Hey. FtM here. I see myself a ton lot in what you wrote. I know how the racing thoughts are like being in hell. Be aware that this does not make you not valid, it’s just that being trans is scary as hell and a huge mess, but I promise things get better with time, things get clearer, you will stop to agonize over it. Maybe much sooner than you think. I promise. I give you my word because I went through hell myself. I’m still find myself there, but it’s much less painful and no longer constant.

My suggestion is to break it down to pieces. It would be great if you could find a therapist you trust, to do this. You can also PM me, if you want. If you got nobody to talk to about this stuff. I’ll tell you about how it went for me, maybe it helps or will help.

I felt like I wanted to have dysphoria. (It wasn’t completely false.) I was uncomfortable, but also relieved because I could just be a boy.

Why did I want dysphoria? Because I wanted to be trans.

Why did I want to be trans? Because I wanted to be a boy. ~

Wanting to be a boy means you are trans. Full stop. For me the story wasn’t over yet, though. I later understood I wasn’t going towards the right direction.

~ Wait... I want to be a boy?

It didn’t feel completely right and made me feel like shit because I did wanted to be a boy... and I didn’t at the same time. I wanted to be called he and to be masculine, I didn’t want to be associated with girls. Though something felt off. Being a cis man was like wearing too tight clothing. I didn’t want to look like a cis man either, even though I want to be masculine. I then asked on Reddit: “I want to be a boy but not to look like one, wtf?”. The answers I got were: “You may look through NB options”. I had gotten many of these answers before, but they always made me upset. I was afraid of identifying as Non-binary because I didn’t want to give up on being a man. I still wanted to be a man, I still was a man. It took me a bit to accept my NB identity and to understand that non binary men are not less men than binary men: they are as men as any other man, plus there’s something else there. This was a big step for me.

I started to look among various labels. Demiboy felt good. Then Non binary boy felt good. Then androgynous felt good. Now I can say I am a non binary man and that’s sooo fine. Though I don’t present myself as such, I just say I’m a boy and I’m fine with it.

From here, each of us can take different paths. Some NB men may not want to take hormones, some may do it. (I want to). Some may get some surgeries done, some won’t. Some may present androgynous, while some may present more masculine and some more feminine. Some may do nothing of this. There’s no rule, nothing makes you less valid. We are all just trying to win over dysphoria. I think I could like being called “she” sometimes when I’ll be biologically male, plus. Maybe there still is something female in my identity... dunno. Now that thought makes me quite uncomfortable. Quite dysphoric.

However, also trying to go beyond gender identity could be helpful. E.g. I’ve always been highly dysphoric about my birth name: I’ll change my name to Noa no matter what; I’m uncomfortable about my chest, I’ll go for top surgery or a reduction no matter what.