EDIT: For those concerned about how this story sounds: I’m leaving out a ton of detail for the sake of brevity. The history of how I’ve felt about possibly being trans technically goes back since I was a kid. And over the past years its been more notable and its intensified in the past few months. Past few days are just sort of a sudden cracking of the egg.
EDIT2: Also, HRT doesn’t bring about any permanent effects for the first few months is what I’ve read. Just softening of the skin basically and emotional changes. Some of you freaking out about me immediately starting HRT are being alarmist. If by some incredibly unlikely situation I end up hating being on HRT I’ll figure it out within the first month or three and stop. But I know that’s not going to happen TBH.
So, let me give some quick explanation on how I got here: Last Thursday, a girl I was essentially obsessed with told me to fuck off forever, even as a friend. To be honest I alienated my entire friend group surrounding her. I deserved this by any conventional measure, but that’s not what I want to litigate.
I had been on a mental loop essentially obsessing over her, and when it was clear I’d not get to even be her friend anymore, let alone be with her romantically, I realized I had absolutely nothing to think about or put my energy into. She was kind of part of my last (I’m autistic) hyper fixation of romance that had crumbled before me. I went from Video games to Politics to Romance. I cared about nothing for a few days, purely operating on survival mode, work was absolutely miserable and free time I sat around doing essentially nothing but thinking and watching garbage youtube. I did not want to live anymore, though I had suicidal ideation even before she rejected even my friendship.
Saturday night and Sunday morning, in bed I ruminated about the only thing left basically all night waking up randomly: myself. My identity. Who the fuck am I? I wont get to heavy into details but I realized I was in denial with my “gender ambivalence” I wasn’t ambivalent. I’m a transwoman. I told a friend and they immediately called me “Girrl!” and called me by a feminine form of my name via text. I immediately liked this to an extreme degree. And I think this kind of confirms it. I literally had a strong emotional sense of pleasure. I’ve never been excited to be a guy.
I feel both amazingly good about this revelation but also extremely… sad. I’m 38. I feel like I missed out on literally the best possible years to be a woman and I’m about to go into the worst. And the years I lived as a man were pretty terrible. I feel like I’ve been cheated.
I’ve realized the only real way I’m going to manage any real romance is to embrace who I actually am and stop pretending. I thought all my masking was to appear allistic (I’m autistic) but I was also essentially masking my gender. Pretending to be a guy. And I fucking suck at it.
Fortunately, I’ve aged surprisingly well despite being 38. I have all my hair. I already have a somewhat elven-esque pretty boy face even today that I think will not really require facial work. I have a “sing-song” voice for a guy. I am naturally relatively lanky/thin. Because I’m an indoors and night time person I’ve suffered minimal to zero UV damage to my skin and I don’t smoke.
This almost stings more though: god how cute I could have been! What an absolute waste. But there is something to be salvaged at least. I plan to start HRT ASAP. I intend to call Planned Parenthood today.
Anyway, the actual question is: Other than HRT, what do I do now? What do I need to be careful about? What should I avoid? What should I try?
As others have said, the very first step should be therapy. 1 week after a hard breakup is not the time to be making major life decisions if you can avoid it. I know it sucks but you’re going to need time to heal. The way you wrote this it sounds less like discovering yourself and more like a form of rebound.
Since it sounds like you’re really grasping for something real to do right now, I’d suggest picking up a hobby, ideally something working with your hands/body in the real world like drawing or painting or sewing or running or biking or something
I also wonder if you need to spend more time figuring yourself out. Go to the mall and try on some clothing and see how it feels. Play with your hair a little. But mostly I’d suggest focusing more on a hobby for a few weeks and let your questions about yourself linger for a bit while you get through the roughest first part of the healing process
1 week after a breakup is again not the time to make life changing decisions. 1 week after a breakup is definitely the time to start therapy, poke at some new hobbies, go outside and move more and maybe go clothing shopping if you have the budget.
I literally only started caring about doing anything when when I decided I was trans. Kind of hard to start a hobby when you literally don’t enjoy doing anything at all.
I started playing an RPG on my backlog for like hours on Sunday that I had left sitting on hiatus for a month because suddenly it was actually a nice enjoyable experience instead of a pointless slog.
I’ve already done some stuff with my hair before realizing I was trans to just look like a bit like a girlish guy.
As for clothing I think I’d be too embarrassed looking like a straight up dude in girls clothing in public. A friend has offered to take me shopping though. Maybe I can try some stuff on in private. I’ve done drag recently for the first time though in what I’d describe as an explicitly safe event and I enjoyed that as well though. Was actively worried about being hate crime’d the whole time though anyway.
Mental health can be a pain like that for sure! I’d still super encourage you to try something even if it’s just going for your stupid daily walk for your stupid mental and physical health. Even if you do it just to spite me and prove me wrong!
Sounds like a good plan to go try stuff on with a friend though! Lean on your friends while you heal, that’s what friends are for!