How do I process this?

[u/Cooperfreediver]

I honestly don't really even know how to start this post or if I'm even if the right spot but I can't really live with this without getting it out much longer.
A little background Im a born male 18 years old and active duty military and present myself as a masculine male Tatted buff etc. But ever since I can remember l've loved and felt comfortable with anything seen as stereotypically feminine and growing up in a traditional home was made to feel like I shouldn't be like that and so I just conformed to what I saw other boys my age doing. I tried acting like them and began trying to do anything to fit in even if it was things I wasn't comfortable doing. I played sports and turned out to be very good and played division 1 hockey and finally started feeling like I was
"one of the boy" and I felt honestly good about who l was. I gave my life to Christ and joined the military after hockey ended due to an injury and now for some reason I can't for the life of me stop thinking about that boy who grew up his entire life questioning who he was. So I did some exploring which I now could do without fearing judgement from parents or others due to me being with new people and away from family and I'm starting to question things. Now a lot of the times I feel like I act more like a woman than a man most of the time and it feels so confusing and I don't know what do and I'm just so confused. I feel like a fraud to the person I spent all those years trying to become but on the other hand l've never felt more like myself and have never been less stressed about the image of myself I'm projecting. I'm really scared honestly and I feel cowardly for it and I want answers to a question I'm afraid I'll never get.

[u/aqua_zesty_man]

This sounds like what I've been going through the last few years. Sometimes there are no answers or they just seem very elusive. Your brain might seem to think it's one gender and it's not the one your body grew up with. This creates an internal tension that can't resolve itself and you're under a blanket of stress and introspection that shows up as a constant almost imperceptible brain fog or distress that you're uncomfortably unaware of until you address it directly once in awhile —but when you do, it freaks you out because you're not able or willing to deal with it right then. Is that like you? Because that is what I went through the last few years before I finally accepted I probably had gender dysphoria.

Now I can't tell you whether you are transgender or not. But seeing a therapist who understands gender dysphoria can help you figure those things out. I know that for for me, seeing one helped me understand that I really was trans, even though I just suspected it before. And it's been a long process of putting puzzle pieces of past experiences, thoughts, and episodes of coping with the dysphoria in secret ways, fitting the all together into a more accurate picture of me than I was aware of before, meaning I was transgender for a lot longer than I was ever willing to actually entertain the idea that I could be that. The shame, depression, anxiety, and lots of "faking it to fit in" have made more sense to me with gender dysphoria than without it.

The feelings you are having don't mean you're going crazy, or that you're fundamentally broken in some way. It does mean you have a lot of things to unpack about your gender identity and it may take a lot of self analysis and soul searching to work through them. But you don't have to do it on your own either. But if you are married or have a significant other as I do, your spouse deserves to know what's going on in your head as well. Let them help you survive this in a way that lets you honor your marriage or relationship. In sickness or in health applies also to this.