I’m AMAB and since July, I’ve felt what I now realize is mild dysphoria. Around 2 weeks ago I read more about gender dysphoria from genderdysphoria.fyi and realized I am almost certainly trans. Ever since I realized this, my dysphoria (along with anxiety about said dysphoria) has gotten a lot worse to the point where I’m only getting ~3-5 hours of sleep for multiple days in a row until I get exhausted enough to pass out immediately when I get in bed. I was originally going to wait until I graduate this year but I’ve been pretty miserable and I want to come out sooner because I think that would at least help with the anxiety aspects, even if I wait to start actually transitioning. That being said, I’m worried about a few things:
My last semester in undergrad for CS is coming up and I have 4 male roommates in an apartment, and I’m scared of making things awkward for the last months we’ll be living together since we’re all pretty close friends.
I’m lucky enough to be in a blue state (both at college and at home) and my parents and siblings are all mostly progressive politically, but I don’t think my parents have ever actually met a trans person. I’m worried that they won’t accept me because they think that all trans people knew they were trans as children, and I’ve had mostly “male” hobbies for my whole life. It’s more of less the same story with my grandparents who I’m also very close with, one of whom is in pretty bad health right now. I’m worried that coming out and/or transitioning would be enough of a shock to make that worse.
I guess my questions are, how did you come out, and how can I approach this with my family? Did you start transitioning immediately after coming out to friends/family? Before? Am I way overthinking everything? Any other advice for someone who’s new to all of this?
If my run-on sentences are unintelligible lmk and I’ll fix them, I’m very sleep deprived rn but I needed to get this off my chest before I actually implode
I want to second the suggestion to try HRT (particularly injections, and if you’re afraid of needles like me, look into subcutaneous injections with small needles).
I socially transitioned three months before starting HRT and despite living full-time as a woman and doing every gender-affirming thing I could (makeup, wearing women’s clothes, changing my name and pronouns, etc.) nothing really improved my mental health or dysphoria like estrogen.
Not everyone has the same experiences, but some of us experience “biochemical dysphoria” where having the wrong sex hormones in our body makes us feel worse mentally. I had no idea how bad my anxiety, depression, etc. was until estrogen made me feel better.
Also, starting estrogen is no big deal and you can be on estrogen with no long-term effects up to three months, and that gives you lots of time for the hormones to give you diagnostic information if you are wondering if you are trans still.
A lot of people seem to approach HRT as an extreme step, something to defer until they are more certain, but I think it should one of the first things people try because it can be really clarifying and can really improve mental health in a way that makes it easier to handle daily life and the challenges social transition can present. Estrogen first, everything else can come later.
Yup, biochemical dysphoria is real. Estrogen just about killed me. Always had two weeks out of every month where I’d get crazy depressed for no discernable reason. I then took estrogen a while ago to stop mensuration while T did its magic and I initially had a terrible reaction to it. Made me extremely and irrationally depressed, gave me migraines, felt like shit all the time. Since being on T and getting off that E I haven’t expierenced anything like that.
That’s so wild!! Injecting estrogen makes me feel high, especially when I first started I could lay down a couple hours after injecting and just bask in the feeling of it, a kind of mild, full-body euphoria.
What you’re describing E does to you is about how I feel on T, I get depressed and lose all motivation, nothing is as enjoyable anymore (even things that are otherwise usually enjoyable like food, entertainment, etc.) and the world seems kinda flat, and my anxiety increases significantly.
TW: suicidal ideation, it wasn’t until I started injecting estrogen that I realized that since I was maybe 13 I had experienced at least passive suicidal ideation, and that for the first time since then I started to feel what I call “irrationally happy” and I actually wish to be alive despite nothing changing to make me feel that way. The even passive, background, default wish to be dead dissipated. It feels like nothing short of miraculous for me, and even nearly a year later I still can hardly believe it - I constantly wonder if it’s just placebo.
I don’t get migraines from T, but I do get these mild pressure headaches when I inject too much estrogen almost like a sinus infection can feel, so that’s interesting. I wonder if you are more sensitive to that effect of estrogen?
Anyway - so glad you got on T and it cleared up. These are the sorts of experiences that can make me feel l bit like an HRT evangelist.
E specifically is linked to migraines, not T. Definitely think my body is more sensitive to it than average.
I feel ya, I used to be passively suicidal as well. I dreaded every aspect of the future because each passing day meant that my body would continue to develop in the incorrect alignment with my brain. Now the future feels much more manageable even though things are far from perfect. Each passing day means that my body gets closer and closer to being my own and that’s really helped me.