After 5 months, I guess I’ve fully cracked. Now I’m wondering about updating my professional website, that cesspool LinkedIn, etc.
I’m a Dev (yes, I use Arch) and I used to teach. I guess I’m nervous about having to tell my old students and coworkers.
I’d love to hear strategies, lessons learned, or anything that made the process smoother.
I’m just not going to say anything. If they notice, they notice. If they don’t, they don’t.
I did that and was disappointed that basically no one noticed.
I’m not really sure it’d bother me that much. I mean I know that estrogen won’t turn me into a hot 25 year old. Truth be told, the only real difference I care about are the mental effects. I’m really angry all the time, even when there’s nothing to be angry about. And I just feel like maybe I can leave that behind and be happy about who I am. I genuinely don’t give a shit how other people see me. Perhaps that’ll change later, idk.
Yep, that was me too. Angry. The first thing those close to me noticed was mood changes.
So it helps? Because all consuming rage is just a baseline negative emotional state at this point and I don’t have any real happiness in my life. I’m kinda hoping that will change.
It helped me with exactly that
Yay! Even if that were the only thing it helped with, I’d still regard that as a massive win.
Same! My life went to shit right around puberty and I knew it but never really understood why, just that I always felt bad and didn’t before that. What actually cracked my egg for good was reading this list of symptoms of biochemical dysphoria and realizing that those are all of the reasons I spent 20 years getting high as often as possible. 6 months into HRT I went sober for a whole month for the first time in my adult life and it was easy! Estradiol has completely changed my life, jobs and relationships are easier to maintain and daily life is more enjoyable, also having tits is a lot cooler than I had imagined.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I have felt a bit disconnected from the idea of doing it primarily for the physical changes (not that I mind those, of course). I have basically given this explanation to my relatives about why I am undertaking this, and it is validating to see people who have had the same experience. My surroundings do not express this as deeply as I do, as those people seem to be focused more on the appearance side of things. While I just do not deeply care that much.
I have felt like something was deeply wrong with me, and this explanation resonates. I just have been a whole lot happier since starting HRT. I stopped feeling like a ticking time bomb, that can not handle my social interactions, and I just feel right in the world. Puberty made me disconnected from myself and the world, I remembered crying to songs that sang about being disillusioned with my own self and my body. But I never really wanted it to hit, I knew for a while, but just felt like it would take a lot and that I wouldn’t be strong enough. But here I am, and it wasn’t as hard as I imagined after all.
I can’t lie, I am looking forward to the tits.
Edit: Reading through the symptoms of biochemical dysphoria I realise I should have read through the symptoms of biochemical dysphoria 25 years ago.
Yes, exactly that.
Before HRT I felt either empty or angry, and little else. I was quick to anger from any minor frustration, my baseline emotion was very negative, and my sense of humor was worryingly self deprecating. At one point I achieved a lifelong goal and felt nothing, which concerned me greatly.
Since HRT that has all changed. I have emotional range. I feel things. I can regulate my emotions. I feel things correctly. HRT did that!
I thought about doing that, I feel like cool people can tell and ignorant people can’t. Does it bother you that people use your deadname?
I haven’t even picked a name yet. I only came out to my partner a couple of months ago. I’ve been acting half my life already I can keep it going a couple of years more.
Basically neither of us are planning to stay where we are so my plan is present as male until we can afford to move, then it’s new house, new city, new life. Not that we live in a conservative city, we just live in one of the more conservative parts of it and my pansexual therian kid already has enough problems at school. Without also being the only kid in class with two mothers, one of which is a giant hairy (obviously) trans lesbian.
My actual goal for transition is to feel comfortable in my own skin, and to be treated as female by the people in my life who matter to me. The last one is self fulfilling because if people in my life see that I’m transitioning and insist on calling me by my deadname, then I don’t need to bother with them. Honestly most people here genuinely wouldn’t say anything about it even if they have a massive problem with trans folk. Norwegians are very avoidant of conflict by nature.
“hey have you seen bill? havent seem him in a while…”
bill:
Pretty much.