Questioning Myself

[Hunter]

Hello everyone,
I'm sure this is a post in the archives, but I want to know how you knew you were trans? I am a self declared cross dresser. However I dont have much time to practice. But something I've noticed a lot laitly is that when I'm stressed, dressing fame makes me feel better. I underdress as much as I can, and I paint my toenails also.


I guess my main question is how do you know?
What does dysphoria feel like?

Thank you all for the help, please ask me questions I cant think of what to write here.

[Jeri Ann]

There is no pat answer to your question. Some people always knew, some people need help figuring it out. If you don't know, you need help.

[Lana Mae]

As Jeri Ann said, you have questions, you need help! I suggest a good gender counselor/therapist! Best wishes on your journey! Hugs Lana Mae

[Aunt Kelly]

I can offer little beyond what my friends Lana Mae and Jeri Ann have already shared, but what I can off is this: Don't wait to pursue counseling, and by all means do not buy into the stigma which is so often associated with "professional help". Gender identity can be an extremely complex issue to sort out, but the sooner you do sort it out, the happier you will be. Gender dysphoria is far more than "I wish I was a girl...", and may present as a range of seemingly unrelated symptoms. I wasted a lot of time not knowing.

[kimdl93]

I think you have struck on a clue. Dressing as a stress reliever. As to what dysphoria feels like...I am sure that distress expresses itself in different ways for different people, but ultimately (as I understand it) its not stress from external forces or life situations, but rather distress associated living as a male...and/or not being able to experience day to day life as a woman.

It may be difficult to identify where stress is coming into your life and consequently it may be difficult to tease out what is the consequence of externalities and what is coming from within. Good thing to explore with a therapist.

[Hunter]

Thank you all for the guidance. I do want to talk to a counselor as soon as I can afford to.
The stress relief is what made me think more into it.

[Teresa]

Hunter,
There is a member who gives a very good account of why it's a stress reliever , it's about brain chemistry .

To ask what GD feels like is like asking how people feel about their feelings on sex , you won't get the same answer . All I can say is I had a gut feeling from the age of 8-9 when my T kicked it that something wasn't right , I finally lost that feeling when I went full time , so I lived most of my life with that feeling . My assumption was as a child everyone had a simlilar feeling , I never considered I was different , a child growing up is often filled with anxiety over something .

Some people have more severe dysphoria than others , if it restricts or makes your life unlivable then you need to seek professional help . I sometimes feel when the need waxes and wanes it's harder to live with , not knowing if it's gone away for good or worrying when it will come back and WHY ? I felt it 24/7 but it took possibly far too long to find out what the problem was . The question that's hard to answer is what difference would it have made , I have very few regrets about my past , I'm just grateful now I have enough answers to live my new life . I feel that's all we can ask for .

[Lana Mae]

I am Lana Mae! I have no question on that!
My counselor helped me immensely! She never answered the questions! She turned them around and had me find the answers!
Each journey is different and many need help! Don't take the help away from them!
Just my $0.02!
Hugs Lana Mae

[Nadine Spirit]

I agree with finding a therapist. But I will say find a WPATH therapist, or at least someone who has worked with other TG humans. General therapy is fabulous, but you don't need general work, you need gender therapy. And a good one will simply help you to figure out what is going inside of you and allow you to draw your own conclusions.

What does dysphoria feel like?

There are similarities and differences in all of our stories. For me, I laugh now. When I started therapy about 3.5 years ago I told my therapist that I had no gender dysphoria at all. Hahahahahahahaha, yeah not true, I just really didn't know that what I was feeling was gender dysphoria. I thought that everybody felt the ways that I felt and that it was not unusual in the least. I mean, it wasn't unusual, for a transgender human, but I really didn't know that at the time.

So how did I know?

I changed my hormones to "try" it out. At that time, I was not sure of my intentions or who I really was. Very shortly after changing to estrogen I knew that I would never go back to operating on T ever again. That was kind of when I really knew that I was not "just" a cross dresser. Every decision I have made to further my transition has only served to verify what I found out at that time.

Good luck!

Oh and you don't necessarily have to wait until you can afford therapy. Some of them will do it for free, you just need to start reaching out and asking.

[Marie-Jo]

Dara Hoffman-Fox is a therapist who has written a book "You and your gender identity. A guide to discovery". The book is designed as a workbook with guiding texts to explore the problem. I think that book could help in finding answers to your questions. At the same time it help you to rise questions. Dara has a webpage too that you can look into, some youtube videos too. This could be a way to get started at a low cost but it will take you a lot of work.

[Hunter]

Teresa,
do you know who the member is? I would like to read it.


Where would I look for a good counselor, I'm in southern California? From what you all have said I should talk to someone soon

[Teresa]

Hunter,
I believe it's Confucius also GretchenM has some useful information .

[Jeri Ann]

Despite good information from transsexuals who have transitioned this thread seems to be focusing on cross dressing for stress relief more than gender identity. The cross dressing section seems a better fit for this topic.

If gender identity needs to be explored, then the question, ?How do you know if you are ?trans? can be asked in the sticky ?Ask a Transsexual? at the top of the page. I?m going to close this thread for now.