@Serra:
Yea. I would have tried to get it this year anyways because….
...this kind of stuff has been happening more. So saying, I hope these times are brief and pass quickly for you Nolus. They suck and are a thing, and hopefully you can remember that's not your entire existence.
It's true that they're fleeting moments of despair. I have to remember that the next time I'm having one of those again. It's just infinitely frustrating that no matter how hard I try, I can't make the process faster. Everyone I've talked to wondered what the hell takes so long for the responsible departments to evaluate and confirm my request. I have to endure till then. After, hopefully I'll be preoccupied with the many new things (hormones, chest surgery) that I won't have these episodes as often.
@Noqanky:
I'm pretty much in the same place where even after taking so many steps, the little flashes of realization hurt like a bitch. Top surgery has actually been in my mind a lot since nothing really ever happened there, and just going out and seeing other people is a constant reminder and a constant threat of falling into anxiety/depression.
What has helped me most is retreating into places or environments where I get to be myself completely and forget about all that. Drawing, gaming, occasional writing… all that stuff reminds me of the context in which I am able to determine who I am regardless of anything, and as a result they help keep me away from stupid thoughts.
If you have people who support you that's also great to surround yourself with. In my case, they remind me of just how much it is that they see me these days as opposed to before, and the stuff that bothers me and gets to me is non-sensical to them, which is nice since I start seeing it as such as well.
Gaming helps a lot, when I have time. Not just the ones where I can create my own character. Pre-existing characters can help too, if only with me getting lost in a different world where my problems are "how do I take out that guard without everyone noticing" or "how much gold do I need for that sweet helmet" etc.
@Demon:
There's a name for this, it's called dysphoria and I think most if not all of us have it to varying degrees.
I still look in the mirror every day and see my horrid manface and feel down on myself. Body hair does it too. I don't know if I have a sasquatch in my family or what but my body hair growth rate is alarming and distressing.
The feelings are real, but hopefully the top surgery helps a great deal on this for you. It definitely helped for me (tho I had the opposite surgery lol)
I try to do so many things in the meantime to help me feel like myself, but sometimes it's not enough. I work out and it's so nice to see that my overly thin arms are getting more and more buffed, but when I don't have my binder on, they seem lacking as well.
It's getting harder to wait and for pretty strange reasons (if we exclude the obvious dysphoria): I was on the bus and a controller came and asked for my pass. I showed it to her and for a sec, she didn't really believe it was my student ID (it is requred to be able to purchase and use a student pass).
Yesterday I was shopping with my friends and I paid. The card has my current name on it, and the clerk asked if it was my friend's card (who is a girl), and I said no, it was mine, I'm the cardholder. She looked a little unconvinced but let it pass.
For one, these are good signs. It seems I pass well even without any surgery/hormones.
On the other hand, I still have to wait at least half a year till I can begin swapping my IDs and credit cards, and I don't want to get in trouble just because suddenly people started to look at the damn name on my IDs (also, the photo is like, 3 years old; I had relatively long hair back then).