It took getting hit by a car for me to finally get on HRT, and I waited a long fucking time (started my transition at 29!). I don't know why! I think I was afraid that my dysphoria wasn't "real" because it didn't feel to me the way everyone else describes it and I was paralyzed by self-doubt, like I was a fake or... or maybe I was afraid of how hard it would be or... or something. Just this vague fear and uncertainty that paralyzed my decision for 9 fucking years. Looking back at those wasted years I just want to tell her "You don't have to be afraid."

Good luck.

I believe in you.

💗

I think living in a state of suspended animation isn't abnormal; it's something I know too.

we all get anxious and in our own way sometimes. I know it’s not the same, but I was gonna go back to school five years ago, still haven’t, and I’m the only obstacle.

There’s no scoreboard, and no deadline.

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If you provide an egg enough warmth and safety, it cracks on its own just as soon as it's ready.

I don't have personal experience of transitioning but I've gone through some pretty big changes in my life with regards to how I relate to myself and the world (so I guess this is a disclaimer that I could be talking shit here and if anything I say is off the mark then that's on me).

I think with very big changes in "lifestyle" (excuse the term, I don't mean to insinuate anything by it - using shorthand here but think about things like dramatic weight loss or recovering from addiction or deprogramming yourself from a cult or leaving an abusive relationship etc.) you really don't know that you have the strength to make that change until you really have made it and established that as your new normal.

And imo a lot of that is because you genuinely don't have the strength to get to the endpoint from where you are at the starting point.

But hear me out - it's that very journey, the process of making change and confronting the uncomfortable parts of yourself and shedding the things that are harmful or obstructive and learning a new way of being, which strengthens you to the point where eventually you are strong enough to make it to that end goal.

So my angle is that you are correct in believing that you aren't strong enough to be fully transitioned from where you are right now at this very moment, just like I'm not strong enough to get to the top of a mountain standing at the base of it, and that's okay. But I do know that taking one step forward is the only way to get to the peak of a mountain, and I think that the only way to transition is by taking it one step at a time.

Your transition is your own to make. You get to set the pace of it and you can decide how you want to go about it.

I would gently encourage you not to look at other people who are "there" and to compare yourself to them; it's cool to have role models and mentors but it's not so cool to use them as a comparison to measure yourself by. Instead I would encourage you to try what feels right for you in a way that feels safe(r).

I think that self-affirmation and self-validation is really important, and especially so for people who are marginalised; if you count on things external to you for your primary source of validation then that can be pretty risky and it can leave you vulnerable in a variety of ways whereas if you are enough in your own self then when you inevitably encounter someone else expresses disapproval of you (or worse) then you will be in a better position to shrug it off because you will be secure. So I'd encourage you to start building ways to validate and affirm yourself right now, however feels right for you.

I'm just extrapolating and making some assumptions in this next part but I figure that aligning your appearance to your gender identity is going to be important for building self-affirmation. So maybe in the privacy of your own room, when you feel safe enough, do something for you to express your gender identity. It might mean wearing clothes that feel like they represent your gender well, it could be an entire makeover, it could just be painting your nails, it could be throwing on a wig (if you have short hair) and letting yourself play around with styling it, trying out makeup etc.

Or it could be something simple like getting one of those "Hello, my name is..." stickers and writing your preferred name on it and slapping it on your mirror so that you have taken a concrete step towards validating your identity.

Maybe you have a person who is close to you that you trust and you might try asking them to practice using your preferred name when it's just the two of you talking.

Whatever it is, do what's right for you because it's your transition and yours alone. Just take it one step at a time, even if it's just one tiny little step that seems so small that it's insignificant. And keep going little by little.

To wind this comment up before I ramble on too much, I just want to relate something in my own experience that you might find useful - I'm autistic and late-diagnosed, so I have spent virtually all of my life trying to be someone I am not and trying to live up to other people's expectations. This was utterly impossible, for reasons I'm not going to bother you with, and so my fundamental experience of myself and the world was characterised by me feeling completely inadequate. It's only as I have started to embrace my autistic self, with my preferences and needs and boundaries, and living in a way that is right for me that I have started to feel more adequate as a person. To put it in simple terms, I was taking my experience of feeling "this is not adequate for me" and I was turning that inwards and telling myself "I am not adequate", which became an integral part of my narrative. My feelings were valid in themselves, but the problem was in how I interpreted them and the story I was telling myself about them. It was only when I set about making a life that genuinely suits me better that it helped me to realise that I was taking those feelings of inadequacy and putting them in the wrong place this whole time.

And so I guess if I could be so presumptuous, I'd ask you this question - what would it mean if you were perfectly adequate right now in this very moment?

(You don't owe me an answer btw so don't feel any obligation to respond to that question. Maybe it's food for thought or maybe it's rhetorical, or maybe this isn't something that applies to your experience whatsoever.)

Last of all, I just want to say that very often change comes when the discomfort of staying the same exceeds the level of discomfort experienced by confronting change; generally people don't jump from the window of a burning building into the safety net below until the flames are lapping at their heels. It sounds like you're around that point so you have my congratulations on getting there and equally you have my commiseration that the experience is so fucking uncomfortable.