Whirlwind month

[Murph90]

My name is Jacob and I am a 32 year old male. for 31 years of my life I never once thought of myself as another gender other than male. If you would have said something to me about being female I would have just laughed it off and said something like "I'd probably make an ugly woman." I never really worried about my appearance too much. Never worried about shaving or hair care products or anything considered "girly." Just never had any interest. I've never been an "Alpha Male" but wasn't really feminine either. Anyways, I turned 32 on June 2nd-14 days ago. Don't really know why it matters its just weird this has coincided with my birthday like that. I won't go into too much but one day my wife and I were in the bedroom when she asked me if I would wear some panties for her. I laughed and said sure and put some on. I noticed that they were very comfortable and decided to try putting on a dress. -crap-, this is kind of neat I thought. I saw a blonde wig sitting in the floor. So just to see I put it on. I had just recently gotten a job where I had to shave which was not the norm for me. I always had some kind of facial hair. But anyway, when I looked in the mirror I not only liked what I saw but I loved it. I just kept staring, started dancing around in the mirror and generally acting more feminine than I normally would. I decided to shave all my body hair and take off my glasses, and pull the skin on my face back a little to give it a smoother appearance. And when I looked at myself like that in the mirror I felt better about my appearance than I ever had. Not that I think I'm unattractive, but I just fell in love with what I saw. So I decided to go online to the "Dating" apps(My wife and I are in an open relationship and I am bisexual) and show my new pictures. I have never been gotten more compliments about my appearance. I have now become obsessed. All the things I never cared about about like body hair and how smooth my face is started to bother me. I started to dislike when I looked in the mirror without my wig. I started having obsessive thought about what it would be like to have breasts, curves, big booty, all the feminine features. I looked up prices for breast forms, thighs and butt implants, new wigs, everything someone like me needs. For the last 2 weeks I have absolutely obsessed with this...and I don't think it's going away. I'm just absolutely dumbfounded at the turn of events. I'm not mad at all, I'm just very confused. Why does this feel so right? I spoke to my wife about my feelings and she she is fully behind me whatever I decide to do. I try to put it out of my mind, like it was just a dumb thought, but it always comes back. I mean I always hear stories about how people realize early on that they do not feel the gender they had at birth. But mine happened like this? at 32? I know people have had to unfortunately struggle with this for a majority or all of their lives and I didn't think it was something that just happened. I keep wanting to think it's a sexual thing, like when I have sex with enough guys dressed as a woman I'll get it out of my system. But every time I look in that mirror I don't like what I see. When I see the hair grow back on my body I don't like it. When I look at my Adam's apple I don't like it. I want to paint my fingernails and my toenails. I want people to turn their heads and look at me when I walk. I like feeling pretty. I was reading a post on here that talked about the face app gender switch. Now I don't know how accurate that thing is supposed to be but when I looked at those two images side by side I knew which one I liked better. I know I've only been feeling this way a couple of weeks but it's driving me crazy. I don't think I can ever go back from this. I'm confused, excited, scared, aroused. I'm every emotion all at once. My wife is a darling and she supports me but there's no way she can talk to me about this with any experience. I wouldn't have been able to understand a month ago myself. I've never been much for labels to look into labels, as for me it was always easy. But now I don't know..I just don't. Thank ya'll so much for being here.

[Bri2020]

Welcome to the forum!  I bet it's been a whirlwind.  As we say, once the egg cracks....it's hard to go back into it.  Don't fret over the "not having gender ID issues as a kid". there are many people who don't have that experience.  It's also possible, you had some thoughts about it when you were very young and just dismissed them or buried them.  This is where we all will advise: GO TO THERAPY.  Gender identity is complicated and messy. It can and will turn your life on it's head and being able to talk to a professional about it is invaluable.

A therapist can help you unravel things so that you might have a clearer understanding of where you want to go with this (or not go). 

As for face app: Delete it. lol.   It will give you unrealistic expectations or foster an unhealthy self image.  I tried it, I even have a few pics saved from when I was in your stage of discovery and I look back at them now are realize how fake they were. I've had 2 years of HRT and facial feminization surgery and I can tell you, I don't look anything like what those apps thought I would.  this is what those apps made me think I could be compared to reality after a lot of intervention. (and I'm very happy with reality but if I try and compared it to what faceap thinks, I would be very unhappy)   My profile pic, is complete makeup and a pro photographer so that's about the best I can look but the pic below is a "typical day"

 

 

[Murph90]

Thank you so much for the kind words and the pictures! I'm still in the process of combing through all my feelings and seeing where I land. I will look into therapy though. Just talking to someone about this helps greatly.