Warn… typed this up and then couldn’t stop myself, it’s long but advice is appreciated (needed?..)
This can’t be real. After avoiding mirrors. Hating mirrors. Smashing one. Gosh I fucking hate reflections. After hating myself for so long (and still).
Now, I can’t push this aside like I would other problems. I just wanted to be a normal 18 year old. Round off the school year. Get college plans in place. Parties, hangouts, something like that. But now it’s different. Now I know I’m trans (fuck, I’ve never said that anywhere…), and I can’t push through things the same way anymore, although I'm now putting so much more effort in to try. I barely even had my shit together before, likely to some ADHD(/autism?? I don’t know..) that already felt like the biggest hurdle trying to grasp and get tested for (very little progress made on that front). Now I feel like I’ve been living a complete lie up to this point, and I’ll have to restart but on hard mode. I don’t know what to do. The people in my life are limited and I have a really hard time articulating my points, let alone my feelings, I don’t know who to talk to or ask for advice. I feel like walls are being pushed up against me.
My mom is really great and I love her so much, but it’s always hard to get a read on her since she’s busy and exhausted near constantly. She’s indifferent about queer people, and doesn’t really have a good understanding of them. She grew up in a conservative third-world country and is really prideful of her religion; I don’t think she’ll be receptive. Even just growing my hair out she’s made half-jokes of her having a son, not a daughter. My hair isn’t even that long yet, but I stopped cutting it a while ago before understanding why I wanted to see it longer.
My friends are… great. I’m aren’t worried about their opinions on me whenever I decide that I want to tell them, but now is a really bad time. I’m used to keeping up appearances for a long time even when I’m not doing well, so the sudden shift to the absolute mess I am internally right now is just too much. We have so little life experience, and we’re practically still kids. They don’t have the resources or capacity to deal with me as I am right now, and I’m not willing to put that burden on them.
For now I’ll look through objects, my work, and even people that are standing in front of me far more often now, even more than with my other undiagnosed issues, just struggling to keep this… machine… active. I will walk around and get my day done as I usually would but in such a disconnected state knowing that this flesh sack is an illusion I’m using to make everything look like it’s ok when I know I’m walking through a full scale production of lies. I’ll spend time with my friends silently begging they would stop repeating the name of a person that doesn’t exist. I’ll get home and make dinner for my brother who since he was a baby has always seen me as the best big "brother" in the world. I’ll go to my desk and (try to) get some work done wishing I at least had my own room to store stuff in for expressing myself in (not on purpose, this place is all we can afford). When I go to bed I can either listen to stuff on my earbuds to keep the feels at bay or cry anyway knowing there’s no room, time, or place in my life to be anything other than what the flesh on the outside appears to be. I’ll remember how I’ve realized who I am now at no worse possible time, where people like me are having their rights stripped and threats to be hurt and/or killed. And I’ll live that cycle over and over again. For how much longer? I don’t fucking know. But what’s a little longer when I’ve been doing it that way already… why do I have to be so fucked up…
I’m trying for any sort of advice, I know my circumstances aren’t helping and my thoughts are disconnected and rambly (as they usually are)… this is the first time I’ve ever really opened up about my (not just trans) feelings before to a place other than animals or random plushies (lmao..), and it's also quite late in the night for me, but I can try and explain some more stuff. I just have no vision on where I go from here other than really bad places…
I've looked into HRT a bit and I'll continue following your advice, but I'm strongly considering it, especially now that I see there's some kind of path for it... just being able to see some sort of plan ahead is so so helpful for my mindset, tysm ❤️
planned parenthood near me is a little far but I think it might be transit accessible which I can definitely do. if I ever decide to, what can I expect with a place like that in general? would I have to go pick up prescriptions elsewhere?
To add to what the other person said, you do generally have to go somewhere else to pick up the prescription. They will send it to whatever pharmacy you choose, so if you can find one you're comfortable going to before your appointment you can tell them when you're there and they will send it to the pharmacy. You could pick one close to home, or one far from home where you're sure no one will know you if you're concerned about that.
One thing to note is it will cost money (everything fucking does) just for the appointment, and the hormones will cost money as well. I ended up paying out of pocket when I went and it was a couple hundred dollars if I remember correctly. They'll ask you about your income and situation before the appointment, then give you a quote before you see the doctor so you can decide if it's too much or not. I paid full price because I have a full time job and it was out of network, but you might not have to pay as much depending on your situation. The place I went to I paid after the appointment. They will also want you to come back in a few months to get your levels checked, which you should if only so you know if it's working, but it will probably also be cheaper than a private tester like Quest or something.
The hormones were much cheaper, it ended up being less than $100 for everything the first time. I asked for injections from the beginning because you only have to do it once a week and I have ADHD so I knew it would be annoying trying to remember every day. It also works better, has fewer side effects, is cheaper than other options, and you get several months of estrogen per vial. The only real downside as far as I can tell is having to actually do the injection. For me it was worth it so I pushed through and figured it out. There's a number of options for taking estrogen but that was the best for me. All told I got estradiol valerate (the estrogen itself), 90 days of progesterone tablets (I take them rectally because it's supposed to work much better, still have to take them every day though), some syringes, some needles to get the estrogen out of the vial, some thinner needles to actually do the injection (I do intramuscular because they told me it's better but people also do subcutaneous), a sharps container for the used needles, and some cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol (for disinfecting prior to the injection).
One thing to note is the pharmacy will usually give you barely enough syringes and needles for the vial, and at mine they overcharged me for them. I'm planning to buy them online when I get closer to running out of what I have now. You can get a whole box of the needles and syringes and it's much cheaper. That will only matter if you decide to go with injections but I figured I'd mention.
I will also note that if you want to have children in the future you might want to think about fertility preservation. Estrogen will tank your sperm count, maybe to zero, so if you don't freeze your sperm you would likely need to stop hormones for a while in the future if you decide to have kids. It might be some work to find, but there are places where you can have your sperm stored for personal use. Basically you go, jizz in a cup (privately), they do some tests, then freeze it for you. It took me a while to find a good place where I live because a lot of them were sketchy or their storage facilities were in another state, which was a deal breaker for me (I don't want my sperm in fucking Texas like wtf). The place I ended up going was still not great. They asked me a lot of invasive and offensive questions about my sexual history and orientation. Partly that was because of the law, which is pretty fucked. Sperm storage is generally pretty shitty on the customer service because generally they operate as sperm banks first, so men go to donate rather than store for themselves. There's this weird almost eugenics vibe to it that made me somewhat uncomfortable. I don't want to put you off, just giving you the heads up what to expect if you decide to do it.
You would probably have to pick up any prescriptions at a separate pharmacy, I've never heard of a clinic that had their own. It's basically just like a doctor appointment anywhere else, you schedule a time and come in, wait for them to call you into the back, probably wait a bit longer, then tell the provider why you're there.