Confused and anxious about my gender identity

SoupForTheSoul · ‎20-12-2017

So I'm turning 20 in a month and I'm not really sure of my gender identity. I am struggling with depression and anxiety as well. I am currently living as a male, but I sometime wish I was born female. I don't experience any gender dysphoria, sometimes I just feel like I'd be happier as a woman. I've been struggling with this for nearly five years and have recently told my family about it. They're trying to help me through this but they are just as lost as I am. Sometimes I feel confident that i want to transition fully to female, but other times i feel confident that i want to stay male. I regularly feel worried that if i do transition, then i will regret it later in life. I'm scared I'll find out it's just a phase or something. I have been trying to think of myself as a woman or even use gender neutral pronouns when i think about this stuff, but i frequently find myself referring to myself as male. On the one hand, I've referred to myself as a male for almost 20 years and that can be a hard habit to break. But on the other hand, shouldn't it be easier to think of myself as a she if i'm really transgender? Sometimes i feel like i treat my dreams wrong. Sometimes i'll act as if they're what i'm really feeling, because a dream is what my subconscious is showing me. But I also think that they're just dreams and nothing more. Sometimes in my dreams i'm a female version of myself. I like these dreams because i feel so happy, and when i wake up there's an emptiness in my heart. Other times it's the same but i appear how i am now. Should i be putting any stock into dreams? or should i treat them as meaningless fantasies. I'm not unhappy living as a male but i feel like i would be happier as a woman. Another worry is that if i do transition, what if no one loves me? What if i never find a partner because any woman I fall for can only see me as a man? I know i shouldn't base my future on this but it's scary to think that i might be alone for the rest of my life. I find that online, people tend to mistake me for a woman based on how i interact with other players and i find that i like it when they do. But i also feel like i'm putting on a mask when i talk to people online, and that they aren't seeing the real me. But i also worry that my online persona is how i really am and my anxiety holds be back as a person in real life. Sorry for the wall of text, but i just don't really know what to do. Thank you for reading this. It helps to get this off my chest.

Hesse · ‎30-03-2018

Sorry if this bothers you since I don't have any advice to give... I just want to say thank you for posting this. I have been feeling the exact same way and it's comforting to know that someone else is going through the same thing and may have helped me to understand myself a little better. So thank you~

SoupForTheSoul · ‎14-05-2018

Hi Hesse,

Honestly the fact that other people feel the same way is helpful to me too. Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier about this, I forgot what email i used to log in and when i tried using my username it wouldn't work for some reason.

So about a week ago i was in the shower and while i was washing my hair and just staring at a wall i started thinking about this stuff, and about coming out as transgender. I have anxiety so my thoughts on how other people view me generally aren't great. Needless to say this time wasn't any better. But i did realise that in all of these fantasies i was having about coming out and being transgender, i was always happy in them and i was always stronger in them. Like emotionally i mean. I ended up just lying on the floor in my room for like 20 minutes thinking about this stuff and as i thought more about it i became more certain that this is what i want. My anxiety was holding me back. I talked to my mum and my sister about it, and i came to the conclusion that i am transgender. One of my worries was that my experience wasn't the 'stereotypical' transgender experience. I didn't have gender dysphoria, i didn't know from a young age that i was a different gender. I was worried that because i didn't have these experiences, i wasn't really transgender. What i realised is that it doesn't matter what other people think, and it doesn't matter if my experiences arent the stock standard experiences everyone thinks of when they hear 'trans'. I realised that the fact that i've spent a quarter of my life trying to figure this out and the only argument i had for not being transgender was "but what if?" just proves that this isn't all a phase. This is how i really feel and all that matters is how I feel about this because I'm the only one it affects, and if people i know and love can't accept me like this then do i really want to know them

So I've come out as transgender publicly. Everyone i know was super supportive. I feel really happy about this and i'm super happy that i had that moment of certainty where my anxiety wasnt holding me back. So Thank You everyone for your help and kind words while i was going through this. You all helped me see things from new perspectives and helped me realise i wasn't alone in how i felt. I can finally have some certainty about my gender and i'm taking steps to show how i feel about my identity. Thank you all for your support and i hope that anyone who reads this thread can find support here. ❤️

jay1998b · ‎04-06-2018

Hey Soup!

I'm so happy you're starting to figure it out! Your story sounds a lot like mine - I think we had exactly the same thought processes. I hope you're having a good time, wherever you are. 🙂

Jay