dandelion

I think meditation can be a very powerful tool, but like any treatment it can also have side effects. It's worth familiarizing yourself with those so you can recognize them and navigate them well (sometimes this means meditating less, or stopping entirely). When I meditate regularly I experience insomnia, which is very common with monks who meditate and on meditation retreats.

Anyway, I just don't want anyone to hurt themselves. Most of the time recommending meditation is safe because rarely do people put in the effort and time and make enough progress that they start having side effects, but you never know and it's better to start with informed consent.

I used to make art a lot, but I lost it somewhere along the way. I would like to return, but life hasn't always been so permitting.

Baking is great too, I love cooking and baking!

I should have added taking hot baths to my list. I'm not sure how much it actually improves my mental health, but there are supposedly studies that show it helps, and I feel overall like it's possible it helps me (I certainly choose to do it a lot, esp. when I want to relax or feel better).

Riding bikes sounds really nice - I miss that feeling of freedom.

And no worries about the journal, it was a long time ago and I was so dissociated by then that it was more just another thing to endure than anything else. Life is much better as an adult with freedom from parents. 😄 Every year is better than the last.

I don't have much contact with any of my parents, but I have no contact with that parent in particular.

There were plenty of bad things happening in that house growing up, but I feel lucky it wasn't worse. I think a lot of abuse victims feel this way, though - like they didn't really experience abuse because it wasn't some stereotype of what abuse is in their mind.

Either way, I have mixed feelings about it all, and consider myself very lucky and privileged overall.

And I feel the need to laud your founding of the community, your labor as a moderator, and above all that, someone who makes an effort to keep the community active. Sure, we all participate and together form the community - but you do an immense amount of work and play a larger role in facilitating this community than the rest of the members. You do an amazing job, and I just really appreciate you. 💗

some people (mostly in DMs) seemed angry that I didn’t know I was trans until after I had my first kid. ...

Anyways, I struggled to hear the harsher words from some people, but I also think they were well-founded. They were a gut-punch that made me reorient my thinking away from selfish thoughts about myself and more about my family and how my choices impact them.

I don't know who is angry you had kids before realizing you are trans, but how were you supposed to know you were trans? This isn't your fault. Lots of people don't realize they are trans, and part of that is because we live in a society that deprives trans people of the ability to interpret their experiences, to know they are trans.

A similar thing happens to women, for example it wasn't until the 1970s that the concept of sexual harassment existed and before then society deprived women of the concepts and words to help understand and explain what was happening to them.

In the past, the idea that sexual assault causes trauma was not understood at all, and when the victim behaved like a traumatized person afterwards, clinicians created the concept of "hysteria" to explain why women so often behaved that way. We of course know now that it's trauma, not some inherent irrationality that only women experience, and that it is caused by the way women are oppressed and mistreated in society. (See Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery, particularly "The Heroic Age of Hysteria" in the first chapter for more.)

This concept is called "hermeneutical injustice". "Hermeneutic" is basically a fancy word that means interpretation, and the term refers to when people aren't able to understand the experiences of themselves or others because they don't fit the concepts or language available to them, usually due to exclusion or oppression (like when the exclusion of women from education and thus the ability to become doctors results in only male doctors being involved in the treatment and theorizing about female psychiatric patients).

Being angry that you realized you are trans after having kids is basically just victim blaming as far as I can tell. You didn't know you were trans, you can't be responsible if you didn't know.

Now that you do know you are trans, however, you do have a responsibility to make good choices. But ironically I think the right choice is in the opposite direction you are heading.

You basically found out you have a serious medical condition and your response is to refuse treatment because it is socially stigmatized and makes your wife uncomfortable.

In my experience, and I think this might generalize to many of our experiences, when you refuse to transition for other people, you usually aren't doing them any favors in the end. To my mind, refusing to transition is the most irresponsible thing you can do because it is the thing that compromises your well-being the most, creates the most liability, and burdens others in your life the most.

Before transitioning I was obsessed with my sense of responsibility to others - I was burning with a sense of guilt and shame that led me to extreme behaviors. I never gave transitioning a second thought because I believed it was a selfish act, basically a way for me to wear dresses in public and indulge in my bizarre preferences - embarrassing socially, but also burdensome on others. I would have to ask people to call me a different name, it would compromise my relationships with people I loved, and so on.

So of course at the time I thought not transitioning was the most responsible thing to do, so much so that I never even gave much thought to whether I was trans, I just would read the DSM-V definition and claim whatever feelings I had didn't amount to anything like real dysphoria.

But not transitioning also led me to not take care of myself, I gained >100 lbs and was morbidly obese and I basically didn't care. I hated my body, sure - but it was my body and so it didn't matter. What mattered was other people, not me. I made huge sacrifices - I obsessively recycled and composted all waste that I could. I stopped using my car and began to bicycle instead out of a burning sense of responsibility for the harm caused by driving (climate, geopolitical, etc.). This led to being hit by cars several times, and again I didn't care. I got brain injuries from accidents, I caused permanent damage to my body. Again, indifferent on my end. But my partner? Every time I had to go to the ER, I put her in extreme distress. Every time the doctor was explaining how bad off I was, my partner was there and was very much not indifferent.

By being responsible and prioritizing everyone but myself, I had become a burden.

I'll let other trans women share their pre-transition stories, but I am confident I'm not the only person who was causing suffering for others in their life because they didn't transition.

Personally, I look back and think my whole concept of transition was wrong, and now I see that transitioning is the responsible thing to do, for myself and for others.

(It's hard to believe until you start HRT, I know pre-HRT me wouldn't have taken these kinds of comments seriously.)

It’s possible I could start transitioning with non-hormonal techniques and maybe that’s enough for me. If so, that would be ideal. My male physique wouldn’t change too much and my wife would be happy about that. Maybe my dysphoria would go away. I’ve tried that in the past, but I didn’t go “all-in” on it. I felt ugly and manly which bummed me out back then, but maybe I just didn’t really accept myself and that was hindering the experience.

I socially transitioned before I medically transitioned, and both pre-transition and during social transition, whenever I tried to feminize by wearing women's clothing or trying on makeup, I was hit with the dual feeling of excitement and dread. By caring about my appearance or dress, and especially by being in a female framing, my attention was drawn more towards my male body.

Before transition I didn't even realize what I hated was specifically that the qualities were male, only later did I realize the gendered aspect to my distress. The way a dress looked on me made me want to die, I thought because I was ugly and overweight, but when I imagined being an overweight woman I realized it was the male pattern of fat distribution that disturbed me more than merely the fact of being overweight. In fact, at some point I realized that I liked having some fat precisely because it made me feel more feminine.

All this to say, social transition made my dysphoria so much worse because I started paying attention to my body and making an effort to alleviate my dysphoria was the opposite approach from the dissociation I used to cope previously. It was better, in some sense, to not think about or care about my clothes, how I dressed, etc.

Who knows what your experiences will be, but if you are anything like the average, it isn't because you failed to accept yourself enough that social transition steps like wearing dresses weren't enough or made you feel ugly and manly, it's because you're dysphoric and you haven't taken the only proven treatment to alleviate your dysphoria.

Generally speaking, I think I was just moving way too fast and unmeasured. I’m assuming that’s common in “TransLater communities” because there is a lot of fear that the biological clock is stripping away my opportunity to meet my goals before it’s too late. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right mentality. Plenty of people transition much later than I was planning and it works out fine. So, maybe that’ll be my experience.

I think it's more common for people to struggle to ever transition, especially later in life, than it is to "go too fast". It's actually difficult to transition "too quickly" because the medical gatekeeping ensures the process takes years to occur.

There are so many cross-dressing support groups and so on. Lots and lots of people never get to the point of recognizing they are trans, let alone to the point of transitioning.

In my experience, lots of people are uncomfortable with trans people and transitioning, so it is treated as some kind of extremely dangerous or likely to be regretted. But this is not the truth, we have actual evidence that it is the opposite: transitioning is life-saving (and not transitioning is extremely dangerous), and transitioning has one of the lowest regret rates of any medical treatment.

And of that 1% who detransition, the vast majority only do so because they were not supported by family, friends, and work so transitioning was not feasible for them anymore. Many of those people go on to transition again later.

Cis people do not try to take cross-sex hormones, the risks that you or other trans people are going too fast and will accidentally transition when you shouldn't are frankly a myth concocted by the fears and prejudices cis people have.

I’m probably still going to be active in this community, if that’s ok. I sure hate that my whole experience is practically the only thing in this community lol It’s a bit embarrassing in a way.

Why wouldn't it be OK? Ironically I can't think of a more stereotypical TransLater story anyway, your experience might as well stand-in for many of us and it is good for others to see it. You won't be the only one.

No matter what you decide, you are welcome here. I hope I am speaking for everyone when I say we love you and are here for you. ❤️

Ah, I missed that it was the same link, lol. Glad you're informed, that's the main thing.

I've taken my prog orally once before, I actually found it helped me sleep less than rectal administration, but I know people's experiences vary significantly (others report less sleepy feelings with rectal administration, and strong sleepy effects when taken orally).

And yes, I think the gel capsules are usually micronized bioidentical progesterone:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OGiomfiMk18nPb3ITKZD9pWPvWRUlyI06enxahQpHBI/edit?tab=t.0

Synthetic progestins are usually pressed-powder tablets:

I would guess the metabolites seem more likely to carry undesirable side effects and health risks, just like progestins, compared to bioidentical hormones circulating in the blood, but who knows.

It's the reason I'm still around too, I never found a way to do it without hurting other people.

I burned most of my journals after a step-parent took one of them and read it in front of my family to punish and humiliate me. After that I didn't journal for a long time. One of my journals from when I was 10 - 13 years old or so survived, and I have that one. I read it a few years ago, and was surprised at how lucid I was.

I started journaling again a couple years ago, but it's usually just about analyzing my dysphoria - basically just talking down the "brainworms".

You should try reading your older journals sometime, it can be quite cathartic. I feel a sense of loss at having burned my journals, I feel like I poured myself into them and now my memory makes it difficult to recall what I was like accurately. Having an artifact like that would be useful for when I'm trying to do some personal archaeology, or even just for fun.

Thanks for creating this community, by the way. We are lucky to have you. 💞

Same.

None of these are small changes per se, but here are some things that can help, and which can be worked towards with small and persistent changes.

First, covering some of the basics:

https://www.nih.gov/health-information/emotional-wellness-toolkit

• sleep 8+ hours a night, go to bed and wake up around the same times each day
• exercise every day, try to get aerobic exercise a few times a week but still walk on days you can't
• go outside, try to get 30 minutes of sunshine every day (basically: do your exercise outside, otherwise do something else outside - I personally get a mental health boost from picking up trash, it makes me feel like a good person)
• I have a rule to never take any drug the day after I used it (so basically never take a drug every day, or any two consecutive days). This prevents a tolerance building up, keeping the drug the most useful. It also helps prevent dependence and addiction. With certain drugs I have more strict rules, e.g. tobacco I don't use more than once a month as a rule, while caffeine I like to have a 2 - 3 day minimum before taking it again (so practically speaking I don't use caffeine more than once a week or so, at most).
• eat a varied and nutritious diet with lots of vegetables, incorporate fiber-rich and whole foods and reduce consumption of processed foods
• drink lots of water throughout the day, start the day by drinking a glass of water and then keep a bottle of water on you so you can continue to hydrate

Beyond that, what helped me immensely was:

• practicing 20 - 40 minutes of loving-kindness meditation every day (especially the modified TWIM method where you actively recall the feelings and not just dryly repeating intentions)
• practicing 1 hour of vipassana meditation every day
• running 10 - 20 miles a week
• cycling 20 - 60 miles a week

Because loving-kindness was so effective for me, I want to actually write out the section from TWIM that was so helpful. From that TWIM PDF linked above:

If you can get past the corniness and all the various forms of resistance that come up, generating good feelings and holding onto them is a pragmatic tool you can develop and build that can lead to increased happiness and mental well-being.

I feel like therapy should be mentioned, I have seen a dozen or so therapists over decades, but for the most part I never found therapy particularly helpful. At times therapy was actually quite harmful (usually by accident, not due to ill intent by the therapist). I still believe therapy can be helpful and that people should seek out a therapist, I just can't say that it every helped me that much.

Journaling also should be mentioned because it can be helpful, but in my life journaling was a tool that brought me a lot of harm as well as some good. So I guess just be careful about having journals, know that they can be taken from you and weaponized against you (even in ways you wouldn't have ever expected). It took me over a decade to finally journal again, and now I use it for very limited purposes. I still feel I can't be honest or vulnerable with my own thoughts on paper, so my writing remains more analytical and pragmatic than emotional. Sometimes I have found writing poetry one way to help be vulnerable that way without feeling threatened.

Have you read any of Casey Plett's works? I think you might find it relatable, her collection of short stories A Safe Girl to Love might be a good place to start (but I love everything she has written).

All I can say is that you're in the same boat as so many other women, and not just trans women. So many of us feel worthless and reduced to what we can provide sexually to men who throw us away after they are done getting what they want. These are struggles so many people feel - you are not alone. 🫂

I can't really give good advice, but if I were trying I would suggest not letting your experiences on Grindr color and make up your reality too much - reality is so much more weird and open than you realize, and just because experiences on Grindr leads to predictable outcomes like being reduced to a fetish doesn't mean there aren't real people out there who are not only capable of seeing and loving you, but who would feel so lucky to.

To that end, I guess the closest thing to advice I could give is to do what you can to not get sucked down into the self-loathing, the insecurities, and so on - and to actively break out of that mindset and seek a different reality. Not everything is in your control (maybe nothing is in your control), but there is power in recognizing the things you feel aren't as much reality as it feels, that what we pay attention to influences what makes up your reality. There might be some freedom in there, and there are ways in that freedom to see how beautiful you are, a way to see that you are worth so much and that there are other people who will see that too.

When I was really bad off, sometimes this meant sitting down and forcing myself to take a different perspective - to recognize when I thought I was ugly or a failure or bad, and to instead to actively recall memories that made me feel like I was a good person, to sit with the feelings those memories created - sometimes I focus on times people made me feel loved, other times I focus on times I felt like a good person (when I helped someone in a tough spot or did something anyone would consider good). It can be hard to come up with examples at first, but again it's a matter of persistence more than anything.

Surprisingly, spending 20 - 40 minutes a day doing this makes a difference over time.

There's a lot to unpack, but I guess my advice is to just not hang onto your suffering and to seek better perspectives, you are worth that.

That sounds about right, though it's much easier now for me to feel much happier naturally (even if baseline is maybe only 20% happier all the time like you say), this means I get more excited about things and I enjoy things more, etc. - so when there is something normal people would be excited or happy about I'm able to feel that much more than I could before.

And the body buzz I'm talking about I usually don't experience until a few hours after injection, and usually it's like a bodily euphoria and mild buzzing feeling that happens around my hips, breasts, etc. - it sometimes feels like my attention is called to those places and there is a feeling there. The light-headedness from injecting might just be from a vasovagal response to the needle - not sure if that's right, but that's when I feel light-headed when injecting, it's usually associated with a bunch of other symptoms like blood turning cold and a sense of panic or fear, etc. and I usually just have to breathe through it and hold my shit together, lol

Thanks for sharing your notes on the changes from HRT, keep noticing - I remember significant mood changes not even happening until month 3, I think that's about when my anxiety started to drop off.

it's not going to happen anyway, and Trump doesn't mind adding significantly to the deficit (he did last time he was in office)