RachelOKC
05-04-2012, 12:08 PM
I finally started hormones today, yay! I'm on an estradiol patch and spiro tablets and it's still hard to believe I'm finally doing this! Taking the spiro tablets was nothing, but applying the estradiol patch to my butt made me think wow, this is it, it's real...and I hope this patch makes my butt bigger! :D
The hormones feel like a big step for me but a good one because I'm finally making progress forward with my life again. I started to transition in the mid 90's but yanked myself back because there was a girl and I wanted to live that so called "normal / respectable" life with the house in the burbs, 2.2 kids, great job, etc, and just be happy crossdressing and trying to find a comfort zone somewhere...well it didn't work.
Over the last couple years, I realized that nothing had worked out as I had hoped. I was deeply unhappy with my career, I was deeply unhappy with my station in life, and I was deeply unhappy with who I was. So I sprialed down into depression, couldn't work, couldn't concentrate on the most basic things, and was hardly leaving the house. It got to where if I'd had the energy I might have jumped off a bridge.
I finally got some help for the depression; meds, a therapist, and an intensive outpatient program group. I was out to the group the whole time about being trans and they were tremendously supportive - there's a lot in common between depression and trans identity if you think about it. I met a great friend there who encouraged me to be myself at group, so I started attending as a woman...and whattayaknow, I started feeling better. Big clue, huh? A part of coming to terms was the realization that I've been trapped in a rut for more than a decade, and I didn't want to find myself at 60 regretting the same things I did at 40. I'd never make it to 60 anyway were that the case.
So I tracked down a therapist with trans expertise, started going to the GREAT transition group she runs, and she and I recently decided that it really was time to start taking concrete steps in transtion.
So that's what I'm finally doing now. Having "the talk" with my folks and sibblings (they already knew a lot beforehand). Writing coming out letters. Talking to friends. I started working with the Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative (TEEI) in San Francisco to help get me whipped back into shape to get a job as a woman. I've also got some friends networking to help me out, big steps that I wouldn't or couldn't have done a few months ago. I've got an LGBT job fair in a few weeks, and I've got a really nice suit now for it. So things are happing fast now, a bit ad hoc, but I'm ready and I've got good support.
So a lot is still up in the air and there are many ups and downs. My marriage is very tenuous right now, and I don't know if it can last. My wife who is a wonderful person is having a much harder time dealing with this than we thought, because now it's real and I'm not sure we ever thought it would be, even though I always said transition was a possibility. A family friend who claimed to be supportive demonstrated she thought I was a second class citizen, so I had to let her go. It's not going to be easy as a parent with a young kid, because even "supportive" people get weird when it comes to their own kids. Most of my bible-thumping in-laws will NOT be ok with this. And my depression conspires to derail me...it's like the little devil sitting on your shoulder that tells you to make the bad choices, it wants me to question everything, and sit and do nothing.
But I'm moving along now and I'm learning how to get by and I'm finding positives. Several friends have became closer than ever before. I have GLBT parents groups to go to, and other GLBT parents as friends. I live in a place and time that I feel like I can successfully transition. And I'm finally starting to see a way out of the hole that I've been stuck in for almost half of my life...and THAT I think, has to be the biggest progress of all.
Thanks for reading.
The hormones feel like a big step for me but a good one because I'm finally making progress forward with my life again. I started to transition in the mid 90's but yanked myself back because there was a girl and I wanted to live that so called "normal / respectable" life with the house in the burbs, 2.2 kids, great job, etc, and just be happy crossdressing and trying to find a comfort zone somewhere...well it didn't work.
Over the last couple years, I realized that nothing had worked out as I had hoped. I was deeply unhappy with my career, I was deeply unhappy with my station in life, and I was deeply unhappy with who I was. So I sprialed down into depression, couldn't work, couldn't concentrate on the most basic things, and was hardly leaving the house. It got to where if I'd had the energy I might have jumped off a bridge.
I finally got some help for the depression; meds, a therapist, and an intensive outpatient program group. I was out to the group the whole time about being trans and they were tremendously supportive - there's a lot in common between depression and trans identity if you think about it. I met a great friend there who encouraged me to be myself at group, so I started attending as a woman...and whattayaknow, I started feeling better. Big clue, huh? A part of coming to terms was the realization that I've been trapped in a rut for more than a decade, and I didn't want to find myself at 60 regretting the same things I did at 40. I'd never make it to 60 anyway were that the case.
So I tracked down a therapist with trans expertise, started going to the GREAT transition group she runs, and she and I recently decided that it really was time to start taking concrete steps in transtion.
So that's what I'm finally doing now. Having "the talk" with my folks and sibblings (they already knew a lot beforehand). Writing coming out letters. Talking to friends. I started working with the Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative (TEEI) in San Francisco to help get me whipped back into shape to get a job as a woman. I've also got some friends networking to help me out, big steps that I wouldn't or couldn't have done a few months ago. I've got an LGBT job fair in a few weeks, and I've got a really nice suit now for it. So things are happing fast now, a bit ad hoc, but I'm ready and I've got good support.
So a lot is still up in the air and there are many ups and downs. My marriage is very tenuous right now, and I don't know if it can last. My wife who is a wonderful person is having a much harder time dealing with this than we thought, because now it's real and I'm not sure we ever thought it would be, even though I always said transition was a possibility. A family friend who claimed to be supportive demonstrated she thought I was a second class citizen, so I had to let her go. It's not going to be easy as a parent with a young kid, because even "supportive" people get weird when it comes to their own kids. Most of my bible-thumping in-laws will NOT be ok with this. And my depression conspires to derail me...it's like the little devil sitting on your shoulder that tells you to make the bad choices, it wants me to question everything, and sit and do nothing.
But I'm moving along now and I'm learning how to get by and I'm finding positives. Several friends have became closer than ever before. I have GLBT parents groups to go to, and other GLBT parents as friends. I live in a place and time that I feel like I can successfully transition. And I'm finally starting to see a way out of the hole that I've been stuck in for almost half of my life...and THAT I think, has to be the biggest progress of all.
Thanks for reading.