Hi all! Life has been pretty good lately. I'll be one month on T tomorrow, and every day I've been feeling more and more confident. Until yesterday, when I was left confused. It often happens that I wake up with a sudden realization, and I'm then overcome by fear. Yesterday was no different. I had gone through an all-nighter, and finally managed to take a one hour nap in the afternoon. I woke up overwhelmed by the thought of "I will grow old as a man". I tried to brush it off since I was exhausted, but the thought hasn't gone away until today, and I feel confused. I'm not sure what scares me: the "man" part, or the "growing old" part. I've been thinking about growing old, as a woman, as a man. My mind can't fathom the thought that I would ever reach adulthood as a woman, even though I'm already an adult. I felt like I was waiting for my teenage years to start pre-t, waiting for my actual life to start, and now I feel like I'm on the right track. But I can now imagine my life as it will be, for the first time, and I'm scared. Maybe it's normal to feel uncertain; I doubt anyone felt or feels confident about their future in their early 20s, but it's the first time it feels... palpable. I feel more real than ever and I don't know what to do with that.
It sounds like you're in sensory overload. You've been fighting and working so hard towards your goal going 100 Miles an hour and now you achieved it and are starting to slow down to normal speed. Just give yourself time to change gears and adjust to this new pace of life. Just sit back and let it all sink in.
I can relate. I imagined getting old within this body and it resulted me having an panic attack. I think it is a scary thought, but we all do get old and there is nothing we can do about it. We need to embrace it. I imagine myself rather than as an old woman, as a cool old man who don't need a walking stick and I ride my bike a lot and bring my cats sometimes along too. I have those nose classes with chains and cool outfit and I will color my hair to be almost silver white. I have no intention of hiding my gray hair. Maybe in the future they have developed a forever young medication or made us all into robots, with artificial organs, but until then, we must take everything we can out of life.
Yeah, maybe that's it, now that you mention it. It's like the tunnel vision has finally stopped and it's a lot taking it all in. I feel uneasy, to say the least, now that my choices seem to actually have weight and consequence.
I remember the first time it hit me that I'd have to grow old as a woman if I didn't do anything about it; I tried not to give it much thought moving forward. But now, that I'm also on T, and that I know that I'll grow old as a man... I'm not sure I know what kind of man I want to become. It hit me that I will grow old, that I will live for many years, if luck is by my side. What if I'm a failed adult? What if I'm a failed man? What if I won't be proud of the life I will have led? I don't know how else to describe this other than - I've never felt like my life was real. And now it is.
That is anxiety talk. Anxiety can make you think irrational thoughts. You won't be a failed man. You're just a man. Every human has their flaws and we all learn as we go. That is something you only know in the end if you will be proud or not. It's important to live your life to the best of your ability and it will be all right. There will be regrets and there will be things you're going to be happy about. It all won't be only black and white. Life is full of experiences.
Try to focus on the present. Growing old and becoming old is a far way off. You can worry about getting older when the time comes. It's like trying to guess the end of a long book series when you only read the first chapter of book one. It's OK that you don't know what man you'll become. You're on the journey to discover that right now. Were always growing and evolving. Just live for tomorrow and don't worry about one million tomorrows from now.
Honestly I relate pretty hard. The concept of growing old as the wrong gender seems to only get worse, I'm later in my 20s and I feel like I've wasted so much time because of fear.
