#pmdd is not talked about at all and as a trans person with it I want them to know they arent alone

[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.

[transenbyconfessions]

a trans girl (pre-everything, closeted back then) was the first person I (trans guy) talked about periods with.

I remember saying something like "I don't understand how people are afraid of blood, I'm desensitized to blood"

she replied "desensitized to blood? like someone who's been to war?"

I answered "yeah."

I think about that a lot. I don't know if it's true - or if it's just this apathy, this distance I need to have from it to stay alive, to keep going.

Periods are pretty traumatizing for me.

periods are traumatizing for me not because of PMS, PMDD or even any pain at all, I don't experience any of that.

periods are traumatizing for me because it's a 5 day long reminder that my agab is wrong.

plus an additional reminder whenever people, usually women, talk about periods.

it does makes it worse how gender for most people is one, norm-fitting, or mostly norm-fitting package deal.

I don't want to think about periods ever.

having periods as a guy is like being in a warzone. it's traumatizing.

Submitted April 15, 2023

[gen-x-genderqueer]

So! First meeting with the gender family medicine doc done.

There definitely was a bit of a panic and potential referral to a Gyn when I mentioned perimenopause care. But when I slowed them down and explained the actual problems I’m having (wildly irregular periods leading to even more wildly irregular PMDD) and what I wanted to do about it (some sort of progestin based or low estrogen BC to shut off my ovarian cycle) they agreed that this was definitely in the realm of family medicine. BUT that they could refer me to a queer-friendly Ob-Gyn within their network who definitely does reproductive care for trans & gender variant folks if/when I need anything more complicated.

We had a lot of discussion about my specific personal needs, family history etc… and she settled on some medication options that I won’t really discuss here because it was just relevant to me personally.

Then we talked low dose T & moved onto the clinic’s normal gender intake. This went pretty much as expected. How I identify, when I realized things about my identity, how much social transition I’ve done etc…. They definitely would have sent in an RX for T gel today if I had wanted. However, I want to get the PMDD settled down before going that direction. So we’re going to revisit that in May.

And finally, we did all the normal preventive medicine talk and… EEK! The screening age for colonoscopy went down to 45 and now I’m due for one. 😭😭😭 I don’t wanna!

They drew a lot of blood because I’m due for all the normal panels as well as doing some hormone specific panels (both for perimenopause reasons and pre-T reasons). I normally have problems with blood draws after some bad experiences, and had a legitimate panic attack last time I needed an ER blood draw. But this nurse was really good at doing draws and also was super chill with me speaking affirmations about how OK I was going to be. 👌

The one interesting thing was that the intake nurse used they/them pronouns as second person pronouns when talking to me (instead of “you/yours”) and I found it quite simply charming! I want to hear more people doing that! I want to use it for more people!

[beabaseball]

Hey. So. It turns out, if your period just makes you want to straight up die or recurrently makes your depression just Way Worse for a while, that's considered a "symptom" and "extreme reaction." It may be PMDD, which is similar to PMS (which is also a condition and not just something people made up to be assholes about, it turns out!) which as far as I can tell... doesn't have a treatment at the moment aside from Getting Rid Of The Damn Period.

This was very difficult, but emphasize to doctors that you do not want your god damn period. If you have a gynecologist, that is the person to talk to. If not, if you have a PCP you trust, they can also probably help you out. I had a series of two PCPs who helped me get on the depo shot, which has a % chance of a side effect of stopping periods entirely, but that was over 6 years ago and they might have other options now, or ones that work for people who are sensitive to estrogen (hey.)

In somewhat related news, I was late to my depo shot last year by a few weeks bc scheduling failure, and I fucking. got my period again and have been indignant the entire time how people are expected to do shit like this. I went through highschool like this?? Half the people my age do this all the time?? And my workplace doesn't have dispensers in the bathroom for emergencies, even if you are willing to pay???

Anyway. I just about wrote an email to HR, but another employee sent an email to our manager about dispensers in all the bathrooms (including men's) when I mentioned it to her. And if it doesn't happen, then I'll send an email to HR.

Everyone* go to your workplace and check if your bathroom has pad dispensers in it. Then tell someone if they don't.

*Including non-period havers. Even you, reading this! Remember this post when you go to work tomorrow. Check the bathroom. Ask where the god damn pad dispenser is. Even if they only put paid ones in there! How are our customers going to get pads if there are no dispensers in the bathrooms!? ~50% of the population will have a period at some point! And it will sneak up on them! And you can do one thing to make it so they don't have to stuff their underwear with toilet paper on the day they're caught off guard!! Are you a customer? Check the bathrooms! Be like "Hey. Can I talk to a manager real quick? Point me at them. Hi, I noticed your bathroom doesn't have a pad dispenser?? I just think it would be great if you put one in. You know. For emergencies." Do you have to make up a lie that someone was with you in the bathroom and had to beg a pad off other people in the bathroom because their period caught them off guard and there was no dispenser? No, you don't have to. But you could.

It has definitely happened at some point in that bathroom, I can nearly guarantee it.

(It would probably be helpful for trans folk to get them in the men's bathroom too, but understanding that it won't happen everywhere: having it in the women's bathroom is still an improvement, because at least then people can potentially ask a friend to go into that bathroom and get them one, instead of there simply not being any to even ask for at all.)

when you’re on your period you’re like am I just on my period or am I feeling all the loneliness and pain I’ve been feeling since i turned 12

[autisticlee]

pretty sure I made a post about this before and maybe worded it better but I want to throw out a big text wall and just whine about gender stuff again with no editing so you get all the typos and bad grammar and stuff

sometimes I think about how my old friend group may have pushed me away because they decided i'm ~a big scary man~ or at least that's what the other guy in our group suggested once. when I was telling him I don't know why they uninvited only me from the group trip suddenly, since I never got a real answer, he said maybe they want "girl time" together and saw me as a man so i wasnt welcome and going to intrude. that's nkt fair, especially as someome who grew up exclusively friends with girls and never even truly identified as a man. only used he/him to test it out and make the gender police happy so I could get reproductive care i wanted but am not allowed if i use she/her or they/them. (though so i'm confused because the guy if our group couldn't afford to do the trip but they still said they wanted him to join but i was always left out if conversation about the trip i initially planned myself!) anyway, I transitioned for personal medical reasons (mainly I wanted those life-ruining female organs out because severe pmdd and every doctor I talked to acted like I was crazy saying it's not a real illness basically and they won't remove because you want to unless you're trans or about to die) so I had to go by he/him and change my name to a masc one and go on hormones to get the doctors and insurance to be happy. didn't have time to explore non binary genders. I finally got my surgery, nit long after the other guy in our gc. he was great help! I decided it was time to explore gender more since I'm not tied to needing to be masc anymore. didn't tell those friends yet because I was still figuring out which word and pronouns to use (ended on nonbinary). I was never very masc presenting though around them anyway and never called myself "man" ever. I didn't have words to describe it yet but it was obvious imo I wasn't "man." at one point not long before i was pushed out if the group, one girl in the chat called me a man or something, so I corrected her and said i'm actually nonbinary. she apologized and I said it's fine because i've been trying to figure it out and have now decided, so this is my coming out to the group chat. no one else responded. but even so, I expected them to have seen it? so I didn't connect that maybe they still insisted on seeing me as "man" based solely on pronouns I used and maybe that "threatened" them. because they're ciswomen and transmascs are "big scary men" even though i'm actually, under all the performative gender to get approved for surgery, more of a fem nonbinary. but they would have known/learned that if they had just kept their promise of the group trip and didn't hurt and betray me and push me out of the group without warning or reason!!!!!! I know they're bad friends. but they were so good up til that final few months where things went downhill and hostile towards me for no reason at all. sighs.

the point is, ciswomen really like to make anyone they perceived as slightly masc out the be the enemy when I also feel uncomfortable by most masc men and seek the comfort and companionship of femme people instead. so the fact that they disown me helps keep me in a very lonely position and perpetually "othered" which isn't fair. not sure how people feel about my more femme nonbinary presenting but I feel like the little bit of masc-ness I have due to being on hormones will keep me getting pushed out of femme spaces still. it's really an issue. trans women have it the worst and that really needs to stop! but if I want to be some silly little nonbinary aroace lesbian then what right do people have to push me out of the spaces I feel comfortable in? you feel uncomfortable? suck it up and deal with it! you have a space to be comfortable in and can go to the other side of it. you have no right to kick me out into the cold!

if I want to be an aroace nonbinary lesbian mingling with the femmes, I wont let you decide I belong with men just because I might have some "masc" features you dislike (I've had Experiences and it gives me a discomfort of most men in general. or at least makes me wary of them) it feel horrible when they decide I can't stand beside them. Just like a past friend that decided she's ending out friendship because "girls can't be friends with guys so we can't be friends anymore" which is gross. that mindset needs to end. WE NEED GENDER EQUALITY. everyone needs to be treated truly equally. it would be so easy if people jist stopped putting gender in boxes and acted normal. but society isn't ready for that. so I will keep getting gendered with shitty stereotypes depending on who is deciding and i'll never have am equal footing among the gender policing. ugh.

[jell-hell]

I finally watched Crimes of The Future and I have many thoughts so here we go.

Honestly I felt a strong disability rights and trans rights overlap in its themes. Then again it's a movie that speaks about a lot of things, so I'm just talking about those two because that's my personal experience. I'm going to expand on it under the "Read More" if anyone is interested.

I want to start by contextualising myself in what I am about to say about the movie. Four years ago I started taking antidepressants as a way to treat PMDD, a disorder that affects anyone that goes through luteal phases. It is a mood disorder that can have debilitating consequences. This is a way of saying that four years ago I found out I was chronically ill. Then I went to doctors over my knee pain, and discovered I am somewhere on the hypermobility spectrum, my scoliosis being a syptom, not the cause. So I had to take pain meds for my chronic pain, too. People did not understand why I was so young and yet had to take meds for things they didn't see as issues. Internal pain didn't seem to register as true pain for most. My mediction, in turn, seemed unnecessary.

I read some reviews of Crimes of The Future that claimed the characters were too distant, too surreal for them to relate. That made it a bad movie, in a way. I had the opposite reaction watching it. Being trans and having my body do things I never wanted it to do is something I am familiar with. The want to take out the parts of myself that make me sick is relatable. The irony that I am trans and have a condition that only affects me due to going through a female puberty is not lost on me. People like to talk about my body, my type of body. The politics of my body. My reproductive rights, my independence, my right to decide what I want to be. My access to things, what I am feeling, what my pain is like.

When I was getting diagnosed for both PMDD and HSD, I couldn't really describe what I felt. With PMDD, because it came and went, with HSD because no one ever taught me the vocabulary to express it.

There is a book called "The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World" by Elaine Scarry that I read when I first started to come to terms with the fact that my body was more than just a body I lived in. That I was both it and more than it. I kept thining about that book during the movie. Saul is constantly in pain, but the way he experiences it is alien to everyone around him. People literally do not - cannot - understand what he feels. When asked, he cannot explain it. I felt those momments deeply.

Another thing that happens is that people pressure him, the entire movie, to accept or reject what he is and the consequences of what his body does. People hate and seek to destroy the mere possibility of his organs being a positive change, but also do not allow him to extract his own organs as a way to reclaim his own independence. He is not concerned over what other people's mutations do to them, he just wants to stop being in pain himself. He doesn't want anyone in the same position. In his view, and in a pratical sense for a lot of the movie, his body seeks to kill him. That is what he knows for most of it. And why should he not be allowed to grieve that? Or be happy anyhow? Why must it be all or nothing?

The conversation on acceptance and mourning inside the disabled community is complicated, because either emotion will be picked apart by people that do no understand it's source or what being disabled (in all its infinite forms) can be like. It is inconceivable to people that disabled joy exists alongside pain and grief. It is impossible, to some, to acccept we too are human.

[schlurp-schlurp]

!! im completely stealth in certain parts of my life, and while i can say "yes, i have male privilege", it comes with:

1. paranoia. what if someone who knew me before i transitioned or prior to being stealth outs me to people who don't know i'm trans. what if one of my coworkers that loves to instagram-stalk people stumbles across my transphobic family member's accounts, and scrolls far back enough to see pre-transition pics of me. what if that pic i posted of my top surgery results goes viral in TERF communities, and i'm identified by my tattoos. what if i post a selfie on an account where i commented smth about my transition on a post, and a transphobe doxxes me with my face pic, and that goes back to my workplace? what if, what if, what if?

2. being unable to engage in certain conversations about childhood, and important parts of my life.

any conversation about high school is instantly a no-go for me, bc i went to an all girls school - i was the person to come out as trans at that school, and my mom helped campaign for the school uniform to include the option to wear trousers. i mentored a kid who asked me for help on coming out as trans within a week of myself coming out - his mom told him he should talk to me. i helped get the school to change the "girls" toilets to "student" toilets. i fought and fought, and the year that i left there was finally an LGBT+ club set up, with the trans kid i mentored at the front of it. it's a huge part of my life that helped make me the man i am today, and i can't speak of it.

all conversations about my early childhood, dating, bullying, mental health - i have to omit so much, or just remove myself from the conversation as best i can.

"my kid is going through depression.. oh you went through that too? how did you overcome your depression? your insight could help us so much" is an impossible question to answer when the answer is "well, i cold turkeyed all my medication bc it wasn't doing anything to improve my mental health, and i'd had enough. i pursued private healthcare and within a month of starting testosterone, my suicidal ideation left, my insomnia cleared up, and i didn't have to worry about PMDD. it cured a variety of mental health issues and cleared up some physical health issues too"

idk, there's more examples but i don't want to overshare lol.

3. i can't engage with trans communities on identifable social media accounts.

instagram goes "hey mutuals! homosexchad liked: "if youre trans, like this post! signal boost if ur trans! here's information about trans people for trans people"", and i learnt that the hard way when i was 16. it's isolating to have to create completely anonymous and/or separate accounts to engage with positive trans content. and while you can argue i don't need to like or comment to engage in it - how often do you hit like without thinking about it? i tried doing it like that, and i was haunted with thoughts of "oh god, did i accidentally like that post?"

4. having to listen to unfiltered bigotry in my day to day life. bigots think they're safe when there is no one of that minority present.

my coworker casually declared that if her son came out as trans, she would take him to the vet to have him put down. i wasn't involved in the conversation, but i was in the same room, i heard it, and i knew that there was no safe way to inject myself into that conversation without outing myself or coming across poorly and ending up in HR for not allowing people to have violently bigoted ideals.

another coworker reads the news every morning on her work computer. trans people are on her newsfeed reguarly, it's the media's hot topic. she said she'd beat a tranny to death if she ever met one.

a friend in my class telling me that he hopes his date is a "real" woman, that "you can't tell these days!", and that if he found out his date was trans he would kill her.

i walk up to a friend to say hi- they're deep in conversation with someone else. they're discussing how they don't want to share toilets with dirty trannies, and that they with trannies and furries would be forced to use litter boxes outside bathrooms, so everyone can see what they really are.

i fear what would happen if i slip up, if i make a mistake, if they find out i'm trans.

5. gyno issues. accessing gyno care as a woman is difficult - accessing it as a trans man is somehow even more difficult, regardless of whether you're stealth / passing. this is a long one.

when i came out at 14, it gave me more confidence in taking control of my life. i finally called my GP to discuss the crippling pain i felt when i had tried to use tampons, the fact that it was impossible to insert anything vaginally, the fact that my periods were impossibly heavy and came with cramps that caused me to pass out and vomit every month, and what i know now to have been PMDD - i'd been dealing with this since i was 11. the GP told me he suspected i was overexaggerating and making shit up to get him to prescribe me BC to stop my periods. and that was it. he wouldn't prescribe it.

thankfully, i managed to convince the children's GIC services to write to my GP to recommend he prescribe birth control to stop my periods bc of the dysphoria they caused. the children's clinic didn't want to prescribe me puberty blockers since i was "too old for them to do anything at this point". after some back and forth, i was prescribed it, but i was instructed to stop taking it twice a year to have a period bc ?? idk actually.

when i switched GPs at 17, my new GP refused to continue prescribing me birth control when she saw that it was for preventing periods rather than preventing babies. i talked to 2 different GPs at that surgery, neither believed me when i discussed my gyno issues - both came to the conclusion that i was making shit up to get them to indulge in my transitional care, even though all i wanted was birth control. i eventually lied and claimed that i was having vaginal sex - they decided that they were correct, i was just lying, or embarrassed that i enjoyed sex "like a woman", and finally prescribed it.

at 18 they randomly stopped prescribing it to me for no apparent reason, but i was in the process of starting testosterone privately, and i couldn't bring myself to fight any more. my vaginismus cleared up, which i discovered during the increased libido phase of being on T. my periods completely stopped (thank god), and i no longer had the mood swings and shit.

at 19, after moving to a new town, to my first flat, with a new GP surgery - i started experiencing vaginal atrophy. fine, it's better than all that other crap i was experiencing. and it's easy to treat, right?

nope.

the private clinic i was seeing for my T prescription told me i had to go through my GP for treatment for vaginal atrophy.

my GP didn't believe it was atrophy, and demanded that i get a full internal examination. i complied bc i figured they might find smth wrong that would explain all the previous shit, and maybe justify a hysto.

the nurses at the GP who examined me said it was absolutely vaginal atrophy, and that i should be prescribed topical oestrogen to treat it. then they told me that they won't be able to prescribe it until an NHS gender clinic had approved me to start it.

well fuck. i was 19, i'd been privately taking testosterone for a year, and i'd been on the waiting list for the NHS adult's clinic for 3 years at this point.

so i fought that decision, and was told i needed to be referred to the local hospital's gyno department. they got back to me with "we do not see or treat transgender men, you need to speak to the doctor prescribing your HRT" - i fought that decision, and was seen, after 6 months of back and forth with my GP, private doctors, and the hospital.

i got seen, it was confirmed to be atrophy (again), was recommended E, and my GP said no again, and re-referred me to the hospital gyno for an internal biopsy and internal ultrasound without my consent. i got the letter and went "fuck off" and cancelled the appointment. i'm fairly certain they just wanted to surprise and traumatise me. i did end up having a third gyno appointment where i had a standard, external ultrasound, with a wonderful male gyno who was completely chill with my transition. we both bitched about my GP.

welp, after 4 years of waiting, i got seen by the nottingham gender clinic through the NHS. in my appointment, i bought up atrophy - they wrote a letter asking my GP to prescribe T and topical E. my GP said no.

9 months after i was approved for T through the NHS, my GP relented (lots of complaints and communication from myself and Notts), and prescribed me T.

hang on? where's my treatment for vaginal atrophy?

oh, they completely ignored it! great!

back and forth, back and forth............. it's now been a year since my first appointment, and 3 months since my second appointment at the nhs clinic. still no treatment for vaginal atrophy. they've had multiple letters about it, but don't want to. they "don't know how it would effect a trans man", despite having about 3000 letters with detailed information from NHS gender clinicians, and my own pleas and emails with research articles and best practice treatment.

TLDR - i just realised it's 11.30pm and my partner wants me to spoon him. can't write out more examples, but basically: even when we have male privilege, it comes with terms and conditions and so much fucking stress which negatively impacts mental health.

I DONT KNOW WHO NEEDS TO HEAR THIS BUT TRANS MEN ARE NOT AUTOMATICALLY AFFORDED THE SAME PRIVILEGES AS CIS MEN JUST BECAUSE WE SAY WE'RE MEN AND I INVITE MORE OF YOU TO GET OFF THE FUCKING INTERNET AND TALK TO TRANS PEOPLE OF VARIED IDENTITIES IRL INSTEAD OF COMING UP WITH THEORIES ON HOW YOU THINK WE ACT

[jayjuno]

PMDD - It’s genetic, not mental illness

I often wonder about how to write about my experience with living with PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder). I personally don’t know of any woman who suffers from it- most women with PMDD don’t talk about it anyway. I can’t possibly be the only trans man who suffers from PMDD. However, I haven't heard or read of a trans man admitting to having PMDD. Well... I’m a transman- I have PMDD. That’s one so far. 🙃

While researching PMDD, I found this post on Reddit. 

The post is mostly correct in that PMDD is NOT a form of mental illness. PMDD has been coopted by the pharmaceutical/psychiatric industries so they can profit from prescribing outdated psychiatric drugs for it (shady, no?). However, the post seems to argue that PMDD shouldn’t be a diagnosis at all, which I don’t agree with. PMDD sufferers need recognition in order to get the support and help they need to manage their symptoms, but it’s a diagnosis of messed up genes, NOT a psychiatric one. The Reddit post is 9 years old, so it’s understandable that the information they had was outdated. 

2017- that was when scientists discovered that PMDD was caused by a sex hormone-sensitive gene complex. You can read about the study here: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/sex-hormone-sensitive-gene-complex-linked-premenstrual-mood-disorder#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20found%20dysregulated%20expression%20in,Mental%20Health%2C%20Behavioral%20Endocrinology%20Branch.)

In a nutshell- women with PMDD suffer from a disease caused by messed up genes. It’s not a choice. Women with PMDD do not have a “bad” personality or “bad” behavior. It’s a genetic disease with no cure and limited treatment options. These faulty genes cause the body and brain to overreact to a normal rise of hormones in the days preceding a period (menstrual cycle). A psychologist would help with the emotional part, but psychiatrists and psychiatric drugs are completely inappropriate in the treatment of PMDD. 

It’s genetic, not mental illness. 

It’s interesting that they dyed the Prozac pills pink and renamed them Sarafem in order to market an old psychiatric drug to a non-psychiatric disease that only affects women and transmen. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that most psychiatrists who treat female patients are men? I would that like most men, most male psychiatrists are sexist at best and outright misogynists at worst. 

When I was dealing with PMDD fueled crying spells, depression, and anxiety in high school, some idiots convinced my father that putting me on Prozac would help control my mood swings. Prozac did nothing to help me manage PMDD- all it did was make me nauseous to the point of vomiting. Paxil, another psychiatric drug some moron assured my father would help me, made me even sicker and vomit even more, while also doing nothing to help me manage PMDD. Finally, I tried zoloft for several years- it did nothing to help me manage my PMDD and just made me numb to everything. It’s sad to think of how many women who, like me, have suffered as a result of being misdiagnosed with psychiatric disorders or being written off as a “bad person”. 

All of this is because we live in a man’s world where sexist men control everything- they have the power to gaslight/brainwash women about their own bodies. Trans men aren’t immune- I’ve seen men who identify as Democrat treat trans men the same way they treat women- with absolutely no respect whatsoever. I mean, look at what’s happening with Roe vs Wade. American society is inherently misogynist, and we all suffer for it. Psychiatric drugs come with many horrible side effects. How many women have suffered from side effects of these drugs as a result of being misdiagnosed?

I was prescribed prozac around the time they started promoting it for PMDD. Here is a Washington Post article from 2001 that discusses Prozac being rebranded for women with PMDD- https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/04/29/renamed-prozac-fuels-womens-health-debate/b05311b4-514a-4e65-aaa5-434cb2934271/

Being diagnosed with PMDD has been a mixed blessing for me. It’s depressing to know there isn’t a cure, and that there aren’t really any viable treatments for it. It’s depressing to know that the American psychiatric industry has been gaslighting women for decades, that they’re committing outright fraud by claiming they developed a drug to help PMDD when it’s really just Prozac in girly pink. Isn’t that adorable? They made the pill pink so everyone knows it’s for GIRLS. Haha... If this is not a scam, then I don’t know what is. 

What actual treatment options are there for PMDD, other than a hysterectomy? Well, there’s a drug in Sweden (https://asarinapharma.com/pmdd/sepranolone-and-pmdd/), but it’s still being researched and not available to Americans like me. I’ll just keep trucking along, though, and keep up with the supplements and diet changes that have helped me so far.

It is reassuring to know that I’m not a bad person, though. I just have a bad disease.

[yendyrae]

I’ve been thinking about what I want out of transitioning

Quick tws (all relating from an ftm/ftx standpoint): talking about transitioning, testosterone, body changes, shark week mention, talk of sterilization (me wanting it), gender feels, societal expectations of trans people, top surgery, bottom surgery (specific kinds mentioned), catheter mention

If you’re family and you happen to find this post please don’t read it for your own sake lmao.

Before, I wanted to be on T forever and get a hysterectomy and top surgery. I had so much dysphoria and felt like I needed to change my body completely to ever feel ok. I bound my chest every day and consciously lowered my voice and dressed in a way that maximized my masculine features and minimized my feminine ones, without regard to how the clothes looked style-wise or how they made me feel about myself and my expression. I was iffy about bottom surgery just because the one thing I want from that isn’t really possible with the current options, and having a catheter for any amount of time scares me.

Lately tho? I’m fine with my chest. I’m looking into getting a uterine ablation and tubal removal instead of a hysterectomy. Mostly for the birth control aspects and not having shark week anymore since I have severe pmdd, I currently take continuous birth control on top of everything else to stop my shark week from happening. I’d like to reduce the amount of meds I’m on in general and those procedures would help with that. I’m also thinking about going off of T after a few years??? I’ve been on it for about a year and a half now and I like where my voice is settling but I’d like to see if I can get more body hair/ any facial hair. I haven’t had many other permanent changes on T that I’ve noticed. I’m now considering also getting some form of metoidioplasty with urethral lengthening if I’m eligible, because I still have dysphoria about using the restroom and not being able to pee standing up (I can’t use an stomp because of how my anatomy is, I’ve tried many times with many types and I can’t get any of them to work without making a mess everywhere). The catheter thing still scares me though.

Being on T has let me explore being more feminine in a context I wasn’t able to before. I’ve been working on loving my body, appreciating how it works and feels and looks. I’ve learned to love my curves and the softness of my frame. I’ve learned to smile at myself when I look in the mirror. I’ve been experimenting with makeup and fashion and how that makes me feel. I’ve been taking more selfies that I actually like per week than I did before per year.

I’ve also learned that I’m much more fluid in presentation than I thought I was. Up until now I would typically oscillate between masculine and feminine styles every 2 ish years, while lately I think that still follows (and I’m in a feminine trend rn), but I also have smaller swings inside those larger overall trends. I’ve been able to go from masculine to feminine back and forth as much as I want. And now that my voice is more androgynous, I’m consistently gendered the way I want to be and it’s very validating (side note: passing doesn’t mean you’re more or less valid than if you don’t pass, I’m just explaining how it feels when I do, and how that’s impacted me personally along my journey).

I’ve also learned that while my presentation is very fluid, my gender is not. It’s more flux if anything. I currently identify with nonbinary first and foremost, but I also identify as like. Off brand boy? Close but not quite male? A lil fella? A buddy? A pal? I do not identify with demiboy much, the term just doesn’t vibe with me. But boyflux, autigender, nonbinary, and trans masculine are terms I regularly use. I also like xeno genders, as my experience with gender is very detached and fuzzy, so it sometimes is easier to identify with concepts rather than the traditional genders with roles and rules and all that.

Welp. If you read all that. Thank you. Feel free to add discussion of gender and presentation and transitioning and all that jazz if you want. I like interacting with people and I’m open to making new friends.

Also please let me know if any of the language I used is offensive or outdated or anything!! I try to be caught up with everything but sometimes things slip by me and I want my posts to be as safe as they can be to read considering their content!

[a-woman-apart]

I am Bisexual

I am a black, bisexual ciswoman dating a white, straight cisman, and the fact that he is male and straight are not the reason I am dating him, nor are they a reason NOT to. Pretending though, that his labels don’t factor into who he is as a person would be completely idiotic. 

At the end of the day, though, we are dating because we share similar values, we are compatible in multiple ways, we respect each other, and we love each other and are committed to making this work. It is true, that as a straight man, he wouldn’t be open to dating me if I were a man, but it is also true that if I were a man, certain aspects of my personality would change, due to a complex combination of nature and nurture that scientists still haven’t figured out.  

Also, there are people from both our “communities” (said very loosely) that aren’t down with “The Swirl” which is only something you get to celebrate if you are extremely privileged and quite a bit into eugenics. We each have racist people in our families, and we both get dirty looks on the street when we’re together for different reasons, but hatred is always at the core of the discrimination. 

Loving vs. Virginia was passed in 1967, and it is important to note that The Lovings wanted to be left alone and to live in peace, even though their marriage wasn’t recognized by law and it was a crime, even for white women, to give birth to interracial children. The Lovings only took their case to court when they faced racialized harassment. 

To me, it is absolutely terrible that in roughly 10 years, we went to celebrating “love is love” to now criticizing people for who they choose to date or how they identify. I can’t tell you how many times on this site I’ve seen bisexual women pressured to identify as pansexual to be “less discriminatory” or told in disgusting tones, “Why date men if you can choose to date women?” as if bisexual and/or lesbian were just things you can turn on and off like a light switch. 

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the rise of radical feminism and AFAB-nonbinary/transmasculine culture has coincided with poorer mental health for women in our community and also with a HUGE uptick in misandry and biphobia. Even gay men aren’t above being “canceled” for so-called “transphobic” caricatures of women, even though men have been playing women in the theatre for centuries, and now, women can play men, too. #Progressive  

Honestly, one thing I will say that guys do better than us women (in general, there are always exceptions) is comedy. Yes, men, as a a general rule, are funnier than us. Men are more likely to make fun of themselves, us, and other people, with no mercy, and I honestly think the women/AMAB non-binary in our community-- either the black or the LGBTQ+ one, take your pick-- need to learn to take a fucking joke. It’s not that fucking serious, but the one thing that ISN’T funny is the hideous biphobia, racism, and backbiting I’ve witnessed online and offline this year. 

What makes it even more disgusting, is that while I am including AMABs in my roast, I have actually seen MULTIPLE stories of AMABs being excluded from AFAB offline gatherings (DOCUMENTED ON THIS HERE VERY SITE) in the name of “safety” because they are seen than nothing more than a man in a dress. 

So, here’s where I lose some subscribers...if a so-called “man in a dress” is unwelcome in your circles, do you REALLY think you have room to fucking talk when a huge portion of you you skirt the line between male and female because you can’t accept your own femininity? So really, are you really “non-binary” or are you just a scared little girls who can’t grow up?

Of course, that isn’t ALL of you, but when the country (as pointed out by J.K Rowling) sees a 4400% in female to male transition (a lot of it with very young girls becoming AFAB/non-binary, many of whom are taking testosterone) while male to female transition rates remain UNCHANGED, suddenly this isn’t a “trans” or a “non-binary” problem, this is a FEMALE problem. Trans people, prior to this huge upswing, made up less than 1% of the population, and that included MtF and FtM transition rates. These rates had remained steady FOR YEARS, so from a purely mathematical perspective this uptick is a huge statistic anomaly. 

For years people on the Right have decried the so-called “feminization of boys”, when in reality the “masculinization of girls” is statistically a far more pressing societal issue. 

I didn’t want to get this harsh, but this is concerning as a medical health issue, especially because research from the Scientific American reports that lots of young women who report having gender dysphoria end up not being dysphoric about their gender at all, but uncertain about their sexuality [click link]. If I had a quarter for every time a girl who never felt comfortable with her femininity or identified as asexual or aromantic turned out to “just be gay/bisexual” then I would be pretty fucking rich. 

I felt the same way. I felt like I was “Not Like Other Girls” and even though I never felt like a man, I often didn’t quite feel like a woman. It turns out that bisexuality, especially in women, corresponds with certain personality traits (aggression, assertiveness, high sex drive) that have been “coded male.” Gender bias in medicine is still responsible for why we don’t have more studies on lesbian and bisexual women, or on women IN GENERAL. As someone who is concerned about women’s rights and the safety of young girls and women, I think it is a HUGE DEAL that modern medicine still sometimes operates on the false assertion that women are just men without dicks and added baby-hosting parts. The effects of testosterone have been heavily studied, but there is SO much we don’t know about estrogen, including why different amounts of it don’t factor into PMDD, PMS, and other reproductive issues, as much as certain women’s brains and bodies responding to it DIFFERENTLY for reasons not fully understood. 

To make matters worse, while disparities in treatment based on race are less marked in other areas of medicine, black women still die in childbirth-- especially in the Southern U.S.-- at much higher rates than other demographics. Bisexual and lesbian women are also more likely than straight women to fear childbirth, which can be a huge source of anxiety for us. Even if we choose to undergo it, our anxiety is often downplayed by health care workers. This fear of childbirth can be seen even in bisexual and lesbian women who love children and strongly desire to be mothers. This, as well as the cost of surrogacy/IVF treatments, has been a reason that same-sex female couples often opt for adoption. 

Bisexual women, in particular, are also more likely to suffer mental health conditions and be the victims of male-perpetrated domestic violence than straight women and lesbians are. “Straight-passing” doesn’t really seem to provide a shield from that, I hate to tell you. 

The very concept of calling someone out for “passing” in an attempt to insult them actually reeks of jealousy and amazing privilege. In the case of bisexual people, it assumes that hiding an entire facet of our identity doesn’t matter and doesn’t take an emotional and psychological toll, because we can “choose” an opposite sex partner. This ignores the fact that falling in love isn’t based on choice, and that the moment we pursue a same-sex partner, we still have to “come out” if we want to maintain a healthy, open relationship with them. 

In the case of trans individuals, it assumes that “passing” erasing the fact that you have biological differences (such as typically being unable to parent children) from cis people that might make you undesirable to certain partners. Also, if you are also “stealth” you risk the chance of experiencing discrimination and/or violence if your identity is “discovered.” 

As far as being “white/European passing” this also does not erase the genetic and geographical ties you have to your ethnicity and/or country of origin. It doesn’t change the fact that if people start making racist comments about any of your racial demographics, it still hurts, even if you try to hide it. 

[iamyelling]

@krisiverse replied to your post “i’m mad that they MULTIPLE TIMES recommended...”:

i mean i could be wrong but from personal experience being on hormonal birth control for years, & according to every single doctor i've spoken to on the matter (transition related or otherwise), hbc doesn't have any feminizing effects at all? in fact a lot of transmasc people take it to stop periods myself includes

curious do you have sources of ppl saying this has happened to them on hbc?

wrote this in replies and realized this would be better as a proper reblog so -

i was on an estradiol pill for several years (maybe 4 or 5 or 6?? idk i wasn’t keeping track) and it definitely had feminizing effects on me. bigger tits and more hip. i was on it for the purposes of making my period stop and reducing what i called the “pre period crazies” (pmdd basically i think. idk). i stopped it and immediately began T one day and the next. but it DEFINITELY gave me fat tiddies and made me more “woman shaped” (my term) which i was uncomfortable with.

like, i was still wearing bras back then and i went up a size or two and had to buy at least one new bra. it was a big noticeable difference, my partners noticed it.

like you’re literally increasing your estrogen and/or progesterone .. how is it surprising that it can make someone dysphoric.

but yeah let’s cite random doctors.. famously known for being knowledgeable on hbc and hormones in general ! birth control is so well researched and understood!

just bc trans masculine people take it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have feminizing effects.. like, i took it too… idk what to tell you. it did for me!

also also you can see cis women talk about the effects all the time. reduced muscle tone, generally physically weaker / less strong is one i hear a lot. hello dysphoria inducing! also significantly reduced sex drive. super fun!

i’m just saying that if someone knows they’re trans masculine in some form, and wants their period to stop, they should consider T just as much as E(+ progestin maybe). for transmasculine gender diverse folks specifically. if you're gonna change your hormonal balance in some way, why not the one that is more aligned with your gender instead of further from it? it is wild - and in my opinion unethical - to recommend hbc as if it has no other effects than the possibility of stopping menstruation. plus! it can be HORRIBLE for people with uterus or ovary issues like cysts, fibroids, or endometriosis. which - fun - are often gone undiagnosed. and - extra fun - even more so for people with gender stuff going on.

either option can work for someone. and bc worked for me for many years! but i got tired of it and i wish i had known more and had considered other options sooner. it sucked being in a body that felt like i was making a shitty compromise, and now i'm in this dope body that feels like i'm me again/finally.

i’m mad that they MULTIPLE TIMES recommended hormonal birth control for trans masculine people. buddy my dude. that’s estrogen. that will mage you MORE woman-shaped. ! it made me more dysphoric! wtf!! feels unethical to recommend it multiple times in a supposedly HRT educational video.

this is re that fucking scishow hrt video that came out recently.

(obviously this is among many issues with the video)

[captaindoubled]

This is mainly a black perspective on trans issues so like, if you aren’t black then maybe... don’t:

I was listening to some Grapevine vids on YouTube (haven’t decided if ima keep watching cause some of the panel is eehhh) and they were talking about trans women (without trans women so....) and it related back to Chimamanda’s thing way back when.

So as a black person, I’m confused when people say that trans women can’t be apart of feminism because their experiences don’t line up with cis women because... okay, Im black. Most of the panel was black.

They all came from different perspectives and different life experiences but they are all, black. My experiences growing up as black are different from other black people and I do have the privilege as someone who grew up in an suburb vs in a poorer area and their are always conversations on how folks talked down to hood black folk and that’s something I’ve had to evaluate in myself.

Like, my childhood didn’t involve gang actively in a black neighborhood. But as a black person, I don’t have... well no, I do have the luxury to NOT care about gang activity in a neighborhood I don’t live in but as a black person i should have the compassion to try and fight for better neighborhoods and more opportunities for black people not in my situation to help curb gang violence.

People do that now and fight for black prosperity and growth an education without helping folks in different situations from them because they have the “I moved up pull your pants up blah blah blah, it’s your fault your poor” responsibility politics and so their issues get lost and never change. That’s why folks who are dealing with gang violence have had to piggy back on to school shootings to get their message out in the public sphere. People with privilege have that responsibility.

Or it’s like when black men want black women to separate their woman hood from blackness. They can’t. They can’t and shouldn’t have to. They are black, just because your issues you are fighting for are not the same, it doesn’t mean you can’t work together to help each other. Men have a responsibility to help with their privilege in order to force change for women’s rights.

Cis women dont have the same life experiences as trans women yes (and no) but most cis women don’t have the same life experiences as other cis women?!

Some cis women are born without the the ability to have kids and so cis women you can, they can’t relate to that. But they can have empathy. I have unbelievably bad pmdd and terrible craps and while not cis anymore, I was and I was made fun of for being dramatic by other cis women because theirs weren’t as bad. But we learned that and understand and have empathy.

If your a cis women and can’t relate to a trans women’s life experiences and there for shouldn’t be a part of the movement, so? No one has the same experiences. But you have a commonality as women and there for that’s enough. Same way, I will never understand what it means to be a black islander but we both niggas at the end of the day and the way folks treat us is because we are black. There is a complex relationship of privilege in that relationship of course but we still gotta help each other but recognize, listen, idk what the fuck you are talking about but you have the right to live your life and I will help you get what you need if you help me too.

Like there is an issue with some micro identities yes, that’s a whole different conversation but I’ve never been to jail and I can want better prision reform cause as a black person it can effect me. I have adhd, am weird af, and my blackness looks different from other people’s blackness but we can both ride for each other. My transness looks different from other trans men sometimes but we both gotta look out for each other (considering I’ll probably be femme forever cause that’s just who I am as a person). People get so stuck in “this is my box of oppression and because I was hurt this way, only other people who got hurt this way can be in and everyone else can go away because I’m hurting and I’m pushing it off on everyone else” ignore that yes, you are hurting because of your specific womanhood and need help and change but other people are hurting because of their womanhood and so they need help. When a lot of people come together, shit gets done. Cis women have a privilege to say what is womanhood because the pains of womanhood were forced on them and now are too hurt to fucking be compassionate for folks who are also hurting from gender placed on them. I’m just. Hmm.

[palpablenotion]

I was just blocked by someone, I assume because I referenced my non gender related dysphoria. And on one hand, I’m completely astounded. On the other, it figures.

I get a bad response every time I talk about my dysphoria. I get told it’s a gender related issue. It’s something only trans people experience. (While I’m not cis, I don’t identify as trans and I don’t experience dysphoria surrounding being an agender demigirl, just to stop anyone from saying anything about cis people and co-opting terms).

But it isn’t. It’s a psychological term referencing a symptom/side effect. It means someone experiencing unease or dissatisfaction in life, extreme enough to impact one’s life. It isn’t necessarily continuous, but it can be. It can also come and go.

I get told that what I’m talking about is body dismorphic disorder. I get told that I have it. This is with no more information than me saying, “I experience body dysphoria unrelated to gender.”

I feel like most people don’t understand that body dysmorphic disorder is something with specific criteria from the DSM:

Diagnostic criteria for 300.7 Body Dysmorphic Disorder A. Preoccupation with an imagined defect in appearance. If a slight physical anomaly is present, the person's concern is markedly excessive. B. The preoccupation causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. C. The preoccupation is not better accounted for by another mental disorder (e.g., dissatisfaction with body shape and size in Anorexia Nervosa).

I don’t fit this criteria. You know why? Because I don’t have BDD.

It is transphobic to talk over trans people and tell them what they experience. And, like that, it is ableist to talk over neurodivergent and mentally ill people and tell them what they experience. Dysphoria is a term shared between these two communities, and neither has a right to dictate or limit the use of this term within the other community.

ADHD individuals experience a specific form of dysphoria called rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD, not to be confused with reflex sympathetic dystrophy, which is something else). “RSD is an extreme reaction to real or perceived rejection which often leads to reacting badly to being corrected” (@autism-asks). Basically, perceived rejection can result in dysphoria, often volatile at that, in those with ADHD.

I used that as an example because, ironically, being told I didn’t experience dysphoria caused RSD. I got so angry (not entirely irrationally, I feel) and am still so angry and confused nearly a week later.

Many psychological disorders and neurodivergences have dysphoria as a symptom. Some of those include: major depressive disorder, dysthymia, bipolar disorder, cyclothymia, borderline personality disorder, premenstrual syndrome, prementrual dysphoric disorder (characterized by dysphoria), generalized stress, adjustment disorder, all of the anxiety disorders (post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, etc), dysphoric rumination (again, characterized by said dysphoria), dissociative disorders (dissociative identity disorder, depersonalization disorder, etc), ADHD, mixed anxiety-depressive disorder, personality disorders, substance withdrawal, body dysmorphic disorder (dysphoria is a symptom of this, NOT interchangable with it), akathisia, hypoglycemia, schizophrenia, sexual dysfunction, body integrity identity disorder, insomnia, and chronic pain.

Considering there are literally a dozen of those disorders I currently have, I think it’s safe to say I probably experience dysphoria.

It’s actually really difficult to find anything about physical dysphoria because all links I find are about gender dysphoria. When I speak up about it, I get silenced. I get blocked. I get told I’m not experiencing that. I can only assume that’s why it’s so difficult to find. Other voices also get silenced, because I cannot be the only one that experiences this. I don’t fool myself into thinking I’m so unique.

(Note: this doesn’t mean people shouldn’t talk about gender dysphoria. Of course they should. Gender dysphoria is a serious issue as well. But it being the only form of dysphoria that it is safe to discuss means that those who experience dysphoria unrelated to gender don’t have support or resources. It can be easier to find resources if your form of dysphoria has a specific name, like rsd, pmdd, etc.)

So what is it that I experience? It’s very difficult to describe. Typically I only experience dysphoria during anxiety attacks, sensory overload, or just times of very increased anxiety. During these times, I might experience a sort of ill-fittingness. My body doesn’t fit anymore. Not necessarily that it’s too large or too big, but like it was tailored for someone else. Often enough, it’s centered around my arm only. It feels like when you put on the wrong cut of jeans. They’re on, they fit, but you just want to put your own jeans back on. 

I don’t know why I experience this. I know it’s incredibly distressing when it happens. I know that sometimes it makes me have extreme thoughts such as wishing I could remove the arm I have and replace it with my arm (which I obviously can’t do because it is my arm). I have, in the past, scratched and hit myself trying to feel anything besides this wrongness in my limbs.

I said that I experience this during panic attacks? It is incredibly likely this causes the panic attack. I remember the first time I clearly experienced this. It was during the Criminal Minds season finale, To Hell... I had spilled fruit punch on the arm of the couch and got a washcloth to clean it before it set. I remember scrubbing the fabric and it felt like the bones in my arm were vibrating, like the two textures interacting was sending a shock wave up my arm. I freak out. I began hyperventilating, slapping and scratching my arm (my right arm). I was babbling as my mother and sister tried to figure what is wrong. “It doesn’t fit! It isn’t- I can’t- It doesn’t fit!” I was crying. I wanted it off, I wanted my arm back, I wanted everything to stop.

I don’t remember what happened after very well. I think my mother gave me a xanax. They were almost as freaked out as I was.

It wasn’t just bad sensory input. Bad sensory input might have caused it, but what I was experiencing was dysphoria. I’ve spoken with several people that have degrees in psychology, including my own therapist. I just recently spoke with a mutual who admitted they had never heard of this, it wasn’t any form of dysphoria they knew of. They also said, “but damn if that isn’t exactly the word to describe it.” They attempted to ask around the issue to see if I was experiencing something else - not correcting me, just trying to figure this out - and admitted that I didn’t fit what they had considered (depersonalization disorder) which I had already looked into years ago. I don’t have it.

The only two topics I’ve ever found not about gender dysphoria but still about physical dysphoria were about addiction and the vagus nerve. In fact, when discussing the physical dysphoria associated with the vagus nerve, delirients were still mentioned. If anyone from the medical side of tumblr cares to discuss this, I would like to further look into this. I know I’m not the only that experiences this. I just want to understand this thing.

TL;DR: Dysphoria is something that is experienced by people with literally dozens of mental illnesses, disorders, syndromes, or neurodivergencies. This can include physical dysphoria. This is an experience the neurodivergent and mentally ill community shares with the trans community. It does not inherently have anything to do with gender, but it can. Don’t be transphobic and tell trans people what they experience or what they don’t experience. Don’t be ableist and tell neurodivergent/mentally ill people what they experience or don’t experience. Basically? Trust that someone knows more about what they experience than you do, especially if you don’t know them.

[boba-t-butch]

cw suicide / suicidality / menstruation

okay as a woman-aligned person with debilitating pmdd, at this point i'm pretty much still on testosterone just because it's one of the only ways to stop the hormone menstrual cycle afaik. if other people have other experiences i'd love to hear them, but from the research i've done/ what my doctors have told me, even getting a total hysterectomy won't necessarily stop the hormone cycles that contribute to pmdd. i got a hormonal iud because for some people that helps, but it ended up giving me like 3 months of pmdd instead... i might start reducing my t dosage as my mental health stabilizes, but legit like. on top of how uncomfortable and dysphoria-inducing spotting/bleeding and cramping and all that can feel. i could not handle the way i'd get pretty fuckn suicidal the week before my periods.

in "what my bones know", stephanie foo talks about how intergenerational trauma impacts epigenetic expression, so people with intergenerational trauma and/or cPTSD often have more painful/complicated menstruation. so i'm also someone with super irregular cycles that were hard to track. (also period-tracking is kinda scary now too given limitations and surveillance on reproductive rights). so i'd have these irregular intervals when my mental health would crash. and i wouldn't piece together why it happened until i'd start bleeding. taking T is how i've been able to control that experience.

i have so much love and respect for trans women and its been that work of interrogating and unlearning bioessentialism that has allowed me to feel good about taking T and continuing to claim my womanhood, even though i get dysphoric when people misgender me as a man. and like. it's something i don't love talking about bc i don't want to contribute to misogynistic stereotypes about periods. but it feels important to talk about the reality of how hard staying alive can be, and the options we have around that.

What procedure did you get to stop your periods? Was it an IUD or a full surgical procedure? I want to stop mine, hence why I’m asking.

baby taking brestosterone does that