mentalxspace

[mentalxspace]

new day and constipation

it’s a new day. how is that you can fall asleep and wake up to another day that is completely different but similar to the one before it?

this new day is quite special because when i fell asleep yesterday i had a body i’ve lived with for 27 years and when i woke up a couple hours later, i had a completely different body that i’ve never had before. 

it feels like yesterday was 5 years ago. 

and i do feel like a 5 year old, figuring out what i can do for the first time. walking with my arms at my sides. walking with my chest out, nothing covering it up. wearing a shirt that i want to wear. it’s very strange. i don’t think i’m ready to be around other people yet. i need time to process this. 

also, i’m super constipated which is probably the most painful experience so far. if that’s it then hell yeah, i’ll take it. 

when i was walking about this evening, everything looked shiny and brilliant. it made me wonder...was i living in a depressed state before this? did i think i was happy and really, i was just comfortable with sub-par painlessness?

i’m reading a book about how body movement impacts our emotional state. i’ve spent so many years cowering down, appearing small, and hiding my chest that i really wouldn’t be surprised if all of it was tied into a larger web of depression and sadness.

and all of the sudden, it’s as if somebody’s gone in and snipped the web apart. 

to anybody that says trans kids and trans people don’t deserve health care or don’t know what they need for themselves to be happy: go fuck yourselves. 

you are the problem, not trans people. 

trans kids DO know them selves. 

i certainly did and not a goddamn person in my life listened to me or believed me. and guess what? i spent 27 years of my life spiraling through depression, anger, shame, sadness, suicidal moments and self-hatred....all for what????

for absolutely nothing.

i was a trans kid that needed gender affirming health care. i am now 27 years old and just now receiving the care AND affirmation i should have gotten so, so long ago. 

this is why i feel reborn....because i am reborn. 

trans kids matter, trans people matter and you will never stop us from coming down here to earth so you might as well stop trying. you’re wasting a ton of energy. aren’t you tired?

[mentalxspace]

surgery nerves

sometimes nerves are subtle, sometimes nerves are completely engulfing. 

sometimes nerves are there and you don’t feel them at all. 

as of right now, i feel a mixture of subtle and more noticeable nerves. which i take to mean that i care about what is to happen because it’s going to result in significant change. 

i’ve never felt connected to this particular area of my body. it looks alien when i view them in the mirror. i call them chest growths because the other words for them feel strange. like i don’t want to admit their existence. 

top surgery is a portal into something i’ve never experienced. or maybe i did a very very long time ago, before puberty. before full-fledged indoctrination. 

i think maybe i will feel like when i was 5 years old if that is the case. 

i think that’s the last time i was truly free. mentally, emotionally, spiritually. 

my body is mine. it doesn’t belong to anyone else’s spirit, except for my own. i get to decide what i do with it, how i interact with it, how i speak to it, how i listen to it. 

this is an agency that is sovereign. i will exercise my power. they will never keep me down. 

[mentalxspace]

to shave or not to shave?

it’s nice to focus on the small problems. i wouldn’t call this one a problem though. it’s a question. do i want the stubbly beard on my chin to remain or be scraped away for something new to grow back?

this question at its core is basically: what do i want to do? what kind of experience do i want to have or not have?

here’s what i am wondering...is knowing what you want purely intuitive??

sometimes you need logic to make things happen but...it definitely seems like to know what you want to happen, that comes down to intuition. 

i like the mottos that have to do with focusing on the basics...

“one step at a time” 

“it’s the small things that matter”

“remember to breathe”

these sayings are annoying simple but carry a truth that you can believe in, if you want to. it seems like they help slow down the brain so we can distill what we actually care about. 

and it’s really hard, at least for me, to focus on the basics sometimes. with top surgery coming up, i will be forced to embrace this mindset. i want to embrace it. i want to slow wayyyy the fuck down. i want to slow down so much that i am literally focused on one step at a time, foot by foot...one breath at a time. 

in, out. 

one small thing. at a time. 

i work a job that requires me to drive, lift and move big square boxes. i will have about 3 weeks off and then...i’m probably going to have to start working in some capacity. it’s going to completely change the way i move through the world, not only from a confidence self-love standpoint but from a healing standpoint as well. unless i want to get injured, i can not be moving my body the way i move it now. that shit requires a whole other level of self-awareness.

wish me lucK? 4 more days. 

[mentalxspace]

my take on euro-centric science in a short lil diddy. 

[mentalxspace]

needles and skin

acupuncture...what is this magic?

i lay down on a table and a healer inserts needles into my skin, all over my body. 

there’s another person laying on a table, behind a curtain near me. they too have needles in their skin. 

we lay in silence, with needles in our skin. 

there are needles in my ear, in my hip, in my ankle, in my wrist, in my calf and right between my eyes. 

what sort of magic is this? what is going on here?

when i look at the ceiling, i see it breathing. i’m not kidding.

i see the ceiling. breathing. and for awhile, we breathe together, but at some point...it breathes at its own pace. 

you might say i am hallucinating, making it up, just “seeing things”. 

and i might say to you, since when were you an authority on what is real for me and what is not? what is anything that is ‘not real’? i’d really like to know. 

but that’s not actually important to me. what matters is that my body is being healed when i come here. a month ago, i couldn’t run. my ankles were so swollen and rigid, i could barely move them side to side. my hips ached every single day and i felt heavy and uncared for and unloved. 

a month later, after many many needles placed in my skin. i can run again. i can move my ankles and my hips feel light and free. there are the usual aches day to day but overall, my body feels, moves and experiences the world in a completely different way. i feel seen and i feel cared for...something i’ve never experienced with the pale faced doctor who looks at me with gross detachment and only sees anomaly. 

did you know there is a word for someone with large nipples? did you know that’s considered a ‘condition’?

guess what. some brown people have big nipples. that’s not an anomaly. 

anyway, back to acupuncture...

what sort of magic is this? what is going on here?

i don’t really give a fuck how it works honestly. the mechanisms, the exact terminologies. 

i just give a fuck that it works, period. it does what is intended. thousands of years of observation and study embedded into chinese medicine are enough for me. i don’t need to know the exact references. this is ancient science that requires 1 human and some needles. that’s it. 

------SIDE NOTE OF RAGE------STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ ANGRY WORDS

the idea that acupuncture is considered “alternative medicine” is insulting and offensive. why is this alternative? because it actually heals people instead of doping everyone on pharmaceuticals?

i know the real reason why they call it ‘alternative’. why chinese medicine is treated as “pseudo science” even though it has thousands upon thousands of years worth of scientific observation, study and practice. 

here’s the real reason:  it wasn’t invented by the pale faced doctor. 

[mentalxspace]

knowing what one wants

just woke up from a dream where I signed up to take classes at a college. after signing up, i realized there was a bill to pay. thinking on why i even signed up in the first place, i became confused. i didn’t understand my reasons for signing up and i began to immediately regret it. i ran into my brother’s girlfriend and talked to her about it. i told her i was confused because i had already completed a lot of school and got the degrees and didn’t want anymore of them. she asked me what i would rather do with my time and i said i wanted to focus on my music projects. it quickly became clear that i had no tangible reason to be attending school. i proceeded to try and get in contact with the school to cancel the classes and get refunded. the rest of the dream was essentially this...me trying to get out of accidentally signing up for classes. 

in this waking moment, i realize that this dream is actually a pattern that has occurred before. i have found myself in situations of my own making, where i am not sure why i am in them and want to get out after i’ve already entered into them. why do i find myself in this place time and time again? i think it’s because i have no clear connection to what i really want to be doing with my time here. or rather...it feels that way because i have for so long, ignored my own dreams, desires, yearnings, feelings, etc. 

this tendency is not out of incompetence but rather, a necessary strategy to survive. you see, i grew up with a mother who told me i was selfish for wanting to do my own thing. for wanting to wear clothes that i liked. for wanting to love who i wanted and express myself how i felt. it comes as no surprise then that my intelligent child self figured out ways to cope with this impossible situation. how about we just sweep aside these things, since their expression only results in a berating angry parent?

i am 27 now though. and while it pains me that i was taught to ignore myself in such a profound way, i know that things can certainly be unlearned. and what a grace that is. this is my first blog post and my first blog in general. i used to love writing and wrote a lot in my teen years. when my older brother passed away, it became difficult to write because he was a writer and i needed space to grieve him. it’s been a couple years now and i have been telling myself for a while that “i really want to write again” so here i am. i am remembering how to know what i want and how to act on that impulse. 

it’s true that sometimes our wants are not always what we need but i trust my discernment in this specific case because i know that what i want is what i need. i need to express myself. i need to communicate my thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc. and i need a safe space to do it. hello internet.