Transfem

i perceive this similarly. there is a person(a), that maybe never learned to talk properly, but that also isn't separate from me. i am trying to befriend this part of me now and hopefully fix this relationship that must've been so hurtfull to the little one over the last years.

in a way it helps me to imagine there being a person, whith which i could interact. to me alone, i wouldn't be that caring and patient. i feel like over the last year it helped me to regain access to my emotions and a sense of self.

i was in jungian therapy for a while and i learned to think of my dreams as manifestations of external but also internal conflicts and structures. i guess this opened a path to realise my being trans in the first place. i try to continue this conversation.

Sorry for double comment, hands went stupid and I deleted the other one.

When I came out to my ex-wife, the first person I really opened up to in my life about things, I experienced something similar. It was like the real me finally got to breathe, and all the stress, the fight, went away. I didn't feel the need to keep trying, because there was no effort needed anymore. It felt almost apathetic, in a way.

What I came to realize was, for me, that was my skin finally fitting. It wasn't that I didn't care so much as I was finally comfortable, and that comfort had been absent for so long, I didn't recognize it for the first few months. I was so used to the eternal internal struggle that I felt almost empty without it.

Yes a similar experience for me too, I’ve ‘known’ for a long time, but repression and not really having any exposure to trans people I don’t do anything for a long time. Went to therapy for depression and low self esteem, did that for 2 years.

Finally hit my breaking point and had massive anxiety for like a week, but one night when I was trying to get to sleep, it just broke, ‘I’m trans, I want to be a womann!’ And then… peace-ish. Of course, worrying about all the stuff that entails, but the storm was over.

I really like what @phr@discuss.tchncs.de said in her other post:

i didn’t know forever that i was a girl. i don’t know today. i’m just starting to get a sense of self. something that was shattered and buried through thorough suppression. i am putting together fragments like an archeologist. but being trans is in a way still just a working hypothesis. it’s highly plausible, but i can’t see the bigger picture yet.

decades of repression left me with a poor sense of self, and sifting through the fragments like an archaeologist is a good way of putting it

Anyway, yes - entirely normal to feel dissonance, or different and mixed feelings about transition.

I spent a long time coping with my situation by learning to not care about my identity, so it makes sense that after becoming so good at that, that I would then struggle to feel connected to that part of myself.

Here's a "poem" I wrote about gender identity, trying to make sense of it:

Hidden from the senses

Inferred shadows

Constraining, defining, shaping

Without a trace

Like water wondering about the shape of a bowl

There are a ton of little ways you can explore this feeling while you wait for the next steps. You don't have to tell anyone that you don't feel safe to tell. You've done a really scary thing already, which is to listen to these feelings and let them in.

For me, the little things were stuff like painting my nails, buying and wearing the cute bracelets or rings I always thought were too femme coded for me. Even just imagining how I would feel if my friends saw me as a woman and used "she/her" with me. None of this stuff has to out you to anyone. If you're scared to do them in public you don't have to. You're in control.

When I tried them, these things made me feel good in a way I'd never ever felt before and I've just been following that feeling every since really.

That might lead you towards transitioning, it might not, both things are okay. You have time. Nobody can tell you who you are except you.

Rooting for you babes, good luck.

Yes, that's exactly what I felt too: peace. I'd been living with feelings of "something's missing/wrong" and "if only" that got stronger and stronger until I finally figured it out, then... silence. Just regular old me.

I was always curious what it "feels like" to be a girl, but then I realized that (presumably) everyone is "just me", going through their lives. And since I was apparently a girl (without knowing it at first), that means I already know what it feels like: it's how I feel.

I still struggle at times to honestly accept myself as a woman. Sure, I want to be one, and (most of) the people around me accept me as one, but there's still that little voice that says "you're faking it." And quelling that voice is, for me, the hardest part of transitioning.

Perhaps my own experience can be helpful. I was raised without any knowledge of what it meant to be trans or anything beyond the gender binary. I was forced so heavily into a role that I never got the opportunity to experience femininity in my childhood. When I finally learned about gender in university, something in me snapped into place and I realized I definitely wasn't cisgender. I didn't realize at the time that I was a woman, because I had "ruled it out" since I "wasn't feminine enough" (flawed logic, I know, but bear with me here). I ended up identifying as agender for a time, until I finally realized that what I actually wanted was to be a woman, and to experience femininity that I'd otherwise been denied my whole life.

The point of this story is that I only identified that way because I failed to realize that things don't just suddenly change like flicking a light switch. It takes a significant amount of time for you to find yourself, and that will involve reaching out for new experiences; things that don't happen instantly. It's easy to feel like nothing has changed, but perhaps the most important part in our journey has begun: we now understand that there exists an incongruence within us, and we've finally allowed ourselves to acknowledge that and begin the journey of discovering who we want to become.

We, as humans, are slow to change. Even when our mind is set, we can't suddenly flip our lives upside down in the blink of an eye. We have to approach change one step at a time. So I'll posit you a question, now that you're beginning to understand that your gender identity is not what you'd been prescribed: what do you want to do about it? There are a million possibilities for what you could choose to explore, but where you start (and where you end up) is your own special journey to experience. What have you felt like you've wanted to do before, but didn't because it didn't align with your prescribed gender identity? What have you wondered about doing if things had been different? You likely won't immediately know the answers to these questions, but they're the kinds of questions that you can begin thinking about to understand where to start, and where to go next. There are so many things you can do from the safety of your own home, without requiring you to be seen by others (which can be incredibly scary at first). Start thinking about what it is you'd like to do. Change will only happen when you make it happen. The more we explore, the better we begin to understand ourselves.

A little late to the party, but here I am :3

I'm actually not sure if I had a feeling like this when I was questioning. Maybe it was there, but I hadn't really felt it, like with most emotions before accepting myself. But when I did, it hit me like a truck. I've felt like I was high for week, without any kind of drawback. Now that blew over a little, but I seem to be generally way more in touch my feelings and I love it.

Also know what it's like to not get the results from therapy I'd like... There was a rather important puzzle piece missing. And there was a pretty big mislead, religious indoctrination, that I've used to explain myself, but I just never quiet got there.

If you feel like you're ready, for me the Gender Dysphoria Bible was of insane help in figuring myself out. But no pressure, always proceed on your own speed!