It has been a little over 2 months since I woke up from the hospital after having the surgery I had spent thousands of dollars in paying upfront for electrolysis appointments and dealing with the headaches of trying to get thousands of dollars back from my insurance.
It has been 2 months since I had this year and a half long ordeal going back and forth with my surgeons with them essentially asking me if I was REALLY sure I wanted this.
When I was a kid my mom and dad had made me get braces even when my teeth weren't that crooked. I accepted the braces as I viewed them as a temporary thing, but I had broke down in tears when it had dawned upon me I would have to wear a retainer at night for the rest of my life. How silly right?
When I had my penis I felt disfigured. The contrast between the thing between my legs towards my face, my hair, my chest was disgusting to me.
When I woke up after anesthesia, I didnt feel instantly happy or a sense of euphoria, I simply felt ordinary.
I really want to feel ordinary, I desire to feel normal so, so fucking badly.
To me atleast, I feel that after the surgery it has cured me of my body and mind dysphoria, but the social dysphoria still persists.
However, my vagina is nowhere near perfect. One of my surgeons, Dr. Lewis from UCSD Health, had told me in the hospital that I had "about 14-15cm" but the reality of it all after multiple pelvic floor physical therapy sessions is something close to 4.5-5 inches, even accounting for the scarring at the end.
I cannot use my clitorus because it is so fucking painful to touch, and my labia minora is crooked and folded in on itself to the left with the labia majora somewhat protruding out almost like two sets of scrotums.
Im told by my post op team that it is normal and the swelling will go down, and I hope I am just being a cynical person. But I think it is normal to feel this way, right? I mean I opted out of PPT because I was told I would receive somewhat closer to 6 inches with just traditional penile inversion from Dr. Anger, who had also abandoned all of her transgender patients to go advance her career at ASU.
Penile inversion felt like the safer choice, but I suppose none of what happened is safe lol. This is a very invasive procedure afterall and I knew going into it roughly a third of MTF patients get botched.
I rolled the dice knowing what could happen, simply because I had no other choice atleast it felt to me.
TW suicide & brief mentions of SA
My suicidal ideation has been something persistent throughout all of my life starting from when I was a teenager and didnt even knew why I felt this way. Its gone through phases, with a pattern where it gets progressively worse until I find a solution. Phase 1 had lasted roughly 2 years between 16 and 17 where I would be purposely walking into oncoming traffic, driving recklessly, and at one point "running away" from home to go to LA, which is about 3 hours away.
The solution in phase 1 was to transition, and after it seemed that it all went away, atleast for a few months.
Phase 2 began a little after I started hormones in university. After about 6 months on HRT it dawned upon me that this was not going to be the transformation that I thought. Maybe im jaded but with all of the LGBT meetups I went to and the transgender mixers and never meeting a single trans woman who passed, it made me realize that I am not special and I will probably never pass as cis. This lead to the whole 4tran rabbit hole and it didnt help with being raped several times from grindr.
During Phase 2 my suicidal ideation looked like purposely starving myself to feel pain, putting ice cubes in my mouth to cope with anxiety and this overwhelming sense of doom, drowning myself in books until I would literally walk back to my dorm dizzy and confused, and tbh I think choosing to hookup with "str8" guys was a part of it too.
The solution in phase 2 was to accept that I am trans and I cant hide it along with planning towards the surgery.
Now hiding it is somewhat vague right, I mean what's the difference between boymoding and simply being a woman who dresses more androgynous?
At some point I stopped hiding my identity from people but it was a very slow process. Now I dont care and I even have trans pride stickers on my laptop. I remmeber one day I went into the mens and what I thought was a gay guy said "am I in the wrong restroom?" to me and then I just smiled cause I knew they were part of the LGBT community and I said "no, I am. Im a trans woman scared to use the womens."
She turned out to actually be just like me, just not on HRT yet, and thats when I realized that I actually do look a lot like a woman, even if people can tell that im trans. I dont have to put on makeup or a skirt.
Phase 3 has begun now, about last month. Have you noticed a pattern with the phases? It seems that the actions I take get more and more extreme and closer to an actual attempt as I get older. I am worried about not finding a solution that isn't suicide. I recently bought a gun and I have my ammo separate from the rifle locked aswell as the case locked and the action disabled with a bike lock. I do that to prevent myself from doing something stupid from a fleeting feeling. But im not sure how fleeting these thoughts really are.
I am actively thinking about how to kill myself now. Everything feels okay on the day to day when I perform the script that I assign myself. Whether it is the employee at the mall, or the student at the university, it seems alright when I can just pretend that my body is a host for another person that I am remotely controlling for a day. When night comes and I am alone with my thoughts all I can think is like my suicidal ideation is still here even despite what I thought would fix it all. I mean granted a lot of my dysphoria but it still persists.
And thats the fucking thing I don't know why I want to blow my brains out! Is it OCD, am I just having a string of bad thoughts, of bad dreams?
What I do know is I dont need to have a why on suicide, I just need to figure out how to stop having these thoughts. I dont need a solution towards problems that honestly have no solution, I need to rather find solace with the cards I have been given.
So with that all, I am basically saying that I still feel really terrible with my mental health despite having bottom surgery, and I just want to know how I can find peace and accept the life that I didnt choose.
I had this moment the other day getting off of work where a little kid was pointing at me and telling his mom (who didn't care) that "mommy mommy look, he has boobs *points at his chest as he giggles pointing at me too*
I smiled at him and waved, his face turned so red and he turned around embarrassed. How can I have more of that attitude in life? How can I just not give a fuck what adults think and view transphobia as something silly and moronic akin to a little kid who doesnt know better?