I sat down on my new bed, exhausted and tired, not even knowing how to feel. It had only been one day, but I could tell that I’d made the worst mistake of my life. A complete sense of hopelessness and fatigue took over. I slowly lowered myself down, laying on the sheets. I could feel my soft, feminine features all over my body, now permanently a part of myself. My body was small and adorable and perfect—and I would hate it forever.

I could remember every detail of that first day. An alarm woke me up at 5 in the morning, and I answered a call from one of them telling me to do my schoolwork before class started. It was the agency, who from then on would make all of my decisions for me and micromanage every single aspect of my life. I found that I was living by myself, in a dorm in a specialized girls’ school, where everyone was cold and unfriendly and I felt more isolated than I've ever felt before. It was so terrible that I lashed out and acted like a bitch to them, to stop the bullying. That made them leave me alone. I already saw myself becoming like the rest of them, and I hated it.

My schedule, my entire life, was all planned out, the team of guys telling me stuff at the last minute, whenever it suited them to. They were all intimidating people, only friendly on the surface, and while they didn’t touch me I felt a deep vulnerability and discomfort around them, and it didn’t stop when they were gone.

There was a practice that day, and there would be something like that pretty much every day since. When I saw the rest of the group, I hated them at first sight. My body knew what to do, how to talk to them, how to act the right way, so I let that part take over. I went with it, completing our practice normally, not wanting to make anything harder, just wanting it to be over. When I could finally leave, I was acting just as bitchy and terrible towards the staff as all of them.

That’s what went through my head on that night, when I was laying there on that bed, too confused and frightened to even think. Finally the first sobs came, and the first tears came out in front of my eyes. Shortly after, I reached my hand down and touched my new self, sexually, for the first time. It relaxed my mind, and my tiredness took over.