I know, I know, I've been away for ages...

But I do have something of an excuse.

So most of you know me as Samantha, the crossdresser/transvestite.
It's been a facet of my identity for some 20 years or more.
Like many I would steal, hide and lie my way to a compulsion I did not fully understand.
Through childhood there was shame, guilt and denial.
When I started to buy my own female clothes the guilt and lies (to my, now, wife) ended, and then shame fell off too. I started to feel less grim about my gender presentation.
I'm still lying and for the most part I'm still hiding, just not in my own home now.
And life was good this way. I've spoken before of the freedoms agreed with my wife, so I won't go into detail.

But lately, I've begun to recognise feelings. Some have always been present but never meant anything by themselves and perhaps worse, I never added them up. Some feelings are new though, and some old feelings have evolved or are evolving.
And it's the combination of these old and new feelings, now added up, that make me question my gender, the one that I present to the world every day.
I'm questioning if I need to pursue transition as the answer I never knew I needed.
It's the feeling's, described above, I am going to discuss here.

I've always felt different.

Yeah, I know we're all beautiful, unique snowflakes, but I never felt that I was normal at my core.
I've always felt like a freak. Even with my best friends, I don't feel that I am 'like' them.
We share the usual roots of solid friendships (shared interests, history, care for one another), but I never ever feel I belong. Never did.
After years of living this way, I began to assume that this is how everyone feels, but they just never talk about it. But the closer I get to my friends, the less I believe this to be the case.
The only person I don't feel like this around is my wife. I shared this with her over the weekend in a heartbreaking wave of emotions in the second long talk we had this last week about why I believe I could be transgendered.

I've always hated the classical male characteristics of my body.

That is to say, I've always disliked my body hair, facial hair, I hate that my scalp hair is thinning. But again, I knew that everyone hates things about themselves, but they don't really talk about them (at least men don't) and I thought this to be an aspect of self loathing. (Another reason I never linked this to crossdressing was that I have never hated my penis, and nor do I today. It brings me and my my wife a great deal of enjoyment, and it was my assumption that all trans women hate their penis.)
But as time moves on, I find that I'm disliking more and more of my own outward male reflection in the mirror. My jaw and chin, my nose and my brow being the worst offenders. I want bigger hips, I'm getting breast envy. I'm noticing myself seeing the shape of boobs under the clothing of women in the street/at work/everywhere and thinking
"I want that, I want to be like her". I am aware these are not typical cis male thoughts, which leads me to question myself.
I am either indifferent or disliking of how I look as a male. But when I present as a woman, I feel good about myself, I actually like how I look. (I still dislike my male aspects and characteristics, but I feel about 80% better about it).

Dealing with depression.

I've been through depression. The worst time was due to external triggers (money, environment, work/home life balance) and that was cured when all of those factors changed for the better.
But even after sorting my life out, I still feel like something is still not right, something inside me. 
When I wrote earlier about my friends and how I don't truly feel like them, I feel like a facet of this is linked somehow with depression. Like the two are intertwined in a 'chicken and the egg' conundrum. (Did the depression cause the feelings of being different, or did those feelings cause the depression). I can't pinpoint when the feelings started, but I definitely had them throughout highschool.
Now I begin to wonder if those feelings and the depression are markers for internal conflict.
I've never hidden the fact that crossdressing and presenting female are not a sexual or fetishistic act for me (It was, when I was a kid, but that has faded with time. Generally if I'm presenting as a woman and I feel aroused, it's likely that I would have been aroused just the same in drab). 
For as long as I've been buying my own clothes and talking time and effort in my presentation, I have been dressing for me. Dressing to make myself feel better, like a crutch for the stress I live(d) under. A coping mechanism to deal with life.
And that's how I had always accepted crossdressing in my life.
But as I find less and less of my masculine traits to be acceptable and as I see more and more everyday women that I instantly get jealous of, I have to question why this is.
I question how much of my depression is linked with my transgenderism.
Because like my depression, the white noise of dysphoria is silenced when I'm having fun or am otherwise distracted, but once I'm resting or otherwise idling, the noise is right there waiting to turn up the volume again. Same with alcohol and other intoxicants, I could always feel better in depression with some social lubricants. Only for it to return once I'm sober again. The same is true of my questioning internal monologue.

Envy

The 6th deadly sin. (OMG did my catholic up-bringing show, there?)
I've brushed over this, but I feel like it deserves attention, because of all the new feelings I've realised in the last few months, this is the strongest.
I'd previously discounted envy as a symptom of being transgender (ie needing hormones and 24/7 living) due to something I read on a forum (can't remember which one) a long time ago. A particular user was asking about breast implants for crossdressing, which in honesty, I recognise to be a wrong move for a CD who wants to live mainly as male. The user spoke of 'boob envy' and how they longed for real breasts.
One of the replies to that person was something to the effect of.
"Every crossdresser in a low-cut dress wants boobs"
And with that, my thoughts of Envy=Transgender were shot down.
I've had boob envy for a while. But recently, a deeper form of Envy or jealousy has sprung to life. It's no longer mere aesthetic parts like hair, nails, makeup, bigger hips and breasts. While these are aspects I wish were mine, (which is why I attempt to emulate most of it when I dress), but now I feel like I want more.
Wishing I could be like any other woman on the street just going about her business. Being jealous of women's place in the world and how they are treated never used to be an issue. And here's the crux of my issue, I'm aware that women are proverbially shit on constantly, whether in their salary, their place in society, or are viewed as inferior when they earn positions of authority or power...
But I'm still envious of being able to live a life that is authentically female, despite the limitations and inconveniences that it brings.
Even for the sake of going into Primark looking around in the womens section, picking up a basket full of stuff, trying it on, buying it and nobody batting an eye.
Going to a Mac counter and having my makeup done in public and picking up a few things while I'm there, and nobody would stare.
And yeah, even down to waking up in a morning with bin-mouth (breath) and having my hair a mess and mascara smeared across my face and pillow before having to go shower to rinse and repeat.
I used to think that envy was wanting something beautiful, and to an extent it still is.
But I'm begining to think that wanting to be beautiful has more to do with envy than anything I previously knew (but that just might be another deadly sin manifested as vanity).

-----------------

I kept the feelings from my wife for a couple of months as I didn't want to go to her with fleeting ideas, it would only upset her and I would lose her trust and respect if my mind changed. But it didn't, it stayed the same. 
Nagging me. 
Relief sought in distraction as normal, and this worked , but only until the distraction was gone.

Last Thursday (today is Wednesday), I needed to make the guilt stop.
The last 5 days since I came home from work after breaking down in tears on the job have been a mess. 

I'm not pouring out the details of my marriage on the internet for all to see, but I think it's enough to say that we're still together, we still want children, neither of us wants to lose the other.

The hardest thing is that I'm still looking for answers as she begins to look for them and this creates uncertainty for our future. A future I believe my wife is mourning. Because worst case scenario for our marriage is that I need to go and live as a woman, and my wife isn't attracted to women.
And I have to accept that.
Many tears have been cried, many words have been spoken, much alcohol has been consumed. And all of the above will come in greater amounts in the future, I'm sure.

After some discussion with my wife in the last few days, I went to my GP yesterday morning and asked for a referral to a GIC and to a psych. who has some kind of background in gender therapy. 

My GP was lovely, asking about how I and my wife are doing, how I'm likely to feel better for taking this step and how she admired me for my bravery in taking action to find my answers. She assured me she would send the referral to a GIC (either Sheffield or Leeds) and that she would speak to local psych. Doctors about possible counselling/assessment for the interim period (the waiting time for GIC appointments, as of August this year is 86 weeks).

Also last night, my wife and I went to a local trans support group. Mainly due to my wife's request to attend such a thing, she needs answers as much, if not more than I do.
It was nice to see other trans people in the world, but I was so nervous and the group was so small, it felt awkward. I might go back, we shall see.
It didn't really give me any sort of clue to an ultimate answer of any sort. But I know they are there there and, really, that's sort of enough for now.

I'm still really confused. I don't know what any of this means anymore.
I am not a typical crossdresser, I know this for sure. I am transgender, I also know this for sure.
What I don't know any more is where I sit on the spectrum of TG identity.
Am I in need of transition to cure the internal struggle? Or is it possible that coming out as Non-binary/Gender Fluid to my family and friends may help by allowing my feminine self to be a bigger part of my life in general?

Any advice, comments or questions are welcome as always.

TTFN
Samantha -x-