I've turned into an antisocial self-loathing teenager.

And it all has roots in being transgendered. I have moderate-severe depression and constantly have thoughts of suicide, but have never acted on them. I'm depressed for 2 reasons; my parents won't do anything about my transsexualism, even though I can't hardly look in the mirror anymore. I don't go out because whenever I see a mildly attractive female I remember what I'm being denied and it just hurts more.

I'm terrified that between now and whenever I can start taking antandrogens I'll become even more masculine. As the days pass, puberty hits me harder and harder, now my forearms and biceps actually starting to enlarge. I'm scared that this is just a precursor to facial hair, a noticeable Adam's Apple, etc. I can't blame this entirely on my parents. We don't have a whole lot of money, but the pills don't cost very much and we've splurged on stupider things.

I've never actually been hurt by being transgendered. I'd feel a want, but never the absolute need, the pain associated with being trans. This has become such a problem recently that I'm actually holding back tears as I type this. I've never been affected by typing something. I don't want a bunch of 'you poor thing, blah blah blah'. I know some of you have been in my exact same position, but we all deal withthings differently. I hate being held when upset, I just want to go sit in the corner and stew.

The other reason for my particular shitty mood is that my best friend, the reason I'm still alive, is being sent 4 hours away to some mental health facility. She isn't allowed a phone, phone calls, write letters, read letters, come home for weekends, holidays, or anything. She'll be totally out of contact from everyone except her parents(who are also the only reason she's in there) from now until school ends in June. She's leaving tomorrow.

I have a girlfriend as of recently. She's great, but she doesn't know about me yet. I'm not sure if I ever will be able to tell her. I just don't even know what to do anymore... It's no use giving advice, I won't follow it anyway. I guess I just feel better having hundreds of strangers read about how much I hate myself...

 

She's great, she's relieving a lot of the stress. There for the first week we were together, I was happier than I've been in years. As far as the support network goes, the friend being sent away is the only person in my life that I'm close enough to talk to about all this stuff. With her gone I have absolutely nobody to talk to. She's like the one Pokemon that I trained all the way up to level 100. When she's gone, I'm left with a few good friends that aren't nearly as goodnto talk to.

 

Hey everybody, I know this thread is ancient but from time to time I still remember this forum and wanted to come back to leave an update. I hope the mods are alright with that, if this would be a better fit for its own post or if anything needs to be edited to be fit for a YA forum then please let me know. This means a lot to me and I'd really like to be able to leave this here for anybody going through a tough time.

So, where to begin?

I joined this forum in almost seven years ago when I was first coming to terms with being trans. After coming out to them I found that I couldn't confide in my parents, I was met with extremely negative reactions from my mom and silent acceptance from my dad, though I didn't really know that at the time. I did finally get to go to therapy starting in April of 2012, shortly after I turned 16, and was even given my HRT recommendation letter; However, my mom was firmly against it and that was that.

For the next five years, if I so much as uttered a word about being trans she would break down and make me feel like a terrible person until I gave up and left it alone. Facing denial from such an important person in my life caused me a lot of problems... All throughout high school I was on a rollercoaster of being in denial and feeling dysphoric, it was an awful way to live but I managed to cope with the help of weed and pharmaceuticals in the name of escapism. I'm absolutely not justifying or condoning it, but I didn't feel I had anywhere to go and perpetually felt like I was drowning. I've struggled with suicidal ideation in varying intensities since the period of my life in which I made this initial post, but even so it has gotten better and is no longer a determining factor in my life.

On my 19th birthday I took matters into my own hands and called the nearest LGBT clinic and scheduled an appointment with Dr. Nisly at the Iowa River Landing in Coralville, Iowa. (I found her by pure chance on a different trans-oriented forum so I feel the need to pass that on to anybody else in the area seeking help.) The contracting company that I was working for had split and rather than proceeding with them I decided enough was enough and used my tax return to move to Iowa City from the podunk hick town I was born and raised in, ultimately starting my transition right then and there. I didn't tell my parents why I had moved, nor did I tell them that I was starting HRT, but I was doing what I had to do and I was doing it entirely on my own because I knew I needed to. This would prove to be the single most crucial decision of my life, and one that I'm inconceivably satisfied with.

On January 2nd, 2017 I told my mom that I had been on hormones, and she cried. She cried more than I'd heard her cry in a long time, but the tears were different this time; She apologized for being so hard on me and for being in denial about it for so long. Then we cried. We cried together on the phone, separated by distance that I had to place between us in order to grow. After that one phone call our relationship started on the mend, and a year later she's making attempts to use the proper pronouns and refer to me by my name. We're closer than we've been since I came out to her all those years ago, and things are still always improving. I have my mom back and words cannot express how good that feels. I came out on facebook the day after my birthday with a great big sappy post and haven't looked back since.

Today is April 27th, 2018, and I'm now 22 years old. I've been on HRT since September of 2016 and finally almost have my hormones leveled out, and have been seeing fantastic results that have given me a new lease on life. I have an absolutely amazing group of friends that would do anything for me and am in a relationship with someone who might actually be "my person" (fingers crossed!). I still don't really pass, but I do feel hella cute a lot of the time and that's really all that matters. I still get dysphoria occasionally, but it's not the crippling pain I once felt. I wear what I want, and I do what I want. I still love to work on cars and build things, I play guitar in a punk band and have plans to start my own company in the coming months. My pronouns are she/her/hers, and at least with people that I know, they get respected.

My life has improved in ways I couldn't even fathom when I signed up here, and it was all because I took matters into my own hands and did what I had to do to be happy. Don't let anybody tell you how to live your life. I love you all and wish you all the best in your respective journeys, I know it may be hard but stay strong; Trust me, it's worth it

Yours truly,
~Amelia