Congratulations! 💙

10 years is an enormous chunk of a human life. Maybe this is good advice if you’re 5 years old right now.

If I’d started my transition 10 years earlier, I’d probably need much less therapy.

Fucking really?

You’re more than welcome, and I’m glad you posted here.💙

I agree that the right friends give you a big push to do the right things. Personally I have a tendency to base my entire self worth on my ability to please others, eroding my sense of self in the process. But that’s my thing that I shouldn’t project onto you. I just hope that you’ll be careful that what you’re doing is satisfying your social needs, rather than using other people as a substitute for self actualisation. Dating, however, can be a huge risk if you’re feeling emphatically lonely, as you’re more sensitive to rejection, real or perceived, and it can push you down deeper. Be careful out there.

Congrats on the training and interviewing! I really hope that place works out for you. If there’s any part of you feeling shame for being a “dropout” or having a sparse CV, let that go. All that matters now is that you’re active, you’re learning, and you’re trying. Good employers care that you’re doing stuff now. No one else is thinking about your failures and false starts.

It sounds like you were holding out hope that the pieces of your life would fall into place in the course of transition. It must be crushing to still feel so lost. The obvious first thing is to resume therapy. You’re thinking about doing it, the rest of your post screams that you should do it, other people are commenting that you should do it. Don’t delay it. Especially if finding a therapist is a pain the ass, which I assume means looking for one now won’t pay off for a long time.

Regarding the failed friendships, I can only say that the lifecycle of adult friendships is often short and it isn’t necessarily a reflection on you. Also, a staggering number of people just don’t put in the work to keep friendships alive. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Keep reaching out, but if people aren’t reaching back… Meh.

I don’t want to sound preachy about alcohol. You’re already on top of that. I just want to say that as a previously pretty light drinker, I still feel the benefit of stopping entirely. I do sometimes miss the ritual of a glass of red while cooking dinner, but not enough to go back to it.

You said that you like running, and that’s one activity you haven’t mentioned doing in a group. Would you consider joining a running or hiking group? It seems like a low pressure way to incorporate other people into your lifestyle.

I also struggle to conceive of a fulfilling life without a romantic partner, but I try to steer myself towards appreciating the platonic relationships I’ve made and will continue to make. I also know that my loneliness is worse than it should be. I resent my own company, and seek the company of others to avoid myself. Solitude in moderate doses should not be torture. Again, therapy. I don’t think it’s wise to focus on your hypothetical partner, as it can blind you to how rich and varied life can be outside of that pursuit. Be open to it, but don’t fixate on it.

You didn’t elaborate on why you can’t keep a job for long, but you’re clearly an intelligent and tenacious person, and I get the feeling that you’re just taking jobs to get by rather than looking for one that makes you tick. I wonder if that’s tied to your low self esteem, because you don’t believe you deserve a more fulfilling job. Something that takes up as much of your life as a job does should feel somewhat rewarding aside from the money you’re making. Also, as someone who’s lacking sufficient human connection, you shouldn’t be settling for a lonely job. By that I mean either a job performed in solitude, or a workplace with a shitty culture.

A lot of what you’re saying resonates with me, except I’m very early in my transition, so it’s kind of like you’re reminding me how important it is to keep working on myself. I’m not magically going to become the woman I want to be because of hormones and surgeries. Loving oneself and feeling valid in this world is still its own endeavour. As important as it is to find kinship with others, it should never be at the expense of being who you are.

What? No! My 420K, is what I’m sure I meant.

Congratulations! I feel like the potential for euphoria has been somewhat hampered by tensions with your family lately, so it’s really nice to hear about the good things that are happening for you. 💙

Name and gender change is the gift that keeps on giving. The day my birth certificate arrived, the first time I saw my name on my banking app, my superannuation account, my health insurance, my cervical cancer screening reminder (not necessary but thanks for thinking of me, Department of Health), and so many other little things. For the first couple of weeks I was doing involuntary squealing happy dances every time I got a new card or a letter from a government agency. The term “euphoria” had never felt more appropriate.

This is precisely what I meant, and I’m glad it came across. 💙

I judge entire neighbourhoods on how amenable cats are. If a cat chilling on the footpath is pleased to meet me, then I’m calm. If a cat sitting 50 meters away from me responds to my friendly greeting chirp by backing under the nearest car with flat ears and a sunken tail, I assume the humans around it are garbage people and I need to get out. Cats are to the streets as frogs are to the rivers.

Arguing that you “don’t know the risks” is an infuriating trend I’ve noticed among chronically ignorant people. Of course you know the risks, both of treatment and the lack thereof. You’re the one that cares enough to do the research! I want to respectfully consider the possibility that this knee jerk reaction stems from their nurturing, protective instincts, but to be blunt, they’re doing a crap job, and it’s going to end up doing more damage than their imagined risks of HRT.

You can continue sending them reading material, and hopefully they’ll make a more sincere attempt to understand it when they realise you’re drifting away from them, but doing this yourself in person doesn’t sound like it’s going to go anywhere. I know university isn’t far off, but I hope you can avoid these conflicts in other ways until then. They sound a lot more dogmatic than the fanatical trans circles they believe are programming you, and prolonged exposure to their rhetoric is a surefire way to instill self hatred. You don’t deserve this.

A simple fuel/energy exchange system would be nice. Something along the lines of how my car works. Combustible material goes in, is turned into kinetic energy, repeat. So none of this “you consumed too many carbs and didn’t burn enough off so I’m just gonna store that as fat rolls for you” bullshit! If I’m not using the fuel, you keep the fuel there in its raw form until I am using it.

While we’re at it, if I’ve just put viable fuel in, and I have stuff to do, I expect to feel energetic! The onus should not be on me to precipitate that energy by forcing myself into the activity that feels impossible because of the endless, oppressive lethargy that plagues my every waking minute. No. Fuel in, BING, energy go!

Yeah I don’t know if this is within the scope of this question but I am SO FED UP with my body being like “naaah, still don’t feel like it” when I am treating it better now than I ever have before in my life.

Mmmyeah. Like I’ll take literally anything I can get. Casual misogyny. Whatever.

Someone called me “madam” the other day. I still don’t know how I feel about it.

Edit: To clarify, “ma’am” feels nice, but when you revert the contraction, I feel like a misbehaving little girl who’s being told off by a parent.

I don’t think we’re capable of looking very far afield, to be fair. Space is pretty big. I read that somewhere.

Honestly. What are the chances that in the entire universe, there is no ecosystem that has led to the evolution of an organism indistinguishable from our Earth cats?

This is exactly where I am. I feel more feminine when speaking naturally, without my forced, learned masculinisation, than I do when using my girl voice, which at best sounds like a small child. With my friends I’m fine, but I avoid phone calls as much as I can. Voice training only feels worthwhile for the sake of avoiding harassment in public or appeasing people who I feel might accuse me of being insufficiently feminine, and that’s just not the kind of motivation that pushes me into doing something well. Without professional speech therapy, I’m better off pausing this endeavour.

I do sometimes regret buying all my female tops with my flat chest in mind. And for buying so many of them… Not the worst problem to have though.

My hair dresser is the only person to ever say this to me, and thus the only person who will ever do my hair.

Myeeah, narcissist or not, she fumbled a lot of opportunities to show empathy here. It sounds like she wanted you to know what an ordeal this was for her which I think is pretty shitty. I admire your tenacity in sticking out the conversation.

Also I don’t know if she does have a point about having to repeat yourself. I personally felt much more comfortable coming out to every friend and family member one–by–one, and must have repeated myself at least 20 times now. I felt more confident and empowered each time. It also served as good practice in owning my identity when it came time to change my name legally, and everything that came along with that.

The bottom line is that it’s totally up to you how you want to come out, fast or slow, privately or publicly. You shouldn’t have to be made more uncomfortable than the whole thing already is.