u/resurrecttien

I'm 20 years old, amab, and I've been struggling with gender dysphoria for a long time. Lately it's gotten so bad that I honestly wish I could just erase these thoughts completely. If there was a way to stop being trans or stop wanting to be a woman, I think I'd take it.

The reason isn't that I don't like the idea of transitioning. It's almost the opposite.

If I genuinely believed I could transition and eventually pass and be seen as a woman, I think I'd be ecstatic. But I don't believe that's possible for me, and that's what's making me feel hopeless.

My biggest concerns are:

* I feel like my ribcage is way too wide.
* I feel like my pelvis and hips are too narrow.
* I think my overall body structure looks very masculine.
* I'm very skinny, which somehow makes everything stand out even more in my eyes.
* I'm 5'7.", which made me feel like I didn't fit the male standard growing up, but now I also worry that even if I transitioned, my overall body would still look wrong.
* I was born unfortunately African American, and I've developed this belief that my all of my features are too masculine and that I'll never be beautiful as a woman, nor a man, I also have a pretty religious family. I know that sounds awful to say, but it's genuinely how I feel about myself.

Whenever I see a trans woman who passes well or is beautiful, I get incredibly jealous. Not because I dislike them, but because I feel like they got to live the life I wish I could have, while I'm convinced I never will, I hate that they're pretty, and they have might have a supportive family, and that makes me have.. extremely violent, borderline thoughts.

It's gotten to the point where I feel trapped. I don't feel happy staying as I am, but I also don't believe transitioning would ever give me the outcome I want. It feels like every option ends with me being miserable.

I keep thinking I would have been better off starting estrogen much earlier, around puberty or even at 12, and I feel like because I didn’t, I’ve missed my best chance at developing a body I’d actually be happy with, and that realization about my entire life, makes me want to do something.

I know nobody can tell me exactly what I'd look like if I transitioned, but I genuinely can't tell anymore whether I'm looking at myself realistically or whether dysphoria has completely distorted how I see myself.

*Long post*

I don't know how to explain myself because I'm honestly an idiot. I don't know what I am. I don't know what I want. I don't know if I want any of this. I'm not even sure of myself. I'm not sure of anything.
Sometimes, off and on, my mental image of myself is a woman. I don't know why. I don't know where that comes from. I don't know if it means anything. I don't know if it's some deep truth about me or if it's just my brain being weird. I genuinely have no idea. It's just something my brain does.
I had a breakdown earlier and spent a lot of it wishing I wasn't alive. Not because I have some grand reason, but because I'm tired. Tired of thinking. Tired of questioning. Tired of not knowing what the hell is wrong with me. Tired of feeling like everyone else understands themselves better than I do.
I feel like people keep telling me that only I can know if I'm trans, but that's exactly the problem. I DON'T know. If I knew, I wouldn't be asking. I wouldn't be obsessing over this. I wouldn't be spending hours reading posts, comparing myself to strangers, and trying to figure out why I react the way I do.
Sometimes I look at HRT timelines and I get jealous. Sometimes I see a trans woman and think, "I wish that was me." Then five minutes later I'm questioning whether I even mean that.
Maybe I'm just jealous because they're pretty. Maybe I just like feminine features. Maybe I like hips. Maybe I want those things for myself. Maybe I don't. I don't know.
That's the answer to almost every question I have: I don't know.
Sometimes I think I want hormones. Sometimes I think I don't. Sometimes I think transitioning sounds appealing. Sometimes it sounds terrifying. Sometimes I think I'm trans. Sometimes I think I'm completely making all of this up and wasting everyone's time.
I come from a Black Christian family. My mom is Christian. Most of my family is Christian. That doesn't exactly make this easier. Whether that's affecting my feelings or making me second-guess myself, I don't know.
The other thing is that I'm not exactly the most reliable narrator of my own life. I have ADHD. My thoughts are all over the place. I overthink everything. Half the time I don't even know what I'm feeling until hours later. I'm bad at explaining things. I'm bad at answering deep questions. I'm bad at understanding myself.
So when I say I think I might be trans, understand that there's a giant question mark attached to that statement.
Because I don't know.
I don't know if I'm trans.
I don't know if I'm cis.
I don't know if I need therapy.
I don't know if I'm confused.
I don't know if this is a fetish or something.
I don't know if this is something real or if I'm chasing an explanation for feelings I don't understand.
I don't know.
What I do know is that I looked up informed consent clinics near me, and for the first time in a while I felt something similar to relief.
Not certainty. Not confidence. Relief.
Like, "Oh. That's actually possible."
I might never do anything with that information. I might decide hormones aren't for me. I might decide they are. I might learn something about myself. I might learn absolutely nothing. I don't know.
But for the first time in a while, I felt a tiny bit of hope, and that's weird because I haven't felt much hope lately.
Maybe that means something.
Maybe it doesn't.
I honestly have no idea.

For the past two days, I've basically been Googling "am I trans?" over and over again. Reading Reddit posts. Reading articles. Reading other people's experiences. Comparing myself to them. Looking for some kind of answer, I guess. I’ve been also watching YouTube videos about to, I relate to some people, but not the majority.

I wasn’t even necessarily hoping the answer is "yes" or "no." Just hoping for an answer.
Trying to see if I'm trans. Trying to see if I'm not. Trying to make sure I'm not missing something obvious. Trying to figure out why I'm reacting to certain things the way I do.
The problem is that the more I search, the less certain I feel. Every time I think I've found something that sounds like me, I find something else that makes me doubt myself again. I feel like I’m crazy.

Something else that confuses me is that I sometimes feel disappointed when people don't tell me I'm trans, or when I come across something that makes me think I might not be. I don't even know what that means. Maybe it's because I want certainty. Maybe it's because part of me wants the answer to be "yes." Maybe it's because I've spent so much time looking for an explanation that I don't want to let go of one. I honestly don't know.
All I know is that sometimes I'll read something that points away from me being trans, and instead of feeling relieved, I feel disappointed. Then I immediately start questioning why I feel disappointed, which just sends me down another spiral of overthinking.