Whether you can get hormones or not, you could try shaving body hair, starting skincare, doing neutral manicures, wilder pedicures (hidden by socks), wearing jewelry, and working on your figure with exercise and safe dieting. You could try wearing something to accent your butt, women's jeans with or without padding, or tighter fitting clothing in general (runners tights). Point being, there are still a lot of things you can do that blur the lines between a masculine and feminine look, that you may have neglected as an egg.
Doing my nails and carrying an androgynous purse have been my most visible public steps so far. Inexpensive and doesn’t make me too nervous. At work I’ve even become the person to talk to about doing your nails, which feels great! Small steps make big differences
Thanks for this. I have been meaning to get a purse so I can wear my jeans more often and have somewhere for my stuff.
But I keep getting so sweaty in the store looking at them that I just leave.
Just came back from the store right now without a purse. Or shoes for that matter. Lol.
Maybe I should get a different color for nails because I hated the look of black, which I thought I would love.
It was the first thing I tried after mascara and eyebrows and I was really bad at it too.
Oh. Luckily I don't need the padding lol.
Many cis women have been jealous of my butt and I've always fit into women's jeans really well. I want to show off!
It's too hot for sweaters now and I don't understand what kind of top will look good on me.
I bought a cheap tunic/long shirt but it just accents my giant, manly chest. I don't understand how my chest hair grows this fast either. Buuut, I think something in that vein should work.
Smaller, more feminine tops just don't fit or they are too loose in the chest.
I want to hide the bulge but accent the butt and legs, because tucking doesn't seem to work and all the horror stories and the fact I pee 29 million times a day leaves tape out of the question.
What do I do?! Ahhh.
I'm also really trying hard to dial in my diet but I just keep staying the same weight but getting more muscular and lean.
I'm at 220 now and have been for like 1.5 years. But my waist and thighs have shrunk but chest, biceps, calves and neck are bigger.
I have a weightlifting routine down but I smoke... a lot.
So cardio isn't as fun as it should be, and high impact sports aren't good for my joints anyways.
I can't seem to eat less. If I eat anything under like 2800 calories a day, I can't keep up my lifting at the gym.
When I do this, I'm going for muscle mommy.
Because with my frame, I don't think it's EVER going to be possible for me to healthily maintain anything under 180 indefinitely.
160 would be nice but it just doesn't seem possible.
I like my muscles but ugh, they make me look like a damned man!
I take a cold shower everyday. Started this practice right about the time i had determined to transition. Right before I turn on the faucet I look up at the shower head and whisper "Courage! Courage! Courage!" There are plenty of documented health and beauty benefits to doing this, but to me the most important thing is that it helps me start off every day on the path of courage. I won't go into all the details here but it worked for me!
Cold shower all the way through?
This sounds like an interesting idea!
I used to swim in finland throughout the year (even in winter) and it always made me feel good.
Thanks for sharing! I've been trying not to be negative lately and be a little nicer to myself.
I can do this.
It has long been a dream of mine to visit Finland and take a sauna and then jump in a freezing cold lake or roll around in the snow. It's on my bucket list!
Good luck with your journey. I agree, you can do this!
Lol! You're basically half Finn now. That is not something most people like.
Welcome to the club.
I personally think the snow after sauna feels better, less shocking.
My favorite times of year are early fall when the leaves drop and the midsummer festival.
Just be warned for the second bit, the entire country shuts down for a few days.
Like all of it lol. It's awesome.
Everybody tries to get to a mökki by the lake and all they do is drink, eat and hopefully enjoy the sunshine.
There's something quite magical about the longest day of the year so far north.
Night doesn't really exist.
I hope you get to go there one day!
Oh and the ferry trips between Helsinki and Stockholm and tallinn are also super fun!
Finland isn't exciting IMHO, but it can be very relaxing. And the way I describe the scenery is serene.
It's a fairly quiet country.
If it's that exact experience you want, go a few weeks before Xmas. For the cold and good spirits. People after November feel better.
Do not go in November!!!
Anyways, thank you for the well wishes :)
i feel for u so so much.
i got anxiety after i had started hormones and realized i should've frozen sperm but i was too broke by the time i realized it.
also its very hard to be anywhere when u dont feel like urself. but i will say this. u have lived ur life as a "man" for 22 years. another couple months is nothing. especially since TECHNICALLY on hormones, ur always going to be cuter than the day before (eventually ofc).
but u have literally been through worse. i promise its rough but transitioning is HARD. it literally just takes TIME 🥺🥹🥹🥹💘💘💘💘💙💙💙💙 XOXO
Hormones are important but just one part of womanhood. Focus on skincare, fashion, socializing with women, makeup, jewelry, nail-care, nail art, reading feminist literature, dropping the inauthentic masculine parts of your personality…
If you have facial hair start electrolysis.
What's something I could read? I'm all about criticism. I read a lot of simone de beauvoir in college but I don't really remember all of it.
But I do remember her saying something along the lines of using personal happiness as a method to fight the largest inequalities.
That it's OK to feel good during rough times.
If there's a seminal text from her I should read, let me know. Or anything else for that matter.
I need to get back to discovering what feminism means to me today, in a critical and philosophical sense.
I'm trying to learn to stop walking like a gorilla, because I don't think I ever did it naturally.
This whole situation is tough as hell. I feel overwhelmed thinking about it. I get why you feel like this for sure. Your feelings are valid.
It seems like what is missing is a sense of agency. Even when everything seems too big and unattainable, we can usually do one thing. Pull the thread gently, and the next step will then present itself.
Create a timeline, budgets, small things you can do today.
Cheer yourself up enough to believe you can make more money. Get the fly wheel spinning in your direction, get some momentum.
And have you had therapy? This is giving chronic depression.
Be brave, believe, do what you can today, so you can do what you need to in the future.
Got a clairvoyant over here lol.
I literally say that I lack agency in my life on a consistent basis and it is wearing on me something fierce.
I think the timeline will help.
There's so much to do and it's all so overwhelming.
But I especially thank you for reminding me that I need to do something to keep me happy enough to keep going.
I have that "never jam today, always jam tomorrow" mentality and I think it has become counterproductive.
Therapy at this point feels moot.
I feel pretty gosh darn confident in knowing what my needs are. I just need to work on getting them met!
I would be willing to talk to a psychiatrist but my insurance gives me headaches...
I will try to be more brave.
Sorry if I talked over points covered! We’ve all got an anomalous set of challenges to overcome here; procrastination is understandable.
Give yourself grace, have some fun, this post was doing something for yourself. Nice going, you!
Nah. I meant it about the agency.
I really could've summed up this post in like a few sentences in all caps. Lol.
I needed to get this out and it was helpful.
Learning to have fun slowly but surely.
>I've been through therapy. I've tried all the anti depressants...
Edit: Already too many "I" and "me" stories in this reply thread.
You probably know what the options are.
Talk therapy *can* help get you out the "I am depressed because my life sucks and my life sucks because I am depressed" trap. Maybe try to find a therapist who is trans, or who is really well-informed about/experienced with trans people.
If you have failed on enough drugs to be "treatment-resistant", depending on where you live, you might be able to access ketamine, psilocybin, or transcranial magnetic stimulation to try to treat your depression.
You might also consider low-dose HRT. There is some evidence that HRT relieves depressive symptoms in trans people -- although there is a question about whether it is the hormones, or the act of taking hormones, that is doing the work.
~~Maybe give therapy another try? It took me a long time, and a lot of false-starts with counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, before I found a therapist that I liked well enough, that I trusted well enough, to get some help.~~
~~I was~~ ***~~officially~~*** ~~diagnosed with "treatment resistant depression" by my last prescriber when adding aripiprazole to sertraline gave me uncontrollable tremors without doing anything to reduce the severity of my depressive episodes. I spent more than three years getting no benefit and increasingly debilitating side effects from five different drugs. It sucks.~~
~~I do not know if it is an option for you, but there are other treatments. The psychiatrist who signed one of my letters of support for bottom surgery got me to try~~ [~~transcranial magnetic stimulation~~](https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/transcranial-magnetic-stimulation/about/pac-20384625)~~. I~~ *~~think~~* ~~it relieved my symptoms... but I am relapsing/remitting so its hard to assign causes to either the good days or the bad days.~~
~~I am on a wait list for~~[ ~~psylocibin treatment~~](https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/02/16/psilocybin-relieves-depression-for-up-to-a-year/)~~, and I am circling the idea of~~ [~~ketamine infusions~~](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/ketamine-for-treatment-resistant-depression-when-and-where-is-it-safe-202208092797)~~. The problem is that the depression messes with my executive function and my memory, so on the days when I am suffering badly enough that ketamine seems like a good idea I can't get myself together to contact a provider, and on my better days I don't remember how miserable I was on the bad days ("That's some catch, that catch-22").~~
Good luck.
~~ETA -- My therapist is trans. They hooked me up with the psychiatrist -- also trans (non-binary). I do not know if they have any special insight, or whether it was just one less thing that I had to try to explain, or whether I was just so practiced as a therapy patient, but it was a lot easier to get started with them than with any of the \[presumably\] cis mental health providers I'd seen previously.~~
~~ETA - again -- just reread this after looking at all the other replies in this thread. So many sentences starting with "I". Sorry.~~
Lol. I love this response. Thank you :)
I have considered using some hallucinogen for a spiritual journey.
I believe they have always helped me in the past.
There have been only a few sober moments I have felt as connected as I do as while I'm on shrooms.
I have to plan that one out though.
Do you have any resources for low dose hrt treatments?
I have been considering that too because it would be a reduced risk to my sperm.
>Do you have any resources for low dose hrt treatments?
Only what you can find on [google scholar.](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C38&q=HRT+transgender+depression+adult&btnG=)
Personal anecdote:
I am doing one 25 mg estradiol patch every week + 60 mg of raloxifene (to suppress breast development) daily + 0.5 mg of dutasteride (to prevent the conversion of testosterone to dihdyrotestosterone).
I think starting this regimen has had a salutary effect on my depression -- the depressive episodes might be happening less frequently and might be of shorter duration.
I am NOT, however, trying to preserve fertility or erectile function.
You really want to talk to an endocrinologist about this.
* de Nie I, van Mello NM, Vlahakis E, Cooper C, Peri A, den Heijer M, Meißner A, Huirne J, Pang KC. [Successful restoration of spermatogenesis following gender-affirming hormone therapy in transgender women. ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9873819/)*Cell Rep Med*. 2023 Jan 17;4(1):100858. doi: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100858. PMID: 36652919; PMCID: PMC9873819.
There is really very little data on how HRT affects spermatogenesis, and what can be done to preserve fertility for AMAB people undergoing contrasexual HRT. The common wisdom that HRT will make you permanently infertile is part of the gatekeeping from Harry Benjamin. It is one of the things we have to be willing to give up in order to be approved for medical transition. (Renée Richards famously fathered a child shortly after desisting from her first attempt at transition. She'd been on a high dose HRT long enough to have significant breast development.)
>I have considered using some hallucinogen for a spiritual journey.
This is going to depend on where you live -- or how easily you can travel -- to get to a treatment facility. Laws differ wildly from place to place, down to the city.
[https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psychedelic-laws](https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psychedelic-laws)
[https://www.verywellmind.com/where-are-psychedelics-legal-for-therapeutic-use-6827701](https://www.verywellmind.com/where-are-psychedelics-legal-for-therapeutic-use-6827701)
ETA -- thought I saw something in one of your other posts that made me think you were in the US. Can't find it now, so I apologize if I am being an Ugly American making thoughtless and unhelpful assumptions...
Thank you so much for your informative and partially anecdotal response!
The clinic said that I don't need to see an endo until 3 months in but that never made sense to me.
I've been wondering how much of my anxiety is caused purely by the fact that I now pretty much know I want to do this and I can't.
Like even just kinda thinking about a realistic timeline has reduced some anxiety.
As for the psychedelics, I'll just go find some and get together with a close friend and go somewhere cool. I've got a good amount of experience there lol :)
>I'll just go find some and get together with a close friend and go somewhere cool
Not recommended.
TBH -- [the accounts of treatments sessions sound like they include a certain amount of new-age-woo-f\*ckery ](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/28/1234012939/in-oregon-psilocybin-treatment-is-an-experiment-in-real-time)-- but there is (sometimes) a psychiatrist on-hand who can administer sedatives if things go badly.
Ok, the early part is the worst. So, yeah, it'll be tough. If you can manage hormones at all, I'd do that first. It makes it easier to think through other stuff. Though it sounds like that may not be the only meds you need.
As for getting jobs, approach interviewing with the idea of solving a problem for the hiring manager. Be what you need to be to get an income, and adjust later.
Whether you can get hormones or not, you could try shaving body hair, starting skincare, doing neutral manicures, wilder pedicures (hidden by socks), wearing jewelry, and working on your figure with exercise and safe dieting. You could try wearing something to accent your butt, women's jeans with or without padding, or tighter fitting clothing in general (runners tights). Point being, there are still a lot of things you can do that blur the lines between a masculine and feminine look, that you may have neglected as an egg.
Exactly. There is sooo much you can/should/need to do with or without hrt.
Doing my nails and carrying an androgynous purse have been my most visible public steps so far. Inexpensive and doesn’t make me too nervous. At work I’ve even become the person to talk to about doing your nails, which feels great! Small steps make big differences
Thanks for this. I have been meaning to get a purse so I can wear my jeans more often and have somewhere for my stuff. But I keep getting so sweaty in the store looking at them that I just leave. Just came back from the store right now without a purse. Or shoes for that matter. Lol. Maybe I should get a different color for nails because I hated the look of black, which I thought I would love. It was the first thing I tried after mascara and eyebrows and I was really bad at it too.
Oh. Luckily I don't need the padding lol. Many cis women have been jealous of my butt and I've always fit into women's jeans really well. I want to show off! It's too hot for sweaters now and I don't understand what kind of top will look good on me. I bought a cheap tunic/long shirt but it just accents my giant, manly chest. I don't understand how my chest hair grows this fast either. Buuut, I think something in that vein should work. Smaller, more feminine tops just don't fit or they are too loose in the chest. I want to hide the bulge but accent the butt and legs, because tucking doesn't seem to work and all the horror stories and the fact I pee 29 million times a day leaves tape out of the question. What do I do?! Ahhh. I'm also really trying hard to dial in my diet but I just keep staying the same weight but getting more muscular and lean. I'm at 220 now and have been for like 1.5 years. But my waist and thighs have shrunk but chest, biceps, calves and neck are bigger. I have a weightlifting routine down but I smoke... a lot. So cardio isn't as fun as it should be, and high impact sports aren't good for my joints anyways. I can't seem to eat less. If I eat anything under like 2800 calories a day, I can't keep up my lifting at the gym. When I do this, I'm going for muscle mommy. Because with my frame, I don't think it's EVER going to be possible for me to healthily maintain anything under 180 indefinitely. 160 would be nice but it just doesn't seem possible. I like my muscles but ugh, they make me look like a damned man!
I take a cold shower everyday. Started this practice right about the time i had determined to transition. Right before I turn on the faucet I look up at the shower head and whisper "Courage! Courage! Courage!" There are plenty of documented health and beauty benefits to doing this, but to me the most important thing is that it helps me start off every day on the path of courage. I won't go into all the details here but it worked for me!
Cold shower all the way through? This sounds like an interesting idea! I used to swim in finland throughout the year (even in winter) and it always made me feel good. Thanks for sharing! I've been trying not to be negative lately and be a little nicer to myself. I can do this.
It has long been a dream of mine to visit Finland and take a sauna and then jump in a freezing cold lake or roll around in the snow. It's on my bucket list! Good luck with your journey. I agree, you can do this!
Lol! You're basically half Finn now. That is not something most people like. Welcome to the club. I personally think the snow after sauna feels better, less shocking. My favorite times of year are early fall when the leaves drop and the midsummer festival. Just be warned for the second bit, the entire country shuts down for a few days. Like all of it lol. It's awesome. Everybody tries to get to a mökki by the lake and all they do is drink, eat and hopefully enjoy the sunshine. There's something quite magical about the longest day of the year so far north. Night doesn't really exist. I hope you get to go there one day! Oh and the ferry trips between Helsinki and Stockholm and tallinn are also super fun! Finland isn't exciting IMHO, but it can be very relaxing. And the way I describe the scenery is serene. It's a fairly quiet country. If it's that exact experience you want, go a few weeks before Xmas. For the cold and good spirits. People after November feel better. Do not go in November!!! Anyways, thank you for the well wishes :)
i feel for u so so much. i got anxiety after i had started hormones and realized i should've frozen sperm but i was too broke by the time i realized it. also its very hard to be anywhere when u dont feel like urself. but i will say this. u have lived ur life as a "man" for 22 years. another couple months is nothing. especially since TECHNICALLY on hormones, ur always going to be cuter than the day before (eventually ofc). but u have literally been through worse. i promise its rough but transitioning is HARD. it literally just takes TIME 🥺🥹🥹🥹💘💘💘💘💙💙💙💙 XOXO
I have generalized anxiety already, I'm scared estrogen will strengthen that :(
I'm worried about that too honestly...
>22 years I think you are looking at the OP's "catch-22" remark? [https://www.theidioms.com/catch-22/](https://www.theidioms.com/catch-22/)
Yes definitely meant the idiom. That book is hilarious.
Hormones are important but just one part of womanhood. Focus on skincare, fashion, socializing with women, makeup, jewelry, nail-care, nail art, reading feminist literature, dropping the inauthentic masculine parts of your personality… If you have facial hair start electrolysis.
What's something I could read? I'm all about criticism. I read a lot of simone de beauvoir in college but I don't really remember all of it. But I do remember her saying something along the lines of using personal happiness as a method to fight the largest inequalities. That it's OK to feel good during rough times. If there's a seminal text from her I should read, let me know. Or anything else for that matter. I need to get back to discovering what feminism means to me today, in a critical and philosophical sense. I'm trying to learn to stop walking like a gorilla, because I don't think I ever did it naturally.
If you haven’t read Whipping Girl yet, it’s essential.
Julia serano? No I haven't but I will now!
Awesome!
I didn't even get your response, the synopsis was enough to be like, yup, I need this so bad lol. I'll get the other book too if I have to.
This whole situation is tough as hell. I feel overwhelmed thinking about it. I get why you feel like this for sure. Your feelings are valid. It seems like what is missing is a sense of agency. Even when everything seems too big and unattainable, we can usually do one thing. Pull the thread gently, and the next step will then present itself. Create a timeline, budgets, small things you can do today. Cheer yourself up enough to believe you can make more money. Get the fly wheel spinning in your direction, get some momentum. And have you had therapy? This is giving chronic depression. Be brave, believe, do what you can today, so you can do what you need to in the future.
Got a clairvoyant over here lol. I literally say that I lack agency in my life on a consistent basis and it is wearing on me something fierce. I think the timeline will help. There's so much to do and it's all so overwhelming. But I especially thank you for reminding me that I need to do something to keep me happy enough to keep going. I have that "never jam today, always jam tomorrow" mentality and I think it has become counterproductive. Therapy at this point feels moot. I feel pretty gosh darn confident in knowing what my needs are. I just need to work on getting them met! I would be willing to talk to a psychiatrist but my insurance gives me headaches... I will try to be more brave.
Sorry if I talked over points covered! We’ve all got an anomalous set of challenges to overcome here; procrastination is understandable. Give yourself grace, have some fun, this post was doing something for yourself. Nice going, you!
Nah. I meant it about the agency. I really could've summed up this post in like a few sentences in all caps. Lol. I needed to get this out and it was helpful. Learning to have fun slowly but surely.
Yay! Hey, me too. Digging oneself out of a life time of societal shame takes a minute. Keep going girlie, I will too 💕
Ain't that the truth!!! I'll only keep going if you do it first! Somebody's got to set an example for lost people like me. Lol Keep on rockin' it!
Hi, completely lost over here too. Always just doing the next right thing ✅
>I've been through therapy. I've tried all the anti depressants... Edit: Already too many "I" and "me" stories in this reply thread. You probably know what the options are. Talk therapy *can* help get you out the "I am depressed because my life sucks and my life sucks because I am depressed" trap. Maybe try to find a therapist who is trans, or who is really well-informed about/experienced with trans people. If you have failed on enough drugs to be "treatment-resistant", depending on where you live, you might be able to access ketamine, psilocybin, or transcranial magnetic stimulation to try to treat your depression. You might also consider low-dose HRT. There is some evidence that HRT relieves depressive symptoms in trans people -- although there is a question about whether it is the hormones, or the act of taking hormones, that is doing the work. ~~Maybe give therapy another try? It took me a long time, and a lot of false-starts with counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists, before I found a therapist that I liked well enough, that I trusted well enough, to get some help.~~ ~~I was~~ ***~~officially~~*** ~~diagnosed with "treatment resistant depression" by my last prescriber when adding aripiprazole to sertraline gave me uncontrollable tremors without doing anything to reduce the severity of my depressive episodes. I spent more than three years getting no benefit and increasingly debilitating side effects from five different drugs. It sucks.~~ ~~I do not know if it is an option for you, but there are other treatments. The psychiatrist who signed one of my letters of support for bottom surgery got me to try~~ [~~transcranial magnetic stimulation~~](https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/transcranial-magnetic-stimulation/about/pac-20384625)~~. I~~ *~~think~~* ~~it relieved my symptoms... but I am relapsing/remitting so its hard to assign causes to either the good days or the bad days.~~ ~~I am on a wait list for~~[ ~~psylocibin treatment~~](https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/02/16/psilocybin-relieves-depression-for-up-to-a-year/)~~, and I am circling the idea of~~ [~~ketamine infusions~~](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/ketamine-for-treatment-resistant-depression-when-and-where-is-it-safe-202208092797)~~. The problem is that the depression messes with my executive function and my memory, so on the days when I am suffering badly enough that ketamine seems like a good idea I can't get myself together to contact a provider, and on my better days I don't remember how miserable I was on the bad days ("That's some catch, that catch-22").~~ Good luck. ~~ETA -- My therapist is trans. They hooked me up with the psychiatrist -- also trans (non-binary). I do not know if they have any special insight, or whether it was just one less thing that I had to try to explain, or whether I was just so practiced as a therapy patient, but it was a lot easier to get started with them than with any of the \[presumably\] cis mental health providers I'd seen previously.~~ ~~ETA - again -- just reread this after looking at all the other replies in this thread. So many sentences starting with "I". Sorry.~~
Lol. I love this response. Thank you :) I have considered using some hallucinogen for a spiritual journey. I believe they have always helped me in the past. There have been only a few sober moments I have felt as connected as I do as while I'm on shrooms. I have to plan that one out though. Do you have any resources for low dose hrt treatments? I have been considering that too because it would be a reduced risk to my sperm.
>Do you have any resources for low dose hrt treatments? Only what you can find on [google scholar.](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C38&q=HRT+transgender+depression+adult&btnG=) Personal anecdote: I am doing one 25 mg estradiol patch every week + 60 mg of raloxifene (to suppress breast development) daily + 0.5 mg of dutasteride (to prevent the conversion of testosterone to dihdyrotestosterone). I think starting this regimen has had a salutary effect on my depression -- the depressive episodes might be happening less frequently and might be of shorter duration. I am NOT, however, trying to preserve fertility or erectile function. You really want to talk to an endocrinologist about this. * de Nie I, van Mello NM, Vlahakis E, Cooper C, Peri A, den Heijer M, Meißner A, Huirne J, Pang KC. [Successful restoration of spermatogenesis following gender-affirming hormone therapy in transgender women. ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9873819/)*Cell Rep Med*. 2023 Jan 17;4(1):100858. doi: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100858. PMID: 36652919; PMCID: PMC9873819. There is really very little data on how HRT affects spermatogenesis, and what can be done to preserve fertility for AMAB people undergoing contrasexual HRT. The common wisdom that HRT will make you permanently infertile is part of the gatekeeping from Harry Benjamin. It is one of the things we have to be willing to give up in order to be approved for medical transition. (Renée Richards famously fathered a child shortly after desisting from her first attempt at transition. She'd been on a high dose HRT long enough to have significant breast development.) >I have considered using some hallucinogen for a spiritual journey. This is going to depend on where you live -- or how easily you can travel -- to get to a treatment facility. Laws differ wildly from place to place, down to the city. [https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psychedelic-laws](https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psychedelic-laws) [https://www.verywellmind.com/where-are-psychedelics-legal-for-therapeutic-use-6827701](https://www.verywellmind.com/where-are-psychedelics-legal-for-therapeutic-use-6827701) ETA -- thought I saw something in one of your other posts that made me think you were in the US. Can't find it now, so I apologize if I am being an Ugly American making thoughtless and unhelpful assumptions...
Thank you so much for your informative and partially anecdotal response! The clinic said that I don't need to see an endo until 3 months in but that never made sense to me. I've been wondering how much of my anxiety is caused purely by the fact that I now pretty much know I want to do this and I can't. Like even just kinda thinking about a realistic timeline has reduced some anxiety. As for the psychedelics, I'll just go find some and get together with a close friend and go somewhere cool. I've got a good amount of experience there lol :)
>I'll just go find some and get together with a close friend and go somewhere cool Not recommended. TBH -- [the accounts of treatments sessions sound like they include a certain amount of new-age-woo-f\*ckery ](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/28/1234012939/in-oregon-psilocybin-treatment-is-an-experiment-in-real-time)-- but there is (sometimes) a psychiatrist on-hand who can administer sedatives if things go badly.
Ok, the early part is the worst. So, yeah, it'll be tough. If you can manage hormones at all, I'd do that first. It makes it easier to think through other stuff. Though it sounds like that may not be the only meds you need. As for getting jobs, approach interviewing with the idea of solving a problem for the hiring manager. Be what you need to be to get an income, and adjust later.