I don't even know where to begin

[Guest mtagntz]

As the title says I don't know where to begin. I have typed and deleted this many times, I just don't know the right words to use.

Since I have been younger I have felt wrong. The body that I see in the mirror doesn't connect to the body that I see in my mind. When I was younger I dressed in boy clothes, and always hung out with the boys. My mom was very gracious about this and let me pretty much dress and do what I want, as she figured I would figure it out eventually.

When I started into puberty I felt like my body had betrayed me . Eventually I gave up, started to dress the part that I had been given.

As I am getting older I am realizing more and more how much it bothers me. Just how wrong I feel. I have a rather womanly figure and face, there is no way that you could ever mistake me for a guy.

It is beginning to cause issues for me in the sexual realm as well. It is hard to enjoy sex when I just feel like my body parts are wrong, that I am not in the right role.

Basically I just don't know where to go from here. I have health issues so most hormone therapies is not viable for me. It seems like the surgeries are experimental at best (for down below). I just don't know what to do, or who to talk to. With my body and where I am in life, transitioning just isn't an option. I just don't know what to do. I want the mirror to reflect who I am, but it just doesn't seem like that is ever going to be possible.

I am sorry this is so disjointed. I just don't know what to say, or how to say it.

[Guest -guest-]

You said it perfectly.

A great many of us can relate quite well to the feelings you have expressed. There are some members who will be able to speak from personal experience regarding the effect of health issues on transition.

Please know that you are among friends here. It's a great place to talk things out with people who understand and care.

Don't give up hope.

[JJ]

Hi

Please bear with a long quote that is from a post I made in December 2010 because it tells you what my situation and feelings were. I don't know what your health challenges are but I faced a few myself at the time. After the quote I'll explain what has happened since and where I am now, The subject was why I would not be able to transition.

"Well first because we are barely making ends meet-robbing Peter to pay Paul-which I hope will improve but it will take about a year with the extra household income to catch up before we can have any extra. I am on Social Security so my own income is very limited. Also I live in a county with only one openly acknowledged LGBT person and he is dragged from his cabin and beaten on occasion as a lark for the locals who also refuse him service in the grocery store and other stores at the whim of the clerk. If I come out as openly trans my life could be in danger and certainly the lives of the rest of my family would suffer. We want to move when we can but this house is all I have left and I can't give it away or leave my family homeless.
I own my home and acreage outright but have to make repairs before it can be sold. The market is so flat here I would lose tens of thousands if I sold now even with the repairs made

Then there is the Lupus which has to be considered and the fact that no male in my father's family has lived beyond 50 due to sudden heart attack. It doesn't affect the women but is a consideration for starting T. And chronic pancreatitis from a duct blockage a few years ago that did damage. There are 3 bad discs in my lower back and three in my upper from injuries. Bad cartilage in both my knees also from injuries. A heart valve condition (similar to but apparently not mitral valve prolapse) and last but not least Fibro. I'm physically pretty well wrecked unfortunately. And in the end I would be an older man with a pretty much broken body who had spent thousand and still wasn't what I want to be. I'm well endowed so top surgery would be necessary as well.

Oh and I don't qualify for Medicare yet or disability because I had too any resources until it had been too long since I had worked to qualify for disability. Since Lupus is considered a terminal condition I can't get private insurance. It would all be out of pocket.

I don't want to sound like one of those "I can never be" people but there are some really major obstacles. If I were even 15 years younger........but I am not. These are realities I must adjust to."

Today I am transitioned though non op and live my life as a male. Am seen as male wherever I go. Here in this community I so feared I have been amazingly accepted. A couple of people still pointedly use female pronouns but that is all. They still talk to me and wait on me. My daughter has had one incident early on when someone intentionally said something about trans people to someone else within her hearing but the woman later apologized and recanted. My granddaughter has had me praised by her friends who think it is cool and I attend all her school functions because I co-parented her all her life. And my health has dramatically improved. I lost 200 lbs and hike an average of 100 hours a month in the national forest where that December I made the post I could not walk more than 20 feet unassisted, could no longer stand long enough to weigh or even heat a tv dinner. (I'm also now universally seen as 20+ years younger than I am. Drives my daughter crazy because people always assume I am her husband when we go anywhere together. An unexpected but fun perc.) I found that the stress of GID, even though much of it was unrecognized then for what it was, was doing far more damage to my heart than T could ever do. Not to mention that the heart is a muscle and T strengthens muscles with exercise. The Lupus has decreased dramatically as has the Fibro. Learned later both are now being treated experimentally-and with apparently the greatest success of any treatment so far-with T. It saved my life both physically and emotionally.

I cannot say it will be the same with you. Nor was it always easy. Some parts were hard. Dealing with the drastic changes has sometimes been hard though having to face the consequences of what I had let happen to my life as despair and ill health overtook me has been I think the hardest of all. Transition did not make my life perfect or solve my problems-made me have to actually face them instead-but it did make it the best it has ever been even so and made me feel at peace with myself and the world in a way that is indescribable and worth every moment it took to get here.

Why did I decide to transition? In my book has to be Divine Intervention because I had reached the end when I decided I had to try at least before I quit. Everything said it was impossible. There were dozens of reasons not to try-I can't find any record of anyone in their 60s losing even a 100 lbs and I did not know where that would leave me even if I did. But I had to try.

If I had not my life would have ended in a whimper feeling I failed -now I am a success no matter what happens from here and I am deeply grateful for every day that comes. Not only that but my daughter and those who know me are also very happy that I made the change. There have been too many changes in life to begin to go into here.

Only you can decide what you need for yourself. My story is just that you can do far more than you dream and find a way through even in the face of great challenges.I am not remarkable but I was able to do remarkable things because I decided to try anyway. And if T is impossible you can still find a way to live true to yourself on some level. Trying is far better than despairing.

Johnny

[Guest mtagntz]

Thank you guys for responding. I can't tell you how unbelievably nervous I was.

I don't have my thyroid and also have a heart condition that keeps me from taking any hormones. I would not be able to get them prescribed to me.

We also don't have any Gender Therapists around here that I can afford. It would be out of pocket and I cant do that as I am in college. I guess I am just one confused and depressed individual right now.

[Guest Strong]

Hi , I just started hormones. But i started living like a man as soon as i accepted being a transman. I dress like a man walk like a man etc. I'm still called female or miss. but i just go on and try not to let it bother me. I do know i pass at a distance all the time. I just don't up close. I don't know if this helps but it mite. Sometimes it depends how much effort you want to do.

Strong

[JJ]

Many colleges actually cover gender therapy and it might be worth checking with your college. Some even cover transition costs. With thyroid the only complication I knw about is that T actually can make your uptake of your thyroid medication better and it needs to be carefully monitored. It is commn to need to cut back approx 25% from what I read and experienced myself. As far as heart-discuss it in depth with your cardiologist, The old thinking used to be that T damaged your heart because men had more heart problems than women. While T can raise blood pressure the research has shown the real culprit in the heart attack and heart faiilure rate differences between men and women is nutrition and lifestyle and that women are rapidly catching up and even surpassing men in some categories as women move into lifestyles once glaringly masculine.

Also it might help to look up and peint off for your Dr the AMA position on transsexual treatment. It is now seen as a"medical necessity" because of the repercussions involved in leaving us untreated. Stress is bad for health and especially bad for the heart . Treatment -including T and HRT, as well as whatever degree of transition necessary for you personally will relieve that stress and therefore increase your overall health.

One other factor just being researched is that since our brains are now accepted to be configured for the gender with which we identify and that includes hormone receptor differences by gender-it is postulated that we suffer from hormone imbalances because our bodies cannot produce enough of the hormones our brains were configured to use, We do compensate and learn to function on what we have but with essentially an imbalance which may be one reason depression is so pervasive among us and we have the highest suicide rate of any other group.

Just food for thought and discussion perhaps with your Dr.

There are also online gender therapists -and a list of ones known to be genuine is available onsite. You can also get names from local LGBT groups. Just be sure to check the experience and credentials of any therapist because there are frauds and worse out there. The online therapists often use Skype and are sometimes far less expensive as well. Also some LGBT centers offer therapy on a sliding fee scale.

Things may not be as hopeless as they see,. And you don't have anything to lose from trying

Johnny

[Guest DonShelby]

Johnny, I'm sure you've posted this somewhere on the forum, but how did you lose your weight? Congrats, by the way! You look awesome. I'm 51 and just starting on this and have quite a bit of weight to lose as well...about 60 pounds.

Thanks, Don