#I'm some researchers on the 20ish side

[blackbackedjackal]

theres coyote subspecies? neat. whats your favorite?

I can't pick a favorite child

I'm really partial to the Great Lakes/Northeastern coyotes (C. l. thamnos). They're a really unique looking subspecies that also come in a beautiful array of color morphs. A lot of people mistake the morphs for high-content coydogs, but similar to Eastern coyotes, they just have dog admixture that shows up in their coat colors. Genetically they're (mostly) coyotes. They're pretty well documented by different researchers in Chicago and the surrounding areas and are surprisingly well adapted to the city and urban environments even though they're one of the larger subspecies. A lot of them live in cemeteries in the middle of the city and by the lakefront areas, then travel around the city at night. It's estimated that around 4000 of them in and near Chicago!

Some other faves as well. I can't pick one ;o;

Northwestern coyote (C. l. incolatus)

Mexican coyote (C. l. impavidus)

Wetlands coyotes (not officially documented but they're my local guys and I love them <333)

[vlerian-root]

PMDD + transitioning

I don't know how to write this in a more poetic manner, but I would like to put some words out of my head and into (virtual) paper. Being trans has saved my life

Quite literally! I have a medical condition called PMDD, that has been undiagnosed for 17 years. It is a neurological sensitivity to changes in levels of estrogen in the blood. There is documentation out there, don't believe anything that says "it's like bad pms". It has nothing to do with pms. This is your brain being "allergic" to you getting your period, and causing havoc on any and all brain functions - like a russian roulette! It can affect your mood (in a good and bad way, usually very extreme), leaving you suicidal, violent, nonverbal, manic... It can be very painful - and not just in your head, with the typical migraines that last for days, but also on the rest of your body, or localized areas. I used to not be able to move my legs for days at a time. "Just pms" my ass. It can affect your memory. Long and short term memory, some parts of mine are just gone. Erased. Not coming back. They are big chunks too. It can affect you psychologically, in all the fun flavors that can have, like paranoia, obsession, depression, hypomania, dissociation... This usually lasts up to 10 days and ends when you get your period. Which is a hell of its own, so I have lost half of my time for the last few years, when it started getting really bad. It only got diagnosed for me when my psychologist noticed a pattern of me getting really bad every month around the same time. He assumed I knew this. I did not. Nobody had every mentioned PMDD, I didn't know it existed.

But here is where we get to the good part. I was in medical psychological therapy for something unrelated (OCPD, a personality disorder, although most of the symptoms got really bad with PMDD), and the psychiatrist assigned to me is an expert in this matter. He talked to me about the research he had done, and the research I had done while obsessively browsing the internet for any morsel of info I could get. So far any medical treatments had been from ineffective to making things a lot worse, so I needed to talk to someone who knew their stuff. And he did! But we found that since this is your body being "allergic" to a thing it naturally produces, and will continue to produce for at least another 20ish years, the best treatment was to stop that cycle. I had tried this before with my gyno. This went terribly bad. Twice. Or rather, it went great for 3 months, then worse than ever after that, and it became the new normal. It was hell. I was at a point where I couldn't have any sort of normal life. Half the time I would make projects and live happily by myself, and the other half I needed help to even walk to the bathroom because my head was about to explode, my legs didn't work, I wanted to jump out of a window, and I forgot about all my deadlines. Oh, and the muscle spasms that looked almost like seizures. This shit had cost me 90% of my social life, all of my professional life, and was now simply trying to take my life.

BUT!!! Did you know that if you remove the ovaries, the estrogen blood levels stop rising and falling? Did you know that triggers premature menopause? Did you know that testosterone is a very effective treatment of the side effects of menopause?

That was my whole approach, and my brilliant psychiatrist agreed it was a good one. To this day, he has been the only person to not question this decision even if it's pretty radical. He's the only one that has understood there is no sense in asking someone whose brain is killing them from the inside "are you sure you want to do that? you won't be able to turn back!". I'm aware you can't put the ovaries back in. But they are. Killing me. Driving me insane. Please.

It took me ages to find a doctor that would even contemplate doing this (quite simple) surgery. Every single one of them used the "but you are a woman of childbearing age, I can't do this in good faith" argument. Or the "I don't know about PMDD so I think you are lying" covered in sugary lies approach. It was hell.

In the end, I have gotten the surgery. I no longer have overies. I'm writing this weeks after it, and I can assure whoever is reading this that I no longer suffer - or will suffer - from PMDD ever again. Writing that feels so liberating... The kicker is that I wouldn't have been able to access any of this if I wasn't trans. Because PMDD is so badly researched and documented that even the doctors that specialize in the organs it affects think it's "bad pms". I had to say "but I am a trans man, this is very dysphoric". Then, and only then, would they give me T. I am not a trans man, just transmasc. I wanted to get healthy before transitioning, because it's not very great to be in an unstable mental state to handle the tsunami of changes and their (sometimes social) repercussions that come with it. But irony of ironies, the cure for 90% of my health issues has been transitioning.

OCPD has gotten easier to manage thanks to the emotional resilience I got on T (and what my therapist taught me) No ovaries mean no periods, which means no spending up to 2 weeks each month with my brain self destructing. No more memory loss, no more pain, no more spasms, no more migraines!!! No more dreading the days before the next T dose in case the previous one is a little too short (this has sent me to the ER before). No more pregnancy risk. No more depression, no more low energy, no more low libido, no more bullshit!!!! I am ME, inside and out, forever!!!!! I haven't felt like this since I was 14, and I'm 32 now! This is insane to think about @_@ It sucks that I had to lie to some doctors to get where I am today. But if I hadn't, I don't even know if I'd be here. It wasn't that big of a lie anyways (I hope). Feels bad to me, because I hate lying, but... no, I think this one was ok.

TL;DR: I have PMDD, meaning my brain is allergic to estrogen, so you can kind of say I was allergic to being a woman, and transitioning has saved my life ♥

If you are still reading this, thank you. I'm very sleepy and this probably makes very little sense, but my dms are open to any questions.