Yeah I went back and looked at what mine looked like at 8 months and they were bigger than yours but not by much. For comparison I'm over a decade into hormones and recently posted a pic of my boobs.

As for what's changed, I think that's partly it. When I started it was the default to be given oral estrogen and have to request injections or explain sublingual to your doctor. But I think there's more to it as well, the rise of estrogen monotherapy may be a factor. But also, you used to get tapered on, and slowly at that, rather than just being given the standard dose and seeing how your levels looked. It used to be much more common for doctors to target low end of female levels than the middle/what feels right. But also, the rise in telling trans women to eat while transitioning rather than the pressure to lose weight while transitioning is something I suspect is huge. We used to hold ourselves much closer to mainstream cishet beauty standards and with that was an expectation of skinniness, despite the fact that it can wait until you're done with the major changes to your body from going through puberty again.

And yeah, self care is vital. I know it's cliche to say that nobody else can love you until you love yourself, and it's not quite true, my wife started loving me before then. But not loving yourself and especially not taking care of yourself does make it take more work for others to love you, and it was a point of conflict early in my relationship. It also leaves you more at risk of abusive relationships. And as for what to do about it: make friends and try to attend trans community events, especially ones focused on transfems.

And yeah, that's generally a healthy approach. I dislike the risks and side effects of them. I really wish that fat replacement augmentation was safer, if it was I'd likely do it, but that's as someone who feels cheated out of large boobs and has to settle for medium.