Sorry if I'm rambling with my post here
As someone who is also MTF, I had to change a lot about my lifestyle to even get a chance at passing. The person I am now, is way different than who or what I was 3 years ago when I actually started with transitioning, but I'm still not done. It's going to take a lot of resources on my part over the next few years to reach my goal, and I'm not even sure I can.
I have suicidal thoughts all the time but I've learned to treat them as intrusive thoughts to be ignored and marginalized. It's hard when your brain screams at you to end your life, and destroy yourself, and sometimes minutes before, you're like, life is ok, not great, but not that bad, nothing really wrong here. Nothing I have ever done, whether medicine, or activities has prevented or gotten rid of the suicidal thoughts, so I figured that they have to be just like those intrusive thoughts, the ones that tell you to do stupid things like slap the person you're talking to, or to knock something over, or to press buttons not knowing what's going to happen. Once I did that, I could sort of manage it. They occur. They're annoying, and they suck, but I just tell myself that if I wait it out. If I curl up in a fetal position on my bed, clutching my body pillow, the thought/feeling of suicide will go away and I can move on. Sometimes I'm not at home to do that. sometimes I'm in my car, or at work, or with friends, but I just have to stop what I'm doing, and tell myself that the suicidal thought/impulse/feeling isn't permanent and won't stay on, and although it will come back, it won't stay on forever, and sometimes i have to repeat that over and over for an hour or so. That's how I manage my suicidal thoughts. On top of that I try to make my lifestyle not conducive to anxiety/depression in general which when I'm feeling that, the suicidal mindset is worse. For the most part I stay away from what I'm allergic to and makes me sick. I try to resolve stressors, or get rid of them instead of internalizing. This isn't to say that this will work for you, but it may give you ideas to cope if that's your goal.
As to the never being able to pass, to get over my fear of failure, I had to go through and figure out a list of things that I thought I needed to work on in order to pass. There are some that I still don't have an answer to, and others I do. My voice being one, I have no clue how to fix. My obesity was something that I've fixed over the last 3 years through a lifestyle change of what, when, and how I eat. I've lost 80+lbs so far, and still overweight, but worlds closer to where I need to be, not only to pass better, but live a longer healthier life. Still working on a lot of other things which may take years to complete. I would suggest that you make a list of things you think are road blocks to your passing, and make a plan to solve each and everyone of them. This may be super depressing because you kind of have to look at yourself as if under a microscope and you may not like what you see. I did this and at first I had the reactions of disgust and revulsion. But then I formulated plans and goals around each thing I didn't like, and then did risk management for the possibility of not completing those goals either by complete failure, or partial completion. I had to accept that I may not be able to ever pass, but that being a potential end result, didn't mean I wouldn't try because it was possible, I could succeed.
05 Aug 2013, 5:25 am
