#FTM mental health

[sensible-tips]

Mindful Monday

Tips for dealing with dysphoria when it reels its ugly head.

[lifeanditsquirks]

I remember my mum was friends with a "gender counselor". And that said gender counselor talked me out of being nonbinary and into being a trans man. I assumed that since they were a professional they had to be right. So I started wearing my binder more often. Almost every day in fact. Sometimes for more than 8 hours because I felt so dysphoric (don't do this. I ended up with chronic costochondritis). I dressed masc. I got an endocrinologist so I could start T. I tried changing my voice through vocal training videos. I got a top surgery referral. I was doing everything I thought was right.

I was miserable.

It took years to undo the brainwashing she put me through. Making me something I was not. Making me second-guess everything about my identity. It was horrific. She would constantly use he/him pronouns for me. She would constantly refer to me as a man. And she would correct others if they used they/them pronouns for me.

After she was arrested I spent some time really thinking. Why was I so dysphoric all the time? I stared unraveling the rope she used to tie me up. And I found that she was wrong about me. I wasn't a trans man at all. I was nonbinary! The identity I started with. I started using they them pronouns again. I let people know that I wanted to be referred to with gender-neutral terms.

I feel so much more confident in myself.

So I guess the moral of the story is don't let anyone tell you who you are. You know yourself best. Your identity is your journey. Don't let others move you in directions you feel uncomfortable with. You'll be alright. You've got this.

[gor3sigil]

I’m Trans and Insane and I’m doing fine.

[TW Psychosis, transphobia, psychophobia, medication, psych ward]

“Are you sure ?” she asked.

I remember looking back at her in disbelief, because that was certainly a question I never asked her when she came out.

“Why do you ask ?” I say.

“Dude, I’ve seen you go into depersonalization so hard you even thought you were a human soul in a robot vessel and now, you want me to trust you when you say that you, too, are trans ?”

That’s the memory that comes back to me as I fold and put in my bag my psychiatrist’s note attesting that I suffer from gender dysphoria, NOT LINKED to any psychotic symptoms. Here it goes in my folder with my prescription note, an increase - again - of my anti depressants and Xan, and my endocrinologist’s HRT prescription, increased too - finally.

I go to two separate pharmacies to pick up each prescription for two reasons:

There is only one in this godforsaken town that always had testosterone in stock.

I can’t explain to you with words the look you can get when you give back to back, to someone who, despite not being a doctor, works in healthcare, a note for trans HRT and then a note for psychiatric meds.

And I’m lucky, because I’m not taking antipsychotics anymore. Contrarily to what you could think, it doesn’t magically makes the voices and the shadowy people disappear, but it can make a mess of your head pretty bad and my doctor and I both agreed that I didn’t need more damage up here than what I already had. And no, it doesn’t make your delusions vanish magically too: in fact, I was still pretty certain that I was talking to my soul family out here in Argentine telepathically about my mission on Earth, the meds just made it more difficult to understand their voices, but the belief was still solid.

Anyways, I’m back home with the Hoy Grail I fought tooth and nails to get: a letter from the Sacred Council of Mental Sanity also known as Psychiatry that I was, indeed, a bit delulu, but also trans, and that both things didn’t play into each other. My transness wasn’t a delusion, my delusions didn’t have anything to do with being trans.

Or did it ?

Chicken or egg, you know the drill. Did I have my selves fractured before and one of the piece that shattered my brain happened to make me trans or was I just trans with a shitload of traumas in the back that made me insane ?

But don’t worry, at least, trans people when we’re together, we have each other’s back ! Right ?

“Transidentity ISN’T a mental illness !! We don’t DESERVE to be FORCIBLY LOCKED UP and MEDICATED and MADE TO CONFORM FOR OTHER’S SENSE OF SECURITY !!”

Neither do I, RIGHT ?

Oh

Or do I ?

Remember what she said, my girlfriend, right at the beginning ?

How I can’t be trusted about myself when sometimes I don’t even have a sense of self anymore or I have too much selves who fight against each other ?

And what do we say to that ?

Get treatment. Get in-patient. Take medication. And for the love of God, shut the fuck up about it, you’re giving us a bad name.

Because being trans and crazy can’t exist. It’s absurd. You have to fix one of these two things. Choose which jacket I’ll wear, and they call it a straitjacket for a reason it seems, so am I queer or am I insane ?

All I know today is there isn’t a universe in which I’m a trans without any mental illnesses, or mentally ill without being trans. And yet, I can’t tell you how many time I got asked “do you think you’d be trans if you never got through [x trauma] ?”. I. Don’t. Know. I’ll never know. And I deserve just as much agency as you get despite being mentally ill. If you don’t believe in that, don’t come yapping about “liberation for all of us”, but “if one of us is crazy they’ll all think I am too and that can’t happen”.

No LGBTQIAA+ person deserves to be told they need to be put away, to be cured, to be allowed out in the open only if they’re deemed “acceptable” by society’s standards. And no mentally ill people deserve to either.

No trans person should be going through years of counseling to have the access to HRT.

And I shouldn’t have had to threaten my own mother’s life to avoid being locked in an adult psych ward at 14.

If you ever think, for one second, that these two things have nothing to do with one another, you are far removed from history.

To hear queer people say “yeah but some mentally ill people are dangerous !” feels like you don’t even know where you come from.

And if I want to say, that me being trans is linked to me being mentally ill, or at least, that both are connected in a way, all hell breaks fucking loose.

So I’ll explain very carefully.

See, when I was young, my mind got shattered into a thousand of pieces I had to try to glue back on. All these pieces of myself broke further more down the line because I couldn’t catch a fucking break. And now, it happens that the final puzzle does not have the same face it had before. It happens that its shape changed over time, for reasons over the control of all of us who tried to build ourselves back. Now there’s a bigger picture, less pieces, a few other shadows, and me. Built from the shatters. With my own needs and afflictions.

And whoever you are, whatever your agenda might be, I will not let anyone take any agency away from me under the false pretext that I can’t know anything for myself. They say that about children, they say that about minorities, about physically disabled people, about the people they want OUT. And my trans siblings, you know that.

I came out for the first time 7 years ago, to my then girlfriend, who was the one asking the question that is the first sentence of this text. I came out a second time 3 years ago. Been on HRT, had top surgery, had psychotic breaks, got my meds changed, switch therapist.

Because I am trans and crazy. And yet, all these choices I made, I made myself. It didn’t have to be that hard to get the basic care I needed. It didn’t need to be. But it WAS. And I’m part of the lucky crowd of people who had access to out-patient treatment, who never have been locked up in ward, who managed to stay alive through meds withdrawals without medical assistance when I had no therapist.

Be very careful of when you start to put conditions on the rights you think you deserve. Be very, very careful about your definition of sanity and of how it warps the way you see people. When you start to say “I have access to that, but there’s people like X or Y who shouldn’t BECAUSE”, pause and ask yourself what led you to think this way. More often than not, you’ll find yourself playing the same mind games as the ones you swore to fight against, and when it gives them the upper hand, they won’t hesitate to come for you after that.

[thecrayonking]

Shout out to all the regressors who feel too unwell for anyone to want to care for them

i promise you that you are not, you just haven't found the right person, theres someone out there that will love and care for you the way you deserve

you are loved by so many, myself included, stay strong my love

[burned0utstar]

It hurts.

It hurts so much.

I need someone, anyone, to love me.

Being unlovable hurts.

It's the pain of knowing that noone can ever love me the way I love them.

To love the way I do is to burn and scratch open my skin just to try and show you a part of me.

It's to always wait for something.

[arielthedaydreamer]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but: If you're a man -whether you've been one all your life or just recently started to notice within yourself the need to become one- that's enough.

You don't have to pass a test, there is no quiz, you don't have to check a minimum amount of gender role boxes. No one can tell you HOW to be a man. It doesn't matter how you look or how your body looks, how you talk, how you act, how you behave, what your sexuality is. You don't even have to fit in with the other guys. If being a man feels right for you, you can say "This is me and I'm a man".

The gender police will never knock on your door. Your gender is your own business and no one else's. No one can tell you what a man can or can't do. There is no wrong way to be a man. Be the kind of man you want to be, the kind that sparks joy. You can do it, bro. I believe in you.

[gatekeeper-of-witchcraft]

correct me if I’m out of line bc I’m not a detransitioner, but I hate hate hate how common arguments against transition/“in defense of” detransitioners is “they can’t have kids!” or “they can’t breastfeed!”

why should mitigating harm always come down to what a woman can do for a potential child (or a man’s ability to father children)? why isn’t it enough to keep HER from harm? it’s just prioritizing women as broodmares all over again. why isn’t it enough to keep HER from chronic pain, heart and blood pressure issues, incontinence, necrosis, limited mobility and death?

[dontmakemeright]

Oh I just love edging a cute boy toy until his brain breaks.

To just slide the head of my cock over his wet little cunt, gliding through his folds, teasing his needy clit. Rub right over his drippy entrance, dipping in every now and then but only slightly. Just to make him gasp and whine in frustration, desperation in his voice as he begs me so sweetly over and over again to just please fuck him already, please fuck me, Sir ~

To have him at the point where he's soaked, open and ready for me to just slide inside him in one go, to bottom out without resistance. And all he can do is thank me between the broken moans that are leaving his mouth as his poor pussy finally clenches around my hardness.

Will you cum if I move, baby? Hold back for me, alright? Try to be good for me.

[xpupslxtx]

guys i’m literally so horny i need to be shot with one of those cartoon tranquilizer darts

[trracstudy]

Queer researchers seeking participants!!

We're a queer research team based out of University of Maine and Fordham University, recruiting 15-18 year-olds in the US for our study of mental health, coping, and online experiences. This study should take ~25-35 minutes to complete and does not require parental permission. If you want to enter our raffle for a gift card at the end of participating, you'll be entered to win one of 20, $25 Amazon gift cards!

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Help us learn more about mental health for LGBTQ+ teens. Queer research for queer youth!

[she-is-ovarit]

:(

[sensible-tips]

Mindful Monday- Changing the Inner Monologue

Our words have power and impact. They can create self-fulfilling prophesies or paradoxically attract the very thing you don’t want.

If you find yourself struggling with negative inner self-talk, I invite you to practice changing the conversation by validating your emotions, avoiding the negation of possible future outcomes and keeping an open mind towards opportunities of personal growth.

If you are experiencing persistent emotional distress, SensibleTips for T Guys advocates for seeking help for mental health concerns.

Mental Health Resources

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.

Find a Therapist|PsychologyToday.com

Search results based on the parameters you set

Trans Lifeline

Peer support hotline is run by and for trans people. The line is available daily from 7 a.m.–1 a.m. PST / 9 a.m.–3 a.m. CST / 10 a.m.–4 a.m. EST. Volunteers may be available during off hours. Call 877-565-8860 to speak to someone now.

TrevorLifeline Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention

The TrevorLifeline is a crisis intervention and suicide prevention phone service available 24/7 at 1-866-488-7386. TrevorText is available by texting “START” to 678678 .

[aceysun]

I was in denial about being trans for a long time, until I realised I have no incentive to "convince" myself I'm trans, but all of the incentives to do convince myself that I'm cis

you're told by everyone your whole life that you are your agab, if you are feeling like you are convincing yourself to be trans you are in reality doing the opposite

the most beautiful thing you can do is accept yourself, whoever that might be

[mycurrentobsessionstuff]

I am 37 years old and sometimes I get so sad about how long I waited with transitioning.

I didn’t get to be a teenage boy with emo hair on MySpace and feeling cool in my black T-shirt.

I didn’t get to live my young adult life growing from boy to man as I tried figuring out who I was and who I wanted to be.

I didn’t get to turn 30 and feeling like I was finding my footing and opening myself up to authentic friendships and even love.

Not because I didn’t know. I’ve known since I was 11 or 12. Probably earlier. But because I’ve been living 36/37 years in fear.

Now I’m slowly approaching 40 and I feel like I just need to immediately go from coming out to being a fully adult man.

So now I feel 17 and 21 and 29 and 37 all at once and I think I have to mentally go through those stages before I can confidently move towards my 40s as a grown man.

So much time and life has been stolen from me by fear and mental illness and burnout but I can’t go backwards so I’ll do my best to move forward and give myself a break as I mentally transition as well as physically and socially.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that kids are definitely sure and let teens transition and start living their true lives.

Love you all! Don’t forget to eat something.

[queercodedangel]

When trans people have high rates of bad mental health outcomes, conservatives see it as evidence for a need to demonize trans people further. When men have high rates of bad mental health outcomes, suddenly they recognize the social and cultural forces that shape mental health outcomes.

[burned0utstar]

His hands are so warm and comforting and his smile is so sweet and his eyes so pretty and his voice so calming and his overall presence just everything and and-