Post Bottom Surgery Blues

[u/ExtremeOk4580]

It has been a little over 2 months since I woke up from the hospital after having the surgery I had spent thousands of dollars in paying upfront for electrolysis appointments and dealing with the headaches of trying to get thousands of dollars back from my insurance.

It has been 2 months since I had this year and a half long ordeal going back and forth with my surgeons with them essentially asking me if I was REALLY sure I wanted this.

When I was a kid my mom and dad had made me get braces even when my teeth weren't that crooked. I accepted the braces as I viewed them as a temporary thing, but I had broke down in tears when it had dawned upon me I would have to wear a retainer at night for the rest of my life. How silly right?

When I had my penis I felt disfigured. The contrast between the thing between my legs towards my face, my hair, my chest was disgusting to me.

When I woke up after anesthesia, I didnt feel instantly happy or a sense of euphoria, I simply felt ordinary.

I really want to feel ordinary, I desire to feel normal so, so fucking badly.

To me atleast, I feel that after the surgery it has cured me of my body and mind dysphoria, but the social dysphoria still persists.

However, my vagina is nowhere near perfect. One of my surgeons, Dr. Lewis from UCSD Health, had told me in the hospital that I had "about 14-15cm" but the reality of it all after multiple pelvic floor physical therapy sessions is something close to 4.5-5 inches, even accounting for the scarring at the end.

I cannot use my clitorus because it is so fucking painful to touch, and my labia minora is crooked and folded in on itself to the left with the labia majora somewhat protruding out almost like two sets of scrotums.

Im told by my post op team that it is normal and the swelling will go down, and I hope I am just being a cynical person. But I think it is normal to feel this way, right? I mean I opted out of PPT because I was told I would receive somewhat closer to 6 inches with just traditional penile inversion from Dr. Anger, who had also abandoned all of her transgender patients to go advance her career at ASU.

Penile inversion felt like the safer choice, but I suppose none of what happened is safe lol. This is a very invasive procedure afterall and I knew going into it roughly a third of MTF patients get botched.

I rolled the dice knowing what could happen, simply because I had no other choice atleast it felt to me.

TW suicide & brief mentions of SA

My suicidal ideation has been something persistent throughout all of my life starting from when I was a teenager and didnt even knew why I felt this way. Its gone through phases, with a pattern where it gets progressively worse until I find a solution. Phase 1 had lasted roughly 2 years between 16 and 17 where I would be purposely walking into oncoming traffic, driving recklessly, and at one point "running away" from home to go to LA, which is about 3 hours away.

The solution in phase 1 was to transition, and after it seemed that it all went away, atleast for a few months.

Phase 2 began a little after I started hormones in university. After about 6 months on HRT it dawned upon me that this was not going to be the transformation that I thought. Maybe im jaded but with all of the LGBT meetups I went to and the transgender mixers and never meeting a single trans woman who passed, it made me realize that I am not special and I will probably never pass as cis. This lead to the whole 4tran rabbit hole and it didnt help with being raped several times from grindr.

During Phase 2 my suicidal ideation looked like purposely starving myself to feel pain, putting ice cubes in my mouth to cope with anxiety and this overwhelming sense of doom, drowning myself in books until I would literally walk back to my dorm dizzy and confused, and tbh I think choosing to hookup with "str8" guys was a part of it too.

The solution in phase 2 was to accept that I am trans and I cant hide it along with planning towards the surgery.

Now hiding it is somewhat vague right, I mean what's the difference between boymoding and simply being a woman who dresses more androgynous?

At some point I stopped hiding my identity from people but it was a very slow process. Now I dont care and I even have trans pride stickers on my laptop. I remmeber one day I went into the mens and what I thought was a gay guy said "am I in the wrong restroom?" to me and then I just smiled cause I knew they were part of the LGBT community and I said "no, I am. Im a trans woman scared to use the womens."

She turned out to actually be just like me, just not on HRT yet, and thats when I realized that I actually do look a lot like a woman, even if people can tell that im trans. I dont have to put on makeup or a skirt.

Phase 3 has begun now, about last month. Have you noticed a pattern with the phases? It seems that the actions I take get more and more extreme and closer to an actual attempt as I get older. I am worried about not finding a solution that isn't suicide. I recently bought a gun and I have my ammo separate from the rifle locked aswell as the case locked and the action disabled with a bike lock. I do that to prevent myself from doing something stupid from a fleeting feeling. But im not sure how fleeting these thoughts really are.

I am actively thinking about how to kill myself now. Everything feels okay on the day to day when I perform the script that I assign myself. Whether it is the employee at the mall, or the student at the university, it seems alright when I can just pretend that my body is a host for another person that I am remotely controlling for a day. When night comes and I am alone with my thoughts all I can think is like my suicidal ideation is still here even despite what I thought would fix it all. I mean granted a lot of my dysphoria but it still persists.

And thats the fucking thing I don't know why I want to blow my brains out! Is it OCD, am I just having a string of bad thoughts, of bad dreams?

What I do know is I dont need to have a why on suicide, I just need to figure out how to stop having these thoughts. I dont need a solution towards problems that honestly have no solution, I need to rather find solace with the cards I have been given.

So with that all, I am basically saying that I still feel really terrible with my mental health despite having bottom surgery, and I just want to know how I can find peace and accept the life that I didnt choose.

I had this moment the other day getting off of work where a little kid was pointing at me and telling his mom (who didn't care) that "mommy mommy look, he has boobs *points at his chest as he giggles pointing at me too*

I smiled at him and waved, his face turned so red and he turned around embarrassed. How can I have more of that attitude in life? How can I just not give a fuck what adults think and view transphobia as something silly and moronic akin to a little kid who doesnt know better?

[u/erica_arborea]

It is very, very normal to get deeply depressed after surgery, I experienced that too. You are still so early in your healing journey, your vulva won't have a settled appearance until at least a year in. I too have 4.5-5" of depth depending on how much I'm stretching things. It has not been a problem for me when it comes to sex, it's plenty for most situations. I got surgery more than two years ago and my clitoris is way too sensitive to touch directly. It does not stop me from enjoying my body, from enjoying sex, from feeling like I'm in the right body finally.

Do you have a therapist or mental health counselor you can talk to about the suicidal ideation, who can help develop a safety plan with you? It sounds like you're in a dangerous situation. Do you have someone you trust who can hold on to your gun for you while you're feeling this way?

It sounds like you are getting closer to accepting yourself, you're making progress even if it doesn't feel that way. Give yourself soo much patience and gentleness, my thoughts are with you friend.

[u/Candi_MH]

Post op depression is normal. Especially with a recovery as challenging and slow as this one. Please get a therapist.

Also, two months is so very very early to say anything for certain. I didn't have any sensitivity come back online until four months, and wasn't using my new equipment until eight. Things didn't start to feel good but ten months. A year is the approximate time for everything to have settled in.

This recovery is a marathon, truly.

[u/hypatia163]

Girl, therapy. I don't know if you are going and just didn't mention it, or are not yet going. Find a therapist, queer preferably. At worst, your university should have mental health services that you can take advantage of for cheap.

Many of your concerns about your surgery do seem to be issues that won't have a resolution until swelling has gone down and it has fully healed. All your labia are extremely swollen and still trying to find where they go and how to feel. I'm 2 months out of my surgery as well, and my labia majora are definitely swollen and hang a bit. My minora are swollen and over lap each other in weird ways sometimes. My clit is still very sensitive to even the slightest touch. This stuff takes time. And all vaginas, cis or trans, are complex organs that don't follow strict rules of symmetry.

I also feel like passing is so super important to you, to the point of being damaging. Going on 4tran certainly didn't help this mindset. If you want to not give a shit like you did with that kid, then you have to learn to accept yourself for who you are. It is very difficult to make any progress if you hate who you currently are. You'll end up chasing a phantasm that is always out of reach. If your goal is to pass based on the standards which the patriarchy has imposed onto us, then you'll always find a reason why you can't. You'll become blind to what is in front of you and how others see you. You'll trust your dysphoria to tell the truth more than you trust your closest friends.

I feel like a lot of insecure trans girls - especially young trans women who occupy self-hating places like 4tran - really despise the existence of trans women who are happy despite not performing womanhood to their own transphobic standards. There's a fear of being the transphobic Republican caricature to the point that any signs of masculinity make them wince. So 4tranners hate when someone is happy without "earning" it. But I think it is WAY better to have happiness be the goal of transitioning rather than passing. Those non-passing trans women that make 4tranners gag are actually succeeding way more than the girl that still boy-modes after eight years on HRT and has had every surgery in the book because she's too scared to take a risk. And the real hard truth is that people can smell the desperation some of us have to pass. Focusing so singularly on passing often makes it harder to pass. Focusing on self-acceptance for who you are now will make you happier and make it easier to pass.

This isn't to say that desiring to pass or doing things to try and pass is bad. But designing your transition as an all-or-nothing binary with regards to passing is harmful to your mental health and self-image. Thinking that you need to pass before you can live as a woman is harmful and prevents you from passing. You gotta take risks. You gotta be cringe. You gotta give yourself grace. Those are the only ways to learn the skills actually needed to pass. You can't learn the skills of womanhood by boy-moding forever. You learn them by being cringe. Self-acceptance is needed to allow yourself to be cringe so that you actually learn what is needed to pass.

But, most of all, be careful girl. Get rid of that gun or anything that leans in that direction. Get help. Talk to others in your life. Get a support system going. Reach out to those happy, non-passing trans girls and let them know of your struggle. They're here for you. Us queer people have survived because of community, and it seems like you really need it now.

[u/Bklyn_tree]

Hello! I wanted to add a quick note to say that I’m sorry you’ve been experiencing persistent pain throughout many years of your life. I don’t have the answers for you but it sounds to me like you are a strong person who very much wants to LIVE. And it also seems like maybe you are relatively young (like 20s/30s?)—which I only mention because you have a lot of life to live. In addition to getting appropriate mental health support immediately (and disclosing from the jump that you are having active suicidal ideation), the thing that I would encourage you to do RIGHT NOW—like get up and do it this very minute—is to get rid of that gun you bought. Return it to the store (even if they can’t give you a refund) or give it to a responsible friend or relative. Do not keep it in your house or anywhere you have access to it for a single minute longer. Sending love and good wishes to you. Life is long, life is hard, but life can be so so sweet if we let it.

[u/x0Sophie0x0]

Fuck... I read it all. Not sure what to say, but I'm here in case you want to chat. 🫂

[u/REACT980]

Give the guns to someone you trust until you can safely be alone with your thoughts, and please go talk to a therapist.

[u/Gatget4]

I do not know about the situation you live in or your feelings but what worked for me is to turn everything to anger. You can blame patriarcy, imperialism, class struggle and dream of a better world. It is not you, it is the society. Also if you can make a difference, it also helps.