HIhi I just found this community exists, sadly it isn't more active, but is probably a better place for my question. Maybe some introduction first because as with these things it's a bit of a long story, and no one here really knows a thing about me (I think).. here goes..

I was a pretty normal kid, I thought. I was born (with pneumonia, apparently) in another state but moved when I was one to a pretty small (poor) suburb in my home state, it was a nice neighborhood though with a room to play and ride bikes and I had two good friends there. I had an older brother by 4 years who I really looked up to and I had a sister who was just a year and a half older than me, so I didn't get to be the baby for very long. I suspect that's a root issue but anyways. I got along with basically everyone, was a class clown. I had some early signs in growing up that now I laugh and look back on. The earliest I remember is probably dancing with my sister in her dance leotards, putting on shows for the family at holidays, I liked all the sparkly sequin costumes lol. A bit later I was doing like the girls and had pictures of Cory Haim and Cory Feldman from Tiger Beat on my walls, I had (literally) a whole arm of jelly bracelets on a field trip. It all came crashing down when puberty hit though. I was forced to pick a side. The guys were all talking about getting under girls shirts and into girls pants and here I just wanted to cuddle, even when presented with the chance I basically froze. I had my first homosexual experience at a sleepover at my house, when me and another boy were playing with each other over our underwear while the other boys slept which I really can't believe we did now because it was so risky, I wanted to take our underpants off but he did not. Another time we were over at his home and had competitions over who had the nicest hard on, we really tried to sell each other on the specifics of our respective penises. This sleepover was also the first time I heard NWA which was cool. We would buy bootleg rap cassettes at the flea market which was new and exciting.

I went from the insulation of a Catholic grade school to a Public high school and literally no one talked to me that I knew, it was like we were all on our own or something. I made friends with some metal heads which were the closest kin I could find at the time and they basically accepted anyone, though I had just mostly passed my metal phase and was working my way into industrial. I got into a lot of trouble with them; we robbed a parked beer truck, lit an ice shanty on fire, they broke into the corner gas station for a bunch of cartons of cigarettes, we would smoke inside of the school trying to dodge the gym teachers who assigned themselves to monitor the bathrooms. I smoked my first weed during the Rodney King walk out our high school attempted. Luckily over the summer, I had a friend from my neighborhood who I grew up with introduce me to the wonderful world of BBSs. I met some fabulous people there, I went to meetups, smoked a ton of weed, did a bunch of acid and mushrooms later on, was friends with people in the weekly live cast of Rocky Horror PIcture Show which we went to all the time (our city has the longest running RHPS midnight show, so it's got that going for it, which is good). I joined my friends Unitarian church instead of going to my parents Catholic church, so I could cuddle with the girls on the couch they had in the youth room haha. I had some more girlfriends interspersed but was never really interested in sex with them thus it never happened. I got into the rave scene and that took off, more drugs MDA, MDMA, 2CB, I helped put on a rave in a barn that we had to clean out, I saw the first Daft Punk show in the US in a muddy campground in Wisconsin, I saw Aphex Twin the year before that and the promoter was arrested for dancing naked on the speakers if I recall. That party had a very powerful giant argon laser projecting into the sky that you could see for miles around, and it was right in the middle of Amish farm country. We got a lot of visits from the local sheriff and the music stopped a few times but the party never got shut down. I went to a local diner on mescaline which was a blast. I suspect some folks there still think aliens landed in their town that weekend.

Eventually I did find a girlfriend, or rather she found me I suppose because the first time we had sex it was all her but it was alright I guess. I remember one time I made her mad and I went to pick some lingerie up to smooth things over, I ended up trying it on and I think I liked it more than she did, it was fun to shop for anyways. One time my car blew up in her driveway, it literally started on fire because I drove it to her house with a cracked engine block and it melted to the driveway, it was a complete wreck by the time the fire department got there, the neighbors must have called because we didn't even notice we were busy having sex. Her mom was so mad.

After high school and that singular girlfriend that lasted about a year I was just adrift. I began losing my hair in my early 20s and it was gone off the top of my head by the mid 20s. It was really quite devastating, all through my youth I was praised for my golden locks, little old ladies would touch my head for good luck. In my teens and later I envied the guys with longer hair and always planned to grow it out and now that was gone from the table, FOREVER, I guess I just shut that whole part of my brain off because I just got a shitty job and became an alcoholic and didn't even think about sex really. I masturbated sometimes, I looked at porn. I had a large JAV collection at one point. I didn't care about the censoring at all because I was mainly just watching and envying the girls bodies. I had some warehouse jobs and grocery jobs. My alcoholism finally got so bad that when I got a (small) check after my grandmother's passing, I quit and figured I would just drink myself to death because there was nothing else to do. I had started drinking years earlier and was drinking about a liter of vodka a day at that point, when I finally was checked into the hospital at the emergency room I was under 100 pounds and couldn't eat solid food for weeks. I had missed my weekly laundry and Dad came to check in with me and dragged me to the hospital. I got sober from alcohol. I went to school a few times, I got my A+, Network+, MCSA, I got an associates in web development where I learned Javascript, PHP, Java and SQL. Several times I could have got a decent job or career going but something was holding me back from being happy and succeeding and I could not put my finger on it because at that point I had been celibate for like 20 years. After I sobered up from alcohol I got addicted to phenibut for several years, taking many grams at a time (I know this is funny for our Russian readers since it's so common there) but it's a powerful GABA drug, and very addictive when taken as such. I went on and on with that and tianeptine and other things to try to float me by. It turned me into an absolute zombie which I guess was the idea, I never danced at either of my sisters weddings and it kills me because I love them so much and I love dancing so much :( They still don't know the reason.

Several years ago I finally sobered up enough to get another job at another warehouse and I was okay at that job for a while, I worked really hard, that's where I built up enough money to fun my music gear, working overtime and holidays. I got to what I thought was the pinnacle of my life, having a big room full of stuff, it was quite a sight to behold fully loaded, I made a bunch of weird music and things were going good for a while, but then I STILL WAS NOT HAPPY. Wow, that's weird huh, why wouldn't I be happy after 30 years of being alone? My dad also got sick during this time with skin cancer, and passed soon after because it was quite aggressive, he was a life guard as a teen and just baked in the sun all day, and we would be outside a lot as kids too. I am a bit concerned about my own skin. We were never super close, both of my parents had very cold parents so they never talked about emotions or anything like that, which I would later learn is a very big problem for me since I am such a sensitive little bitch lol. I never opened up to them about anything, they rarely asked about me and only once resorted to sending me to a therapist. So I had what I can only describe as a complete meltdown where I had no energy at all for about a year, during which I've had to sell a bunch of stuff I worked really hard for off to pay bills. It's all just stuff after all anyways, if it wasn't doing anything for me I didn't care. It did keep me alive for a while though and for that I am eternally grateful. Now I am here at 48, I have not taken good care of myself because I didn't care about myself. My teeth are an absolute nightmare, my liver and kidneys are probably shot, I have to be much more careful with what I eat because a lot of things don't agree with me. I haven't been to a physician in over 30 years save for the three times I was admitted to the hospital from the emergency room. I have this low grade anxiety all the time. I think I have had undiagnosed ADHD and possibly autism since I was a child that I have had zero support with from anyone and now to top it off, I am finally admitting to myself that all the times in my life that I said that I wish men's clothes could be more colorful or that they had more variety or that such and such, what I really meant was I wish I could be wearing those clothes instead.

I'm not sure if you have seen the movie Doctor Sleep, but I feel like that is what I did with my gender and sexuality in my mind. I just erased it from the equation and went on auto pilot, which I suspect is more common than one thinks, or maybe I am just trying to make myself feel better, I dunno. What I do know is that now I feel comfortable acting feminine, dressing feminine, feeling feminine(?), I am not sure how far I will go right now but I just know I feel right and I feel a lot happier and more fulfilled in my interactions. Now I just look back and each time I think of something new that I did that should have made it obvious to me that I was trans or at least nonbinary, with the amount of time it's been I can't but help but feel like the world's biggest idiot for being so oblivious.

I'm 48, I know it's a bit older than the median age here, and I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable. Should I not comment on picture posts? I am not here looking to pick anyone up, so if someone my age commenting on your post makes you uncomfortable let me know. I am just here to show love and support my fellow trans gals and guys. If this is a weird question too I'm sorry I'm new to the world lol. As an adjunct to that, is it weird for me to post a body shot(s) in the trans joy area? I know I'm probably being too overly concerned but I don't want to do anything stupid because I'm pretty good at that

Wow that went on way longer than I intended ugh I hope I did the right thing. If you made it this far I appreciate you and love you for spending all the time on me to read that. Be kind in your comments please, thanks so much ❤️

This is my story and it is 100% true and it took a long time to type and now I'm thinking maybe I should write a book because there's a lot more 🤪