#im so terrified of being a burden that my mental situation is permanently fucked

[sleepy-hyperfixations]

does anyone else get moments where, like, you're lonely but don't actually want to talk to anyone?

[werevulvi]

Face my fragmentation

“The distinction between performance and reality, always caught up entangled Not knowing if what I know is truth, or beliefs carefully mangled Did my past deception ring true at the end or am I just reconciling with what I cannot bend? In the sanctuary of my own home, do I wear my true face? As it changed with time and testosterone, its nuances shifted out of place With my senses hightened outside, I'm unaware of what I hide Yet I call for no reduction of what I became; I remain yet the same I thrifted pieces of my shame, to once again be restored into pride I'm perpetually misjudged by my appearance, but I let it slide for the sake of my privacy, when the need to know basis is none but it still twists my gut, telling me that my womanhood is gone Have I sought to become what I already am, or am I trying to be what is beyond my reach; a pipedream of tricks and tragedy Wearing stage makeup for casual pursuits, the tedium I'm trying to exhale but I cannot differentiate freedom from what's cheaply on sale And I begin to wonder, if what's chasing me is my destination if I should turn around to further face my fragmentation My bits of male and female; chafing together, comforting apart each belonging to different pieces of my shattered heart” Ah, the perpetual confusion continues! I still feel as though I've some amount of conflict between what I consider my male traits and female parts. That I like them all but can't quite put them together. And I'm thinking that has something to do with my traumatised mind still being very fragmented, despite having integrated with my alter. Like that integration didnt exactly make all of my dissociative symptoms go away. And being in a constant dissociative fog surely makes it hard to figure out what is me being true to myself or accidentally creating yet another persona. Especially considering much of my dysphoria was caused by the traumas that also caused my dissociative issues. So how I perceive my body both genderly and in general are very linked together. There's no clear distinction yet every aspect of me is so far apart. Like two similar things placed in two different rooms, and the time it takes to walk from one thing to the other makes you forget how different or similar they actually are. I dont think my body or my mind being androgynous makes me any less female or not a woman, its not that. But I'm not blind to how the rest of the world sees me and I'm also not immune to its effects on how I perceive myself as a consequence. I have thought, although only in sheer desperation, about if it would be easier to "just" live as a feminine trans man. But I dont want to cause it goes against everything I feel about myself as a woman. It would be like admitting defeat. Like saying it actually was "too late" into transition for me to detrans. And I'm not the kind of person who gives up about what matters to me really a lot. Not that I dont give up easily, but that I simply DON'T give up. Like no matter how hard it is. I keep trying until I manage, and only sometimes temporarily retreat. And I know that my fight/right to be a woman is something that I cannot and wont give up on. No matter how much I'll stumble and fall. But how do I conquer these obsticles? And how do I learn to live as an ambiguous woman who's constantly perceived as male? How do I handle this consatant feeling of having been robbed of my womanhood? How difficult it is to feel welcome in any lesbian community or women only space in general, when looking like a man (i.e a threat). Worrying about being tossed out of bathrooms cause I'm too scared of walking into the mens room to put on makeup, while wearing a dress and fake boobs. Worrying about locker rooms for when I'll start practicing karate again, as I highly doubt there will be a gender neutral option for that. Cause im terrified of showering naked with a bunch of naked men, cause open showers is standard in my country, and I'm sure that other women in their locker room would freak out if I walked in there, cause that's happened before. I know I'll have to have a conversation with the instructors at that karate club about my locker room issue, but still.

That is why I still hold off on starting practicing at my island's only karate club, but it's a dream that I cannot hold off on forever. I'm thinking it might be easier to "prove my case" when I'm legally female again, and for other practical reasons it would be more convenient to wait until after my breast reconstruction surgery has been done and healed properly as well. But how I'm perceived by others based solely on my looks (and voice) will continue to be ambiguous at best, as I'm keeping and cherishing my traits from testosterone. It's not that I care about random people's opinions of me, cause I don't. It's that it makes those kinds of social situations difficult to deal with and solve. And I feel like I'm stuck in a tight web about it. The ways in which my dysphoria slithers around in me is confusing and exhausting to try to figure out and get a grasp of. But I've come to understand now that basically: as a trans man I was happy with what testosterone did for me and I for the first started finally liking parts of my body. It was an over all positive experience for me. But I hated living as a man and forcing myself to be masculine. It felt like a burden that alienated me, as I couldn't connect to either men or other women anymore, and I felt that more and more over the years, like some abstract force that became mysteriously heavier over time. Until I understood that I was going against my nature. It felt good at first, but then felt increasingly heavier and like a burden, that social role and the lie that I tried to become. Top surgery (about 5 years into my social transition) made it worse cause it was such a jarring experience. Sadly, I hated my breasts until the day they were gone... then I missed them. It only traded one kind of suffering for another, and I had no idea that would happen. That made me even more confused, but I was afraid of my feelings so I bottled them and shoved them away. For 4 years.

Then when I started healing from my traumas and I began to fall in love with my body and my personality, detransition was just around the corner and it happened so fast. It was literally like I woke up that morning feeling like I was a man like always, and when I went to bed that night I knew I was a woman and regretted it all. As well as instantly ditching the masculinity I had forced myself into, for my long lost femininity. That strong contrast was a tad overwhelming!

However, now reflecting back on it, I don't think most of that instant regret I felt was really that, but rather that it was an expression of my inner conflict between the liberation of finally connecting with my womanhood for the first time ever, and my love for my male physical traits that clashed with the idea of womanhood that had been imprinted into my brain by society. Or to put it more simply: my love for my androgynous body clashed with my false view of myself as a traditionally feminine woman. I felt stuck with my androgyny when in fact there was never anything wrong with either me or my androgyny, but I couldn't put it together with being a woman. Cause I felt suddenly threatened by it. I felt like I was somehow newly a woman, and my old-fashioned, conservative view of what I thought women "should" look like made me attack the one thing I had finally come to love, which was what had brought me to see myself as a woman to begin with: my body. Eventually, as I became more stable over time in my detransition, I started to find my way back to that love I always had for my male traits, and tried to basically integrate them into my newfound womanhood, but that was and still is a struggle. Even just getting myself to walk outside with a beard visible on my face and with any amount of confidence to do so, since detransing, has taken me around 6 months so far, and it's still a work in progress. I keep fighting it, viewing my facial hair as a threat to my womanhood while still loving it. Is it right, is it wrong, that I still love my beard? I know that does not matter, but my emotions don't give a fuck about that. They won't listen to reason. But I see that I am beautiful with strikingly intense looks, self-love and pride showing through behind a hesitant smile, when I allow myself to wear my beard like the part of my body that it now is. I do not want to get rid of it, but I definitely want to get rid of the social stigma around bearded women with deep voices. But that ain't gonna happen anytime soon. So I'm gonna have to live with that stigma, reluctantly.

And even during that time, I sometimes, or even most of the time, directed my frustration with being misgendered towards my beloved male traits, as if they were the enemy and not society. Cause I'm just as much forced to live in this society as I am forced to live with my own body... it takes much work to not let either of those two drive me crazy. Having and keeping my male features literally does me no harm at all. Especially not considering I'm no longer taking the testosterone, only keeping its permanent effects. Actually I think trying to reverse those effects would be more harmful than keeping them. I know I'd always rather listen to my heart than society when it comes to making any kinds of permanent changes to my body. But I'll still hear society, regardless of how much I don't listen to it. And sometimes what it says just fucks me up and makes me sad. I know I would be dysphoric again if I got rid of my male traits. I know because for everytime I've considered it and used any sort of words like "removing" or "lasering off" or "getting rid of" those traits, it has made my stomach turn in a mentally painful twist. And I know because I'd regret it if I got rid of them. That I would grieve their loss, just like I grieved the loss of my breasts. And I don't wanna go through that with any more parts of my body. Even just thinking about it makes me wanna protect myself.

Truth is I don't wanna look either completely female or completely male, as for my physical appearance. But I'm fine with simply being biologically female regardless of how I want to appear. It's a fact I've no issue with anymore, and I'm no longer dysphoric about any of my remaining female parts, like I used to be. But I do not want to again look like I never transitioned to begin with. I do not miss my voice being higher pitched at all, or having a smooth face, a less hairy body or a smaller clit. My style is mostly feminine, but my body is a mix of male and female traits.

(Just to clarify, I use the word "male" instead of "masculine" when it comes to my transitioned physical traits because masculinity is a social construct, but such physical traits (like beards, deep voices, etc) are much more closely associated with male biology than any social construct. And vice versa for my female traits.) Am I less female for having some additional male traits? No, I'm still 100% female, but now with some additional male traits. I'm a woman who went through both female and male puberty, hormonally. And I like it that way, but I never liked to regularly dress masculine, and I've also never liked having a totally female-appearing body and face either. I've wanted a deep voice and facial hair ever since I was 12 years old. Whatever it means, it's not a new or sudden wish. I've had it for most of my life, which is probably why I'm so happy to have those traits now. But I also don't and can't think of myself as a feminine man, no matter how much I look like one on the surface. It's just an illusion, a consequence of my transition+style. It was a choice, and I really don't know if I regret that choice or not. Transitioning, as a whole, didn't quite turn out as I had intended. I guess that's all I really know for sure. My chest is now my only source of dysphoria. Cause I guess I can regret top surgery without also regretting testosterone. Or maybe I just want new boobs regardless of if I have chest dysphoria or not, and consider the risks of getting new boobs worth it to connect better with my body as a beautiful (not necessarily in a sexual way) and comforting meatsuit to carry around my soul (or brain, if you don't believe in souls) in. I kinda intend for my detransition to take me "halfway back" in a sense. Like two steps forward and one step back. I see myself as a woman now only cause I made peace with my body being female, but I don't really think I have an actual gender per se. I don't identify AS a woman, although in a sense I do identify WITH womanhood; as in female biology, actually natural femininity and being a lesbian.

My androgynous looks are intentional now, and I intend to rock it as well as I can. My body is solely for myself, but of course I can't and shouldn't hide completely from others just because they're not my target audience. My body is my only true home and I don't like it too plain and undecorated. I'm not a minimalist by far, I feel comforted and up-lifted by some colours, tinsel and patterns in my near presense to brighten up the gloom in my tortured mind. Looking fancy for no particular occasion, for my mental health, is a good and quite harmless type of self-care. Although perhaps not ideal, it's still far better than self-harm. Ultimately, how I perceive myself is just as a woman, and neither my transition to male nor my detransition to physically nonbinary quite reflect that, but they don't need to. But what my detransition does need is work the fuck together with my self-perception. I'm scavenging for a strategy to achieve that kind of inner team work. I know this text became really long, but I wanted to still include all that reflecting on my transition and detransition so far. Cause I wouldn't have ended up here without all those experiences. (And no I won’t make this post a “read more” thing cause I know you guys are too lazy to click on such things.)