r/transOCD

(cw: some mentions of sexual assault and rape)

im 20f and bisexual. loved being a woman all my life. i went through my fair share of tomboy phases only to immediately turn around and dress super girly. i was like THE stereotypical girl. all the memes about how girls write in a pink, sparkly diary and play with barbie’s and were infatuated with the color pink? that was me. and i always felt like myself when i wore skirts. i was boy crazy and i loved wearing makeup. i loved heels and dresses and loved playing “fashion show” with all my mom’s clothing. i always knew that i was a woman.

for context, i’m known within my friend groups as having the worst first year of college ever. i was sexually assaulted for three months in the fall by my best friend. raped by another close friend in the spring. used by a different close friend who was “helped” me process my rape. i was assaulted in my second year and unsure if my last boyfriend assaulted me. i’ve been through a lot. and i never gave myself a break.

like i said before, i was always boy crazy. i knew i wanted a boyfriend. sometimes id act different just for guys to like me. but my ex called me so many names for being bisexual and for having a higher body count than him. he’s called me disgusting, weird, a slut, he’s called me a bitch so many times while joking that it felt like he wasn’t. one day, during intimacy, i wasn’t into it. never knew why. and i suddenly had the thought of “what if you’re not into him and you’re a lesbian?” and i freaked out. went down an insane spiral and lost all attraction to him and all men. i’d see a man in a show or movie and id immediately get disgusted by him. brought it up to my old therapist, who kept insisting i was a lesbian and to just own it. when i cut her off saying how much i wanted to be with my ex, how much i wanted to have sex with him, and how happy i used to be with him, she’d scoff and continue telling me that i was a lesbian. which made everything so much worse.

after this, i was obsessively mulling over my thoughts. i couldn’t even look at my body in the mirror or while showering because i would get reminded of my rape. i’d spend, i kid you not, 16+ hours thinking about being a lesbian and hating it. the compulsions were insane. and one day, while trying to figure out why i hated men so much and couldn’t look in the mirror, another loud and booming thought came in.

“what if you’re actually trans, and you’re just lying to yourself? and that’s why you can’t look in the mirror?”

ever since then, i haven’t been the same. id get such strong thoughts of “you want to be a man. just admit it. you acted so boyish as a child. you’re just in denial”

i don’t even know what it means to be a woman anymore. women don’t feel real. i don’t even know what a woman is. i’ll see a woman and i can’t wrap my brain around it. like they just… don’t exist. or they’re men dressed up as women. but men? they’re men. they’re fine.

nothing feels right. and i’m slowly losing everything i liked about myself. my hair parts the wrong way? looks too boyish and it’s a sign. don’t feel like doing my makeup today? you hated makeup the entire time and you’re just a man. wanting to wear pants today? you like being a guy and you want to dress like one. it’s exhausting. it’s getting to the point where the thoughts feel so real that sometimes i almost feel like i WANT to, but i know i font. whenever i’m drunk or high, i miss being a woman. but i feel like i physically CANNOT be a woman. like im not allowed to be one. my brain even tells me that im acting childish or like im “regressing” almost and that i wont grow if i dont just accept it. that women are “boring” and “it’s basic” and i wont become a better person if i dont.

i never wanted to live like a man. but it’s been 7 months of this now. and i feel like i can’t return to before. my brain is telling me that it doesn’t even WANT to return to before. i miss the old me. i want her back. nothing feels right anymore.

I'm at a point where I'm just so confused about my identity, and whenever I'm alone, these feelings get so strong. I was doing so much better. I don't even know if I participate in any compulsions. I'm just so incredibly anxious, and I don't want to be trans, but 100% of my thoughts go there when I'm alone. It has been like this for months, so I'm losing hope that it's just anxious thoughts. I have tried to bring this up with my therapist, but I'm too scared and it feels too overwhelming and shameful. I am again crying all morning, and I dont really know what to do anymore. I dont know if the solution is that i would be much happier accepting these feelings and following them, or not. I wish i could go back to how my mind used to be, its exhausting and i dont want to deal with all this.

In 2013 my father's friend that was at lunch with us pronunced this phrase: "there are those men that feel women, they became what they ARE"

If he Would have pronunced "there are those men that feel women, they became what they FEEL THEY ARE" the phrase Would have been Ok instead...

Why the phrase as how It was pronunced got me obsessed?

\\\\- If you Say: the water become warm, for Logic It means that before that the water was not warm

\\\\- with the phrase about the trans: "there are those men that feel women, that became what they are" It means that before that, those men weren't who they are"..

This last piece of the phrase "before that, those men weren't what they are" my brain force the interpretation ARE= biologically are...So the phrase became like "those men weren't biologically Who they are biologically" so "those men (individuals with dick) werent biologically men...So the phrase sounds like "the individuals with dick arent biologically men". That It Is false, but you know the Classic OCD (what if, what if Is true, the phrase with reverse Logic sounds like that, so if It sounds like that, must be some true in It)....And the OCD continue with its voice (so if those that have dick arent men, those without dicks are men) so if Always thought that those with dicks are men, and I have a dick so I am a man, all that Is false, my inner self that has grown up with the concept that those with dicks are men Is a delusional self, I cant thrust myself, i cant trust my innervoice... With that thoughts in my head, with the thought in particular that my self can be delusional, my brain like a switch turned Dp/dr ON and since 2013 those dissociative symptoms staied chronic...

I Would like to hear your thoughts about my obsession..Thanks

*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.

Do these thoughts go away or at the very least handled way better?

I haven’t had these thoughts in a while nor have I engaged with anything relating to it too. But like they came back and just had me feeling confused again, and like I don’t want these to appear in the future. I want to have a nice, peaceful life, with a good family if I also get to that point.

But I‘m concerned about these thoughts popping up again in the future as I become a fully grown adult, and I’m still uncertain if this fear is due to the distress of the thoughts themselves or the distress of the consequences that comes with being trans, which is what many trans people have expressed themselves, and there are some that have even expressed that it took until adulthood for them to accept that.

It is just so weird overall trying to distinguish the difference between these thoughts, because as a man, I’ve been comfortable and confident when I’m viewed as such, and the idea of being presented as a woman is odd, but it’s like some of these thoughts feel like I’m lying to myself.