For as long as I can remember, I've been detrimentally detached from reality; moreso in my adolescence than my early childhood. I had extremely unrealistic expectations of my abilities and the thoughts and actions of others, whether positive, negative or simply impossible. I spent as much time as humanly possible in my head, to the point that it hindered my ability to preform daily tasks. It's pretty apparent that it was largely a form of escapism - I was safe from gender dysphoria if I never had to actually face it. Obviously, I had no idea that dealing with reality was causing dysphoria or what that even was; I didn't even fully realize that I was distancing myself from it at all. I was vaguely aware, but I was really just trying to live in the least painful manner available, and that mostly meant not living.

The overwhelming majority of my life I was withdrawn from people and the outside world. I didn't go anywhere, I had few friends whom I rarely interacted with outside of school, no extracurricular activities, no after school job, little ambition or motivation in classwork and no attention span for anything. I never even had a curfew, I was so predictably shut in. I typically felt like I could never understand what was happening in virtually every situation, and was always on guard. I felt like I could never show any weakness and constantly diverted attention away from even minute flaws or misunderstandings. Honestly, it probably never worked very well, outside of making sure no one talked to me about them and that I never had to open up. Although this is not a very safe thing for a person who lived continually on the verge of suicide, I really doubt the people in my small-town, conservative christian community at the time could have actually helped me.

Because of gender dysphoria, I basically never got to experience growing up and have kind of been forced to shove it all into a year, and during a time with less freedom and more responsibility. Sometimes I'm bitter about missing that; it's reasonable to be frustrated by effectively missing 10-12 years of your life. I try not to dwell on it, though, and it can be fairly easy to distract myself with today and tomorrow.

Overall, transitioning has been a fairly interesting experience, and often because of the inflated expressions I feel many trans* people make of their own transitions. Starting testosterone, I didn't really know what to anticipate, I just knew I needed to get out of where I was and that was my best chance. I wanted to take it slowly, see how I reacted to the changes, and was entirely prepared to stop at any moment I felt the slightest discomfort at any of the changes. But things just feel normal now. Just normal. My chin scruff doesn't send me a-titter. My new muscles don't make me feel joy for the day. My deepened voice doesn't make things right with the world. But now I have some semblance of a will to live, I can look in the mirror and not feel wrong after looking away, I can actually take care of myself and keep up with my health, I can go outside and talk to people I don't know without needing to hide for days or even weeks afterwards. Things aren't great, they've just lost the obsession and anxiety and depression they used to have. In comparison, life is candy rainbow for me after my year and a half of hormone replacement therapy, but that's like comparing a lukewarm shower to drowning in an ocean of foamy diarrhea. It's magical when set next to the alternative, but it's still just a shower.