Ever since the other day when I had those two close friends of mine tell me that they didn't believe I was female I've been in kind of a funk. I mean, I look at myself in the mirror and I see a female, granted as long as I have clothes on. I feel comfortable, confidant, amazing when I'm dressed up as I feel I should be dressed. For the first time in my LIFE I have been able to look at myself in the mirror and feel like I've found myself, I'm happy with myself, I can look myself in the eyes and smile. I know I'm a female, Sofiya, and one day everyone will be able to look past the fact that I used to present as a male. I mean, at work people are starting to begin recognizing me as a female. A contractor hit on me today and asked me to "marry him." (Is it sad that marriage is recognized as a joke nowadays rather than a serious thing?) I declined and walked away after smiling and he asked his friend if he just got declined. Then I had a random coworker walk past me and said "Hello Beautiful." It helped. It really and truly did. Put a spring in my step even. There's this nagging self doubt and a lack of self confidence though. I've come such a long way. I've gained so much confidence and wear and look how I feel I should every single day. Granted people still call me "Patrick" and I wince every time. There's still that nagging feeling though and it upsets me. A detached kind of feeling that does its best to bring me down. I don't know, I may just be rambling at this point. I just feel kinda lost, mildly depressed, less confident, and just want to feel better about myself instead of so unsure and clumsy footed (If that's even a term). Help? Friendly words of advice? ---------- Post added 26th Apr 2014 at 01:44 AM ---------- It should also be noted that my best friend believes I'm doing this for attention. She seems to think that since I didn't really do a good job as a guy I want to be a girl instead. But that's not what I feel. When I tell people that I'm a girl I feel so liberated and happy. She said something like, "What are you going to do when you no longer get any more responses and people get used to you as a girl. What are you going to do then?" She meant it with love, I know she loves me but she isn't understanding. Again, I think I'm just rambling. Again.
Please note that I am by no means a leading authority on Gender Dysphoria, and I'm pretty confused about what I am myself, so don't take my word for anything. That said, I can relate to your sentiments on some levels. I don't know if I have any "answers" for you (to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what your question is) but I felt your post deserved a reply of some kind, and since I think I can empathize with you in some regard due to some things I've been feeling recently that sound similar to what you're going through (though also different in a number of ways)... I don't know. I apologize for this messy, disorganized reply which is completely and totally lacking in real advice. I guess I just wanted to say that I know what it's like to feel unsure and to have a nagging feeling of detachment, even if otherwise my situation is probably very different from yours. What I think I'm trying to do here is empathize with you/make you feel better, but I'm probably totally failing at it. Apologies for my lack of ability to find the right words. Anyway, it sucks that your friend misunderstands, but if she is a true friend I believe she will come around in time. Regardless, I wish you the best.
"What are you going to do when you no longer get any more responses and people get used to you as a girl. What are you going to do then?" Allow me to answer this question using nothing but your own words: I look at myself in the mirror and I see a female [...] I feel comfortable, confidant, amazing when I'm dressed up as I feel I should be dressed. For the first time in my LIFE I have been able to look at myself in the mirror and feel like I've found myself, I'm happy with myself, I can look myself in the eyes and smile. I've gained so much confidence and wear and look how I feel I should every single day. people still call me "Patrick" and I wince every time. When I tell people that I'm a girl I feel so liberated and happy. Do I need to go on? I assume that your friend also likes it when people compliment them about things. When she gets a compliment about something does she IMMEDIATELY stop doing that thing for the rest of her life? No? Then could we not say she is doing it for the attention too? Of course we could, but we wouldn't because to do so would be insensitive and moronic. It's no different with you. The thing is I think you know what its like when people are used to you as a girl. Hell you have a whole forum of people here who are used to you as a girl, treat you like a girl and only know you as a girl. How often do we sit and shower you with compliments for the hell of it? We have one thread for constructive criticism and thats it. The rest of the time we just treat you like we treat anyone else, and yet you are still here presenting as Sofiya. You know, my mum and step-dad used the same argument on me once as your friend did. They told me they thought I was just running away from being a guy because I wasn't doing a good job at it. Well why wasn't I doing a good job at it? Because I was so miserable I had given up. Everything I did felt wrong. Something wasn't right with ME. Sound familiar?
Thank you, Ellia, for doing a much better job at constructing a proper response than I ever could have. To Sofiya: Apologies again for that embarassment of a post I left earlier. Apologies, also, for acting like I could help somehow despite not having any personal experience with what you must be going through at the moment. Pretending like what I'm going through currently is similar to your case was probably presumptuous. Please feel free to ignore me and just listen to Ellia. She has good advice.
Thank you both for responding! While yours wasn't the most....Eloquent of responses, it was still a response, reminded me I'm not the only person in the world with detachment issues. While we're not experiencing the same thing, I meant what you were trying to say And Holly: Thank you SOOOOOO much for the advice and response! It did help and it made me smile. Ever since then I feel like I've been elevated back to where I was and I'm not as lost as I felt the last couple of days. Granted, there's still image issues I have, but that will be resolved in time (theoretically). Anyways, I REALLY need to get some sleep as I'm running on fumes. Again, thank you all (*hug*)
You're a beautiful woman and don't let anyone tell youv differently! You're doing amazingly! You are Sofiya!
