Getting out ...aftermath??

[GabbiSophia]

So last weekend I finally got to go out as me and attend my first group meeting. The experience was great and the people were excellent. I am amazed at the fact that even though we all had the same reason for being there everyone was different. It wasn't like we all had the same personalities or thought the same way. It was a diverse crowd. I will say this ... I did not like the venue after hours but that is my opinion. I found it great that the group was very excepting and made me feel at ease. In fact I was at such ease that it felt like old hat to me. After the first 5 seconds of facing my fears I just did my thing like I had done it my whole life. I found that I had no awkwardness or a feeling of anxiety. These feelings where nice as I had and have never experienced them like this. Had dinner and talked about everything and no matter the person the story almost always is the same. It was great to relate to someone and they relate to me and sometimes chuckle because they knew what I meant or felt. So I will do that again when my schedule will allow.

The aftermath ...

So that was sat night. Sunday was terrible I had major anxiety and I swore my meds had wore off as I felt like I did before I started them. I was in a whirl wind of trying to figure out what was wrong. Then I realized that I was spending the day as the guy after the night of spending the night as me. So I changed and that helped about 2%. Everyday since Sat night I have had anxiety and some of the issues mentally I had before starting hrt have come back. This is a pain as I was in a good place. I wonder if this is the effect of me feeling trueness and now feeling fake as this has become a fore front thought. Does going out equal more GD? If so I am not ready for that as I have things I am still trying to get done before I go any further publicly.

Has any experienced this?? did it ease any or did it just feed itself? I feel like a rat trapped in a maze.

[Suzanne F]

Gabbi
I am me most of the time except for work. Even then if I work from my home office I can be me. I do feel anxiety when I have to dress and act as a male. It seems the more I get to present as Suzanne the more I dread being a male. However, I have gained such valuable confidence being out in the world as my female self. It is worth the anxiety for me to be able to have practical experience interacting with the world as a woman. It also reenforced my inner feelings that I need to transition. Every step has felt right and called for another. I am sorry you feel this anxiety and maybe you can delay going out as female. I just couldn't imagine not being able to be out now.
Suzanne

[Angela Campbell]

So do you want to do it again? Was it a positive experience for you?

[GabbiSophia]

Angela yes it was positive and yes I would like to do it again ... its this after the fact that is hurting. I swear nothing is releasing the anxiety. Also you were right they are some good woman there.

[stefan37]

Be yourself as much as you can. You would be well advised to learn Patience. This process will never go as fast as you would like. All I can say is strap in, hold on tight. It will be on hell of a ride.

[GabbiSophia]

I want it to slow down Steph ... I have some what of a plan and I know plans change but damn. I really am still just coming to terms with this even though I try to heed the wise words of those that come before me. the point is that going to group seemed to multiply my gd and it hasn't let up for 5 days now.

[arbon]

When I first went out it was great and it was hard to go back. Things accelerated for me, I was not so good at being patient.

[LeaP]

You will find the patience as goals and plans start to come together. We all have the ability to hold back even the most critical needs - as long as we have some assurance of their being met.

[Cheyenne Skye]

That anxiety is what propelled me to go out as myself more and more. Eventually, it got to be so that I was "out" every where but work. Then the stress built up at work having to present as male there. I came out and had my legal name change in May. Now I rarely have that kind of raging anxiety anymore. It's more like a lingering tickle in the back of your throat a few weeks after you recover from a cold.

[Jennifer-GWN]

Gabbi;

This summer (the drive home) was a turning point for me. After being away for 2 months and not being able to dress brought me to the point I am now. The anxiety and discomfort that I felt over the summer built day by day. I took a few articles of clothing with me but knew that at best I might get a quiet hour or two off and and on. I touched nothing in that 2 months not for a lack of wanting but more from knowing that my needs where well beyond that and a brief few hours here or there wasn't the answer.

Since I've been home I've gotten back to my regular routine. Get dressed in the morning and go to work. Seemingly nothing different there as I work at home and that was my normal practice daily. However, from a mindset perspective I've crossed over. The house is not a barrier anymore as my need to be Jennifer have matured.

It took a summer of forced maleness to finally get over that hump and start down the path of transition (something I've known for sometime but sometimes you need that kick in the shins to internalize it). I'm out to myself and that is a big step. I've had a few public experiences this week to help me with some of the basic presentation orientated needs - Hair and Makeup, again steps forward arguably superficial but necessary for day-to-day survival and acceptance.

Has my male side been 100% abandoned - no. What I do know is that it will be increasingly more difficult as Jennifer develops to present the male me.

I have a 2 week trip coming up. The upside is going to be spending some time in a highly trans friendly city for one of those weeks. The downside is I'm there to work. The curve ball in this one becomes do I have the "talk" with a few of my very close and trusted friends. Yet a decision to be made.

Lea's comment "You will find the patience as goals and plans start to come together" was very helpful for me and I hope you consider it as well.

Dana's comment about hitting the anxiety wall at work made me think... what there's another round ahead. dang.

In the end we all choose a path, never easy, never 100% predictable. Always tests along the way. I had my over the summer. Your having a test now.

So take a deep breath and reflect and think about Angela's question (she's put me on the spot with a simple question/comment once and I appreciated it).

We are all here to support each other.

Cheers... Jennifer

[Kaitlyn Michele]

I experienced the same thing...


It helped me to think the way Lea thinks in her post.....

Progress... Progress...

As long as you are making any kind of progress then the trap is not fully sprung... Ups and downs will happen but that's life.....
you made progress that's good.

[KellyJameson]

Your words were so powerful they made me momentarily anxious because they brought the past back into the present.

Living physically and socially outside your natural and normal gender means living abnormally and part of this is living in a perpetual identity crisis.

The thing is you have always been in this crisis so did not know the difference until you had experienced that moment of truth from being free from it.

This creates another crisis but different because now you consciously must go back into what you have just managed to escape from for the first time. This choice feels like an act of insanity because who in their right mind would choose pain once they found a way out of it.

This creates anxiety or at least it did for me.

Gender dysphoria creates and is anxiety but escaping from "the familar and known pain" creates anxiety because of the fear that maybe something will prevent your escape to freedom once you have tasted it.

When the prisoners were freed from the concentration camps many would not leave because they had lost hope and had become comfortable in their enslavement. The possibility of freedom and escape from living with the constant threat of death caused them to feel anxiety

In my opinion it is risky to underestimate how dangerous gender dysphoria is. In my opinion those who suffer from it suffer in ways very similar to concentration camp survivors "on an existential level".

For my own personal experience the psychological aspects of transitioning were much more difficult than the physical but at the same time I can't be sure of that statement because I cannot separate how each affected the other. They are tightly bound up together but the pain of my body did not bother me nearly as much as what was going on inside my head. Physical pain simply does not bother me much and never has.

I did not have a good support group because I'm to much of a loner from being ridiculously and fantatically private.

Try not to make that mistake because others can help you out of the more daunting psychological/emotional aspects of transitioning.

I also took yoga and learned self calming techniques which helped.