Welcome back to PC! I'm sorry you are in the midst of such a difficult struggle. You didn't mention specifically what this is all about. But, toward the end of your post, you wrote: "I just know now that if I continue the way things are, they will continually get worse and will not get better. If I choose to open up, everything will be over. Should I just grin and bear it? Should I just let the prevailing voice in my head to be heard for once?"

What I can tell you is that I'm an old man who has struggled with my gender identity (along with some other stuff I won't mention) since I was a very young child. Most of the few memories I have of my childhood revolve around this. But I was born at a time, & in a place, where no one had ever heard of such a thing as gender dysphoria (at least not that I was ever aware of.) And even if they had been aware of it such things simply were not discussed way back then.

Somehow I learned at a very early age that there were things about myself I must never tell anyone. And so I kept them a closely guarded secret literally for decades. A bit of it did come spilling awkwardly out around a dozen or so years ago as a result of my second major suicide attempt. But although I did partially tumble out of the closet in a big way briefly I found no one really wanted to know anything about it. So I soon dove back into the closet & closed the door. I'm still there.

Ultimately, what my life has taught me (whether right or wrong) is that no one really cares about you but yourself. All they really care about is that you fulfill the role you play in their lives. If you take steps to break out of that role, they'll stick with you for a short time, or perhaps a longer time, just depending on how important a person you are to them. But, either way, there's a limit.

So I guess what I have to say is you have to make a decision regarding what's best for you & what you can tolerate. In my case, I've managed to live a lifetime in hiding so to speak. But it has taken a terrible toll both on myself but also on other people who deserved infinitely better from me than they received. Nowadays I just "pray" for death because that's all there is left for me & I'm ready to go any time. That's how one's story ends when one has spent a lifetime living a lie.

So perhaps the question for you comes down to can you spend the rest of your life living whatever the lie is you've been living? If you can do that, & continue to play the role in your family's life they assume you'll always be there to play, that's certainly wonderful. (And in fact maybe there are people who can do that successfully. I couldn't.) But only you know if you have the strength to do that & make it work. In my case, it has been (& remains) a struggle that has eaten me from the inside out until there is simple nothing left to salvage at this point.

So that's what I can offer you in terms of my personal (obviously warped) perspective on the subject of living a lie. Hopefully something I've shared here will be of some small help to you as you strive to come to a decision regarding how to proceed. My best wishes to you...