best of luck,
Rachel.

Thank you Rachel!

That relationship actually ended because dysphoria and being off of my T for a few months due to insurance issues, both of those had me like SUPER ASEXUAL and she was a very sexual person, and we just also weren't a good fit in general. We're still friends, considering we have been since I was 17 and she was 14, but still.

I invited my mother into my every day for mother's day and expressed to her that the pronouns were VERY important to me on that day and if she screwed up I would feel embarrassed and awkward (I generally don't make a stink to try to avoid conflict) and she STILL messed up, even though I told her it was important to me (Our whole family has no filter, and doesn't think before they speak)...I mean, like I'm not happy my mom cried, but she was really upset she messed up, and I guess that's better than nothing, but for the most part it feels like she doesn't try and her way of coping with losing a daughter is to ignore my pronoun preference 99% of the time for her own comfort and pretending like I'm just mentally ill.....We got into it a few months back where she was unintentionally guiltily me and and I snapped at her because like I understand how she feels because I've thought those same things - like how I'll never give her a biological grandchild, etc.

I'm getting gendered correctly by more strangers though, so that's validating, and makes me SUPER happy when it happens.

[eyesk8rboi]

You are so young, don't give up on your hopes and dreams easily. Fight for what you want! Glad you are at a better place though.

I know, and I'm not giving up, it's just frustrating. This isn't really something that "being patient" is easy for, not when it's keeping you from being happy and mentally healthy and from being the real you...
I guess the longer I have to wait, the more rewarding it will be when it does happen, but I just want to have to not wear t-shirts at the pool, and feel awkward in men's restrooms, and clam up when people ask to see my ID and essentially out myself to someone I was passing to. Like...Uggghh.

I know that everything will work out how it's supposed to, but I just want all these things to happen before I'm older so I can live my best life while I'm still young to enjoy it. (And I know that probably sounds bad because I know there are a lot of older people on this forum who didn't have that luxury, but I think if I have to spend 5+ more years with boobs and the name Courtney, it's not going to end well.)

[eyesk8rboi]

I´ve gone the same thoughts through, and still do.

But the most important question that I ask myself is: Am I happier and more me, to live as a woman.

And the answer is yes.

The rest of the questions, thoughts and analyzing myself, doesn´t really matter. All that matters is being happy about myself.

It's definitely about what makes you happiest. It's just unfortunate that we live in a society where doubting your own happiness is kind of a regular. I wish all the preconceived gender notions, and sexuality notions, and gender roles for tasks and jobs and clothing were just completely obsolete...Like we're working toward it, but we're nowhere close to there yet...One day those like us won't have to doubt or worry, and can just be whoever, whenever with no doubt-causing judgement.

[Rachel]

I am sorry you Mom is not accepting of who you are. Perhaps in time she will accept you and use proper pronouns.

I fully understand. I went a year before GCS and 1.5 years after GCS without testosterone in my body and asexual is how I was. I am taking the prescribed about of T for a transwoman and besides feeling better I am sexual again.

[eyesk8rboi]

I am sorry you Mom is not accepting of who you are. Perhaps in time she will accept you and use proper pronouns.

I fully understand. I went a year before GCS and 1.5 years after GCS without testosterone in my body and asexual is how I was. I am taking the prescribed about of T for a transwoman and besides feeling better I am sexual again.

I hope so. She's accepting, she's just not adjusted, and I guess I shouldn't be so quick to assume she's outright choosing to disrespect me, because I can't see into her brain, only have general empathetic concepts of how she feels...Doesn't make it less frustrating through.

Testosterone is a god send...Once I was back on it was amazing! Estrogen makes so incredibly unstable, even when I had medication to stabilize it I was still just off the wall...And I didn't think I was all that much until I got on T and mellowed out, a lot less depression, anxiety, outbursts are lesser, stuff doesn't bother me as much, the sex drive, the ability to technically eat more for less.....Like I haven't gained any weight even though I'm eating more than I used to and it's wonderful.

[eyesk8rboi]

UPDATE: (No responses needed, I just had to get this out and I don't have anywhere else to do it.)

I'm back at this again....Ugggh. 

I stopped my T willingly this time and I'm considering not picking it back up. I'm just so lost.

I think my issue may be more deep seeded than fitting on the trans spectrum, because it doesn't matter what gender I am, I'm not happy. Maybe I just need to get to a psychiatrist and treated for Body Dysphoric Disorder, because it's just getting ridiculous and I don't know what else to do.

For so long the T evened me out and I was balanced and normal, but I'm back to being depressed, dealing with all the above emotions all over again and now my sentimentality is getting to me. I miss being my mom's daughter...granted she still hasn't adjusted anyway...I don't want to miss out on some of the life experiences I will if I continue down the road of transitioning. What's worse is they just changed my name in the system at work.

I'm so freaked out.

Even if I was 100% sure, they can't up my dose of T because it's already fudging with my blood pressure really bad. I think it's contributing to my general unwell feeling. I'm terrified of surgeries, and even if I wasn't, I'll never have the money or the time to do them anyway.

I don't know if it's the retrograde or just a bad time in my life, but whether I'm male or female, I don't like myself, and both feel like I'm trying to be something I'm not.

I can't do the gender fluid thing, I can't just bounce back and forth, it's too taxing. I either need to commit to what I started and suck it up, or stop what I started before it's too late and suck it up.

I'm in a compromising position. :\

[Roll]

You said no response needed but, I want to offer one regardless: Whatever you decide, just know that you have an entire community that supports you, and accepts you no matter where you eventually decide you are on the gender spectrum (or if not even on it at all).

[Northern Star Girl]

@eyesk8rboi
Exactly what @Roll (Ellie) stated in her reply to you. 
We do indeed support you no matter what you decide... it is your body, your mind, hence your decision alone.
Keep us posted but only if you feel free to do that.
Hugs,
Danielle

[SailorMars1994]

Bud you're making too much stress. You almost sound similar to where I was 17 months ago. Can not tell you who you are but I have a hunch you're more male than not given your other posts. But yes you need a mental health profressional asap for other things. I have been in therpay since March or so and had a really rough few months from then until sometime in a June. Since mid June I  guess something happened in my head. Gender is t on radar, I just feel myself which is female. I'm calmer and more accepting of things of my past good or bad. Please reach out love! There is a beautiful world for you to enjoy

[Virginia]

I think my issue may be more deep seeded than fitting on the trans spectrum, because it doesn't matter what gender I am, I'm not happy. Maybe I just need to get to a psychiatrist and treated for Body Dysphoric Disorder

Or maybe just going to therapy and seeing where it leads?
Love, Flytrap

[Ashley0808]

Did T level you out or was it just something new that took your mind off other things in your life hence providing a form of temporary reprieve from the stress?

You also answered your own question "I miss being my mom's daughter."  <--- that's a big hint there.  I think you are beginning to understand the realities of transition.  Which is almost all negative.

- family's ripped apart
- terrible employment prospects
- passing issues for life
- shorten life span, taking the opposite hormones does do damage
- continued dysphoria...
- immense physical pain if going under the surgeon knife.
- debt
- regret

If you can talk to a a psychiatrist that's your best bet over a therapist anyday.  Not only are they mental health professionals they are also licensed Medical Doctors.

I have nothing against someone who wants to transition,  reality is it just isn't the right thing to do for a lot of people.