I did this right in the beginning and it definitely helped me. Interacting with people as Amelia felt like a big step forward and, as I did it more, I found that just interacting as Amelia alone made me really happy.
The only problem now is that I’ve got double accounts on so many sites that I still try to manage. I’m growing very tired of having to manage two identities because I’m not openly out just yet. I’m still trying to figure out how to best merge my Twitter accounts, I don’t want to give up my tweet history on my main (birth named) account.