u/darkpyro2

My compounded semaglutide shipment for September never came. In the orders tab, it says "preparing for shipment". I contacted Hims, and they resent my prescription to the pharmacy. This was two weeks ago now. It's still stuck on "preparing for shipment". I am completely out of the medication now, and have been for a couple or weeks.

Spending $1k on six months of medication, and then not getting that medication, is insane.

I'm 28. I have rapidly started to understand that the thing that I have been fighting my entire life is gender dysphoria. I have talked to a few of my friends, and I have started a non-medical transition in private.

My two closest friends -- people that I have known for over a decade -- have been a source of pain for me. The husband has been my best friend since my first days of college. His wife is somebody that I have known for almost as long. I was the best man in their wedding. We lived together for years. I was one of the first people that they told when they learned they were pregnant. I adore them both, and I adore their little boy.

The types of conversations that I've had with them have been kind of stressful. They haven't been unsupportive -- they have repeated over and over again that they just want me to be happy -- but they've expressed a lot of concern. They told me that it seemed really sudden to them. That it was out of left field. That my experience didn't match their experience of "trans"-ness in other people. And they've been really concerned that I'm moving too quickly, and that I'm acting like this is going to be the solution to all of my problems, and they're worried that I'm going to be really disappointed when it isn't.

The first conversation that I had, with my buddy -- the husband -- seemed to go okay. He texted me and asked to speak, so he came over that night after they put their little boy to bed. I told him that this wasn't new. I walked him through each of my life experiences that reaffirmed this. And, in the end, it seemed like he came around. But he said it felt like he was losing a brother, and he expressed that he didn't just want to be a yes-man -- that he wanted to push back and make sure that I was really thinking this through.

That kind of rattled me. I started to wonder if I was having a manic episode or something. A few days later I got a prescription for Estriadol, and had a panic attack, and started pretty rapidly back-pedalling. I desperately did not want this to affect my relationship, and it suddenly felt safer to claim I was struggling with mental illness than that this was something that actually made me feel better in my own skin.

After a few miserable days, I cooled off, I saw my therapist and I started exploring again. And I'm feeling relaxed. I'm having fun. It feels right.

So I started to doubt again, and reached out to the wife last night. I asked her if she felt the same way that he did -- that this came on so quickly, that it seemed out of left field, that they didn't think it made any sense based on what they knew of me. And she said that she did. And encouraged me to slow down, but that they were still here for me.

I don't think they don't support me. I know they both love me, and I love them. I've been telling them for years that they're like family. But i've also been extremely private about this deeply personal struggle that I've been having, and I can see why this might seem so sudden and out-of-character to them.

But the conversations are the worst part of this. If they were outright unsupportive, that would be one thing. But they are coming to be out of a genuine place of concern. And I trust them in that. And it hurts, because it makes me wonder if I'm losing my mind. But I know that I'm not.

How do I navigate this?

So, I finally accepted what's been going on with me a few days ago. I won't get into it all -- my story is a dime a dozen. But I went most of my life living as a man miserably. And not understanding what was wrong with me. Why I struggled so much with myself in the mirror.

And now that I'm listening to that voice that I've been tamping down on, and TRYING things, I find that it frequently makes the dysphoria worse. Being bad at makeup, and not looking particularly good in it. Trying on wigs, and not seeing a woman -- seeing a man in a wig. Trimming my eyebrows and feeling that they don't make the difference that I want them to.

I probably want to start HRT, but this early awkward phase is like oscillating between euphoria and dysphoria. I have a few transmasculine people in my life, but not really any transfeminine people, and so I'm kind of just doing this alone, while living alone, while working as an engineer in a very male-dominated market.

How do I get myself through this? I've seen the post-HRT photos. I know that it's possible. But it really stings to try right now and not get the results that I'm hoping for.

I was born a man. I am now 28.

For my entire life I have been unhappy. I have been repulsed by my own face. I'd get stuck staring in the mirror and fixating on every little detail, sometimes for hours. I saw therapists. We tried out body dysmorphia. We tried out OCD. For a while, I was convinced that childhood abuse had just made me profoundly uncomfortable, and that's all there was to it. That I just needed to accept myself as I was.

But I couldnt. Years of therapy. Trying to redirect those thoughts and feelings. I couldnt change them. Something felt fundamentally wrong with me. I could not shake it. It felt like everyone saw me as a predator. It felt like I couldnt meaningfully form connections with people. It felt like I was making people around me uncomfortable just by existing in their space, and I couldnt figure out why.

Meanwhile, I kept having these thoughts. First it manifested as playing women in videogames as a child and teenager. I wrote that off as attraction. Then I started having the thought "would I be happier as a woman?" And it would come up from time to time for years, and I wrote it off. I couldnt possibly. The chances that that was it were slim. I'm just in a really unhealthy state of mind, and eventually I would grow out of it. But most of my really close friends in elementary school were women. It happened again in high school. It was always easier to speak with them, and to exist in those spaces.

But I havent. I cant. A few months ago, I built up the courage to talk to a childhood friend of mine who had transitioned female to male. Today, I spoke to a college friend who had transitioned female to male. I just asked questions. How did you know? What was it like? How did you come to the conclusion that you weren't just stressed out and anxious -- that you felt fundamentally out of step with how you presented? They didnt really have satisfying answers for me, but they helped me feel comfortable with actually asking the question, and suggested I read explore it more.

And I think it's snowballed. I am listening to the experiences of trans women online -- that experience of sitting in front of a mirror and dissociating...of being totally uncomfortable with their own body. Of experimenting and denying it and rationalizing it and eventually accepting it. And suddenly I feel relieved. And I feel excited. And I feel like this is something that I really desperately want, and that I have always desperately wanted. I just needed the permission to want it.

Today is day one. It's terrifying. I have so much to learn and I have no idea how to do this. Almost 30 unhappy years living one way, and now I'm going to need to learn to live another.

I shaved off my beard today. I moisturized. I tried out a little skin makeup. I was awful at it. I need some practice, but it felt natural. Baby steps. Experimenting. But it really felt right. I dont know how quickly I'll pursue it. I don't know when I'll start making social changes or life changes. I dont know when I'll start using feminine pronouns. But I think this is something that I've been preventing myself from trying out for so long.

I am transgender... and I think I am finally ready to get to know myself.