Hello. I am AMAB, early twenties. I’ve been debating taking HRT for about 3 years now, with seemingly no end in sight. I have tried microdosing it and ended up starting and stopping 3 separate times. You can check my post history and see that I kinda freaked out a bit on my most recent attempt and thus stopped. I told myself I would stop for a whole year to give myself time to feel things out, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m just wasting my time without HRT.

I was scared of breast growth and permanent changes. The little changes I was seeing were bringing me stress, and I thought I’d regret it. But I find myself wanting breasts lately (although still scared of it being noticeable and permanent). But I wonder if I’m just scared of change. Recently I got a large tattoo that was a bit bigger and different than I wanted. Immediately afterwards, and even now If I think about it too much, I start to get a little scared like I’ll regret the tattoo and I made a mistake. But the thing is, I DO like the tattoo, and if I could somehow make it completely go away, I would not. Maybe it’s just a sudden change is scary.

But my desire to be a woman kind of ebbs and flows. And sometimes I think I’d like to be a young woman now, but as I get older I’d prefer to be an old man. Is that just internalized misogyny because of how older women are viewed in society? Idk.

Sometimes I like masculine aesthetics and am worried I’d regret not being able to pull it off. But if I really try to imagine myself now in a masculine way with a beard and flat chest and muscles, it doesn’t make me happy or excited (even though it’s a cool style) but being a woman does.

But I’m also seeing a new therapist who I’m not totally vibing with, but I respect their opinion and even though it’s only been two sessions, they said they think I don’t have dysphoria. They also said I’d probably need FFS which tbh hearing both of those things made me feel a bit icky, even if true.

So anyway, TL/DR: how do I convince myself that HRT is truly not the way to go? How do I deal with jealousy towards fem people, and know I only have one life and I’ll never experience it as a woman, and how can I feel authentic without HRT for times when I can’t dress up and lean fem via clothes/makeup? How do I find peace for this if I’ll never truly know? Thank you for reading this far.