Top-surgery for El

I have spent many years trying to connect with myself, grow, learn, and adapt to the world around me to try to not only become a better person but to sow the gap between my body and who I am/what I feel internally. It's taken a lot of internal battles to get to this point of knowing what I need to feel comfortable and confident in my own skin and in the world. I thought everyone felt as dettatched from themselves and as discombobulated physically as me, and turns out that is not the case at all.

I have felt a burden on my chest for a long time. I have had and still suffer from severe gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, dissociation and mental health issues related to this which I feel has massively prevented me from living life in the ways I know I can, but they have felt out of reach most of my life. I have a lot of confidence bubbling beneath the surface, but I am at war with myself on a constant basis which I have not been able to fully (or at all) express to people, even those I love dearly.

The weight of holding everything in and not feeling right about myself or my body has kept me in a state of fear and I haven't been able to embrace myself or walk through life in the ways I know I could.

I have been living in a dissociated, disconnected state and I didn't even fully realise because I had dettatched from the issue for so long as a way of surviving. This has been something I’ve needed for most of my life, and I feel the gravity of how badly it’s been effecting me for so many years more than ever. I know how much I have needed and need top-surgery, I just haven’t known how to voice it or ask for help, and now I know that this is urgent for me.

I have lost a lot of the loud, playful, optimist I was born as, and I am finding through recent realisations that this precedure will be the thing that moves me into a new state of existing, and it will be the loud, playful, optimistic one but also a much happier, more at ease, buoyant, care-free one.

The road to embracing myself has been a long bumpy one and I am not there yet, and I've realised that through hiding these parts of me from those I love and the world at large, I haven't given any one else the chance to embrace and accept me and my goals.

Instead of feeling heartbroken at the child I have lost in me, I am choosing to take myself into my own hands finally and I ask for your help in getting me to the place I need to be. Whilst I don't feel strong or happy with my body or self right now, I do feel strong and hopeful that I have made it this far and I know with all my heart and being what I need and want and I have decided to be a little bit loud about it and ask for help (something that does NOT come naturally to me).

The precedure itself would take place in Spain (it's the cheapest way of doing it would you believe) and costs £5000

The extra £1000 would be to cover travel and living costs while I recover from the surgery, which can take months and I’d be out of work during this period meaning financially things will be very difficult.

So I ask that if you have read this far and would like to help me to raise enough money for this surgery, one that I know will finally give me the courage to be myself boldly and unashamedly, if you could very very kindly donate or share, I would be so fucking grateful you have no idea.

Thank you for your time,

El