#it’s been a solid week of crippling dysphoria

[witchyvyx]

…

[lasersheith]

🙃

[yoshidaspan]

My earliest memory is of myself wishing to have the attention of my lifelong best friend, Levi. At the time, Levi and I were playing with a boy who was a year older than us, Austin. I don’t remember what was happening specifically, but I do remember what I was feeling. I was filled with a sense of longing. Longing for Levi and Austin’s attention. For their approval. That is the farthest back in my life that I can remember.

As a kid, I was...eccentric. I liked weird stuff, preferred to be by myself, and constantly felt out of place. I was different on a fundamental level. I wanted the approval of others, but was filled with terrible insecurities and self doubt any time I would try to interact with anyone. I saw normal jokes and social interactions as people despising me. It didn’t help that I was extremely skinny, had almost no sense of self worth, and had a terrible speech disorder which made it hard to connect and communicate with people.

I was also filled with a burning competitive spirit. I had to be the best. At everything. I had to be the smartest, the fastest, and the most dedicated to anything and everything under the sun. This was probably cause by living in my brother’s shadow and the fact that I was a pretty smart kid academically. Whenever I wasn’t the absolute best, I felt a crushing weight come upon me. But I did my best to hide it. I put on a smile and shoved all the bad things I felt deep inside me. Again, this is all still happening when I am very young.

I started looking to see what would make me feel good about myself. I looked at television and books and all of my hero’s. And it all boiled down to one thing; dating. Everyone that I looked up to as a kid had one thing in common. They all got the girl, whether that was by finding “true love” or by being the cool guy that dated every hot chick in school. (My main hero’s were drake from drake and josh and aang from avatar). So at the ripe old age of 11 I started dating. Or at least tried to convince girls to go out with me. But again, I was the weird, socially awkward kid who learned how to interact from watching tv and reading Percy Jackson. I tried to be funny but just came off as slightly rude and majorly annoying. And here is the worst part. I blocked out all the feelings of self doubt and hate and just shoved them deep inside me. To stew and fester and remain unresolved.

I also repressed a lot of my childhood memories because of how much I hated myself. Any failed social interaction or attempt to ask a pretty girl out immediately for locked up in some dark corner of my brain. So a lot of this is “revisionist history” because I can only go off what other people tell me and what bits I remember.

So I kept dating. And dating. And wishing someone would pour their self into me and make me feel like I was valid. Until I got to one girl. One girl who I absolutely fell head over heels for. And that was a girl named Mikalyn. Mikalyn was sweet and beautiful and above all caring. She cared about everyone she came across. I tried for a solid year and a half to get her attention to no avail. And so I was crushed by the weight of my self hate and blamed my body image and lack of social skills. And so I did what I do best. I shoved down all of my feelings and looked for the next girl. Since I still wasn’t over Mikalyn, I went for her best friend, Rachael. And I had improved on my outward facade that Racheal actually agreed to date me. It was actually in the middle of dating Racheal that I fell for another girl. And I fell hard. Borderline stalker and definitely unhealthy. That girl was Brynnan, and we will be talking about her a lot more.

At this point I’m in the eighth grade and still have almost crippling feelings of self hate that I am barely suppressing. But along the way, I have found three safe havens from all of these feelings. And those safe havens are martial arts, music, and writing. And while they all made me feel better about myself, they also brought with them huge challenges and repercussions. Martial arts was and is amazing because of the pure level of dedication and heart I put into it. It was physical and helped me with my body issues. It let me beat out some of my aggression and intense feelings I had been holding inside me. It fuels my competitive spirit. Music was amazing because it allowed me to pour my feelings into notes. It let me be good at a skill. It was meditative and let my flex my creativity. Writing let me be my true self and actually feel my feelings.

But martial arts caused me to work myself to exhaustion. Music made me wish I was cooler than I was. Writing made me realize how broken I was inside.

Because I was now aware that I was messed up and was broken inside, I couldn’t deal. I tried to shove everything down again but it just came back up again. I was still chasing Brynnan. I was barely passing classes. I was failing in every aspect of my life. And so, little by little I killed my emotions. I stopped feeling. I went numb. Brynnan started dating a guy named Colton. I made a few terrible mistakes and only went to martial arts sporadically. I only played bass when I was in band class. I stopped writing.

Amidst all of this, one video changed my life. It resolved my body issues. It opened my eyes to who I truly was. Who I can’t deny I am. It made me feel alive and...happy. Truly happy for the first time in a very, very long time. And that was Jacksepticeye’s playthough of a normal lost phone. In the game, our protagonist discovers that he is not a he. That “he” is transgender. And that resonated deeper within me than words will ever describe.

And then Colton put Brynnan though He’ll and back. Brynnan’s family life imploded. Her entire world had shifted. And so she started doing one thing that would change both of our lives forever. She cut herself.

I wanted to feel again. And not just this numbness that was occasionally interrupted by searing pain and immeasurable sadness. And so I tried to get closer to Brynnan. So I cut myself. And a new world opened to me.

It was addicting. I felt like I was in control. I felt something again. And I felt like I was powerful. I couldn’t stop. Line after line was carved in my skin. I was writing again. I could feel again. Pain, but this time pain that I controlled.

My relationship with my parents worsened with every passing day. They found out about my gender dysphoria and snapped, saying it was an abomination and that I would end up nothing but a crack whore. I just desperately wanted to belong, to feel loved, and to find myself.

I eventually met a girl named Lauryn at a Speech, Drama, and Debate tournament. Even as I still had feelings for someone else, I was really just looking to be validated, to try and pour out some of the intense emotions in my heart, and to have someone by my side. Lauryn and I quickly started dating, and almost as quickly broke up. But it turns out that Lauryn had a LOT of the same problems that I did, and we quickly reconnected and got into a very serious relationship. We both loved each other, but I fell for her in a way that scared her. I claimed that I was willing to do anything for her and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

It was during this time that two important things happened. I turned 18, and immediately moved out of my parents house into what would become affectionately known as The Rug, with three of my best friends on the planet. And it was when I decided to pursue a career in the military.

My time in The Rug was my first taste of freedom and with that came a lot of responsibility and the beginning of rock bottom. I was stressed from working 40 hour work weeks on top of trying to just barely pass my senior year of high school. I started smoking weed with my friends to help relax. Lauryn came from a family of stoners and would join me nearly every night, out under the stars. But Lauryn and I started to fight and feel as though our relationship had a deadline, as I would soon be leaving for boot camp, and she would be going off to medical school.

We broke up. She ended things. And I truly hadn’t known what it was like to be heartbroken before then. I felt utterly alone. I had pushed away a lot of my friends to spend time smoking with Lauryn. I only saw my parents once every few weeks, and our relationship was practically nonexistent. So I turned to drugs. I started smoking weed more and more, as well as cigarettes. I was showing up to work high, and put every dollar I had ever saved into the habit. But I had found a new group of people to be with, who listened to my problems and provided my support. Slowly but surely I picked myself up and put the pieces of my life back together. I was still smoking almost every day, but I had a group of friends and had a handle on my depression. (Even if it was because I was just numbing it with drugs, I didn’t want to end my life for the first time in years)

And then I left for basic training. I was going to become a Marine. I went through three months of Hell, but it gave me two things that I had longed for all my life; Self confidence and self love. And now, I no longer feel gender dysphoria. I’m confident in who I am and truly do love myself. But I can still feel the weight of all the pain I carried inside for so long. I can still feel the icy claws of depression gripping my heart. I may be a lot better now, but I am a long way from healed, and I am terrified that one day I will be right back where I was.

[i-want-to-be-manhandled]

more trans ramblings (tramblings?) - to T or not to T, that is the question

so i’m writing this so i have some thoughts to show my therapist next week instead of scouring my brain for them but im posting it on the internet instead of keeping it in a word document or some shit cause i need some of y’all to relate and i’m already way too personal on here anyways. and also at this point this is my personal blog too, i’ve given up entirely on keeping it just for video games. tl;dr: please tell me i am not the only one with stupid amounts of doubt going against the stupid amounts of evidence that i am very transgender. 

tw: long post, doubts, testosterone/hrt effects discussed in detail, (don’t read this if you know me irl and haven’t personally talked with me about being trans? otherwise go ahead), nsfw cause we’re talking about genitals but mostly towards the end of the second to last paragraph (i’ll strike the nsfw stuff), mention of rape but no discussion of it happening, lemme know if i missed anything

so as my last transpost said im very excited for my hysto that im nowhere near getting but im flip-flopping as to whether or not i want to go on t. i know i can get it fairly quickly if i decide i do want it. there’s a trans health clinic in walking distance from where i am moving in 23 days, i have 3 therapists who will write me a letter of recommendation for testosterone, and my mother even found me the trans health clinic so she’ll try to find me somewhere else to go if they don’t take me in for some reason. (having a supportive mom is great i don’t miss her crying about how hard it is to have a trans kid in january and february.) and i’ve looked thoroughly at the effects of testosterone and have sorted them into pros, neutrals, and cons. (posting it here again mostly bc i need to do it but i also need some of yall to relate and/or validate me and/or answer my weird questions)

pros:

voice drop. im so tired of having a squeaky voice which is exacerbated by me always being anxious, and my sister has a deeper voice than me and always tries to sing ridiculously low parts to stretch it for some reason which makes me feel insecure. and apparently my voice is “always squeaky” according to my dad and like? shit man i pass until i talk that’s just the tea. 

i dont even care if i have a super deep voice, i actually think i’d rather be a solid tenor because that’s the vocal range of most of my favorite songs, but i want to sound like a man when i talk and not an 8 year old girl

side note apparently a lot of trans guys have male “internal voices” but mine just sounds like how i sound when i talk because i’m a very literal person and that’s why it took me forever to figure out i was trans and not having a male internal voice makes me dysphoric sometimes and even doubt that i’m trans at all... that’s dumb af i know it’s just my literal personality type not me actually being a girl

more muscle. i dont work out as it is right now but if i knew i’d see results the way i want them then i probably would. also im getting ripped during the school year anyways bc i walk everywhere with a 15-20 pound backpack strapped to me so i’m at least gonna look semi muscular which is what i want anyways. please give me strength quite literally i can barely lift bro

bottom growth. ik it’s still not going to be ~enough~ or whatever but i’d have... something? that would be nice. 

side note would packers start to be uncomfortable with something there bc i wonder about that sometimes. not that mine is super uncomfortable now or anything (i just haven’t figured out how to make it sit right) but i wonder about that

NO PERIODS NO PERIODS NO PERIODS NO PERIODS NO PERIODS

if im one of those guys whose periods dont stop on t i am actually going to perform a hysto on myself

fat shifting from hips, thighs and butt to my stomach. i don’t care if i have stomach chub or not, but i DO care that my hips are Like That and my things are Really Girly and i have a fucking Girl Butt TM like please just let me Not Have These Problems

having a more angular face. doesn’t happen to everyone per se but because of my facial structure as it is and also what my dad looked like when he was my age, i probably will get this change. i have actively wished for this since i was 13 and didn’t even know dysphoria was a word. hopefully it makes my lips a little thinner too or at least more masculine.

veins becoming more prominent. i have this one pic of me where it looks like i have Guy Arms and i just wanna look like that all the time ya know

lookin like a dude and passing? that counts right

neutrals:

facial hair. i know a lot of trans guys want this but i’ve never wanted one. i just want a jawline to cut a bitch tbh i’m never having more than stubble except the beard imma wear to my high school reunion

body hair. this is more of a pro-neutral ig bc i want it on my arms and legs but would prefer not to have a lot on my chest and stomach. fortunately i dont think my dad has a whole lot but i’m a pretty hairy afab person as it is i just dont wanna be a werewolf lmao

hair loss at temples. i just don’t care about my hairline enough for this to really bother me. maybe i will when it happens but *shrug*

scents of sweat/bo/urine changing? idk i feel like it will be weird, maybe gross if it turns out bad but honestly i don’t really care what i smell like as long as i don’t smell like a dumpster fire? i shower it’s fine lmao

rougher skin? i dont know if i’d like having rougher skin but i also dont like being an uwu soft boi so

acne. nobody wants it but like... i already have stress-acne right now and don’t really give a shit because i hate how my face looks anyways. not that i want a fuckton of acne because nobody does but im not gonna cry myself to sleep over it ya feel? it’s an annoyance but not really a con

cons:

increase in sex drive. not to be nsfw but masturbating is a chore as it is. it hasn’t been fun since i realized i had crippling bottom dysphoria and even then i can’t get off unless i’m completely distracted from my body (either through porn or being too tired to care). also i have like a 2% chance of ever having a partner so i really dont wanna have to deal with having the sex drive of a 12 year old boy when im 19, single, depressed, and dysphoric. im not even asexual but this is the worst con

emotional changes. yall know at this point i dont have the best temper, and i dont want t to exacerbate that. now, some of my friends have said that t has made them much calmer and actually less irritable, but the rest of my friends said t makes them angry. i have poor anger management and i know it. i don’t need it made worse. it’ll fuck my life up for real

increase in appetite. listen i have gastritis, ibs and acid reflux i cannot afford to be needing to eat more than i currently do

so as yall can see i have a fair number of all 3: 8 pros, 6 neutrals, and 3 cons. and what’s more, all of the cons are things that don’t have anything to do with my appearance (which my therapist and i noticed during our session a couple weeks ago and really made me think i should go on t). so then the answer should be clear: i should go on t, right? deal with having a fucked high sex drive and be pissed off because of it but finally be able to see my reflection in the mirror. so it should be obvious. what the hell am i waiting for?

the main reason i’m hesitant is i’m afraid i’ll want to detransition. even though i KNOW it rarely happens and the women who do thought they were trans because of unaddressed traumas relating to being female or have a personality disorder. i have neither of those things: the only female-related trauma i have is being slut shamed by my mom for wearing tank tops and any shirt that wasn’t a crew neck and one guy saying he’d rape me in 9th grade because he thought rape and sex were the same thing (for his sake i hope he’s grown the fuck up!! i’m not traumatized from this i just made my teacher not let him sit next to me in class and told him to stop talking to me. sadly this is the most sexual attention i’ve ever gotten), and the only mental illnesses i have are depression and anxiety (unless we’re counting dysphoria, which i definitely have). i also sometimes feel like i discovered it too late: i didn’t say “i’m not a girl” until i was 14, refused to explore my gender until i was 17, and didn’t fully accept i was trans until i was 18. and other dumb shit: i never tried to pee standing up so im not really trans even though i didn’t know what a penis was until i was like 9, ive caught myself twice recently wishing for longer hair which made me feel feminine and gross and dysphoric (even though i know hair length =/= gender??), and im not in danger of suicide if i don’t get testosterone and top surgery RiGhT nOw. the prospect of me detransitioning isn’t likely, when you look at all the facts, but the prospect makes me anxious because everything makes me anxious. i am the poster boy for anxiety. and yes, i know i would have said that even when i accepted that i was technically the poster girl but i would have said poster boy anyways because it was “gender neutral” and didn’t rub me the wrong way like poster girl would have. same reason i insisted on being a dude instead of dudette and only described myself with words that didn’t have a female equivalent in french class even if it wasn’t true. so what the hell am i waiting for.

like i know i shouldn’t be doubting at this point because it’s so, so obvious that i’m trans. just because i didn’t try to pee standing up when i was little or ask why i didn’t have a penis doesn’t mean i’m not a guy. i logically know this. like when i was 11 and i insisted to myself i had a male brain but knew i shouldn’t say that out loud because that was weird and i wanted to be a normal girl who didn’t have a weird male brain, and when i was 7 and at my friend sarah’s house and her room was super pink and girly and i literally thought the sentence “is this what i’m supposed to be like?” and when i was 14 and cut my hair into the Typical Queer Girl Pixie Cut and my hair was just??? gone like i wanted it to be when i was 9 and ended up with a bowl cut instead, and instead of looking in the mirror and thinking i looked like an owl when i was 9 i smiled at how “androgynous” (masculine) i looked, and when i was 11 and only hung out with boys at summer camp and they treated me like one of them and the girls were really mean to me but it was the best summer i’d ever had, and when i was 15 and my friend chris joked that i was the “guy” in my lesbian relationship and i was so fucking happy, and when i was 15 and starving myself because i loved my “angular” figure and jaw,  and when i was 16 and wearing a dress to winter formal because my ex met me in one and i wanted to be cute for him but i picked the dress that looked like a suit because it looked very “queer” (masculine), and when i was 14 and literally went “hmmm im gonna bind my chest just because i wanna know what it would look like” and it made me so euphoric and i knew in that instant i wasn’t a girl but repressed it for 3+ years because dealing with it would just be too hard, and when i was 11 and knew it was going to be my last day going to school without a bra on and just being so ashamed even though i wanted breasts so i’d be a normal girl, and when i was 16 and wearing that backwards snapback all the time and my friend said it was what tops did and i was so happy that nobody would consider me a bottom or whatever stupid shit because i couldn’t imagine myself being penetrated ever in my cisgender gay life, and when i was 16-17 and scouring the lesbian section of pornhub for pov/strap-on videos bc i wanted to know what it would look like to fuck a girl with a dick without watching straight porn because i’m 100% a gay female because the word lesbian is too girly im not a trans guy or anything haha, and when i was 14-and-onwards wondering why it felt so empty between my legs and why it felt like i was supposed to have a dick lmao im totally a girl though haha, and when i was 15 and had to google how to masturbate bc i couldn’t figure it out naturally and still felt like i was doing it wrong, and when i was 15 and looked at my vagina in the pocket mirror i got from selling like 30 boxes of girl scout cookies in 2007 and my first thought was “that is not my body,” and when i was 16 and actually very upset that i couldn’t ejaculate when i orgasmed. trans who? what the fucking hell am i waiting for

seriously. i was 7 and looking at my 2nd grade yearbook photo thinking “that doesn’t look like me,” and i was 13 and looking in the mirror saying “that doesn’t look like me,” and i went through all of my adolescence waiting for “puberty to turn me into a girl” and then i was 17 and done with puberty and crying because my body was still wrong. i can’t believe how hard i tried throughout my whole adolescence to be some facet of “normal girl” so i wouldn’t get bullied and be dateless forever and thinking “puberty hasn’t turned me into a girl yet” and not stopping to think about what i was if i wasn’t a girl until puberty was done, i realized it wasn’t going to happen, and it was too damn late for me. now i’m 19 and don’t leave the house without either a binder or a sports bra/baggy layers combo and i’d wear my packer everywhere if i could figure out how to get it to sit right (and also get it past my parents lmao).  like if anyone else rattled off that list of trans shit i wouldn’t question them for a second. but because it’s me and i’m like “what if i’m transwashing my memories? what if i’m gaslighting myself?” i’m still not on testosterone and please validate me. tell me other trans people doubt themselves, no matter how obvious it is that they’re trans. tell me it’s okay to doubt hrt, even though you know it will be so much more likely to help you. tell me it’s okay to be afraid of detransitioning, even though it’s okay if i DO decide to detransition and it’s so unlikely anyways considering all the evidence of Me Not Being A Fucking Girl.

if you read this all the way to the end here’s an awkward hug and some brain bleach im not even drunk or high i can’t even blame substances for this behavior