How do you handle the wait?

[F_P_M]

Here in the Uk the current wait time for my nearest GIC is 24 months. Yes, Two YEARS.

The idea of waiting that long just to be seen and to speak to someone is horrifying. They won't even give you hormones at that appointment, you have to wait for a second one which with the wait times is about a year later.
3 years to even start transition?

I don't think I can do it.

Sure, i've waited over 30 years to reach the realisation that i'm trans but now the cork is out the bottle (so to speak) I don't know if I can survive a wait that long.

I could go private, but it's £250-300 PER appointment and they require at least 2, if not more. I'm looking at hundreds upon hundreds of pounds and it makes me feel guilty and selfish and a burden to my family.
Spending that sort of money is not something I can in good concience do, it triggers too much guilt, too much self loathing and the troll in my head pipes up "but you're not worth that, you're just an idiot wanting to be special."

I don't know what to do. I feel trapped and paralysed and I can feel myself on the brink of a depressive episode as a result.

It's like one step forward, three steps backwards.

How do you handle the wait? How do you justify prioritising yourself over everything else?
We don't have a lot of money, our benefits were cut recently and we're barely keeping our heads above water, the only reason we're not totally screwed is we had savings to cushion our fall.
I have three children to feed and clothe and shelter.
All that money could be put to more important use, making sure my kids have shoes and uniform and meals in their stomachs and a home to live in and electricity and all that essential stuff.

It just.. it feels like an extravegance, an expense we cannot afford and I cannot justify. Even if it hurts me, my family is more important than me. I would starve so they could eat, this is no different really.

but damn it's painful. To have to put aside everything, to have to keep living this shadow life and just trudging on for the next three years..

that's horrendeous.

I'm feeling really quite hopeless right now.

[Kylo]

Yes, it's a long wait here in the UK.

Frankly it went quite fast for me because I had things to do before surgery and HRT, losing weight, getting fit, working out, these are things that take months, sometimes years but are best done before you start the transition for the best results. I concentrated on that, and on the other important things in my life, running my sole trading business, doing my OU course etc. As long as there are other things to worry about the time can pass surprisingly quickly.

[Maid Marion]

I would agree with that.  There are a lot of things you could learn before seeing a therapist.  I'd add makeup, fashion, and voice training.  These could all be learned using online resources.

[F_P_M]

I definitely need to lose some weight. It never shifts and it's quite demotivating.
the fact my body CLINGS to fluid and estrogen isn't helpful.
Apparently estrogen retention causes swelling, who knew?

Still, 2 years is a long time.

Maybe I can get some money together for a private appointment through gendercare or something, but nghhh. I hate spending money on myself, it makes me feel like a burden.

My biggest issue atm is sorting out my hormones which are insane anyway. I'm gonna bite the bullet "man up" and ask for the mirina coil. It should hopefully help reduce the worst excesses of my hormones and pms madness. I can't live with the pms any more, I mean it's horrible, really untenable. I end up in so much pain and feeling so so sick.
I'm tired of it.

I'm going to get my hair cut tomorrow hopefully, which might help a little. I'm never gonna pass that easily with boobs and my girly fat face but at least it might help a little from a distance... maybe.

I've already redone the wardrobe thing, it was cathartic to finally get rid of stuff i'd only been clinging onto because it "wasn't bad enough to throw out".
To finally bid farewell to clothes I never liked wearing anyway.

I need to get a few things altered though, because i'm short as heck. Seriously i'm a hobbit. (I got hairy feet and everything haha)

It's hard not to fixate on the HRT though and dream of how it might feel to finally have the right fuel in my system (if indeed I tolerate it. I don't tolerate estrogen at all so i'm a bit worried about that)

Surgery of course i'm okay waiting for, it's the delay of up to 3 years for hrt that hurts, or to even speak to someone.

it's 2 years to the first appointment, that's just to talk, then they make you wait again for a second appointment which can take another bloody year or two to finally okay hrt! It's madness.

So you're sort of stuck in limbo.

and that's quite painful from a mental perspective. I sort of wish I could put the genie back in the bottle you know? go back to living in blissful ignorance as to why I felt so disconnected and crappy.
because now that i've identified the problem, not being able to immediately start fixing it is torture.

[JamesG]

I would agree with that.  There are a lot of things you could learn before seeing a therapist.  I'd add makeup, fashion, and voice training.  These could all be learned using online resources.

He is FTM.
But yeah. Lots of things you can do, working out (lots of upper body-building etc.), voice (garggling with sand, JK), and even T boosting herbals will let you "steal a march".

[davina61]

Well I am on 2 years and 3 months and still waiting for that first appointment, I have enough patience to watch paint dry but it is starting to get to me , the only saving is that I am on hormones (Gender GP} . It only costs me GGP admin as get free prescriptions (old fool) but that's still a drain on my purse . Desperate to lose LBs as well and the E looks like it is making it stick . I just get on with life being myself so that helps a lot

[F_P_M]

Oh yeah E is a jerk for weight gain for sure.
I have that "fun" thing where my body actually produces too much testosterone but also produces E so my body has no idea what it's supposed to be doing. It means I have really wierd fat distribution, both big hips AND a beer belly (why body why!??)

I mean it's sort of hilarious but it's also really dang annoying.

PICK ONE body, pick ONE.

Unfortunately having very much that "middle age spread" gut men my age tend to have and looking as feminine as I do, well, people assume i'm like 6 months pregnant. It's mortifying.

I admit, i've had several moments of sulky emotional stroppiness in private after questions such as "when are you due?" or "awww you've got a bun in the oven?"

How much is the admin davina? and how regular?

[davina61]

£30  a month but my prescription is free (patches and anti T jab)

[CallMeV]

Here in the Uk the current wait time for my nearest GIC is 24 months. Yes, Two YEARS.

The idea of waiting that long just to be seen and to speak to someone is horrifying. They won't even give you hormones at that appointment, you have to wait for a second one which with the wait times is about a year later.
3 years to even start transition?

I don't think I can do it.

Sure, i've waited over 30 years to reach the realisation that i'm trans but now the cork is out the bottle (so to speak) I don't know if I can survive a wait that long.

I could go private, but it's £250-300 PER appointment and they require at least 2, if not more. I'm looking at hundreds upon hundreds of pounds and it makes me feel guilty and selfish and a burden to my family.
Spending that sort of money is not something I can in good concience do, it triggers too much guilt, too much self loathing and the troll in my head pipes up "but you're not worth that, you're just an idiot wanting to be special."

I don't know what to do. I feel trapped and paralysed and I can feel myself on the brink of a depressive episode as a result.

It's like one step forward, three steps backwards.

How do you handle the wait? How do you justify prioritising yourself over everything else?
We don't have a lot of money, our benefits were cut recently and we're barely keeping our heads above water, the only reason we're not totally screwed is we had savings to cushion our fall.
I have three children to feed and clothe and shelter.
All that money could be put to more important use, making sure my kids have shoes and uniform and meals in their stomachs and a home to live in and electricity and all that essential stuff.

It just.. it feels like an extravegance, an expense we cannot afford and I cannot justify. Even if it hurts me, my family is more important than me. I would starve so they could eat, this is no different really.

but damn it's painful. To have to put aside everything, to have to keep living this shadow life and just trudging on for the next three years..

that's horrendeous.

I'm feeling really quite hopeless right now.

I feel this alot. I'm looking at a pretty long wait as well and sometimes I don't know how to cope with it either. It's not hard to stay busy, just surviving does that.
   My issue is when dysphoria knocks me for a loop and I feel like I cant stand to be in this body, living this life, for a single second more. That's when the wait seems like it will be endless and what if something happens between now and then and I never transition.
I would really love to hear any coping skills people have for in the moment, when dysphoria is really grinding you down.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[F_P_M]

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I mean i'm fine so long as PMS isn't kicking me in the teeth.
Now i've cut my hair and got clothes I like to wear it's helped a lot in my self image but then pms kicks in and brings with it a huge feeling of resentment and depression and pain.
And the wait to get HELP to get these toxic hormones outta me already feels like an eternity.

I'm hoping a mirina coil will help ease the worst of that, because ultimately, the longer it goes on, the more cycles I have to endure, the stronger the desire to hurt myself becomes and that's scary.

The side effects of my hormones are getting worse and worse, to a point where i'm convinced it's actually killing me. I get headaches, migraines even, i get nausea and pain in much of my body. I sleep and sleep and sleep because it's the only relief I have from existing.
My body is struggling with the estrogen as it always has, and it's just getting harder and harder for me to manage those side effects and how badly it impacts my health and wellbeing. I swear i'm actually allergic to the bloody stuff, it's like poison flooding into my system.

I desperately want to be WELL again, so I can live my damn life. But the usual tactic for dealing with hormonal disorders like mine is MORE estrogen which we already tried and learned was a terrible terrible idea.

I'm increasingly convinced my body flat out doesn't want to and cannot be female and that continuing to try to force it to be so is going to kill me. So when the PMS hits I get pre menstral dysphoria but also gender dysphoria as a big ol' double whammy and my mental health tanks.

and it's just getting worse and worse.

At least right now I have some HOPE, some glimmer of a solution. Previously it was just this hopeless bleak despair of hoping I could just die already.
My options felt like "death or contining to exist as a broken barely functional woman"
and that second option was less and less appealing by the second.

My fear though is that testosterone won't help either and i'll be back to "death or existance" which scares me.

but I have to try it. I HAVE to.

I'm certain my body was never supposed to be female and that all the pain and misery and problems i've endured with my health all these years are a direct response to that.

Of course i've had moments where i've thought "is this really trans though?" but then I read other people with hormone disorders talk about their experiences and the idea of taking testosterone or the suggestion they could have an intersex condition or whatever seems to absolutely horrify them because it's at odds with their gender identity as women.
My gender identity has NEVER been female, i've always been a "male brain in a very broken female body" and i've known that for decades, I just never really put two and two together and realised I could potentially fix that body.

So my goal here is to fix my body, to get it functioning in a manner that doesn't cripple me every few weeks and leave me wanting to tear my insides out with a kitchen knife.

Sadly the neccisity there isn't enough to speed up a GIC appointment. I might have to just bite the bullet and fund private.

But when the pms hits, I feel like I can't go on another day in this meat suit. And that's really hard.

[Linde]

I'm hoping a mirina coil will help ease the worst of that, because ultimately, the longer it goes on, the more cycles I have to endure, the stronger the desire to hurt myself becomes and that's scary.

This may be a solution for you.  My 35 year old friend has one of those, and she has not had a period for years now.

She said it did hurt like hell to get it put in, but she had not any problems with it after that!  This coil would buy you many years of time to get going with your transition!
Go for it!
Good luck and lots of hugs
Linde

[F_P_M]

Yeah that's my hope, it'll ease the worst most desperate aspects of my dysphoria.

It's interesting though because I feel like a great amount of my own personal dysphoria is less psychological, more physiological.
If my body actually WORKED like a proper female body maybe I wouldn't feel the way I do, maybe i'd be happy to be a gender non conforming woman but it doesn't.
but it's not JUST my hormonal issues because a LOT of people have hormonal disorders and if you said "hey, taking cross sex hormones might help" they'd be mortified and refuse because it wouldn't align with their gender identity.

I admit, I obsessed on this point.. .a lot, because I was worried it was the ONLY reason I didn't want to be a woman but as husband pointed out, i've shown signs since well before puberty and i've not met ANY other women with PCOS who've said "Give me testosterone, whip these ovaries out and make me a man to fix all this!"
they all go "make my female body work!" and find the andrognising effects of the disorder really upsetting and difficult to deal with.

I never have. I found having to CONFORM to feminine standards upsetting. Having to shave the hair because it was expected of me, having to hide my body because it didn't conform to what a "normal" woman's body looked like. There was always I suppose this element of feeling like an imposter.

I'm always far more self concious in women's clothing than male. It's strange really, how much more confident I FEEL since making that change.
I never really expected to adapt so naturally to it. But I said to husband last night "How do you feel if you wear women's clothes?" and he admitted "uncomfortable, self concious" and that's exactly how I feel. Like i'm being judged, assessed, criticised by everyone who sees me.
i LIKE some women's clothes, but yeah, it was always far less comfortable and natural for me to wear.

But in my case I genuinely feel like what I have going on is more physiological. I've mentioned before that I don't have typical PCOS and they're not entirely sure what my hormonal disorder actually IS but pcos is the closest approximation they had.
And there IS some debate among medical professionals over whether endocrine disorders like mine should count as a form of intersex condition.

and you know, a lot of people with pcos are mortified and indigant about this suggestion but me? I find it somehow comforting. This idea that there's more to it than just my sense of self but my actual biochemistry misaligning is appealing. And honestly being able to say "well you see, things got super messed up in utero and my brain developed one way and my body another and they've been in conflict ever since about what hormones to produce and how to function" is a very apt description of exactly what's wrong with me. My brain doesn't send the "right" signals and as a result I produce conflicting hormones and it's all just a mess.

I mean there really is an argument that estrogen genuinely IS posioning me. Certainly it's not doing my health any good. But all evidence points to it not being my hormonal disorder SPECIFICALLY causing the gender incongruance, it's just not helping matters and might be related.

But maybe the coil will help ease a lot of this because when i'm not pmsing I feel okay. I mean sure I am still all "bah, boobs" as I strap em down under a sports bra but it's low grade and I can, I think, live with it for a while still.

I also don't tend to mind gender pronouns so much. At most i'm disappointed when I get called "miss" or "mam" because it means i've failed in my attempt to dress in a particular way and that's disappointing. But I don't find it devastating. I do however get absolute GLEE when i'm called "sir". Like giddy, giggling ridiculous GLEE. It makes me SO HAPPY.
I LOVE that and I hope to get it more because omg it's sooo gooood.

I am NOT looking forward to the internal though, nah uh. It's gonna SUCK. I wonder if I can take one of my mother's diazapam beforehand. Is that super bad? I mean she has offered before now.
ahem.

I HATE internals. You'd think i'd be used to them by now, having had literally dozens in my life but nope, they always hurt and are always horribly traumatic. Which is wierd because I don't really HAVE bottom dysphoria as such. I mean I mostly ignore downstairs, I am pretty detatched from that region mentally but I mean.. I enjoy sex and all that (I mean yeah it hurts a bit but you tune that out and focus on what feels good). But with internals there's no GOOD to tune out the BAD and it's all JUST bad and the more it hurts the more I clench up and the worse it hurts.
It's just all around terrible. My doctor is aware of this and tries to avoid having to do internals unless she has to, she knows I can't handle them well. I tend to scream on the bed and cry. It's very humiliating.

I am scared the coil will make things worse, but it's a risk I have to take. I've been putting it off because of the internal and because i'm a wuss but now it's like.. not doing it means more weeks like this and I can't handle much more of it.

Maybe i'll cheer myself up afterwards by buying myself a nice treat for being "brave for the doctor" lol. Something to look forward to and get through it for.

Thing is, I don't really mind the period so much. I mean yeah they suck but when they're not super heavy and making me woozy and shakey (I physically shake sometimes, it's kinda freaky but not every cycle is heavy, it seems to be utterly random and unrelated to how long it's been between cycles. Sometimes I spot for a few days and that's that, sometimes I bleed like a stuck pig for a week. More often it's been spotting, normal flow, heavy, nothing at all for a day, light, normal, gone. What the hell is THAT?)
Even if it just made my periods light that'd be okay I think.
I've endured them for 23 years, I'm depressingly accustomed to their nonsense. I mean at least that aspect has gotten better over the years. I used to bleed so heavily I was getting through 12 hour maxi pads in an hour or less. Nowadays if it's not borderline hemhoraging with fist sized clots, it's not "heavy" in my books. (tmi? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I have no filter. I blame having to talk about this stuff candidly with doctors for like 20+ years.)
It's the PMS that's killing me.

[Linde]

I am lucky that I never really had a period.  My crippled up ovary was good enough to cause mood swings once a month, but I have no uterus (as least not one I know of), and thus no bleeding.  After I had my menopause, I was done with the mood swings, too.
My friend told me that they gave her a pain reducing injection into the cervix prior to inserting the coil.  I don't know how they handle this stuff in the UK.
I wish you lots of luck to finally get on top of your problems!

[F_P_M]

well sadly, they just ram it on up there in the UK. My GP wanted them to do it at the hospital where they could give me gas and air so i'd be doped up, relaxed and kinda loopy (omg it works SO WELL for internals) but they refused because it's "not nhs protocol" and my gp was SUPER mad at them.
but alas, that's how it goes.

I just have to "man up" I suppose, and reward myself afterwards for being brave. Maybe i'll go home and cry and eat ice cream and watch Homes Under the Hammer while feeling sorry for myself lol.

I have a smear on friday and i'm dreading that too. But at least that nurse is gentle and last time it was actually fine. Hopefully she can be fast and efficient again this time around. *gulp*

I admit I have for years rather hoped my ovaries would just damn well fail or kill themselves or something so I could be done with them. It's a terrible thing to lay there WISHING that pain in your side was a tortioned cyst bad enough to require surgical removal of the whole ovary but that's a wish that's crossed my mind a few times in the past decade or two. Problem is, HRT afterwards as I can't take estrogen (not allowed, i'm banned. The doctors all told me so. I think my notes actually specifically state never ever ever give estrogen lol)

But still, I hate these suckers. They're disgusting cyst pocked messes.

I'm gonna ask on friday if the nurse can bring up my last hormone check which I think was last year because i'm curious. And I might ask about whether I can request copies of my scans because i'm genuinely never actually seen them and i'm SUPER curious about how gross they actually look.
they did a whole hysteroscopy and dangit, I wanna know what they saw aside from the gartners duct remnants they mentioned to me.
I've had so many medical tests like seriously, I think at this point they have scans of like.. my whole body. I've had mris and lap and dye and camera crews hahah.(this is precisely why I have no shame left) Heck at one point I had a lumbar puncture to try to figure out why i had headaches all the time (It's HORMONAL, they won't listen to me)

But they've never really SHOWN me any of these scans, just kinda paraphrased what they found out (read: very little because i'm apparently a mystery to medical science. Bah. Where's Dr House when you need him?)

Maybe i'm actually an alien and that's why my body makes no sense. I dunno man.

[Linde]

You mean they kind of say, oh look, there is something resembling an opening into the uterus , why don't we see, if we can poke this thing through?  And let's have fun and se the girl jump!

Here in the US the patient actually owns their records, and they have to be released to them upon request! It is considered to be good patient care to show the patient the data, or pictures, and explain the stuff to them.  The patient is more or less considered to be a customer (except by my endo it seems).         

[F_P_M]

well it's more "hey let's ram this small carjack like thing into that cervix, jack it open and see what happens!"

aiieeee.

Nooooooooo

I believe I can request my notes, but I have to pay the printing fee lol. Gotta pay for that ink. Funny.