#I had surgery on my fucking nose to fix long Covid and it’s still not fixed so it’s something I worry about

[didnt-hear-idsb-live-again]

I actually feel so sick to my stomach trying to decide between this Free People job and the one I currently have why does the current one have to pay so fucking well and Free People have to pay so fucking bad

[butch-reidentified]

Also where would you draw the line on transition surgeries? I’m reading about a case of ftm facial masculinisation surgery and omg. I think at one point it becomes less about treating dysphoria and more of a cosmetic surgery addiction. Of course I don’t blame the people getting these procedures done on them, but there are plenty of unhealthy mindsets at play and to me it seems it would be better to forgo trans surgery altogether than allow anyone to get on that slippery slope.

I agree with this but I really don't have the emotional energy to respond to the multiple long asks you just sent, just gonna do this one since it's the one i read first. As I mentioned a couple times before, today is the Pulse anniversary and I am never myself on or around this date & the very last thing I need is to bicker with other feminists today. I'm sorry & I don't mean to be disrespectful but I'm not gonna respond to all these asks right now & can't guarantee I'll have that energy anytime soon.

The only thing I'm gonna say on this is that my personaly experience of chest dysphoria was very much the same before and after I learned that surgery for it existed & I've heard a few stories or transsexual males wanting or even trying to remove their own genitalia at a young age (like 12 or 13) and that was well before these surgeries were common knowledge. & after having my own mastectomy, I have not had any desire whatsoever to get further surgery and actually for some reason my insecurities about my nose completely vanished. It's been almost 2 years since my mastectomy and I have loved my nose the whole time, whereas I used to use masking during covid as an excuse to cover it bc I hated it so much. It was the only thing that therapy didn't fix from my body image issues, and also something that helps me see clearly that my sex dysphoria is absolutely nothing like body image issues.

With my dysphoria there's absolutely no image/appearance aspect to it at all. I don't give a shit what my chest LOOKS like, I cared that it PHYSICALLY felt like a prosthetic glued to my chest no matter how much therapy I did. My nose I just found fucking hideous and hated it being seen or photographed or anything. My bottom dysphoria is just this uncomfortable feeling that there's a dick n balls there, but there isn't 🤷 I'm not interested in surgery for that - it's way too risky and intensive.

I know TIMs who obviously have body dysmorphic disorder and a plastic surgery addiction, and definitely confuse that with dysphoria. But I think what this ask is overlooking is the fact that the feeling that led me to get surgery & the feeling that leads many others to get these surgeries isn't the same for everyone. I think there's a divide between people with sex dysphoria whose sex characteristics *physically* feel like the opposite sex & people who want to look like the opposite sex and have body dysmorphia. Unfortunately sometimes (often) there's overlap, but the venn diagram is not a circle.

I think in most cases it would be better to forgo surgery altogether, yeah. I def agree with that. But there are extreme dysphoria cases where I have seen with my own eyes people whose lives have truly improved and dysphoria truly alleviated by it. They move past that transitioning stage, typically assimilate into the opposite sex group socially, and move on and live a very normal life. Unfortunately this isn't the majority of trans identifying people anymore, but they still exist. As I mention in my top surgery post, I spent years in therapy to address other, potentially related, issues and verify that I was ready and equipped to make the choice to have surgery. I didn't have any mental illnesses by the time I had surgery. Even my PTSD from Pulse, which is completely unrelated and came about after I was already considering surgery, was managed to below clinically diagnostic levels.

I think harm reduction is, as in most cases, simply the best approach. Banning things/encouraging abstinence only never works - drugs, sex, guns, etc. are all examples of this. There are many more too. I truly think a harm reduction approach to education on transition and trans surgeries would be WAY more beneficial and successful. And I think people would be far more likely to listen to that approach too.

[universe-in-the-void-in-the-cube]

I think I figured out my core problem in life.

Drama! 

And before you get up on me for it, just take a breather and listen to me while I’ll explain myself.

For as long as I can remember all I have known is negativity, stress and drama in my life. Basic timeline of my life.

Age 2 to 3 - As my first memories I lived in cockroach infested apartment complex, inhaled lead based paint fumes and I broken my wrist from climbing up a slide backwards. 

Age 3 to 4 -  Moved into a shitty 70s build trailer house in tornado prone Oklahoma experience in tornadoes for the first time and getting lost in the mall. 

Age of 4 to 5 - Moved from Oklahoma to Washington. Lived with grandparents before my dad got a job and found us a home.

Age 5 to 8 - Moved to a new apartment complex, get bulled and beat up by the kids at school, get lost walking home from a friends house, get on the wrong public bus on the first day of kindergarten. Having to become a big sister to a new baby girl and experiencing my first major volcanic eruption. Yes I lived in Tacoma when the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens happened. 

Age 8 to 9 - Get beat up and bullied at school so badly that CPS was called and I was taken away from my parents and placed in a foster home with abusive foster parents the refused to let me drink ANY liquids and made me sleep on the floor with cockroaches, mice and rats for a week. Before being move to my grandparents for the summer then to a new foster home with a foster mother that had dementia before being returned to my parents January 1st of the following year. And transforming schools as well and forced to go to therapy that seemed a bit off.

Age 9 to 11 - Move back in with parents, mother blames me for being taken away by CPS, tells me that I am to old to play with toys of any kind and force to go to therapy that somehow didn’t feel quite right. Mom goes through her first religious zealot stage. And I broke my left leg, underneath the kneecap on Valentine’s day of all days, and the doctors office didn’t think I broke it and had me on a damn splint for a week till my parents took me to the major children’s hospital where they did tons more x-rays than my normal doctors office did and found out I did brake my leg. And when they took off the cast the first time they realized they set my leg wrong and had to rebreak it and reset it so I have knee problems till this day.

Age 11 to 12 - Forced to move again because new apartment complex owners kicked every one out, and had to live with my dad’s brother, his brother’s wife and 4 cousins in a one bedroom house with the basement converted to 4 bedrooms that had a bad problem of getting flooded when there was to much rain. Get transferred to a new school that was so backwards that my education and grades nosed dived and badly, and moving to two homes in less than a year. As well as starting my period for the first time.

Age 12 to 14 - Go to middle school for the first time, get bullied again and sexually harassed and totally confused about things and mom goes through religious zealot stage 2 and start getting emotionally and mentally abused by my mother. My grades drop even more. Wasn’t allowed to have a boyfriend.

Age 14 to 18 - Go high school, grades improved, mother becomes more controlling to the point I wasn’t allowed to go to school games, participate in sports or any other extra curricular activities, or any school dances. (I missed out on both my Jr. Prom and Sr. Ball), finally allowed to have a boyfriend who cheated on me with 4 other girls, 3 of which were my friends all at the same time. Mom ended up having throat cancer and a month after she had surgery my parents had to stay in an apartment in Seattle for chemo, my sister had to stay with my grandparents in another town and I lived at home alone as a latch key kid. Then my dad has a heart attack and I was the first one to be called and I had to call the entire family and I was by myself with no one to comfort me.

Age 18 to 19 - Graduate high school, my grandpa dies, get caught shop lifting, go to jail for a month, forced to go to Job Corps, met my husband, get kicked out of Job Corp and move back home, mom kicks me out to move is my future husband’s alcoholic step dad for a week, almost get raped by the prick, come home a week later get married. New husband’s mother visits me and my mom kicks me out of the house again and forces me to live with my mother-in-law who was a nasty alcoholic at the time while husband was still at Job Corp.

Age 19 to 25 - Live with mother-in-law, get in to fights, go to jail for domestic violence, get extremely sick with the stomach flu and almost die with an 105 temp and extremely dehydrated, and end up hurting my back by falling down the stairs hitting the area between my tail bone and lower back twice causing me to have back problems till this day. Go to collage as my husband goes to jail for writing bad checks and end up going through the first hints of emotional brake down.

Age 25 to 27 - Move into my first apartment with my husband alone. Have a slum lord as a landlord, first major blizzard and ice storm, get on SSI, doing good till one day I was cutting up meat and suddenly had the urge to cut myself. AKA my first psychological brake. Go to mental health after that. 

Age 27 to 32 - Move to my second apartment, having unintentional roommates put on me and my husband, then 911 happens, then get a series of earthquakes in the city I live in, get the room makes moved out, get a new one for a while that meets the cunt that ruined my life, get the dick head on again off again roommate and having to constantly deal with his shit, my dad dies, then my grandmother dies, get an inheritance, the cunt my second roommate knows gets jealous and accused my husband of being a pedo and arranges the situation by bribing the cops that interviewed my husband (since the detective on my husband’s case was friend with the cunt’s mother) and the judges with her mother’s money, husband goes to prison for 5 and a half years.

Age 32 to 40 - Living without my husband, on again off again roommate gets so drunk that he threatens to kill me so get a restraining order on him. Get coned by an asshole which causes me to loose money, computer and laptop brake, car gets stolen, have to sell the car or get it towed when I get the car back, have the asshole roommate move back in. Having to deal with his bullshit with his family and girlfriend to the point they are all living with me and my property gets stolen.

Age 40 to 45 - Husband gets out of jail, he is forced to not live with me or I will end up losing my housing. He ends up getting a job and everything is good. I get thyroid problem, sex drive plummets and he ends up cheating on me and getting the girl he was fucking pregnant, deal with my asshole roommate with is asshole girlfriend who are both addicted to meth and badly and do drugs in my home, more stuff get stolen. Find out that I am infertile and can never have kids when my husband told me what he did, get new management in the apartment complex that I live at for almost 20 years, they give me hell and force me to find a home in less than 30 days and do tons of illegal stuff to me and other tenants in the complex to the point one had their cancer (which was under remission) come back and kill the poor man causing him to die of cancer. 

Age 45 to 47 - Find a new apartment thanks to the old realtor company, still have the asshole roommate move in with me, losing about half of all my clothes and being in debt for a few months thanks to husband and the new realtors of the old apartment. Go to the hospital under suicide watch because of all the stress. then Covid 19 happens, drives my roommate to controlling situation and abusing me mentally and emotionally till I am nothing but an empty shell of a human being. Finally had enough, get a new restraining order on him, deal with a bed bug problem and feel like I am not going to make it then heater goes out then the lights and I have a nasty mental brake down and end up getting psychological help.

Age 47 to current - Get the bed bug problem fixed, get he heater fixed, roommate no longer lives with me, I am going to therapy and improving every day. All my bills are paid in full, I have food in my kitchen and enjoying life finally. The first time in my life I have never experienced stress and that negative aura of doom and gloom around me. But... it scares me since I am waiting for the other boot to drop since my life has NEVER been this peaceful and good EVER!!!

So because of this revelation. I believe that negativity, drama and stress is normal for me because that is all I have known in my life. To have a peaceful and content life is so abnormal and strange to me that it feels wrong and bad and I should feel guilty. Hell I do feel a strange sense of guilt to. But I shouldn’t feel that way. I should feel happy. So I need to be reprogramed so I can convinced that my current situation is what life should be and can be for me. Not doom and glove negative aura cloud surrounding me like a thick fog.