How does one deal with the ups and downs of being transgendered?

[emmicd]

I believe for most of us who are transgendered our emotions are very volatile. I have had moments of wonderful highs when I am dressed in my feminine atire and the lowest of lows when I realize my situation and feel trapped. I am not a proponent of medicating my problems away for fear it will only make me feel worse so I ask this question.

How do you deal with the extremes of being up and down and when you are down how do you deal with it so it does not last.

I have had times where I really did not want to get out of bed and I feel this overwhelming feeling of not being able to escape this malaise. I know exactly why I have it. It is all tied in to my gender dysphoria.

Another question I have is when do you start to feel you can not go on with such a secret anymore and you have to now start to take action and start to reveal yourself in action and maybe words?

How long have you kept your transgender feelings a secret and who was the first person you revealed your feelings to? I believe most will say their wife, their parent or their therapist.

How do you get past the depression you face being transgender?

Have many of you always looked to the brightside of being transgendered and how long did you realize their truly is a brightside to being this wonderful transgendered person?

emmi

[Bree-asaurus]

anti-depressants help...

other than that... the will to survive and experience the good things in life.

if one day is bad enough to make you want to die, remember that you survived it and tomorrow couldn't be any worse. it can only get better.

i want to live my life and experience what i can in the short period i have here on earth. if i give up because of a bad day, week or month... there are months, years and decades i would miss out on.

[Jessica86]

I can tell you from experience that there is NO drug, including anti-depressants, which will make the feeling go away. Most pills make the depression WORSE, and only trick your mind into thinking you are doing better when you really aren't. The pills, therapy, and even this site is not the solution. You are the solution. Those things make you think a certain way for a short period of time, but it is you who has to come up with the final answer and convince yourself you are who you are. People can be different, but people are people. You have to accept yourself, then focus on how the world is treating you. The great part is when you accept yourself, nothing anyone says should affect you.

[Barbara Ella]

I am very new to accepting my transgender makeup, and just dressed up for my first trip out to buy gas today. I was amazed at the difference when taking of my dress after my outing, compared to just dressing in the house. It was much more of a comedown today, something I have not experienced before. I don't know if I was more excited/happy while going out, but I guess I was. I do not know if this leads to depression, but I have never felt so down before, yet so exhilarated from the outing. It is still in my mind this evening. If this is the change in emotions that I can expect as I develop my true self in intermittent stages (DADT wife,knows, but cant discuss developments) I can see problems from the high sand lows down the road.

Only my wife knows, and at present there is no solace there, I hope it changes with time, but until then, emptying my baggage to you wonderful girls here is the best I can hope for. Thanks for being here.

Barbara

[Andie Elisabeth]

Well when I am in depression I try to focus on the future and keep going. Next week I have appt with a Dr. and he'll hopefully gives me anti-depressants to deal with it in short-term.

Due to family and school reasons it's better to keep it safe for a month or two. Family my mom has her problems and I feel that I need to be there for her. I still don't know where I will be which will be dealt with in June.

I had to defend myself at school since 2nd grade. When I got in 4th grade into a class with 25+ hockey player as one of your swimmers I knew I didn't belong there so I "deposited"/dumped these feelings in a dungeon and have put couple more layers on top of my own shell. My parents where about to divorce at that time so this wasn't a good time to reveal myself.:sad:

If I haven't looked the brightside of all things I wouldn't be living anymore.

[Anna Lorree]

I'm one of those crazy old-fashioned people who actually believes in God. As such, suicide isn't an option for me. I had a weapon in my mouth once, but rejected it, so it's off the table. For me, some days are pretty easy, others have me in tears and sure that my world is about to fall apart at any moment. Some days I want to transition more than anything in the world, other days I tremble with fear of transition. For me, a lot of suffering is put in context of being something I have to endure for the sake of my family. I give up some of my happiness and well-being to provide for them. What good parent wouldn't do that?

I don't WANT to live as a woman, I WANT the dysphoria to go away. Many people tell me that I may have to live as a woman in order to get that. Others tell me that I may get relief through HRT. Some say they still have dysphoria even after transition. I pity them, what more can they do for relief?

I sincerely think that an HRT trial period will be my next step.

Anna

[Rianna Humble]

I'm afraid my answers may not help you in your situation, but I offer them for whatever they may be worth.

I found that I had much worse highs and lows when I was trying to fight who I am and even whilst I tried to use cross-dressing as a coping mechanism. That is not to say that I don't get feel down sometimes and at times like that I have either the folk on this forum or a few really trusted friends to help pull me up again.

I almost left my decision too late until it became a matter of life and death in that the choice was stark - start to act on what I have always known or end my life. The choice about revealing myself was in some ways taken away from me, although I thought that I had hidden my turmoil from those around me, I was challenged at a staff party about why I was wearing a suit (mandatory male attire for that event).

Revealing myself to family came because I was not careful enough to hide my nails from my (then) 86 year old father.

I kept my feelings hidden until I was in my early 50s which is when I lost the fight against who I am - or to put it another way, my true self won the fight. Outside of these forums, the first person I revealed my feelings to was the staff member who had challenged me about why I was wearing male attire at the staff party. The next (some months later) was my dad and he third was my diabetes specialist.

I only know one way out of the depression that I had from my dysphoria and that was to give up fighting who I am.

I think I truly realised that there is a bright side when, shortly after I began my RLE, people started using terms like "flourishing", "blooming" and "radiant" to describe the change that they saw in me.

[RachelOKC]

I believe for most of us who are transgendered our emotions are very volatile. I have had moments of wonderful highs when I am dressed in my feminine atire and the lowest of lows when I realize my situation and feel trapped. I am not a proponent of medicating my problems away for fear it will only make me feel worse so I ask this question.

IMHO, the idea of medicating your problems away is a myth. Meds like antidepressants can help, but you have to do other things to alleviate the situation. I am on antidepressants which have helped to a degree and are at least giving me some improved energy and clarity to take small steps forward toward bigger steps.


How do you deal with the extremes of being up and down and when you are down how do you deal with it so it does not last.

Try not to engage in what brings you down and use coping strategies when you are down. Last week was just a great week for me until one person turned it to complete and utter shit and ruined it all. I'm still down over it. What can I do about it? Try not to make it worse by ruminating on it endlessly and try to make progress on the small stuff.


I have had times where I really did not want to get out of bed and I feel this overwhelming feeling of not being able to escape this malaise. I know exactly why I have it. It is all tied in to my gender dysphoria.

This sounds like depression and your feelings are pretty typical. My depression has roots in GD, but there's many other issues too culminating in me having the self worth of a flea. If your depression is caused by a single issue, I'd say you're lucky because it ought to be a lot easier for you to focus on and treat.


Another question I have is when do you start to feel you can not go on with such a secret anymore and you have to now start to take action and start to reveal yourself in action and maybe words?

I've felt like I was living a lie a long time and almost transitioned about fifteen years ago. I had circumstances that caused me to NOT do so, but things came to a head about a year ago when I effectively had a meltdown in my life. I've been out to many friends and family for years, but I'm still in the process of coming out to all else who need to know. Some will get a lot of details, some will get a little details, and some will see a name change and say, "huh?"


How long have you kept your transgender feelings a secret and who was the first person you revealed your feelings to? I believe most will say their wife, their parent or their therapist.

My family has known since I was a teen, and every partner I've ever had knew either beforehand or right after we met. I guess the first person I really opened up to was a friend of mine in college that I came out to because I thought I'd been outed...I hadn't been, but it felt really good to come out anyway. Gets easier the more you do it.


How do you get past the depression you face being transgender?

Transition and learning not to feel the fear and shame anymore. Being comfortable in who you are.


Have many of you always looked to the brightside of being transgendered and how long did you realize their truly is a brightside to being this wonderful transgendered person?

Seeing the brightside is often not easy for a depressed person. I think the brightside for me is the possibility of finally feeling whole, happy, and healthy. I honestly don't know if that exists for me or not, but if I didn't try I'd just wind up another grim statistic. Nobody wants that, especially me.

[KellyJameson]

If I think about all my problems at once I easily become overwhelmed and I will not want to get out of bed, I become defeated before I even have begun to make any effort.

First I must clear my mind by letting go of worry, I do this as an act of love for myself because I have value and deserve to be protected from myself and from the expectations and demand of others. I call this " Knowing and accepting my limits"

Within my limits and capacities of being an imperfect, flesh and blood mortal creature I than try to reduce everything down to it's most basic elements needed for survival and a movement toward happiness while accepting there is no guarantee of happiness.

For me GID is forever because I know it comes from nature (my truth) that my early environment acted on (nurture) and have accepted that there is no escape from it so I manage it much as I would diabetes and it's severity will decide my response, my subconscious mind identifies as female and my conscious mind (reasoning mind)does not and this creates a conflict between two minds that are both asserting their own opposing idea of reality (truth), both want to live but only one can because they are opposites. The female identity is stronger so would destroy my conscious mind that stands apart and over her if I did not recognize that she must be allowed to live because fighting for life and fighting for identity and it's expression are the same thing, I do not try to control her but I'm trying to quide her birth through conscious reason, extremely difficult to do and I would imagine it would be like trying to fight a terrible addiction that constantly has cravings, you are at war with yourself within yourself.

I still do not use the word transgendered in trying to help others understand me. I explain that my mind did not form a masculine identity and try to help others understand the concept of identity, how it is formed and why the mind must have it to experience a sense of reality, permanence and existence and that children automatically do this because otherwise they become neurotic from the fear of non-existence which is death and that every cell of our bodies is designed to be repelled from.

For me GID is a battle within the mind between to opposing truths, it is a living contradiction that makes everything in your mind a contradiction. I see many similarities in it's expression between it and schizophrenia because I feel like there are two people living within me pulling me in two different directions.

This battle between two identities was made difficult because my conscious reasoning mind did not want to accept the possibility that I could have a complete separate identity inside me that I did not know about. The error was in the ignorance of my conscious mind which believed the earth was flat and once I set sail to discover the new world and learned that the world is actually round I than had the proof that my conscious reasoning mind needed to accept the truth and my conscious mind is extremely stubborn so of course I put myself through needless hell and in hindsight the proof was woven through the wreckage of my life but I did not understand the deeper meanings.

The greatest gift was I do not experience life from a dualistic perspective which causes a form of serious mental confusion because you are only able to understand half of the truth but never the whole truth. I have always experienced reality as non-dualistic and this is because of GID, GID expanded my ability to perceive deeper truths that usually remain hidden when your reality exists in a dualistic universe.

Here is a link I use to symbolize to myself what living with GID is like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkKWApOAG2g&feature=related

[Julia_in_Pa]

Emmi,

I had many many days that I found it impossible to crawl out of bed during the very dark days of 2006.
The times of great depression and sadness did not wane but stayed with me and intensified the longer I remained non transitioned.
The only way I see controlling the depression of being yourself is therapy and anti depressant medication.
The only way of getting past the depression is to transition.

I'm not transgendered but I was always told that it was not my fault for being intersexed because it was a medical condition beyond my control.

I will never be truly happy that I am what I am.

Like I have said many times before I had to transition or kill myself but because of transition I killed my entire life.
Was it worth it comparatively to suicide for myself?
Sometimes yes and sometimes no.
The jury will always be out concerning whether I should have committed suicide instead of transitioned.

This isn't to say I don't go through long periods of relative peace and happiness but the damage will never be repaired no matter how much I wish it so.

Overall Emmi it has been a very mixed bag concerning transition.

This is only my experience and you cannot compare it to anyone elses other than the loss of spouse and family that many experience.

Be well


Julia

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Basically Emmi you NEED to express your femaleness in some way, and maybe even have it reflected back at you as simply as "yes maam"...

the ups and downs of gender dysphoria are serious...as you can see they lead us to bad places....and yes, the more your express you female side, the more you impact your male life..and there will be ups and downs associated with that...

I wish i wasn't born as a man, but i was..i wish i didnt "have to" transition but i did...now i have a whole different set of problems, but as many have said they feel like my problems

For people that can't accept themselves or that can't express themselves, its being stuck in an endless loop.. based on all your questions you are not only stuck in that loop, you are adding to it all the time with more and more worries...

and although medicine may help a little..it does nothing for the dypshoria and it may clear your mind and make it even worse...gender dysphoria can lead to depression, but treating depression doesn't help the GD

[elizabethamy]

Kaitlyn is right again -- emmi, for those of us who can't easily just up and transition (or who, perhaps aren't at the breaking point of needing to do that), find some kind of expression -- for me, it can be a bracelet or a necklace combined with a little art/therapy (writing, music, drawing, choose your form of expression). Do it for yourself, let emmi out in this way for a while, try not to think about all the obstacles of jobs, money, wife, children, friends, all that...just do a little for yourself for a little while and it will be somewhat better. i'm a huge fan of intense insurance-funded therapy if that's available to you...if not, more art and more fresh air.

These smaller steps work at least for a little while to lift the deepest funks. be well because you deserve it.

elizabethamy

[Kaitlyn Michele]

There is no law that says you must cure your dysphoria
.....but it seems to me you MUST mitigate as best you can, or it leads to depression and worse..

the folks that don't transition by choice or obligation either are somehow really strong or perhaps not suffering from the same thing as transsexual woman...who can ever know?

...so for those that are "searching" the end game is almost always to be brutally and totally honest with yourself....honest about who and what you are, and honest about your coping skills, your finances, your need for support, and your willingness to lose what your male persona holds dear

...then at least you can know what you are up against and stop all the endless big picture questioning, where it seems like every answer leads to 5 more unanswerable questions..

[Jorja]

Sorry Emmi, I really can't answer you question. You see, early on I did have deep deep depression. As some have said, the pills only made it worse for me. One day it smacked me right in the face and made me finally accept who and what I was. After that I took it one day at a time just like everyone else does. I quit thinking about all the "what if's" and "if only's" and started thinking about when "I would become". It is important to remember that nothing will ever happen unless YOU make it happen.

[kimdl93]

I believe for most of us who are transgendered our emotions are very volatile. I have had moments of wonderful highs when I am dressed in my feminine atire and the lowest of lows when I realize my situation and feel trapped.

How do you deal with the extremes of being up and down and when you are down how do you deal with it so it does not last.

I have had times where I really did not want to get out of bed and I feel this overwhelming feeling of not being able to escape this malaise. I know exactly why I have it. It is all tied in to my gender dysphoria.

Another question I have is when do you start to feel you can not go on with such a secret anymore and you have to now start to take action and start to reveal yourself in action and maybe words?

How long have you kept your transgender feelings a secret and who was the first person you revealed your feelings to? I believe most will say their wife, their parent or their therapist.

How do you get past the depression you face being transgender?

Have many of you always looked to the brightside of being transgendered and how long did you realize their truly is a brightside to being this wonderful transgendered person?

emmi

emmi, being depressed is not a side effect of transgenderism. There are clinical factors that can lead to depression and there are faulty thought processes that can contribute to depression. Its possible that you could benefit from cognitive therapy - basically a process of retraining your mind, interupting destructive and self negating thoughts, while reinforcing postive thoughts. Talk to your therapist about cognitive therapy and then start taking concrete steps to address your thinking processes. It works. I've done it.

[Sandra1746]

And everyone's solution is tailored uniquely to them. For some the "female persona" can be pushed into a recess in the mind by becoming absorbed in work, family, or another activity. Chemical 'solutions' seldom work, even in the short term so those should be avoided. HRT is a different "chemical" solution and may be the answer for some of us. For some therapy or meditation may help.

I find that it helps if I concentrate on "pleasant" things, these can be as simple as a pretty flower or a starry night. I'm not particularly religious so that path won't work for me but it might for you. Keeping active and eating a healthy diet is also good in many ways. It is a process of little, and some big, steps and we each have to find them on our own. Help is available in many places but ultimately the answer is inside of you. I am still a "work in progress" but the operative word is 'progress'.

Hugs and best wishes,
Sandra1746

[MC-lite]

IMHO, the statement "Everybody has their own way of coping" pretty much sums it up. You just push through the pain. You have no choice. Look at the way Natal females deal with situations like this. They verbalize their feelings and ultimately cope with them. There's no quick fix; It's a part of the "illness". Which is why you need to be strong to transition.

Tell your therapist how you feel and deal with the feelings. And avoid self-medicating. It serves no purpose other than to drag you down and make things worse.

For almost two years after I started on HRT, I had to deal with one painful epiphany after another. I cried a lot, but I learned a lot. If transitioning has taught me anything, it has taught me how much inner strength I truly have. It has also taught me how strong women have to be just to make it through daily living.

It ain't easy hon. But once you realize how strong you truly are, you can make it through just about anything.

Stay Strong.
:Miki.

[Rianna Humble]

emmi, being depressed is not a side effect of transgenderism.

I think I could agree with that sentence if you added the word "necessarily"

As far as I can tell, the depression that doctors tell me I suffered absolutely was a side effect of my Gender Dysphoria. That is not to say that everyone with Gender Dysphoria will necessarily become clinically depressed.

[melissaK]

Gosh. Great advice from everyone. Emmi, just re-read everyone's posts and pretend I said it, ok?

Hugs,
'lissa

[sandra-leigh]

How do you deal with the extremes of being up and down and when you are down how do you deal with it so it does not last.

I've gone through two different types of lows. About 9 years, I was hit with acute depression and considerable panic quite suddenly, except I had no idea what was wrong. For nearly a year after that, I was too sick to have a clue, and often too sick to be able to complete a train of thought. There was no thought at that time about suicide because I was too far down to process the word. I refer to it now as My Year From Hell.

The second type of low came after that period of being unable to think: it came when I started to be able to complete thoughts about myself and my situation. That's when suicide came to mind: I was well enough to think about how sick I was and to process ideas about the future. Fortunately for me I got through that time period by realizing that it wasn't that I wanted to die but rather that I wanted change (and improvement).

Not so long after that I started anti-depressants, and that helped get me through a lot.

Nearly everything I've gone through since, I can mentally compare with those low times and say, "What is happening now is not even close to how bad I was back then." And when times are bad, I remind myself that what I want is change.

If you have a bad experience in the past that you can compare to and say, "I survived that car accident and I can survive this", then use it.


Another question I have is when do you start to feel you can not go on with such a secret anymore and you have to now start to take action and start to reveal yourself in action and maybe words?

That's going to be different for different people.

I discovered and contacted the local cross-dressing social-club about a month after I realized I was a cross-dresser but the timing was wrong to make the meeting that month. The month after that I invited myself to the meeting. By about 2 weeks after that I was out Dressed during peak Xmas shopping time in one of the busiest malls in the city (I'd already been out several times by then!) There wasn't anything ethically wrong in being a cross-dresser in my ethics, so once I knew what I was I just went ahead and did it.

The first person? Some sales assistant or other. Then the people at the social club. The first person "who knew me personally" was somewhat after that, and was an ex-coworker (and friend) who happened to be in town for an evening.

[Bree-asaurus]

emmi, being depressed is not a side effect of transgenderism.

My depression is directly linked to my being transexual. By taking anti-depressants (ones that work) I'm able to focus on battling my gender dysphoria without the depression holding me back.

[Asako]

How do you deal with the extremes of being up and down and when you are down how do you deal with it so it does not last.Spend time with my friends. Go fishing. Both of which are good stress relievers and help put all the problems on the back burner for a short while so that I can return to them with a fresh frame of mind and outlook.


Another question I have is when do you start to feel you can not go on with such a secret anymore and you have to now start to take action and start to reveal yourself in action and maybe words?Seriously? It was when I gave true and serious thought to ending my life during an emotional breakdown.


How long have you kept your transgender feelings a secret and who was the first person you revealed your feelings to?First person I talked to was my best friend, at the time. I held it in until I was 20.


How do you get past the depression you face being transgender?To be myself. Sometimes the depression gets to the point that I experience "mania". Otherwise known as being "manic". Think of it as the extreme opposite of depression. Happy, risk taking(sometimes DANGEROUS), and completely unable to make a serious, thought out decision before doing something or spending money. Again, as for how I get past the depression, when I'm not reigning in a manic fit, is to let things go and be me.


Have many of you always looked to the brightside of being transgendered and how long did you realize their truly is a brightside to being this wonderful transgendered person?There's a bright side to this? Where? I see a bright side to living, every day is a chance for things to improve, but I have trouble seeing a brightside to me being trans-anything.

[Kelsy]

Emmi,

I can feel your pain and understand the struggle. Personally I have to give myself permission to be myself everyday.
The severe depression comes when I find obstacles to my progress and when I compare myself to others. I want to be
comfortable in my being and happy but find that very difficult at times. I see the progress of many here and rejoice
with them but I want to slit my wrists when I find I'm feeling left behind because I am unable to get where I want to be.

My GID comes in waves and sometimes the only way I can deal with it is to cry and I cry alot.
It is always best for me to focus on where I am and the progress I've made so far. I am out to 95% of the people I know and care about.
I am finding that I am caring less and less how people react to me I don't care what they think -it's not my buisness!

I have a pile of health issues that have arisen and have put a major crimp in my ability to save for surgeries and that
makes me very sad. everyone here has a struggles list. for me I'm not giving up on my dream of being me until they put that tag on my toe.

I want to be a whole person. GID is a reflection of a torn personality and until that is remedied there is only dealing with it.

Hugs Kelsy

[Aprilrain]

And everyone's solution is tailored uniquely to them. For some the "female persona" can be pushed into a recess in the mind by becoming absorbed in work, family, or another activity. Chemical 'solutions' seldom work, even in the short term so those should be avoided. HRT is a different "chemical" solution and may be the answer for some of us. For some therapy or meditation may help.

I find that it helps if I concentrate on "pleasant" things, these can be as simple as a pretty flower or a starry night. I'm not particularly religious so that path won't work for me but it might for you. Keeping active and eating a healthy diet is also good in many ways. It is a process of little, and some big, steps and we each have to find them on our own. Help is available in many places but ultimately the answer is inside of you. I am still a "work in progress" but the operative word is 'progress'.

Hugs and best wishes,
Sandra1746

Please, Take this opinion and all the others regarding medication, with a grain of salt. My personal experience is that antidepressants have been effective at releveing my depression. It often takes trying several medications before the right one or combination is found. This can be a time consuming and painful process and I can see why many people would give up before finding an effective treatment. (I am aware of the statistics regarding moderate depression and placebo effect, hey whatever works!)

Some of the comments in this post about coping with GD may be helpful for a CD or TG or whatever but they could be disastrous for the transsexual. Transsexuals do not have a "femme persona" that can pushed into the dark recesses of their mind. Focusing on work, flowers, stary nights or the love of family could drive the the TS to suicide.

While no one can argue that a healthy diet and regular exercise are good for you it's dangerous to suggest to both the suffer of depression and gender dysphoria that they are "not doing enough to take care of them selves". This sort of thinking can drive the depressed person deeper into depression where they are even less likely to take care of themselves and no amount of salad and jogging is going to relieve gender dysphoria.

Some here have suggested wearing some article of femmine attire to "express ones femininity". Again this may be an effective strategy for CDs or TGs but "expressing ones femininity" does not strike at the heart of the problem for transsexuals. For me "expressing my femininity" only made my GD worse! I felt farther away from what I truly needed than when I was trying to ignore it and just living as a dude!

For me nothing short of living my life as the woman I am has affected my gender dysphoria

[Karinsamatha]

I deal with the depression by doing my best not to dwell on my body brain mismatch. I have found out through my profession that over thinking things is counter productive - I am a aviation maintenance technician. That makes me leery of medication. So I have had to develop other methods of coping. I will go do something that brings me joy be it cooking, or going for a long ride on my bike. I have been through other rough patches and survived - indeed came out of it as a better person for it.
Nobody ever said life was going to be easy - for some of us it is far more difficult than for others.

[ELIZABETH46]

overwhelming is NOT a word in my vocabulary, i have always "resolved" issues ONE AT A TIME.
being a TG is a "iner-feeling" for me, i feel "woman" inside ALL MY LIFE.
i told my SO/GG and she has acepted it full heart, so now i am "lizz" inside and out.
deprerssion don't need to be, i don't understand why "depression" is asociated to TG/TS's at all.
we are what we are, ...a mistake at birth.....that's all !!
be happy, and make others around you happy, specially your SO.
smile !!!....we are special !!!!

[elizabethamy]

April makes a great point. For some, a bracelet or a necklace or a CD party now and then is no answer once you've hit the wall and must transition. I don't know where you are in regard to that, Emmi, but in terms of anti depressants, I have 20 years of experience with them and this is what I can say: they do nothing, zero, zip, nada for GID itself. Having said that, I wouldn't risk a day without them, not now, because what they do is keep you out of the ditch...they get you up off the floor enough so that you can see the world and yourself with at least some clarity and so that you have some ability to cope with your problems. So don't overrate them but don't dismiss them either. All my heartfelt best wishes to you! And if you have arrived at the place april describes, take a deep breath and step forward...

[melissaK]

@april. Sigh. I'd really like to argue but I can't.

I was in 7th grade when I saw a copy of "Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Biography". I knew then what I know now - that's what I'd really like to do. All the stuff in between (denial, therapy, drugs, cross dressing, marriages, escapist hobbies and pursuits) can be generalized as stop-gap coping that has made me feel better for awhile, but none of which has changed that intense feeling that I'm a woman. HRT is the best I've ever felt, but I am not transititioning in daily life and HRT also feels like a stop gap coping tool too.

So Emmi, i guess my advice is that you should try all the suggested short term tricks to even out the ups and downs, but like April warns, don't think temporary relief is a long term solution.

Can Emmi's "ups and downs" go away? Of relevance, Ann Vitale in her recent note "post op +5" shares her observations about what her clients report after SRS.

Hugs,
'lissa

[Debglam]

Emmi,

Before my being TG came to a head, I would have rather died than have anyone know I was "sick." I was so ashamed that I wasn't "normal" that I had low (no) self esteem for the longest time. I knew since 7 or 8 years old that I wanted to be a girl (at least some of the time) so I had been carrying this burden for a long time. When I finally made my peace with being who I am it was like losing 100 pounds of weight I had been carrying around. I am very lucky to be in a wonderful relationship and have someone who I could share my burden with. (Yes, my wife was the first person I ever told.) I still don't know what changed in my life that finally let me be honest with myself.

This may sound kind of silly (think Stuart Smalley on SNL) but this really helped me make peace with being trans: My mantra is that I am a damn good person and no one has the right to make me feel bad about myself because I was born trans! I have done a lot of amazing things in my life. I have done a lot of very good things, accomplished a lot of good things, etc. I will match my life against any so-called "normal" person.

I think if you have some support network, be it someone close to you or the local trans community or whoever, it is a lot easier to ride out the highs and lows. Joys are doubled and sorrows halved with friends and all that.

I'm not a big fan of meds but that is something between you and your doctors. For me, living a healthy life, good food and lots of exercise, carries me through the tough times, trans and otherwise. IMHO, endorphins are some of the best medicine around.

A brightside? For me, satisfied where I am at this moment, being trans has a huge brightside! I can be myself. I no longer have to maintain a guard on what I say, what I read, my reactions to things on television or the movies for fear that someone might guess my secret. I may never be a "real woman" but I get to come as close as my circumstances allow and that (luckily) works for me. I have made friends in the trans community that are some of the nicest people I have ever met. Ever met.

Debby

[emmicd]

It is amazing to read all your posts and to see the sincerity, honesty, pain, self-realization, struggles, hope, determination and love from each and every one's perspective. I sometimes wonder what my life is all about. I have lived my life trying to please all those who are special in my life. I love my family, my friends and myself. I truly feel lucky in many ways. I also feel very alone and sad. I have a persistent sadness that only is relieved temporarily when I am dressed. Sometimes I feel like I need to just not care any more what others think. Obviously I mean those not directly connected to me. Obviously I care what my family think, my wife and son especially. I also care what my employer thinks. If I don't have my family on board or my employer I feel a sense of doom in ever being able to be me and embark on the male to female transition process. I have taken small steps in starting the process but I am very fearful of what lies ahead and i know I desperately need to start HRT so I can start to feel positive emotional and physical changes but I feel once I start this then there is no turning back. I must forge ahead and I also must try to be there for my family. I am not a selfish person but I feel such guilt in trying to become the person I know I am inside. I am having an extremely difficult time with coming to grips with the truth of who I am. I felt like taking my life on two occasions in the past 3 months and what saved me from the first attempt was my son calling me on my cell phone at 10 pm asking when I would be home. He rarely calls me because of his autism but he did and that simple call saved me attempting to overdose on sleeping pills which I was going to take as I had a dress on and was ready to fall asleep in my car 2 miles from home in a parking lot near the baseball fields I enjoyed playing baseball on. I never cried so much on my way home wondering what the heck is going on with me. The second time I was very tired with the demands of tax season and working a full time accounting position in private and part time at a doctor's office doing bookkeeping. I was feeling overwhelmed by my GD and also stressed from demands of work and I drove to the bridge my dad worked on many years earlier which is a good hour from my home. I really wanted to park my car and walk to the upper level but all I could do was drive over it to New Jersey and just think to myself what will it take to get me back and all I could think of was my son and wife and my need to be my true self. It is very painful and very persistent and I truly feel there is a woman inside me trying with all her might to get me through this and help go forward with the process. It sounds crazy but I truly feel there is a woman charting my course and she is very strong and also very aware of what is going on. I just need to be in sync and accept that indeed I am a woman, that I need to transition and I need to still be here for my family. I much rather be alive being my true self than dead with broken heart, broken dreams and a devastated family.

emmi