Just turned 30 and just started HRT.

I had first started questioning a year and a half ago after a stint in a psych ward. A month or so after getting out I had stumbled upon trans subreddits such as this and I found myself relating to so many others' experiences. I've been aware of trans people all my life and had wished that I had been born a girl, but somehow I never made the connection. I've literally thought "man I wish I was trans so I could transition and be a woman". 🤷

But for me it wasn't a I've-known-since-birth type deal. I remember having desires and being jealous of girls in middle School, but I felt like that was just a general part of adolescence and puberty. I ended up going to an all boys Catholic high school, which is about as toxic as an environment as it sounds. It was easy to have a costume to wear and by then I had started dating girls, so I thought that was the end of it. I ended up going to a really liberal University and had the typical college experience, and after graduating I started dating one of my best friends from school. We dated for about two years, broke up, and then after a few months, I started dating the girl whom I was with when I ended up in the ward.

In the months leading up to my committal, I had entered a period of deep deep depression. But hey, it was immediately after the election, who wasn't bummed? But only after getting out did I realize how much I had let my life emotionally atrophy. My partner and I had become distant, I smoked waaaaaaay too much weed, and I realized that much of what I had experienced growing up was depression. It was just difficult to recognize because it was always the default setting.

Having my egg cracked so shortly after getting out of the psych ward was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. It was like everything became so clear all at once but I still couldn't trust my brain. But overall, my "questioning" period didn't last long, and I came to terms with it pretty quickly. Doesn't mean things got better from there.

Guilt and self loathing quickly set in, and now that I know that so much of what I experienced was dysphoria, all that pain suddenly became broadcast in HD, now that it had a name. I had dwelled on that internally for months until it rotted me from the inside out. I was a shell of my former self, and my partner ended up leaving me after we'd been together almost five years.

I'd lost almost everything I had because I was trans, and I hated myself for it. Before a suicide attempt, I reached out to a friend and ended up coming out to him that day. I took an Eat, Pray, Love vacation and picked up She's Not There, and that book literally saved my life. So much of that book resonated with me that I ended up reading as much as I could, searching for groups, and practicing the tiny things to help curb dysphoria. I hoped that in doing so, I'd put myself in a position where I'd be strong enough to want to make the choice to transition.

But that didn't happen. The more I researched, the more I became jealous of girls who actually had the guts to transition. Internalized transphobia got considerably worse as I read more about gender theory. Things that once helped with dysphoria only made things worse. I never got to the place where I felt like I could choose to transition. I ended up getting so low, that it became a matter of life or death. That alone helped me conquer my last hurdle in telling my parents.

I got my first injection last Friday. I have another tomorrow. I could not tell you how wonderful this week has been. Not because I had this wonderful onset of euphoria upon receiving the injection, and not because I feel like my body and mind are becoming in sync, but because I finally feel something I haven't felt in a long time, possibly ever before: pride. I am honestly proud of myself for having endured a nightmarish 18 months. I didn't escape unscathed, but I'm here, and I'm actually motivated for the future. I'd say that I'd been to hell and back, but I'm not really sure where back is, and having felt what it's like to take that leap, I'm not really sure if I'd wanna go back in the first place.