Transfem

aw, thank you - mama-bear energy is a huge compliment 😁

You definitely deserve to be healthy and happy, and I actively wish that for you 🫶

For myself, right now, I think I see enormous value in starting HRT, because that might be one of the few ideas/things that make me feel motivated

it definitely helped with my motivation and overall happiness - not everyone reacts the same way to estrogen, and it's not like it didn't come with its own new challenges (receding dissociation and suddenly feeling things is not always the most adaptive when under immense stress, etc.)

but I do think overall HRT is too important and potentially life-saving to not strongly suggest 👍

It's great that you feel motivated by it, that's a great sign!

while everything else is scary and makes me go limp. It’s probably the anxiety. But I think I have a particularly hard time surviving euphoria, not dysphoria lol.

first, I just want to say this is all very normal - I also struggled with wanting to act on my "gender needs" and would shut down or de-prioritize it as unimportant, and I also felt / feel a lot of anxiety and fear about transition.

For me personally, I didn't choose to transition out of joy or the happiness it brought me (though it did result in those things), instead what motivated me was hitting rock bottom and finally connecting the dots between my repression and my behaviors I didn't like which were hurting those I cared most, e.g. not taking care of myself at all, completely dissociated, unconsciously drawn to high-risk / suicidal behaviors that kept resulting in ER visits, etc.

So, what motivated me was finally feeling a sense of responsibility to take care of myself so that I can be a good person for those in my life who are impacted by me. Connecting the dots of my health and happiness to the health and happiness of others was crucial for my motivation, and I underwent transition with no expectations that I would ever pass, actually live as a woman socially, etc. Instead I acted on principle, I knew the evidence was 1. I'm very likely suffering from gender dysphoria, which had more biological and medical components to it than I had previously realized might be relevant (reading about "biochemical dysphoria" in particular was eye-opening), and that 2. social & medical transition is safe and improves clinical outcomes significantly, so I reasoned that I should transition on the chance that it might make me a less miserable person to be around.

And yeah, it worked - before transition I was extremely ill-tempered, obese, and I neglected all aspects of my health (I didn't care for my hair and it turned into neglect dreads before I finally buzz cut it on an annual cycle, I didn't brush my teeth, I didn't exercise or diet or do anything for my health, etc.).

After transition, I'm basically a completely different person; not only did I lose >40 lbs and I'm no longer obese (a doctor even referred to me as "skinny" lol), I'm also just happy and easy-going in ways I never was before (but in a way that deep down I knew I felt I could be).

But transition for me was never motivated by the euphoria, it was always out of a sense of responsibility or as a way to be a good person (a major exception is estrogen, which actually does feel like taking recreational drugs, I am straightforwardly motivated to inject estrogen whether I'm trans or not).

I would say just focus on HRT at first and don't worry about much else - social transition can wait and happen on your own timeline, lots of girls wait until they start to pass (often around 1 year on HRT) to actually fully socially transition. Being visibly trans can be quite stressful, and I'm not 100% sure I would have gone back and recommended that I fully socially transition before starting HRT. I know for me, I had to come out to deny myself the closet, but I wish there had been another way.

When my egg cracked, I had a long history of wearing women's clothes at home, and even just buying and wearing a dress to an appointment with my therapist was a big deal for me. I remember feeling crushing, immobilizing fear and vulnerability. It was awful, but all I can say is that it gets easier - just keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep aiming in the right direction, and you'll get there. You don't have to be brave, I wasn't. You don't have to feel motivated, I wasn't. It's also a skill to learn how to keep yourself within a window of threshold - after egg-cracking is a very distressing time, focus on comfort for now - it's a lot to absorb.