Looking for a Little Advice

I have some pretty bad social anxieties. I have problems talking to people about problems, even via anonymous internet postings (for example, I took about two and half hours revising this, plus about an hour of trying to decide if I actually wanted to post it). So the confusion that I'm experiencing right now had to take a good week or so to actually start causing me physical pain (in the form of some nasty headaches from sleep deprivation) for me to even consider looking for someone to talk to. I just need someone to know.

The thing that has always made me happier than anything else has been gaming. I love turning off the world and just being someone else for a while. My favorite games are singleplayer RPGs. I tend to get pretty connected to my characters, but I always thought I understood the boundary between myself and my characters. Recently, however, I started noticing that nearly every single character I keep going back to is female. What's more, they're all more or less the same person, and I've named all of them Sera.

The part that really startled me was when I started wishing that I could be Sera. Having all the NPCs refer to me as a woman felt... fitting? Something like that. I didn't want to be my character in a different world, but I wanted to be my character in real life. I started dreaming that I was Sera. I started feeling uncomfortable with who I've been for eighteen years and more comfortable as Sera (only digitally, at the moment). I've been having fantasies which, quite frankly, scare the hell out of me.

All I really have a grip on right now is that I know Sera like the back of my hand, and I'm not so sure I know myself anymore. I'm spending a lot of nights staring at the ceiling, and I've been reduced to tears more than once. I've had this kind of identity crisis a few times before, but it always got resolved (looking back, a more accurate term might be 'buried'. I've gotten pretty good at it at this point, honestly) by the person that everyone expected me to be. It hasn't ever felt quite so... I don't know... real? And I haven't ever had a person that I would rather be stand out quite so clearly as Sera.

I just don't have a direction right now, and I really suck at operating without a plan. Any words of wisdom offered would be met with immeasurable gratitude.

 

I got an appointment, but it's gonna be a few days because the counseling center on campus isn't open on weekends and there are a lot of kids. But I did a little bit of research, and it turns out that the counselors are "trained in transgender issues", so I figure that's pretty great.

I don't really have anything Sera would wear, unfortunately, and nowhere that I could try it, since I live in a college dorm. Privacy is pretty much nil. I guess I could try going by Sera here.
P.S.: Can't stand escargot. Too rubbery. :icon_bigg

On a super-positive note, I got sick of not doing anything, so I started shaving places that weren't my face. I've pretty much hated all that hair for as long as I can remember having it, and I figure that's a pretty small step to start with. I'm having to do it a little at a time (again, dorm), but it's nearly freezing here, so I can wear long pants and sleeves to hide that it's a little patchy all I want.

As it turns out, I've got pretty smooth and soft skin under all of that horribleness. And I haven't been as happy as I was when I finished a leg in... a while. My head's clearing up a little, and I actually feel awesome right now. Sharing this with a couple of people really helped.