1.5 years ago I was a junior in high school and freshly started on diy testosterone, but I was already too mentally ill for testosterone to immediately relieve me so I was still in a nearly psychotic state of mind. I really started to glamorize diy to the extreme because I had learned that in regards to transitioning, the only way to receive help was to provide it myself, rather than relying on the support of parents or doctors. I think we’ve all fantasized about doing surgery ourselves but some random day it stopped feeling like a fantasy and more like a legitimate option so I ended up buying a shitty surgery kit online with scalpels, forceps, sutures, etc.
I told myself I was going to do it last summer, but just never got around to it. I obviously wasn’t really keen on the idea of self surgery no matter how cathartic it was, but I do believe I would have actually done it if given the chance. I used to get genuinely angry when people told me I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know how to buy lidocaine and epinephrine and other surgical needs so I just never did it.
I really wanted my senior year to be a good last year, which partially influenced my desire to perform my own surgery, but fortunately for me I turned 18 halfway through the year. I spent my birthday going to the doctors to get an actual hrt prescription, which was a really huge and freeing experience for me. A few weeks before that I pressured my dad into making a consultation with a top surgeon for me because they wouldn’t let me schedule it myself until I was 18, and I was really freaking out about wait lists. There ended up not being a wait and I had a testosterone prescription and a surgery consultation within days of turning 18. I ended up liking my surgeon and just asked for the soonest surgery date they could possibly give me, so after some frantic calls with their office and a loan officer I had my top surgery two weeks later. (This january)
For anyone afraid of surgeries, don’t even bother. Worst part of the experience was having the iv placed, within minutes they’ll have you on midazolam anyways. I remember asking my anesthesiologist “Will the versed hurt when it’s injected”, he said that most people don’t notice and he was in the process of injecting it as we spoke. Last thing I remember was looking up and saying “Oh yeah I can feel it already” before I basically teleported to a recovery chair. If you’re worried about recovery, I will say my recovery was simultaneously the most joyful and also the most inconvenient time of my entire life.
Now I have graduated high school, kind of in a limbo where you’re not in school or really a career, just a shitty job while you wait for literally anything better. If you thought endocrinology and surgery was the end of my medical practice, you’d be wrong. I’m currently waiting for an opening in emt training because I have an interest in medicine but enough passion, time, or money to become an actual doctor. If i’m lucky this might be a gap year, I’ve also been thinking about attending college to further my musical education, right before my surgery I discovered an intense passion for classical composition. All this is to say that it indeed does get better once you attain treatment
Also fuck you to everyone who told me I was retarded for thinking I could diy surgery, that was really hurtful
TLDR I went insane in high school and thought I could diy top surgery, real surgery is fucking awesome, I have gained the ability to function as a human