I've been closeted for like 30 years. How tf do I let it out? I'm ready to come out, tell people, finally go live my life, but all I know is the mask. Who is this scared little girl that's hiding in here? How do I go be myself when I don't know who that is? I feel naked and exposed without my masc.
Go experiment? I'm still in that "man in a dress" stage, not sure if I'm going to be able to get HRT, so even looking at myself in the mirror is horrible. I'm trying to lose weight and I'm doing the laser hair removal thing, and those feel great, but
I feel like I missed my life, missed learning how to girl, and now I'm expected to woman? Can I please get some girlhood real quick so I can figure out how to woman? I want to go through the emo phase and the punk phase and maybe dabble in goth, I want to be cringe, I want to have a sleepover with the girls and do each other's hair and makeup so we can practice.
There's so many things that are gendered. I wore my belt "backward"s today, because I was always taught the "correct" boys way to do it. I feel like I'm drowning in the shallow end of the gender pool.
If I'm going to do makeup I'm going to have to look at myself in the mirror. If I'm going to do my hair I'm going to have to do something about the balding. If I'm going to change my wardrobe, do I do that now or wait until I lose these 10 kilos?
I pulled the cork and... I guess I thought I was gonna get a genie wish and wake up the next day as a girl. Instead I have to transition, and probably without any HRT. I guess this is the hard part.
Sorry for the ramble, even verbalizing these thoughts, this sentence, is hard. I'm so practiced at keeping it all in that even though it's happening, I don't know how to let it all out.
Ah that's rough. That's super tough. And all too common. I think it's very noble of you to place so much value on your relationships, that you deny yourself something so fundamental. I think if your wife understood what that means... well cisgender people can never really understand how it feels.
I cry a bit for you sister. I'm not married and will never have children, so I get to do whatever I want (yay?). But I have to say, it's a helluva tradeoff and I think if I could go back and do it over again, I would have tried harder to find someone and get married earlier in life. It's what I always craved.
Sigh. Well all is not lost. Some people don't transition until their 50s and 60s, or even later. That's many years away, who knows what might change. You walk a difficult path, like all of us, and I hope you continue to find comforts and happiness, and yourself, along the way.
For skincare routine, I've never used a sugar scrub, but indeed exfoliation is a key component. Best to be gentle, I like to exfoliate a few times a week. Before HRT, I would do so every day, because my skin was thicker and more oily. The other keys are keeping your skin clean - I like a gentle cleanser like off-brand cetaphil - and moisturuzed. Moisturizer can be tricky because it's not one-type-fits-all. There are different moisturizers for different skin types (sensitive, dry, oily, combination) and the wrong one might cause breakouts or irritation. I personally love Oil of Olay daily with SPF 15. My face hardly needs makeup bc I take super good care of it (ok, HRT helps but it's not everything).
I'm going through a rough patch atm with electrolysis, it creates little sores and makes my skin break out. Just something to watch out for as you pursue hair removal.
Also don't neglect your lips, they can also be exfoliated and moisturuzed. My lips with a little balm or aloe look as nice as lipstick.