Struggling with my preferred name

This sounds really hard. Something I started with was making a bearable “nickname” that used part of my birth name. This really helped the transition for me because cis people tend to Get nicknames more. I also used to go by just my last name & have had friends who would sign things with their initial & then last name. It sounds like it is time for some change. You shouldn’t have to deal with that pain so frequently. Fwiw I used the nickname until I found my new name & then I started a trend among friends of writing “nickname”/“new name” as my name (for example ash/milo, pronounced Ash or Milo). This helped my friends shift more gradually And gave me as much time as I wanted to decide if I wanted to keep using my nickname

im sorry you feel this way. i feel like this too. i hate when people refer to me as a she and i hate when people call me by my “real” name it makes me so sad and uncomfortable