thought vomit of hopeful but confused mtf

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I have always had general depression since a young age, and uncomfortable in my skin. but never felt and extreme dysphoria throughout highschool due to perhaps a pretty constant stream of interested girls. [im really only interested in girls to keep the short]. so that may have kept dysphoria at bay, felt validated about my looks. i was mistaken for a girl often in my younger age which never bothered me. [just passed my mid twenties now with no hrt or therapy ever]. i will say i did feel great anxiety in pre to early teens towards my dick while getting puberty boners a lot. just a lot feeling ashamed for it and thinking i could solve a lot of problems but cutting it all off. then it seemed to me more like a way to bypass the embarrassment of puberty, but looking back it feels like a touchstone of being trans maybe, but i really dont know.
went through a super heavy phase of cross dressing [not public] a handful of years ago when i really began feeling an onset of feeling i wanted to express myself as a girl. late teens and early twenties i would repeat to myself constantly that i was a lesbian but i really dont know what it meant to someone who wasnt really familiar with what trans truly was.
these feelings are the strongest when im depressed. i cant tell if its because of wanting to be who i really am, or if thats a response to hating my life and who i am at the moment.
i feel like this thought is the greatest source of doubting myself as to being really trans.
i feel i could live my live under the guise of a male and be content i guess, but i know i could be happy after transition. im really scared of being caught somewhere in between though if it doesnt work out the way i wish and hope for, and then spiraling into a terrible depression and probably just killing myself. im terrified of waking up at 35 and being so far beyond and hope of ever passing and just a mess of human alienated from society and any healthy relationship.
how do i find out whats real?