Hello all,
I'm Danielle. Some of you beautiful people may know me from other areas of the forums.
I just wanted to introduce myself here, as I have recently made the decision to be myself full time.
It's been a really scary few months for me. After repressing my gender issues for sixteen years, everything came back in a huge flood during a period of high stress. I made my first post in the MTF forum a couple months ago, and a particularly caring member here, PaulaQ, warned me that I had best look deeper into myself and perhaps start therapy to examine how deep my gender issues possibly went. It was a very sobering post from someone who was obviously concerned. It was also a post that I promptly ignored.
I did however start therapy and continue to skip down the road to a cross dresser's paradise, my wife was supportive, I was happy and everything was great! It didn't take very long after I told my wife that I started to get irritable and anxious while in guy mode at work, grinding my teeth and spending a lot of time shopping on amazon. Therapy also turned up some troubling things early on that led to panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. I ended up missing a bunch of work and having to lie about the cause of my absence. I started to change my views and I contacted Paula to thank her for her warning. It was a very quick downward spiral into depression and despair. I spent as much time as I could out in public presenting as female, even though my voice caught me out every time it was still an extremely happy experience. When presenting male things only seemed to get darker. My relationship with my wife deteriorated and I spent a good deal of time at work crying or doing breathing exercises to stave off panic attacks.
I was at work the other day, having one of my better days and I began thumbing through my Danielle pictures on my phone. I found quite a few that I really liked. Just before I left work for the day I came to realize what it is that I liked about all of the photos that I had singled out. In each of them, it was very clear that the emotion I was expressing was Joy. Apart from a few pictures from my wedding day, I can't remember ever seeing a picture of my face expressing such happiness. I reflected on that during my ride home, it made the correct decision pretty clear and easy to make. 'I am Dani, and I deserve to live a joyful life'. Making the choice to live life to the fullest also lifted a crushing weight from my chest.
I've set a goal of six months, to get my affairs in order, come out to who I need to, change my position somewhat at work, and begin living as myself. Within that six months, I will continue therapy, as well as join my local trans support group. I will also complete a full regime of laser hair removal and begin female vocalization lessons.
I've already come out to my sister, a few friends, my inlaws, some of my wife's friends, my boss, and my parents (who don't really understand yet but I'm trying to help them along).
I'm resisting the urge to give myself a label at the moment, because I know I still have a long road ahead of me in therapy. I still don't know where the long road is going to take me in the end, but I do know I want to end up somewhere happy, and preferably be more happy on the journey as well. If I had my choice right now I'd start HRT tomorrow, but that's not how it works of course, I'm still on the first rung of a very long ladder. On the plus side if my therapist and doctor decide that I do require HRT my insurance should cover it if I am already living as a female.
If you got this far, thanks for putting up with my rambling.
And a special thanks to Paula (whom I thank every chance I get) who may have saved me from disaster.
Dani
