There are many events in one's life that bring about fleeting periods of happiness, joy, or euphoria. Achieving a long sought after goal, one's wedding day, or the birth of a child to mention just a few. But none of these compares to finding the freedom to live honestly as yourself after being deprived of that experience for a lifetime. For me the feeling is not temporary. It's with me every day from the moment I awake each morning.
I think I understand the reason for this. My GD was manifested as a constant level of mental 'noise' that I can only describe as stress and anxiety. It was so persistent throughout my life that I assumed it was normal (although in later years it became worse and then unbearable). I treated it as a baseline against which day-to-day feelings of happiness and unhappiness were measured, like a DC bias voltage on an AC signal (for the electrical engineers out there).
When I began my transition, first with hormone therapy and then with surgical modifications to my body, this mental anxiety-bias dropped nearly to zero. It's not a temporary condition. Against the memory of how things were before, it represents a permanent change in my well-being.
Clara
I think I understand the reason for this. My GD was manifested as a constant level of mental 'noise' that I can only describe as stress and anxiety. It was so persistent throughout my life that I assumed it was normal (although in later years it became worse and then unbearable). I treated it as a baseline against which day-to-day feelings of happiness and unhappiness were measured, like a DC bias voltage on an AC signal (for the electrical engineers out there).
When I began my transition, first with hormone therapy and then with surgical modifications to my body, this mental anxiety-bias dropped nearly to zero. It's not a temporary condition. Against the memory of how things were before, it represents a permanent change in my well-being.
Clara