Understanding the future?

[GabbiSophia]

This place is like an addiction can't figure out if I am living through others or is it a fantasy? I have been reading others experiences and my own anxiety takes a back seat, I feel normal I guess, the pressure of how I feel take a back seat..for awhile ..

Talking to some really great people on this board helps to understand and then a complete break down .. am I in denial about being in denial???? this throws my mind upside down makes me wonder about my marriage do I love her as my wife or my best girlfriend. My therapist (now ex therapist for wasting my time sitting in her office) says she believes I am a woman sexually. ok .. now how does that work? I have spent time trying to understand everything by talking to some great people here. I don't really want to move along the path as much as I want to understand it and except it but not do anything about it. Of course how I "feel" doesn't go away and I am trying to see how much worse its going to get or how bad it really is. To feel like a woman but to understand your man is very confusing for me. 99 % of the time I am so busy with my business or fam or project that it doesn't feel like anything but another day, but there are moments where I feel I should walk or act different. I can't explain it but its a real feeling.

My wife says she believes I will transition its inevitable ..she is just enjoying me being male till it happens but will not "be" with a woman but will stand by me if that's what I need. Are you kidding me?? thanx for helping me fight .. way to send down the rabbit hole further ..

Then always back to reading about others. Is this just a big pattern is this what its going to be like forever.. if I don't act.. I love my life now I love being who I am, I do not want to change anything.. yes its scary to think about what would happen if I acted and yes I am chicken to do it but that's cause I have my own reasons to be chicken.. I know it doesn't solve any of my life's problems other than the feelings of odd I have. Then back to the sexuality wtf is that about..

Yeah nothing makes sense per say but yet it does just like my ramblings ... ooo and Melissa I wish I was making this crap up please tell me I am so I can move along and laugh at myself one day ... and ty to the few that have given great advice ...

Just another day and tomorrow will be another one also though they are never the same ..shaking my head in confusion

[Rogina B]

Perhaps you can find a therapist more into gender issues and you can get it sorted out.Unfortunately.Florida doesn't have many...

[Kelly DeWinter]

Steph,

It sounds like you are looking for other to give you the answers to questions you are only beginning to ponder. Now the real question is How to YOU find the answers WITHIN you ? One of the best methods of self examination is to write down you questions, the write out what you currently think are the best answers that fit at the moment . You will find this will change as time goes by until you solidify a self image of who YOU are as a person.

As far a your spouse is concerned try not to blame her for having her own view of herself and who she is attracted to. Women have preferences in partners just like everyone else.

[Michelle.M]

My wife says she believes I will transition its inevitable ..she is just enjoying me being male till it happens but will not "be" with a woman but will stand by me if that's what I need. Are you kidding me?? thanx for helping me fight .. way to send down the rabbit hole further ..

As far a your spouse is concerned try not to blame her for having her own view of herself and who she is attracted to. Women have preferences in partners just like everyone else.

Steph, my situation was much different than yours, and regardless I wouldn't criticize, but you might want to revisit this perspective of yours.

Have you read the posts of some here who are going through drastic changes and incredible conflict in their marriages because of transition? By comparison, it seems that you're pretty lucky.

Transition comes with costs that we all pay. That your wife has said she'll stand by you even if she needs to change her relationship situation is nothing to denigrate. Be thankful for the blessings you receive.

[GabbiSophia]

I do not want to discusse our relationship I know how lucky I am to have her. Her orientation is hers and I am not trying to change it. My op was not even about that.

[Marleena]

Steph I don't know much on your background but I agree with the other posters that it's great your wife will continue to support you.

Also remember you can't live your life based on messages on this board. While we are all going through similar circumstances each of us is unique. Only you can live your life, all of us have different baggage. If you can find a good support group that will help immensely. Try to find a good gender therapist too.

Far too often we have members ready to blow up their marriages and lives without even getting this sorted out with a gender therapist first. Only do what you need to do to have a better quality of life.

[LeaP]

Par for the course in many ways, I think, Steph. I described my experience through this as cluelessness about myself - as if everything I ever thought and knew about myself was complete fiction. The rate of the self-revelations has slowed, but I still stumble on them from time-to-time.

You'll have to decide for yourself as to whether you are feeding an addiction. A therapist would definitely be helpful in that regard. You can also take a break from the forum for a few months. Many have. On the other hand, reading about the experiences of others is important to see where there are similarities and differences. My first assignments in therapy, in fact, were reading, and I was questioned on things that resonated and not.

The fear you describe is common.

If there's anything that suggests a fundamental question as to your gender identity, it's the statements about loving your current life and loving who you are.

[Marleena]

BTW I'm not dissing the wonderful support and information we get here from the members. It is very helpful once you find out who you are and where you might be headed and that's why we always say the gender therapist is the key.

When I first joined my support group they asked for a bio by email about my gender issues and feelings from childhood on. So they knew who they were dealing with in advance. Once I wrote it I found it very revealing about myself.

[melissakozak]

A gender therapist well trained in our collective issues and experience is invaluable. I have been going to one for over one year, and the insights I have taken home from sessions with her have been tremendously helpful. Right now, I am living a dual gendered lifestyle, and yes, it is a pain in the royal ass. Living this way has created a lot of stress which we discuss, and I am out to close friends and family and go out with a few of them who are comfortable with 'me.' It has been great to live, at least partially, who I identify as. The male life some of us create was simply the default switch due to the body we were born with. Some of the transwomen I am friends with have transitioned or are in transition, and many of them simply say I am inevitably heading down that path as well. So far, no plans for that.

The long and short of this story is that a trained professional will help you a tremendous amount. It is not cheap or easy, but the clarity they provide is invaluable....

[Kaitlyn Michele]

There is nothing wrong with living day by day for now. You simply can't know what you can't know for now...that's ok

Nothing is inevitable but you are right to point out that IF you are transsexual, there is a very high chance that you will hit a wall and either transition or suffer greatly for not transitioning.

It' may be necessary for some people to wait for that feeling of suffering to happen because sometimes when we invest in our male lives, the idea of transitioning seems like trading everything away for nothing except lots of new problems. But when that suffering hits, you start to lose your fear of the unknown, and you develop a kind of survival mode that leads you to transition...at a very deep gut level you know that you have to transition and that protects you from all the craziness around transition.

I see lots of people that talk about how they are handling it, or how they are transsexual but don't plan to transition, and that's all well and good, but their perspective is that the feeling hasn't hit them yet, and they are betting the farm that it wont

It''s not fair, I wouldn't wish this on anybody but there it is.

[KellyJameson]

I think it is important to separate sex from gender identity but yet see how they are intertwined.

You use the words wife versus girlfriend so I suppose this means in the sexual sense.

In my opinion performing sexually as a "man" would be psychologically painful because of gender identity.

In my case it caused a deep dissonance to be felt so sex had a "wrongness" about it and it was very difficult to understand why until I was able to see how it was linked to being transsexual.

It was not a moral wrongness but like I was stepping into a role that was not natural to me and I would experience a type of out of body experience where I would see myself from outside myself during attempted intercourse.

Not once in my life has intercourse been experienced without this dissonance and I finally stopped doing it because it freaked me out to much.

This is common to sexual abuse survivors but I never was sexually abused and have a good memory all the way back to when I was two years old.

Sex increased the trauma of gender dysphoria so I reacted as if I had been traumatized because I had been, only not sexually.

I could not understand my own mind concerning sex because it did not seem matched to my body but it was only related to intercourse. I found intercourse very threatening to my identity as I did anything that symbolized specific male behavior.

I do think the mind uses fantasy on some level to cope with not living your natural gender identity as a way to reduce the dissonance.

Crossdressing for a transsexual reduces dissonance through fantasy by trying to bend outward reality to fit inner known truth (reality)

The mind is trapped between two conflicting realities.

You want to learn about your body as how you "feel" when you are doing anything. The body holds truths that could lead you to the discovery of your natural gender identity because your gender identity lives in your subconscious and the subconscious is tightly bound up with your body.

You bring up to your conscious your subconscious gender identity by knowing your body and the relationship you have with it. Your body will tell you if you are lying to yourself because it will cause you discomfort so your body "talks to you" if you learn how to listen to it.

Know your fantasies.

Fantasies are bad if they take you away from truth and into delusion but they are good if they take you away from delusion and toward truth.

It is a delusion to "think" you are a man if you are in fact a woman so fantasy could actually help you discover who you really are but you have to treat this power with respect or it will take you into sickness when what you really want is to become whole and healthy.

Do not be automatically be fearful of fantasy but respect its ability to confuse your mind.

Fantasy is a tool, nothing more.

Look closely at your childhood and if you had any unhealthy sexual experiences or were emotionally overbonded to your mother or were rejected by her or experienced emotional or physical incest by adults you want to immediately go into therapy as a sexual abuse survivor.

I strongly urge anyone who is trying to determine if they are transsexual to examine their childhoods closely to see if there is anything there that has distorted their identity formation causing sexual or gender confusion because trauma can push you out of your natural sexual and gender identity so you live conflicted which feels very much like gender dysphoria.

You want to be sure the forces that created you as a woman have a biological basis and not one based on traumatic or immoral experiences done to you during childhood.

In my opinion this is critical to transitioning or you will go from one hell into another.

I think some people transition because of what was done to them in childhood and these people may or may not be transsexuals.

You want to strip away any childhood influences and discover your "core personality" that you were born with as your temperament.

You want to find your female "temperament" that resulted in your gender identity formation.

Do not be afraid to be afraid. Move cautiously in your search for self and desire to be whole in every sense of the word.

[stefan37]

Steph, I know you do not want ot hear this but only you can decide if transition is right for you. If you are able to spend time as a male and when the urge gets unbearable spend time as a female,then that would be the right course of action. The only one putting pressure on you to transition or not is you. That is the facts. You do not want to discuss your relationship is your choice, but you did bring up your wife mentioning she cannot stay with you as a female but would support you. You derisively said "thanks for helping me fight."
Well that is way more support than many of us get from our spouses. There are many fears about the unknown about transition and it is normal. You will know when the right time arrives as you will still have your fears, but you will be willing to face them as they arise. Transition will do 2 things and only 2 things, Make your gender dysphoria go away and allow you to live an authentic life. All your other problems in life will remain although you may find estrogen will help to handle them and some might be mitigated.
You need to find a way to alleviate the stress you are feeling form your gender disconnect. You may try to alter your presentation and start to look and act more androgynous, Start facial hair removal, get your ears pierced, wear eye liner and nail polish. there are many different ways t help you, but you need to take action. Any action could help. Why prolong your suffering? You do not have to necessarily transition to take some action.

Your love for your wife and her's for you are a big factor in how you go about alleviating your gender disconnect. Relationships and transition is a big factor in how we go about treating ourselves. Again your situation is your own and for you and your wife to discuss and navigate.
Transition by its very nature is messy and people will get hurt. There is no easy way or answers. Transition is hard, expensive and time consuming, if it was easy everyone that felt the need would do so, but it is not easy. It blows up our personal and professional lives in many cases. But the holy grail at the end of the tunnel is to our your gender dysphoria and allow us to experience inner peace.

Your path is yours to travel and how you travel it is your decision.

[sandra-leigh]

There are, apparently, some MTF transsexuals who were have been comfortable being internally female since they were very young, and are just waiting for money and medical protocols and waiting lines to change their body.

But quite common is MTF transsexuals who fight transitioning, who do not want to transition, or are afraid to transition or have a fair bit invested in being "male" that they really don't want to give up. Quite possibly including marriage. If they are lucky they find a peaceful balance, but for many it becomes more like the strain and terror of hanging on to a crumbling cliff: how steep is the cliff and how good are your fingertips at clinging? Climbing down may be hard and might mean you can never climb back up, but probably climbing down is not as hard (or fatal) as falling down would be.

Is it inevitable for all transsexuals to descend the cliff? NO. But for any given transsexual it can eventually be overwhelming. And we can't tell which you are. We can point out that holding on too hard often leads to finger-cramps...

[Michelle.M]

I do not want to discusse our relationship I know how lucky I am to have her. Her orientation is hers and I am not trying to change it. My op was not even about that.

Fair enough! But when you write things like . . .

My wife says she believes I will transition its inevitable ..she is just enjoying me being male till it happens but will not "be" with a woman but will stand by me if that's what I need. Are you kidding me?? thanx for helping me fight .. way to send down the rabbit hole further ..

. . . then you invite comment. If you don't want to talk about it, then tighten up your post before you hit the "submit" button and don't bring it up in the first place.

Not being snippy, but it's not nice to scold people for making comments about what you say when you said it first. 'K?

[GabbiSophia]

Fair enough muchelle but I was making the point that she believes I will transition. Those are the words I didnr want to hear from her. My thoughts run amuk and putting it to paper is tough. Yall are right though its mine to decide . I run through the posts trying to understand myself. To brash to comment most of the time but sometimes I want to ask questions. Though taking a break is prob the best thing. It is a lonely journey because the answers are only from me and no one can help you with und er standing yourself either. Beem in gender therapy since jan btw. Confusion is where I stand.

[stefan37]

It is normal and okay to be confused. At some point it will become clear what you need to do. Obviously living as a male is not working out by the suffering you relate. Try to take some type of action to see if a different arrangement will provide some relief. If you do the same things all the time, you can expect nothing to change. You may find your path somewhere along the middle or maybe one way or the other. The key is to take some form of action. Facial hair removal for one is expensive time consuming and takes forever. go for a session or two and see if it provides a calming effect. what you have removed in a session or two will make no difference, physically, but could have a huge impact mentally.

[Kelly DeWinter]

Fair enough muchelle but I was making the point that she believes I will transition. Those are the words I didnr want to hear from her. My thoughts run amuk and putting it to paper is tough. Yall are right though its mine to decide . I run through the posts trying to understand myself. To brash to comment most of the time but sometimes I want to ask questions. Though taking a break is prob the best thing. It is a lonely journey because the answers are only from me and no one can help you with und er standing yourself either. Beem in gender therapy since jan btw. Confusion is where I stand.

Everyone has an opinion on EVERYTHING, however what is right for you , only you will know. I encourage you to continue to journal your feelings, it WILL help you answer some questions. reading other posts give you a certain clarity on framing your questions . When you listen to counselors or therapists, the question most overriding question you will be asked is: "In therapy, what is it that YOU want to accomplish ? " If you go to therapy without an idea of what you want to accomplish, you sessions may become unproductive and discouraging. Peace be with you in your journey of self discovery.