Hey, I am 24 and a mother. I am struggling right with being able to say what gender I am, and I am so confused. Ever since I was a kid I hated my body, it never looked right yet as a kid and teen the priority was to be as female to the point of wishing for bigger breasts and trying to look as sexualised and female as possible. I liked my female body when other people liked it or wanted to do stuff to it but when I wasn't around them then I hated it again. I used to be terrified of looking like a guy at all but also would simultaneously dress like a guy. I think the fear of looking like a guy came from the idea I would be alone or bullied or unloved if I did, I don't know it's all fuzzy in my childhood and teenage years. I always was able to refer to myself as a girl and didn't think twice. It's how everyone liked me and then I had my son and well being mummy leaves no room for questioning. But now as an adult working through psychotherapy things are changing. I keep remembering times where I felt wrong but a different kind of wrong to normal, where I would try and hide my chest rather than showing it off, where I would SH across my chest in anger or stomach because I associate it with femininity. I remember drawing myself upper half girl and lower half guy, and feeling that way at times, getting confused because it felt like I had the male parts but didn't. I put it down to the mental health stuff going on and being a general mess. But then after a painful therapy session a few months ago that I don't remember it all changed very suddenly. I could only draw myself as a guy (I draw as part of my therapy it's very important to me and how I know what I am feeling), I kept panicking and freaking out wearing girls clothes and the confusion, rage and disgust at not being right and being a girl became very destructive until we self medicated all the time. If someone asked me what gender I was I would pause and get confused and angry, my partner calling me his girlfriend made me angry and hurt inside, my parents calling me their daughter had the same effect. I would stand for hours in the mirror trying to get myself to look right, to flatten chest, or move it out of the way, spent a long time making myself look as masculine as possible. At one point I got so angry I threw away a load of clothes, and deleted photos where I looked very girly. I was terrified of those photos and furious that I would wear those clothes. It was so sudden, like being hit in the face with a baseball bat, and the frustration was physically painful. I tried to rationalise it with my mental health and trauma stuff, and tried to tell myself it would go away. But my therapist and best friend asked whether dressing as a guy made me feel better and it did. They asked if I wanted it to go away and it was tough to answer, no I didn't because I liked how I felt, my skin picking was reduced when I felt comfortably like a guy and I felt secure, but I also wanted it to go away because it hurts, when reality comes in or my son babbles mummy at me or people would really pay attention to me as a girl I felt I needed punishment or things to make me into a girl because that is who I have always been and what my body says. I am not ignorant to what these things can mean for people, nor do I think it's a thrill ride. I watched my FTM friend go through absolute hell in his early transition which ended up with him almost getting sectioned, and my MTF friends be threatened regularly. I see it all the time on my phone on the news, I know there are bad people out there so I am scared. As a survivor anyway my brain insists that because there is risk if I was... I can't really say... but yeah if there is risk here then we should avoid it at all costs, mustn't put myself more at risk than I already have been before. So I try to dress female where I can but it's like I glitch and get stuck. It takes me hours to get ready to do anything and weighing up how to get a balance where I look male enough to feel comfortable and not angry/hurting and female enough to make us feel safe and accepted outside. I know it sounds like an overreaction but I really don't want to be hurt again and it eats at my brain. And then I am a mother. I have a 2 year old boy, everyone sees me as a mum, I go to day care as a mum... it's who I am to everyone. And that really sets off the anger, sadness but worse, guilt and shame. My son finds it funny and likes to help if I am cross dressing, he is a lovely boy and not what I am scared off, its other parents and also people who would think I am doing something wrong by my son by... being a way I feel I need to be right now I know I am going on and on but I am freaking out a bit. It hasn't gone away it's gotten worse. Flattening chest can make me feel a much better till the dam things punch their way out of whatever I am wearing. Looking masculine in appearance makes me feel good until I catch glimpses of myself as a girl and then I feel stupid. I want to snuggle up in my socks and blankets when low but feel like if I do that then I have been lying about all this. I pushed away my BF because he continually made me feel bad for not being the "happy bubbly beautiful girl" he always knew. I daydream of being a guy, drawing it, Fantasising, but then I feel stupid and my brain reminds myself of the amount of work it would take and the good feels turn to fear again. I get scared of the idea of transition because it's a massive deal, then it's all real and requires further fighting with medical staff that I have done all my dam life. I don't know if what I am going through is being trans. A lot of the indirect gender dysphoria stuff applies to a lot of my life but I wrote it off as the trauma or mental health. But I am unsure now. During the day my body keeps switching, hands that looked female suddenly look male and then it switches back, same with the rest of my body and face, and how I feel in my head, to the dam point that if I fancy guys I have flitting thoughts saying that means I am gay, which makes no sense at all. This is starting to take over my life a bit, and I am trying my best to be honest with my therapist but whenever someone validates how I am feeling or talks about what I am experiencing as being trans I kinda shut down, find ways to argue it or fight it because that means big problems and it not just... going away. I am sick and tired of the flitting in and out, being one way and then the other, feeling I have to be a girl I have to be a girl and then not being able to be even though I am in a girls body. Not knowing what gender I am makes me feel sicker than I have ever felt and I have been hospitalised on multiple occasions - at least I knew who I was. And I mean no disrespect to anyone else it's literally just me I hold those opinions around. Like yesterday I was chatting to my best friend and multiple times I accidentally reffered to myself as a guy but then felt stupid and had to change it again I feel stupid, I have talked for too long. I don't feel the joy or happiness in exploring this as others I know do, I am so scared of it. I want it to go away but I also don't want it to because when I dress like a guy, do the full crossdress deal including the contouring and at times packing, just for a moment I feel good and happy, at least until reality kicks in or I see myself. I just don't want to label myself as anything right now because I may be wrong, it might change or I will just be alone. What's going on?
