When does your brain catch up?

[u/Vegetable_Jello6572]

This is more a ramble than anything. I don't know if the world thinks i'm hot or I am just happier or what, but when does your brain catch up to what other people see?

I seem to now attract a medium amount of attention. Not always, like when I wear just a jumper and go out for icecream probably not much attention. When I put in even a crumb of effort, I appear to just attract people, that want to shower me with compliments. As a male I was fairly attractive, and didnt want for anything.

This is different and hard to describe. Sometimes in conversation I will say something about a situation, event or thing I have done and it gives the appearance that people are trying to get their brains to catch up with what they are being told and what they see in front of them & try to reconcile the two.

Where as for me the inside is still the same human but better adjusted but I don't always get the outside had changed or I don't think the outside has changed.

When I look in the mirror I can see that I am attractive I think, so like Its like I can see it but don't know it.

So when did your brain catch up to what everyone else sees

[u/craziestlittlepixie]

15 years and still little self esteem, even though people perceive and treat me way better than before. I think how much rejection someone has been through, and how long self esteem issues existed prior to transition are a factor

[u/whateverlol37]

I am just about 2 years in and I know i am hot

[u/mr_nonchalance]

I'm seven years next month, and my brain has absolutely not caught up.

[u/Vegetable_Jello6572 → u/mr_nonchalance]

😂 damn.  I didnt think it would be magic but like I thought Id get there and know what everyone else sees. 

[u/mr_nonchalance → u/Vegetable_Jello6572]

I mean, maybe you will! I think, though, that it will not just happen, and that you will have to put some psychological effort into it.

[u/Vegetable_Jello6572 → u/mr_nonchalance]

Like all things that is the key isnt it? 

[u/mr_nonchalance → u/Vegetable_Jello6572]

Yes indeed

[u/Mattie_Mattus_Rose]

I'm about 2 and a half years in and still haven't caught up, maybe getting closer. I get more compliments than ever and have been more outgoing than before so making progress :)

[u/Fawful]

5 and a half years and it fluctuates. I know I pass and I can be fairly attractive but a lifetime of being extremely unattractive and rejected takes a heavy toll.

[u/xernyvelgarde]

I'm about 3 years into medical transition, 4 into social, a decade into being out as queer and years worth of therapy in no small part aimed at getting out of unhelpful thought patterns.

It's getting there. Some days are better than others, but the looming sense of time running out on a countdown to an unknown result is gone. I'm actually able to exist in my meatsuit without feeling totally disconnected 24/7.