#the second one would probably make me more dysphoric too which is why its the best option

[cuntftmtf]

Now, the real question is, which will make you more dysphoric:

Being forced to stand in front of the mirror and rub the cream into your own tits, feeling the subtle softness beneath your fingers and feeling the needy warmth between your legs as you do everything to make yourself bigger; or

Having your partner come up behind you and massage the cream into your breasts, whispering in your ear about how big you're going to get, how they're not going to stop until you're the fat-titted cow you were always meant to be, until the idea that anyone would think of you as a man is laughable?

i dont even care about the dysphoria as long as i can have that second one happen to me 🥺 desperately need it

[byronictrash]

so I was thinking about the whole hbo supernatural thing and all I could think was how it would fit in my major spn interpretation which is TRANSFEM SAM WINCHESTER!!!!

• changed her name to samantha for pure praticity

• is a lesbian, so all the romantic part is pretty similar to the canon, monsterfucking and all

• in which dean got a little confused about the distinction of gender ≠ sexuality at first like “wait but why did you become a girl if you like girls?” (he doesn’t know a lot of queer people, give him some time)

• AND SPEAKING OF DEAN! the biggest ally of all times. at first he doesn’t understand lots of stuff that seems obvious to sam (“why are you putting on a suit?” “dean we’re going to a small town, the case will be way harder if everyone is staring at me”), asks indiscrety questions (“can i ask you something?” “it depends” “you wanna chop your dick off?” “NO YOU CANT ASK IT”) but over time he starts to get it more naturally

• despite his numerous hook-ups, dean has never spent so much time in his life in a company of a woman so even the smallest things are extraterrestrial to him (“hey whats that bowl in the microwave?” “depilatory wax” “OH CMON SAMMY I WAS GOING TO HEAT UP MY DINNER THERE”)

• of course, there would be a scene where they met some hunter friend of john who says shit about sam, misgender her etc and dean goes FERAL, fist fighting with the guy and stuff. later sam yells at dean, saying she doesn't need dean to protect her and the argument would escalate to all the times that dean treated her in a condescending way, dean yelling back that dad said it was his job to take care of her and sam yelling even louder that dad would probably dead by now (in this moment all the lamps in their room (and in the street) simply explode, but they ignore. it was probably some short circuit…. right?)

• ok lets talk about john. still the same asshole, still gave a gun to kid who was afraid of the boogeyman, still tried to summon azazel when his son was in comma in 02X01 BUT now he also has a whole series of microaggressions with sam. she’s not stupid, she know the dad she has so doesn’t come out until she’s in stanford, SO john finds out sam is trans in 01X16 when john see sam after two years wearing a skirt and holding a .45 gun. he looks at her up and down and doesn’t say anything however, suddenly stops calling sam sam and starts calling her strictly samuel.

• it got worse after s1 season finale with the whole azazel possessed john > sam had the opportunity of killing azazel/her dad > couldn’t do it > azazel escaped > the winchesters get hit by a truck. when sam questions her father about being worried about the colt while his own son is dying, john explodes with her “you know samuel this is all your fault, once again you couldn’t just man up and pull the fucking trigger, kill the thing, you had to be same old sissy and chicken off, if your brother dies its his blood in your hands”

• aaaaaanyway, lets go back to our girl :D

• her style is kinda a mess. makeup done in a hurry, most of her clothes are mid skirts, hoodies and long dresses but now and then she spends a week wearing baggy jeans and band t-shirts, like dean’s, and no makeup at all. when he asks her “where is the whole angry teen outfit?” sam would simply respond its “because of the praticity, it’s tough to fight with a vampire in a dress lol” dean knows its because sometimes sam’s internalized transphobia ft repression gets loud

• her music taste is mostly grunge, punk and some alt bands she discover in stanford but dean call all of it emo “oh fuck off sammy, i let you drive once and you already put this emo shit” “dean this is literally nirvana, you cant call everything made after the 80’s emo”

• when she came out to bobby his reaction was literally “so now you’re a girl?” “uh… yeah” “gonna change your name or something?” “now is samantha but sam is still fine” “okay, now look this sigil... (and went back to the lore they were searching)”

• sam’s catholicism being more portrained on screen and how the dilemma of being a Christian and queer filled sam with religious guilty

• her paranormal powers also showed up sooner and since the beginning she knew something was wrong. her throat felt sore every time she recited the rituale romanus and holy water made her skin itchy. the older she got, the harder those “symptoms” became and with her denial, desire to be normal combined with religious guilt, it was easier to just convince herself that all this was just god punishing her for living in sin.

• surprisingly, all the demons and angels (and most of the monsters) even being assholes treats sam with the right pronouns

• which make sam and cas fist encounter even more interesting because cas literally turns to dean and go “is this your sister, samantha winchester?” “yeah” “ABOMINATION”’

• samruby second (cause the real first was ruby killing the seven deadly sins and stuff) encounter on the other side was a little more like "why are you following me?” “because youre tall and tall women are sexy as fuck” (then sam’s brain was short circuited for a sec because her height make usually makes her dysphoric)

• between s3-s4, dean still in hell, there would be a scene of one of the first times that sam drank blood to exorcise a demon with her mind. so here they are, demon tied in a chair and trapped in a trap, sam with blood all over her chin and ruby looking at her all heart eyes. Sam tries to do the exorcism but it doesnt work so ruby says sam needs more blood. Sam responds that shes nauseous and if takes any more shes gonna puke (cause you know voluntary vampirism came too natural in canon and that disturbs me) so the demon, who's wearing a cheerleader as a vessel, laughs and says "you know sammy, for real women blood tends to be a natural thing". ruby kills her on the spot.

• speaking of the catholicism (and the blood drinking) again, sam prays every single time before/after drinking demon blood, ruby mocks her for it but she doesnt care. its a weird feeling because even thinking that what shes doing is right, that she needs to get strong to kill lilith, it still feels bad, unholy in some sense.

• of course lucifer tempted her in s5 not only appearing as jess but also saying things like "why samantha, after all, are you willing to sacrifice yourself for a society that treats you like scum, that looks at you like a freak?"

• no need to say that in 05x04 "The End" episode when dean faces lucifer using sam as his vessel, she's wearing an outfit way cooler than that abbey-road-john-lennon-white-suit (to know what i mean search amanda seyfried 2018 met gala look THATS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT!!!!!)

• even after being clean of blood drinking, sam still has some of her paranormal powers. she can't do exorcises with her mind anymore but she can move small objects with telekinesis (she doesn't do it in front of dean cause she knows it would scares the fuck out of him)

i also had a list of some episodes rewritten in this au but this list is already long, guess i'll post later

[blitzturtles]

Title: Tre

Rating: Mature, for implied adult activity (though it isn't detailed.)

Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind

Pairing(s): BruAbba

Summary: “Is… Bucciarati avoiding anyone else?” Giorno asks, quiet. Unsure. By the look on his face, it’s something that’s been bothering him for a few days.

Abbacchio looks up with raised brows, “Don’t think so, why?”

Notes: Please note that Bruno experiences quite a bit of gender dysphoria here. It's reflected in his internal dialogue and could be triggering.

Also, missing doses of T doesn't necessarily guarantee the return of someone's period, but Bruno has a whole lotta bad luck, too much stress, and not enough time.

-

“Is… Bucciarati avoiding anyone else?” Giorno asks, quiet. Unsure. By the look on his face, it’s something that’s been bothering him for a few days.

Abbacchio looks up with raised brows, “Don’t think so, why?”

Giorno frowns. How does he explain that he feels like he’s seeing more glimpses of zippers and Sticky Fingers than the man they belong to? That he feels like every time he turns a corner, Bruno is already leaving? Maybe even fleeing?

“No, no, I think Giogio’s onto something,” Mista cuts in before Giorno can answer.

Abbacchio’s neutral expression shifts to something less sure. His frown reflects Giorno’s, and he seems to lose himself in his thoughts for a moment. He recalls the last several days and tries to replay the interactions in his head.

“I’ll check it out,” he decides, finally. He pushes himself up to his feet and heads out the door before the other two can think up an argument.

“Uh?” Mista looks to Giorno, then the door, and back again.

“I don’t know,” Giorno admits. Something in Abbacchio’s features had only validated his worries.

______ ______

“Bruno,” Abbacchio calls, rapping the back of one hand against their shared bedroom door. He hates to admit it, but the kid is right. Bruno’s been quieter. A bit more aloof, but he isn’t fully avoiding Abbacchio. He knows better than that, which is exactly the problem. The bastard knows just the way to adjust his behavior to avoid suspicion.

The room remains quiet on the other side. No one moves, and the door stays shut. Abbacchio isn’t buying it for a minute.

“Bruno, I’m coming in if you don’t let me in.”

He waits approximately ten more seconds-- no one has ever accused him of being a patient man-- before he digs out his key. The only reason he has it on him at all is because of Bruno’s borderline refusal to use doors. There’s been a time or two where Abbacchio has been locked out because Bruno used his zippers and forgot to flip the lock. It’s not a frequent occurrence, but it’s happened enough to make Abbacchio more diligent about having his copy on his person.

His chest aches with the burning need of oxygen, reminding him to take a breath. He has a vague idea of what might be happening, but he can’t be sure. Can’t know that Bruno isn’t half-dead somewhere beyond the threshold.

One blue eye pops out of a pile of blankets and disappears just as quickly. There’s a quiet groan and possibly a few words, but none of it is audible to Abbacchio.

“Cramps?”

The blankets shift like someone might have whacked them.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Abbacchio says with an undeniably fond tone. He doesn’t take offense to the attempt to shoo him off, but he does feel guilt for not recognizing the signs earlier. To his own credit, it’s been many months, possibly more than a year since last this happened. He’s gotten out of the habit of identifying the warnings. Bruno is a lot like a wounded animal. Unless it’s killing him, he won’t make his pain known (and even that’s up in the air, sometimes. It’s the blood trail that gives him away more often in those cases.)

He bypasses the mass on the bed to slide into the bathroom. He notes the painkillers on the counter and finds some relief in the fact that Bruno at least has those on board. Absently, he brushes his thumb against Bruno’s toothbrush and winces at the dampness of it. That’s one of those things he’s learned from being with Bruno for so long: when his cramps are particularly awful, his stomach crawls its way up his throat. Sometimes more than once, but Bruno being in bed is hopefully a sign that he’s finished with that for now.

With the painkillers taken and his stomach emptied, there’s only one thing that Abbacchio can offer. He crouches down in front of the sink and starts digging through their unholy collection of toiletries and makeup. A not insignificant amount of it is Abbacchio’s, but he finds a crushed box in the back after several frustrating minutes of digging and rearranging.

There’s one left, but it will do. He can bribe the kids to go get him more. Something tells him the reusable is missing in action. Probably tossed after one too many times of someone bleeding on it.

Bruno hasn’t moved since Abbacchio’s break in, and he doesn’t look like he intends to move when Abbacchio makes his way to the bed.

“C’mon. Stretch out for a second,” he holds up the packaging for Bruno to see and gives one of his rare, soft smiles when Bruno unhooks his arms from around himself and uncurls his body.

Abbacchio carefully peels the blankets away to find that Bruno has stolen one of his night shirts and a pair of his shorts.

“Sorry,” Bruno breathes.

The pain in his voice is heartbreaking, and the fact that Bruno thinks Abbacchio gives two shits about a pair of lost shorts (to blood of all things, as if they haven’t both bled on every other thing they’ve ever owned) only makes the ache worse.

“I really can’t emphasize enough how much I don’t care,” Abbacchio says and immediately wishes he had thought his words out, “About the shorts.” He sees the way Bruno tenses for a moment before he relaxes again. He’s on edge. Less sure of himself than he usually is, which means he’s second guessing everything. Even definite truths. And one of those is that Abbacchio would give him anything he asked for without question. A singular set of clothes-- that he knows Bruno will probably replace without his noticing-- mean nothing to him.

“I know,” Bruno admits. His fingers dance at the hem of the shirt. He’s buying time.

Abbacchio doesn’t push him. He waits patiently until Bruno slides the shirt up his belly enough for Abbacchio to place the heating pad. He’s mindful of the dark patch of hair that peeks out from above the shorts. Bruno usually prefers them to be placed higher up anyway, and his belly is relatively hairless.

“There. That’s the last of the peel and sticks, but we can get more,” he reaches to tug the shirt back down but hesitates a moment to press a kiss to Bruno’s hip. He knows that Bruno feels the most dysphoric when he’s bleeding. Sees himself in a way that Abbacchio doesn’t. Being in agony doesn’t exactly help his mental state any.

“I don’t want to be trouble.”

Abbacchio snorts-- if only because the idea of that is so preposterous. “If they knew it was for you, they’d kill each other to get to the store first,” they won’t know. He won’t tell them. They might guess that it’s Bruno that’s out of commission, given his absence, but Bruno isn’t full-time anymore. It’s easy to dismiss his lack of presence as his attention being elsewhere, but Giorno’s made it apparent that he’s noticed. Mista, too.

Bruno might have gotten away with it if he weren’t feeling so poorly. The pain clouds his mind and disrupts the smooth way that he and Sticky Fingers work together. It’s probably why Giorno kept catching glimpses. It’s all Bruno can do to stay upright when the cramps kick in at full swing.

Speaking of, Abbacchio reaches up to gently wipe the tears away from Bruno’s cheeks.

“You can roll back. I’m going to change, but I’m not going anywhere.”

Truthfully, he isn’t changing for his own comfort. Abbacchio has fallen asleep fully dressed more times than he can count, buckle included. He could care less about what he’s wearing, but he knows that Bruno’s nerves are already frayed.

In the time it takes him to switch to his softest night clothes, Bruno has curled back up, facing away from him. Abbacchio takes a moment to shoot off a text before he climbs in behind him. He carefully scoots his body as close to Bruno’s as he can without putting any pressure against him. Bruno uncurls enough to lean a fraction of his weight back into him, and Abbacchio counts that as a win.

Abbacchio reaches up to undo the clips in Bruno’s hair. The braid needs to come out, too, but he doesn’t have the angle he needs to work on it. He settles for petting along Bruno’s arm, a slow drag of his calloused fingers from wrist to shoulder. His nails drag lightly against tanned skin. It’s all about distracting without being overwhelming.

“I missed three,” Bruno says eventually.

“Three? Oh,” well, that explains it. Bruno’s had problems with his cycle coming through in the past. It’s the reason he switched to shots in the first place, and he’s suspected his dose has been too low for a while. The problem is that his own health and wellbeing always comes last. He doesn’t pursue the doctors the way he could; he’s always too busy taking care of everyone else at his own detriment. Sometimes Abbacchio thinks Bruno does it as self-flagellation, but he feels like a hypocrite if he points it out.

The dysphoria creates something of a feedback loop. It’s the one aspect of himself that Bruno struggles with the most. He can typically climb his way out of his cycles of grief. The flashbacks are generally ignored. It’s amazing, Abbacchio thinks, that he ever sleeps at all. There’s enough trauma and stress there to last several people their entire lives. Bruno ignores it all, but he can’t ignore this.

Abbacchio carefully drapes his arm around Bruno and presses his face against the back of his neck. “I love you,” he says, the words pressed against Bruno’s nape.

There’s a wounded sound from Bruno, and he curls up tighter.

Abbacchio moves with him. Careful, but without hesitation. “I love you no matter what, in any way that you’ll have me. I will follow you to the end, and I will give you all that I have.” He can’t refute the words playing in Bruno’s head, but he can make sure he knows that he’s loved. “None of us would have made it without you.”

“That’s not-”

“Shut up,” Abbacchio’s tone is far from harsh, but Bruno does as he’s told, “Fugo might have stayed out of legal trouble, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be dead from pissing off the wrong person. Narancia would have died of an infection. You said it yourself, Narancia was on death’s door when Fugo brought him to you. Mista wouldn’t have survived jail,” another one of Bruno’s assessments that was exactly on point, “Giorno would have probably gotten himself killed trying to take out the boss by himself, and Trish would be dead if you hadn’t killed yourself to save her.” Being revived after doesn’t change the fact that Bruno had died in the first place, “And I would be passed out drunk. Maybe dead.”

Silence settles over them for a long few minutes. Bruno only occasionally tensing and squirming from pain. The over-the-counter stuff barely touches the cramps, but he won’t take anything else. At least the heating pads seem to help some.

“Thank you,” Bruno says eventually.

“Sure,” Abbacchio presses a kiss to soft skin, “I’m always available to grind the truth into that thick skull of your’s.”

Bruno huffs in response, but his hands find Abbacchio’s arm. He curls his fingers around pale skin and finds himself admiring the muscle underneath. Neither of them are particularly built, but Abbacchio has the thicker, wider frame that Bruno had longed for for so many years. It’s odd to remember when they first met, when Abbacchio had a bit more muscle. Bruno’s own body had been a hated thing. Something he used to wish he could shed with curves he could see if he looked for them.

Sometimes he wonders which of their memories are distorted. Abbacchio’s, from the alcohol and the depression and not actually knowing better. Or Bruno’s, from the self-hatred and the dysphoria and the abuse inflicted on him.

He can still remember the first time they managed to lock themselves in the bathroom, all hands and teeth, and Leone-- god help him-- had been surprised.

It had been the first time they made it past making out like teenagers, and Leone had stared up at him from his spot on his knees with big, gold-violet eyes. Confused and at an obvious loss. Bruno can still remember the way his stomach turned as reality kicked in, and he had realized the significant misstep on his part. He had thought, with his waist and the scars on his chest and the width of his shoulders, that it had been obvious. Had thought himself lucky that Leone still wanted him.

”Tell me what to do,” Leone had demanded, all determination and enthusiasm.

Bruno almost laughs at the memory. It’s not funny, really, but he can remember the overwhelming endearment he had felt. Still feels. That’s the thing that Leone can’t accept. Can’t understand about himself: all that he does for Bruno. All the ways he makes Bruno a better man. He can’t imagine doing this on his own. He’ll have to find a way to better show his appreciation when his insides aren’t threatening to tear him apart.

“I love you,” he says, squeezing Leone’s arm.

“I love you, too.”

[doberbutts]

 Okay so this is going to get long and more than a little bit tmi but it’s a post summing up some strides I’ve made regarding my own transgender journey and I wanted a place to talk about it and maybe help some BabyTrans figure themselves out along the way so I’m putting it under the cut but it’ll go here >:V

Anyway long story short my insurance settlement from my car accident finally figured itself out and I found myself suddenly $30k richer and immediately spent about $10k of that digging myself out of a very deep debt hole I’ve been wallowing in for a while so now I have some actual financial stability plus have some money to throw at some things that would probably make my life a bit better.

And since I have the money to throw at some things, I bought myself a few new binders and also a packer. Binders because my old one was literally disintegrating- part of that is my fault, washing binders in an industrial machine on high heat plus throwing it in the dryer means your binder falls apart faster than it should. Remember I’m from the very end of Ye Olden Days of transmasc products, which means previously most binders lasted a year at most. My binder made it 2.5 years before giving up and becoming a sports bra instead. I’ve learned from my mistakes and treat my binder(s) much more gently now, plus I have more than one so I can rotate them out and not wear the same binder 8-12 hours daily for 2.5 years and kill it doing exactly the same shit.

For reference sake, I’m 5′10′’, 180lbs, 36C bust, and fit a XL from gc2b. Which is who I bought both my previous binder and my current set from. They are low cost, lightweight, well made, and LGBT-owned and operated which makes me super into buying from them instead of some of the other companies offering something similar.

Being that I am biracial and finding something my skintone is always somewhat... interesting... I followed the internet’s suggestion and went with PeeCock for the packer. I’d bought a zip binder from them a few years ago and actually found that to be the most comfortable binder I’ve ever used in the history of ever, but I will say the durability of zip binders is low compared to pull-over binders in my experience, as the zipper exploded one day when I bent down to pick up a small dropped item. I’d had the binder and was rotating its use with my pullover gc2b for about 6 months when this happened, and was in public when I went from flat chested to big uncontained tiddies in the span of seconds. Not great. I’ve been told that probably means it was a little too small for me, but PeeCock is a company based in Singapore, and their sizes like most East Asian clothing do run quite a bit small (I was a XXL in PeeCock sizes when I wore a size L gc2b binder) so there’s not really a lot of wiggle room for me to go up in size. Additionally their sizing taps out at XXXL so anyone who’s bigger than me in the chest/torso is a bit out of luck for their binders. A shame, because that zip binder was so comfortable I fell asleep in it forgetting I even had it on more than once.

Anyway. Since I did like that binder even though we had the wardrobe mishap, and the internet had pretty good reviews on the PeeCock packers because they are multifunctional and actually make correct skin tones for black dudes, I got one. Since money wasn’t an issue I did get the most recent model which was not cheap (~$300) and so far I like it a lot. I got so used to wearing it that when I take it off to clean it, it actually really bothers me. The weight of it is... comforting, in a way.

HOWEVER I did see a bunch of reviews about how I would be super likely to pee on myself the first time using it and then used it and went “wow I don’t have any idea what you guys are talking about this is easy” aaaaand... then peed on myself by accident. Gotta control your stream or things are going to overflow and you’re going to be really sad. And wet. And stinky. Thankfully I had the forethought to practice at home before actually doing this at work/public restrooms but be warned. Being that this is my first one I can’t say if this is common with all packers however I told several of my transmasc friends that do pack and use STP about this experience and they all assured me they did the exact same thing on and off for the first couple weeks and most of them do not have the same brand. We’ve yet to have a repeat at least?

Plus there’s a little attachment rod so I can use it for sexy times with the boyf and also feel what I’m doing to him so there’s that too. 10/10 A+ experience would recommend. The packaging warns you to be careful how you pack because of the way the silicone works, and your partner cannot be on top or ride you, so keep that in mind if you’re considering it. Cleaning is pretty straightforward however and packing feels correct and natural as long as you follow a few rules:

I’ve discovered that whatever size you consider a perfect fit? Unless you like really relaxed fit for your pants, you’ll need to go a size up. I wear tighter clothing and usually skinny jeans at that, and my exact perfect size has been 34/32 for some time now. When packing I need to go up to 36/32 because otherwise wow that crotch is way too tight. I can’t sit down in one of my pairs of jeans and I’m legit sad about it. I also can’t have anything in the pockets of a different pair of jeans or else I have the same tight crotch problem. I went up a size in underwear and that was more comfortable, so I ordered new pants from online and I’ll see if that helps as much as I’m expecting it too.

Speaking of underwear, ymmv, but I genuinely did not expect this. Jockstraps? Super comfy, super durable, and super convenient. Additionally unlike boxers or even briefs, I don’t need a special packing-specific design to be comfortable in one. I never wore one before and honestly this doesn’t even feel like wearing underwear. They’re really just a banana hammock anyway so that’s probably a large part of it, but honestly I would definitely recommend trying them if you haven’t yet. I do have a few pairs of packing briefs and boxers, as well as normal briefs and boxers, and I’ve been alternating between the various types of undies to see which ones I prefer, but I already know my decision so I bought several because I can. One word of advice, though... if your pants ride down understand that your entire butt will be out. I don’t wear low rise pants because they draw too much attention to my waistline and make me super dysphoric, but those that do, watch out.

Jockmail is highly rated and multiple transmasc websites recommend them for packing and I can absolutely see why. Usually the waistband of my underwear irritates my skin and so I was dubious because Jockmail stuff- being that it’s for athletic wear- has a minimum waistband of about 2in... but it’s actually more comfortable and less irritating, rather than the other way around. They also have briefs, boxers (more like short shorts), and boxer briefs, which I also have of the same brand, but... not as comfy. Once again Jockmail is a Hong Kong company so like all East Asian clothes, they run small. I’m a M in most men’s clothing sizes... I am XXL in Jockmail. I also had purchased a brief harness from PeeCock (goes by inches for waist) as well. (Also where I discovered you need to go a size up- I bought a 34in waist brief from PeeCock and it’s a tad tight. I bought a 36in waist brief from Jockmail and it’s perfect. I have been buying 34in waist things for the past few years now- I didn’t suddenly gain 2 inches at the waist, I did suddenly gain a need for a deeper crotch)

If you look down your body from above it will be super obvious that there is a dick there and you will go “oh god I look like I have an erection”. I have been reliably informed that it is actually not true and if you pack correctly a bulge will be there but not so obvious that it looks like you have a raging hardon the whole time. Better to look in the mirror, rather than down your tummy.

(Additionally I voiced my doubts to my boyf who immediately reminded me that most people don’t spend their time staring at someone’s crotch and as long as I wasn’t constantly messing with mine, no one was likely to notice even if I did have an obnoxiously obvious bulge. He then gave me some tips on how to let it hang if I wanted a “natural” look, and when we walked around while I had it on he made sure to check in on my mental health. He’s cute y’all.)

Some (cis) guys will have a specific leg they like to let things hang against. Some switch it up. Some are okay with it hanging straight down provided there’s not a lot of squish happening. Find what feel comfortable and needs the least amount of adjustment for you, and then stick with that. For me, I’ve found straight down or off to the left feels better- a friend of mine prefers off to the right, another straight down only, etc. Also can depend on the size- some (cis) guys I know are a bit smaller down below and are more comfortable with straight down than those with larger weiners.

If you pack you probably need to shave. I was very uncomfortable until I shaved. Now I feel much better packing. So trim that jungle or else you might feel a pinch every few minutes when a hair gets pulled.

And there you have me this morning before I got dressed. As you can see, both fit very nicely. I’m not particularly happy with my stomach or feminine hip set but eh, I cover those with layers and no one bats an eye.

At this point it’s figuring out the whole hormones thing, yelling at my insurance to cover certain surgeries, and... fixing some minor details with my wardrobe... and I’m feeling way more confident than I was a few years ago.

Anyway if anyone has questions feel free to hit me up

[pmddnutter]

Running a business with PMDD

I suffer from a condition called Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder or PMDD for short, its sometimes referred to as severe PMS although it is certainly way worse than PMS.  It has only recently (May 2019) been recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a unique condition meaning that PMDD will be considered a separate condition to severe PMS, should see more funding and research and allow doctors across the world to standardise their terms.  Hopefully leading to more diagnoses and better treatment and understanding.

The WHO defines PMDD as:

“a pattern of mood symptoms (depressed mood, irritability), somatic symptoms (lethargy, joint pain, overeating), or cognitive symptoms (concentration difficulties, forgetfulness) that begin several days before the onset of menses, start to improve within a few days after the onset of menses, and then become minimal or absent within approximately 1 week following the onset of menses.”[i]

PMDD is debilitating, it has caused women to commit suicide.  There are no specific treatments for it; for some women hormonal contraception works well, for other antidepressants, and for a handful of women only a full hysterectomy has helped.  Whatever the treatments, PMDD is different for different women – it affects us all differently.

PMDD and Me

For me PMDD is that girl in high school that was a bit two faced, smiles to your face when she needs you but when your back is turned pulled that ‘urgh’ face and rolls her eyes to her ‘real’ mates – you know the one I mean.

She is never the same though, some months she can be quite mild and meek, maybe a bit of insomnia and overeating, sometimes a bit grumpy or irritable – kinda friendly but you know that there is a storm brewing.  Other months she is in full on Bitch Mode!  She makes me believe my husband is having an affair, she makes me eat ALL DAY, she tells me I’m no good, she makes me want to get in my car and drive as far away as possible.

And when you have this whilst running your own one-man band business it’s really bloody hard!  As a small business owner hand making you own products you already question yourself pretty much daily; is my stuff any good, why do people buy it, why aren’t people buying it, shall I just jack it in and go back to ‘real’ work full time?  So, add PMDD into the mix and I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster and I bloody hate rollercoasters!

With PMDD I get these amazing times of euphoria, exciting manic times where my creativity and enthusiasm are in overdrive and OMG these times are awesome.  I come up with some of my best work during this time, my marketing strategies all just seem to work, I love being around people and go out and network loads.

But then I have to crash, and I kinda know I will but I never know how hard.  Sometimes I’ll just have a teary day, one where nothing goes right, I miss stamp literally everything and nothing I post on social media is interesting, so no one comments.  But sometimes this just lasts 1 day and I don’t even realise until my period starts that this day happened.  But other times I crash bad…  I just hate everyone and everything, my customer service goes out of the window as everyone is against me.  Why bother posting on social media as I can’t make it sound nice or enthusiastic.  I spend pretty much all day holding back the tears and my horrible attitude, I just want to stay in bed but I can’t sleep, I eat EVERYTHING in sight and I literally have to force myself to do even the most menial of tasks.

One of the very worst things about these really deep lows is that I don’t recognise myself, I am usually (for the other 2/3 weeks of the month) a really happy and enthusiastic person which is why I sometimes don’t even realise the manic days have happened until the low starts.  The lows that scare me are the ones where I don’t want to be around people, especially when you have a house to run with 2 small children and a husband and a part time job.  The ones where I just can’t seem to snap out of it, I know I’m in deep, I can’t stop myself saying some nasty things and snapping at those closest to me.  The lows where any orders I get don’t matter, they’ll probably just hate it when it arrives anyway so what’s the point making it at all.  Any messages I get I just can’t be arsed to reply as the questions are just so inane and pointless, or they’re just moaning at me for no reason – no your order that you placed 10 mins ago won’t be with you tomorrow as I have to HAND MAKE IT!  I have to stop myself replying with a message saying ‘won’t you just f*ck off already, you’ll get it when I decide you’re worthy enough to make my crappy handmade sh*t that you probably won’t like anyway and you won’t bother to leave me any feedback even if you do’ (that’s a whole other blog for another time!)

So why am I writing this blog now?

It is now December 2019 and I’ve been trying to write this since PMDD awareness month back in April 2019!  At the beginning of the month I had a plan to do some awesome posts about it, create some keyrings, maybe even raise some money.  Then it hits… why would anyone want to buy any of my keyrings, I’d be doing the cause a grave injustice in creating such shit products.  Believe me, the irony of this is not lost!  The irony of the negative thoughts is never lost once I come out the other side, and it’s this irony that delays me getting the help I need.  A few days passes and you convince yourself that it wasn’t so bad, it was just you feeling a bit blue for a day.  You get on with life, looking after the kids, bury yourself in work; the high is well and truly convincing you that you are absolutely fine and that next month won’t be so bad.  But then you notice the date, it’s a few days before you are due to ovulate and here we go again…

I went to my GP in May 2019 as the symptoms were not getting any better and asked to have the hormonal coil fitted again as it had helped me so much before I had my second baby.  It was fitted in June this year and I waited the 3 months to see if it would help, it unfortunately didn’t and in October I had one of my worst lows to date.  It was horrendous and I booked a GP appointment at 2am after being awake for nearly 48hrs, having eaten god knows how much food, drunk far too much wine and cried at every little thing I watched.  I saw my GP a couple of weeks later, obviously I was feeling much better but I am determined to get this thing sorted and she was amazing and we went through the options and I decided on trying oestrogen for the 2 weeks prior to my cycle.  I had to giggle to myself when reading the instructions; firstly because I have to rub 1 squirt of this gel into my thigh at the same time every day, and secondly because this is effectively HRT given to older ladies at the time of the change LOL!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this is working for me, I’m 4 days before I am normally due on and the symptoms are back.  Definitely not as severe as the October crash but the feelings of annoyance, self-doubt and pointlessness of it all are here, my next step is perhaps anti-depressants, so I’ll book an appointment with the GP and see what the next steps are.

My battle with PMDD and keeping sane for my business continues, even as I write this I am questioning all my plans for 2020. I have/had some great ideas but that little well of anxiety is brewing up again and I’m thinking it’ll just be better/easier to scrap it all. I won’t though, I’ll step away from social media, take some time out for me (although with this comes the Mum Guilt fun) and give myself a good talking to that this will pass and next week I’ll be buzzing and posting non-stop and bugging everyone again! Until next month…

Thanks for reading,

Emma xx

For more information and guidance for PMDD please check out the MIND website here or IAPMD here, or feel free to drop me a message.

You can also download an app to track your symptoms here.

[i] https://iapmd.org/position-statements-1/2019/6/11/world-health-organization-adds-premenstrual-dysphoric-disorder-pmdd-into-the-icd-11

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Ok so.. I feel really ungrateful as fuck saying this.. but it kinda bugs me how much perrin being nonbinary just.. isn’t really shown at all.

At least, in what i’ve seen so far, yknow? I watched the first ep of someone else’s let’s play to see if i was gonna like this game, and i like this game SO MUCH that I stopped right there and am downloading it at the speed of light yo!!! My hype is maximum and I really don’t want this to be seen as a hate message or anything, it's just a mild opinion piece about something that bummed me out a little, as a nonbinary person.

Ok so.. again, this makes me sound like an ASSHOLE but I have to say it.. Perrin looks like a boy. 100% of all LPers I have seen have assumed they were a boy. I, a nonbinary person, assumed they were a boy. (And felt like absolute shit afterwards, man I still have to work on my internalized gender stereotypes!)

Now in real life I absolutely wouldn’t go around being some douchebag who tells other NB folk they aren’t dressing ‘right’, or whatever. In real life people can feel very different ways about being outside of conventional gender norms. Some people feel like “both at once” or “neither” or “something else entirely that doesn’t touch either side of our society’s current binary stereotypes”. And regardless of whether you’re agender/bigender/genderfluid or any other type of genderqueer person, your fashion sense doesn’t have to fit any strict rule to “prove” it to people. Some people try and dress in androgenous stuff, some people try to mix parts of both gendered fashion worlds, some people like to wear very neutral baggy stuff as a different way of being androgenous, some people like to wear wild and fun stuff that never had any gender stereotype in the first place/because it helps them feel confident in themself if they have a big brave kind of fashion, yknow? (that’s why I dyed my hair at least, and why I think a lot of lGBT people do) And of course, some people just prefer ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ clothes regardless of not being that gender, and if we can accept that cis women can enjoy ‘tomboy’ fashion then we should accept that trans people don’t have to fit into even more rigid fashion rules in order to ‘earn’ their gender.

BUT this isn’t real life, it’s a videogame

We have a lot more context here, with the context that this is a character designed within a fandom whose previous attempts at NB representation have kinda started setting up a trend. In that context, this is a bit worrying that it’s happened again, and maybe future fangame creators are feeling like they have to do it, or something?

Like the NB protagonist Pluto in Pokemon Uranium.

They’re still someone I deeply love, but their design looks incredibly masculine aside from a side ponytail. If anything their design communicates more that they’re a younger option compared to the other two, or something?

And the two NB protagonist options Ari and Decibel in Pokemon Reborn

Their designs look like more traditionally masculine and feminine-leaning ways of being nonbinary, ykno? And that wouldn’t be bad on it’s own, but let me try and explain what I mean...

A similar issue occurs in the unrelated dating sim Hustle Cat:

Which is generally incredibly progressive and actually the first dating sim I’ve ever seen that lets you play a nonbinary protag! But you still get only two character models to choose from.

Like it’s great that they had two options to aknowledge how not all trans people are the same, but it starts to look a bit.. odd, when those two options are ‘feminine and masculine’ and no form of androgenous is ever an option. or even like.. someone with a ‘masculine’ body build but a ‘feminine’ fashion sense. That would be kind of a stereotypical way to depict a trans character but it wouldn’t just be making a random design that could fit amoungst the already existing gendered protags and then just saying they’re trans. And a lot of people found it weird how these ones seem to be drawn as like.. both on the far masculine end, just a cis man and a trans man.

Like.. even as a nonbinary person myself, I wouldn’t have known these characters were nonbinary if you hadn’t told me. And that leaves me feeling horrible about myself that I judged them on first sight, but I mean this is within a genre of entertainment that’s literally never had any Me in it and i’ve got used to being all ‘no you’re just reading too much into it’ whenever i headcanon anyone as genderqueer...

And just.. I feel like if you’re gonna just draw another two masculine and feminine looking characters, or just a second masculine one (or a weird two masculine ones that’re labelled male and female with no option for in-between...) then couldn’t you have saved time by just letting us choose our pronouns for the two you already had? like I already play a lot of games headcanoning the protag as just a masc-fashion version of my enby self, I feel like kinda the point of adding a third design would be to make it something the others aren’t already delivering. Look at it this way, you already HAVE two nonbinary characters who look masculine and feminine, just like the player could also play them as a trans boy and trans girl. Pronoun selector box is the greatest invention of our time! So what I’m really saying is not “don’t have super masc NB protags” but just “can we have another option too?”

Oh, but then that’s also been done not-so-well by certain games too.. Awesome amazing multiplayer party game dating sim Monster Prom let’s you choose your pronouns!

...except these are your only character options! All of these are very clearly intended to be read as masc or femme, you’re probably gonna feel dysphoric as heck if you play them as trans, and none of them work super well as nonbinary either. I think pretty much every NB player has always gone for Oz (yellow one), cos he’s the one that’s most capable of fitting that headcanon just by virtue of being perpetually shadowed. Tho still his default is “he” pronouns, his fashion sense is masc and his voice is masc. Still I’m really fuckin proud of the fandom for collectively latching onto NB Oz and using “they” all the time in fanworks, and then the developers being okay with it, like holy shit man you healed my goddamn heart... <3

Still, it makes me feel a lil like this would have been easy to fix? like I’m not saying redraw everything to have them all change bodies/fashion style depending on your pronoun choice, but like.. maybe just not draw them with such super disparate body styles in the first place? like in this style every girl is hourglass and has weird legs out arms out pose, and every dude is a chunkfest with twice as big hands and feet. Like you could have maybe just made two of the characters be a very curvy girl and a very buff boy, and then the other two be more neutral in appearance but still retaining the same designs. Like I think if you just gave the blue girl a baggier shirt that doesn’t highlight her boobs and hips so much, she could easily be my favourite ‘most NB-able’ design! maybe also tone down the eyelash and lipstick effects?

I think probably a similar thing could have been done with the Reborn protagonists? like there’s nothing inherantly feminine about wearing a tanktop and having a fancy undercut hairstyle and such, its just the way they drew Ari that makes them look feminine. I guess maybe that’s a necessary evil of fangames, since they usually use edits of already existing characters from the games? Then again the games have plenty of androgenous characters already, even if nobody is canonically confirmed as LGBT. *shrug*

Anyway

I absolutely am not trying to nitpick and attack the game for not being perfect in this one aspect. i’m still super excited to even see someone like me in a videogame at all, and I’m definately not one of those people who’s like ‘I’d rather have nothing than have something flawed’. I already admire you greatly for what you’ve done for the inclusivity of this fandom, and I hope that my discussion of this stuff doesn’t discourage you from continuing.

And I guess my point is, in summary

What I mean is not “there are no nonbinary people who prefer to dress masculine instead of androgenous”, but instead that when you’re designing a nonbinary person as the only option a nonbinary player gets or the only nonbinary person in the game, with no playable option, it would probably be a little better to draw them androgenous.

Like, you’ve put that NB character into the role of representing all nonbinary people ever, to the hypothetical audience of people who’ve never heard of the concept before and aren’t super educated about the intricacies of gender presentation. And then also rather than using traditionally gendered outfits to aknowledge that NB people have many ways to present themselves... you’ve given us less ways to present ourselves.

Also it’s a little bit odd that you have an NB rival but said “we’re not ever considering an NB player option in the future”. Sorry but I cannot understand the logic? Like.. you know NB people play your game if you wanted to put NB representation in it, but you didn’t put it as playable because... reasons?? I hope maybe that interview was just taken out of context and you meant something more like “it’s not planned for now because it’s a lot of work and the game is still in its demo stage”, which is absolutely an understandable reason and how Uranium and Reborn did it. But Uranium and Reborn were kinda odd for being a world where literally nobody else aside from you could ever be NB, so I am really grateful that your game did add an NB character. And one in a big role!! This is what i mean about how grateful I am and how I feel awful that my bad internet typing skills are making this post come off as more aggressive than intended.. *sigh*

OH and also maybe a tip for Periin? just.. like.. mention their pronouns. It’s really frustrating to watch everyone doing let’s plays of this thing and constantly assuming Perrin is male because their design is very masculine. Even me! Even me was assume! :( So like... maybe just have Perrin actually tell the audience that they are nonbinary at some point, during this introduction? or have the protagonist’s inner monologue mention it, or another character mention it on the way towards meeting Perrin? like I dunno, maybe a Perrin fan npc?cos it would seem a bit more natural to talk about gender if it’s someone saying “wow I admire Perrin’s androgenous fashion sense” rather than like.. a stranger saying “i can’t tell if you’re a boy or a girl from your face”.

I can understand how it can be tricky to figure out how to introduce a LGBT character’s LGBT-ness without having them go around saying it to every new person they meet, it’s something I’ve had to fix in the editing process even as a trans person writing trans characters. But just having their gender only be mentioned on missable promotional material outside the game means that a lot of players won’t ever hear about it, and it like.. has zero impact of actual inclusivity on the game. It’s why people were angry about DUmbledore only getting revealed as gay after the series already ended. Him being gay missed all of its chances to make gay readers of the series feel welcome, or have any part of his character be informed by his sexuality. like the plot between him and grindlewold could have been way more effective if it was him losing a boyfriend to the dark arts, just sayin...

anyway whatever, bunni is bad at writing coherant posts in summary thanks for perrin and sorry for whining about perrin, aaaaa

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it's 1:30am. I'm tired I guess but not tired enough to really sleep. I meant to go eat something a couple hours ago but I haven't felt like it since my dad crumpled up my dinner and threw it off the porch because he was mad at me. I'm really lonely I guess but I also hate everyone right now so I don't know what that means or what to do. I was trying to get over a dislike of someone but then today i got back a peer review by them and all of the comments were the things I hate about myself. I don't feel like living anymore and I don't think there's anything anyone can do about it. I miss Sam. I hope he's doing okay in the hospital or w/e. I wish I could be with him. It'd probably be good for me. Today I was talking to Emily and everyone else in class heard me but her bc she never listens to me and she was probably texting Rachel. I don't know why I'm not good enough for these people?? They're not good enough for me so why the hell am I not good enough for them? I'm so tired and sad. I doubt my depression is a chemical imbalance anymore. I think my life just sucks ass. Which makes me feel ungrateful bc I'm not dying of typhoid fever or malaria or w/e. The comments he put weren't even like bad things you just don't understand what I was thinking you don't fucking know what it's like to be me. I have so many thoughts all the time and you may not have had an original thought in your life. He still gets into better colleges than me. People like him. He's not fucking depressed or dysphoric or a coward. He didn't drop out of ap physics. I should have taken a shower. I don't even know what I did today. I have no clue. I really should go to the hospital but I'm so scared of missing school and not graduating because I know I'm not going to kill myself because I'm scared which will make things worse. I have flashbacks to unsettling surreal dreams all the time now. It knocks me off my feet for a moment but I'm good at not letting it show so no one knows. I don't want to dream anymore. Some of them are cool but mostly they're bad. I downloaded a dream journal app but I've only made one entry because my dreams are so weird and multiplanar that I can't write them or even really describe them. I should have therapy twice a week at least but I feel bad because they're paying so much money. The only way for me to get real honest to God attention for my illness is to make an attempt on my life. I'd love to personally but I hate pain. I have enough of it as it is. I'm so guilty what the fuck. I don't have anything to be guilty about but I am anyway so I'm angry All the Time. No one cares enough to tell me it's not my fault and even if they did would I believe them? I don't even know what It is at this point but it's my fault. That doesn't even make sense why do I feel like this???! because I'm not going to kill myself I feel like I shouldn't be hospitalized and I'm guilty about faking being as bad as Sam or something like that. All my dad ever does is tell me I'm hurting him even though he's hurt me for years. Whenever he asks me what he's done wrong I forget everything like when someone asks you your favorite book and you suddenly forget everything you've ever read. That makes me feel guilty because I can't find anything bad that he's done and so I internalize his words and I have a little voice now that's his voice that screams Your Fault! every second of the day. I want it to stop. I want them to stop yelling at me. When I say this it sounds like I'm some kid who thinks being psychotic is cool and is like "yeah I hear voices" and that makes me feel guilty. idk tho bc I don't like think they're hidden spirits or anything i know they're coming from somewhere inside me but I didn't choose them so? I just want to fucking know what it feels like to be supported. No one person knows both the depth of my mental illness and the lengths of my identity. I allot different tidbits to different friends so that I never have anyone know me fully. I feel so guilty about being trans. Like I'm crazy or losing my mind or that it's just another mental illness I have. But I know it would be worse if I told people because they would think it's a mental illness. My mom would say "gender confused" and I would cry because that's how I felt my whole life until I realized I was this way. My dad would never look at me the same again and pray for me to go back and still tell me he loves me more than all the stars in the sky. And that would really fuck me up because for years all I've been shown is hate in the name of love and it's fundamentally broken me as a functioning human being. I can't stand physical contact because I'm so nervous. I'm so scared I'm going to mess it up and they're going to hate me. The other day my dad moved really quickly and I went into shock because I thought he was going to hit me. He continued like nothing happened but I thought I was going to cry. I was just in the car on the way to church. I rip whole tufts of my hair out now. We're almost at the two year anniversary of me asking to get my hair cut. It took a lot of courage to ask which shows that i really wanted it. I was shut down so quickly and with such contempt I've been scared to share anything about myself ever since. If he wouldn't let me style the dead protein strands on my head the way I want, no way was he going to be accepting of anything in my life besides what he wanted. I hate myself so fully now it's incredible. I used to be the most confident kid in class and now I just radiate self loathing underneath my suave exterior. And by suave like, doesn't have it together but is cool with that. I don't know. I guess I just wish people could see all this about me, but also I don't because I'm already so vulnerable this would make me ashamed and easily exploitable. Shame and guilt are things I should not be feeling and I know it. I'm so angry that the people in my life have driven me to this kind of state. But nevertheless I can't get past it. I'm just a scared kid. In fact, while many are fantasizing about getting old or married or what have you I'm fantasizing about getting to relive my childhood as my "new" or "preferred" or whatever the fuck You want to call it gender. I dream of being adopted by two nice men who love each other and teach me how to love. They are always supportive of me no matter what and comfort me when I need it. What's really fucked up is sometimes this is the only thing that gets me through the day. It's exactly like mr robot. Elliot creates a mental image of his dead father to comfort him because his body cannot handle the loneliness. It's 2am now. I guess I've vented a lot. I can't seem to make myself do anything. I'm in a rut. And I felt good on Sunday. That makes me feel like a fake too. Like I'm just being dramatic about school but I'm fine all other times. Which still isn't true but these things haunt me. No matter how many times I hear "you're valid uwu" I'm still going to hate myself and I'm still going to question. Crazy thing is I'll probably still go to school tomorrow. I'll sit in band class and stare blankly at the other wall dreaming about what my haircut might look like, or things that I'll wear when I look more like a boy. I'll smile at people around me and make sassy comments. I'll pay attention to all the crazy things nick says and think about playing trombone. Alyssa will laugh at something I say. I'll try to make eye contact with Emily when something happens even though I'm mad at her and she hates me. She won't notice and I'll feel stupid and unloved. Mr flood might give me a compliment if I do something well and it'll be the highlight of my day. He'll make a funny joke or say something odd and Alyssa will laugh again and I'll smile fondly. My heart is filled with such love it's absolutely horrible that anything like this has been allowed to happen. On the underneath of the rotting cool girl is a little boy who just wants to be held. Sometimes I call mr flood dad when he's out of earshot. I do that for mr Higdon occasionally too. They smile at me so bright and tell me I'm wonderful and delightful and compliment me on silly things that somehow make my day better even though I don't really care about them. I have dreams where I'm maybe three feet tall with fluffy blonde hair and I'm sort of hunched over trying to be small and unnoticeable and I'm crying and the tears are running down my face but I'm only sniffling, because I taught myself not to cry loudly a long time ago. I rub my eyes with my little child's hands and look up hesitantly to where I see a man standing, bending over slightly to talk to me. he looks sad but understanding and opens up his arms. I'm not sure if I'll go but then I think about being held above the ground away from my problems and I just run straight for them. As I land, I am lifted it up into a string, warm embrace. I feel safe for the first time I can remember. My arm is around his neck and one clings to his back. I bury my face between his shoulder and neck into the soft fabric there. And then I cry. I cry for a long time as the man plants gentle kisses in my hair and whispers soft unintelligible things. He rubs my back carefully and I feel myself relax. There is no tension in my childlike body. Bliss. My wildest dream is to have a loving father like that. Which makes me slightly sick. I understand Harry Potter visiting the mirror of erised so often now. Those desires are truly powerful, and those who already have strong relationships may avoid its allure easier. It's almost 2:30 I think my dad came home but that doesn't sound right. I never know when he's leaving. I'm scared just sitting here. I'm afraid he'll come in I'm afraid of the rodents in the ceiling falling on me and I'm afraid of the endlessness represented by the passing train. This whole existence feels like a cycle I can't break. Every day is blurred together. Every moment. I don't even know now if I've already written this. I do know I hate the noises of the nighttime. It is a time when we are more keenly aware of our aloneness and of all the tiny noises that lurk behind every day bustle. Humans have long been fascinated by the night. It stands as a place of unknowing, where danger can lurk easily. It used to be my greatest fear. Not the night it's self I told my mother, but the robbers in the dark. I'm so much more paranoid now, and I'm told it may be a side effect of the depression manifesting in a sort of pseudo-psychosis. Good to know not even my psychosis is real. Which makes me feel like I'm faking it. Seriously I'm about to go out of mind these squirrels sound like they're going to pounce on me at any second and while I'd like to die; not like that.

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Okay, kinda TMI talk here about period problems and Bunni Being Worried And Dysphoric, blablabla I’m just having a huge stupid panic moment right now cos I read some internet medical articles and LIKE USUAL I’m being all ‘oh god i probably have the worst case scenario disease on the list, I’m gonna fuckin die’ even though I literally have never been right about that even ONCE when I’ve done it. Still, it sucks having a stupid anxiety disorder cos you can just feel your body throwing you into panic attack mode even as you are rationally saying to yourself that this worrying thing has a 0% chance of happening. Its impossible to just choose to not be afraid of something... *sigh*... SO YEAH ANYWAY UMM Don’t want to worry anyone, I’m totally gonna be fine and I’m just being irrational mess about something that’s probably gonna be a super easy solution once I see the doctor. I’ll just book an appointment tomorrow or later this week, no biggie. And I’ll write all this stuff down so I can avoid freaking out and crying over how embarassing Vagina Health is when you’re trying to ask your cis male doctor about it and you’re a trans person who just wants to stab themself whenever they think about this goddamn Wrong Organ. like seriously, the biggest comfort I am using right now to come down from this panic attack is ‘hey, if it IS a big horrible cancer tumour, then at least it means they cant stop me from getting a hysterectomy now!’ :P so umm anyway that was probably too TMI already but I’ll put the more TMI stuff under the cut

OKAY! SO! I’ve suffered from REALLY HORRIBLY BAD periods for like.. ever They usually had an issue of being way too short but also WAY TOO POWERFUL. I’d have just a one day absolute burning pain blast where I would literally be unable to walk. LITERALLY BE UNABLE TO WALK! Like, I COULD NOT STAND that my dad was just telling me ‘;you’re lying, you’re exaggerating, its just cramps’ when the pain WASNT EVEN THE GODDAMN CRAMPS. I got fucking stabbing pain in my lower back for no damn reason, was inexplicably constipated and throwing up, got a huge hot-and-cold-flushes fever, complete muscle weakness in my legs which made them fucking shut down, and like.. LABOR SYMPTOMS. Its this weird horrible downward pressure pain in my pelvis and I was just a goddamn kid so i was like.. ‘i cant even tell if this is part of the constipation’, i would be spending five hours on the toilet desperately trying to shit out a shit that didn’t exist, as my body spasmed itself to death forcibly ejecting out way more blood than I ever thought I even had. I It took me so long to find out that that wasnt normal for a period?? That this didnt happen to everyone???? And cos its SO GROSS AND EMBARASSING to talk about these particular symptoms, I didnt tell anyone. Even when i finally was able to get some pain medication from the doctor, I just mentioned the abnormal amount of bleeding and pain, not the weird ‘wtf my bowels just stopped working as if my ovaries are constantly punching them for 24 hours’ part. Seriously just fuckin.. so degrading and disgusting.

And i was a fuckin 13 year old kid, this just abruptly started in my second year of having a period, and my dad was a sick fucker who ‘didnt believe in doctors’ and didnt believe i was telling the truth about my symptoms. So I had to live FROM 13 TO 17 without EVEN KNOWING THAT ASPIRIN AND IBUPROFEN EXISTED! i was going through all of this without even the basic pain medication most people have for normal periods! Once monthly I would BEG GOD TO LET ME DIE Seriously i would spend THE WHOLE 24 HOURS screaming in horrible pain on the floor that gradually got worse until I finally couldnt move my legs and passed out from exhaustion. And all i could do was hope that I’d get weaker each month and pass out faster, cos seriously being able to sleep through it was THE BIGGEST BLESSING EVER like DEAR GOD like ONCE I was able to get to sleep during the point where it was milder pain and then when I woke up it was already over and AAAAAAHHHHH I got to go a full two months without feeling that death madness again and seriously fuckin.. how the fuck could my dad look at this small child screaming and vomiting and sweating like I was in the sahara and gushing blood from every oriface cos i fuckin VOMITED SO HARD I VOMITED BLOOD and somehow still think I was just ‘making it up’

god one of my worst memories was how I had this huge horrible period death attack in the middle of school and my poor teacher was trying to comfort me and trying to call my dad to pick me up, and he just Did Not Give A Shit so the teacher tried to drive me home himself and just.. god I was so happy even as I was dying just cos I got to meet ONE PERSON who had sympathy for me and even actually said ‘hey you should see a doctor’. And all i gave him in return was throwing up in a trash bin for an hour in the back of his car, and then he had to meet my awful father and have a door slammed in his face. And then as soon as he got me inside the house dad just hit me and screamed at me for ‘embarassing him’ and ‘ditching school’ and man the only good side effect of being Fucking Dead On The Floor Already is that I did not feel a thing of it and barely even managed to hear a word he said. I think he just gave up cos seriously i wasnt even fuckin moving, i guess the fun goes out of beating your kid when they’re too fuckin stoned on their own vomit fumes to even be able to cry anymore. Oh and my other Even More Worse memory was when I missed the chance to see Howl’s Moving Castle cos of this shit. I saw like the first twenty minutes of it before my period hit while I was in the middle of the theater and then i had to spend three hours crying and puking and bleeding and laying on the floor in a pool of my own vomit in a cinema bathroom while my dad screamed at me as if i was purposely faking just to embarass him. Like seriously dude?? BASIC LOGIC, PLEASE! he was CONSTANTLY accusing me of doing really horrible manipulative things all the time, as some sort of twisted excuse to hit me and pretend i was an evil fucker causing every problem in his life so he didnt have to feel guilty about doing it. And it NEVER MADE ANY GODDAMN SENSE! Even if i WAS an evil monster, what would that evil monster’s MOTIVE be? Why would i constantly do these evil things that serve no purpose except to get myself half killed by my dad? Why would I ruin a cinema trip that I asked to go to, to see a movie I waited all year to see??? And the most vivid disgusting part of it all was when he walked in and saw me like that and I LITERALLY ASKED TO DIE, and he LITERALLY LAUGHED. I begged him to call a doctor, he laughed and said I was exaggerating. I begged him to call an AMBULANCE, he laughed harder. I told him to his face that I wanted to kill myself just to make the pain stop, and he acted as if it was the funniest thing he ever heard, turned around and left and watched another movie. The poor cinema staff were left taking care of me while he ignored me, he wouldnt even take me home, he was just like... waiting til he finally got bored enough to do it. His biggest concern was ‘eww you made me walk into the girls’s bathroom’... I’m never gonna be able to stop remembering that, I’m never gonna be able to deny how absolutely certain I was that I’d rather end my life right there than live this nightmare for another month and another month for like fuckin 30 or 50 years. God I wanted to kill myself A LOT when i was with my dad, but this one was the worst cos for all I knew I’d be stuck with this pain forever even if I managed to escape him. I was so fucking ignorant! I didnt even know there was easy to acquire pain medication you could buy in any supermarket across the world! I mean, I still have the problem of my period being more severe than expected and all, but the meds at least made it NON SUICIDAL LEVELS OF PAIN. And god I once wanted to kill myself as a young child because I didnt know those existed. And I didnt know that transgender people existed or that there were words to put to my other feelings of disgust about having a period. I may still be depressed in a lot of ways, but I’m living a way better life now!

So umm yeah anyway my current worry today is because my period hasn’t ended for like 2 or 3 months now. I can’t even pinpoint the exact time it happened, cos it started with just light spotting and my period coming a few days late every month for like a year? and then it would last longer, and sometimes I’d get a small bit of bleeding suddenly starting up five days later and ending within a few hours. I sorta didnt think much of any of these symptoms and i cant nail down exactly when it just increased so much that it became this noticeably constant. And its REALLY weird for me, cos also all this stuff came along with my period not hurting as much?? And now for the last month i haven’t felt any pain at all, so I cant even tell which part of all this bleeding was the actual period. And I’m bleeding way less than usual, its just... constant. Its not even enough to be a big problem so I didnt wanna tell anyone and be a bother, its not like I’m losing blood enough to get light headed, its just annoying having so many pairs of underwear ruined and feeling more dysphoric 24/7. And it makes me pretty anxious cos I didnt know what was causing this and whether it was a symptom of some bigger problem- like, it doesnt hurt but maybe its a sign i have fuckin death doom cancer or something and its suddenly gonna start hurting any second now???

So yeah, today I finally stopped being anxious and decided I’m gonna call a doctor next week, and did some internet research to see if this is serious enough to really call the doctor. And cos I’m dumb I panicked thinking of the worst case scenario, but also doing that research kinda cheered me up cos now at least I know an explanation for why the symptoms seemingly got worse on random days, and like.. this isnt an impossible thing. Cos seriously, yeah, raised in a household with No Doctors Ever. i dont know very much about medical health, when this first started happening i freaked out cos i had NEVER HEARD of bleeding outside the regular monthly cycle and from all I knew it was PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE and I’m PROBABLY DYING xD But no, apparantly spotting and mistimed periods and going one or two weeks of constant bleeding are all completely natural variances that just happen, and you dont even need to call a doctor for that. I just need to call a doctor cos its been happening a bit more often than that, they say up to a month is a normal amount. And apparantly the vast, VAST majority of conditions that cause constant period are not remotely life threatening, the worst possible scenario is becoming infertile or just.. having to continue experiencing mildly annoying bleeding a lot. Apparantly a lot of people choose to not have an operation cos they don’t wanna lose the ability to have children, but fuck I’ve been hoping to lose that thing FOREVER, jesus christ! damn docs won’t let you have a hysterectomy ‘without reason’, like seriously why is ‘i dont want to have children’ not a reason?? and why is ‘i have never had sex and never will have sex’ not a reason and also why is ‘i’m nonbinary transgender and would like this surgery even though i don’t want genital surgery’ not an option seriously MAN PLEASE can I at least go on hormones doc. seriously everyone is being all ‘well treating your ptsd and depression is a bigger priority right now’ and i mean ITS NOT LIKE THERE’S A REAL DEADLINE FOR WHEN THAT’S GONNA END and DYSPHORIA KINDA DOESNT MAKE IT ANY EASIER gahhhh god i really REALLY hope they let me have a hysterectomy i am gonna be SO DISSAPPOINTED now if it turns out this ovary failure is not the particular sort of ovary failure that requires removal of ovaries. plz kill them. pliz mr docter. they haf plagued my lyfe 4 too longe. XD god, sorry, like I said I’m just really dysphoric talking about Vagina Health Stuff so i’m getting a bit irrational and ranty. Its just like that ‘please can i skip the middle man and get to the end of the transition already’ feeling. I know it would be stupid to not listen to my doctor’s advice on the subject. Tho I do kinda feel like everyone is just patronizing me and doenst think that nonbinary really exists, i’m still trying to get my support worker to stop calling me a girl... MAN IM GOING OFFTOPIC TO A WHOLE OTHER ANXIETY HERE

Anyway! Researching into possible causes of it! It’s entirely possible i may have Adenomyosis, which would ironically mean I have an excess of estrogen in my system and am like.. Too Female To Female. I’m gonna fuckin cry if its this, that’s like the biggest fuckin sign that your sex doesn’t have to align with your gender! or lol maybe god is trying to compensate, i just imagine its like throwing too much sugar into a cake to try and make up for it tasting like shit. sorry dude, woman machine broke. BUT I don’t seem to have like a huge amount of symptoms for that one, aside from just the excess bleeding outside of my cycle. So I’m leaning more towards the ones that also include back pain and uhh.. gross bowel issues of embarassingness. It might be that I was always showing preemptive signs of one of these conditions!

One other that it could possibly be is Endometriesis which is a really fuckin cool sounding word but impossible to spell, lol. Apparantly its this TERRIFYING CONCEPT where your uterus is like.. a tumour in your gut. For whatever reason there’s uterine tissue growing in your intestines, stomach or other butt related tubes. I dont wanna read more about it cos its already making me terrified and anxious, so I dont even know HOW exactly that works. I mean is it like there’s a big ol hole stabbing through your organs connecting two unconnected things together?? Cos if so, I cant understand why its saying that its an easy operation and a never fatal condition! So I’m assuming maybe its more like everything is still separate but like.. the composure of the cells in your intestines is wrong? There’s like a tiny vestigal lump of uterine lining tissue in your stomach lining instead? i guess maybe they’re somehow vaguely related, so like.. if the human body begins from stem cells that can grow into any other cell to make a full human, it would seem entirely plausable that rather similar organs or skin thingies could accidentally form all vice versa. i guess thats also the reason for mutations like people growing an extra finger? I had a friend who had two extra fingers at birth, actually! I felt really sad when she told me about it, it was like years after we met that she felt comfortable enough to tell me about where her hand scars came from. i just remember i felt SO CONFUSED why she’d even think that like.. she had to be super certain i was a good person who wouldnt make fun of her. Why on earth would you mock someone for something like that?? How many other people must have treated her like shit if she feels this ashamed of her own hands?? And I felt really sad that she had them amputated too, I just find it a bit disturbing and surreal that there’s this societal thing of giving extensive surgery to very young children to ‘correct’ something that’s completely harmless just because it ‘looks wrong’. i’ve read stories about stuff like a child having like a split arm, an extra arm attatched at the elbow. And that particular operation to ‘correct’ it literally made the kid lose all ability to use both arms, just so they could have one ‘normal’ looking nonfunctional one. Thats messed up! Its EVEN WORSE that this happens the most commonly with intersex conditions, its invasive GENITAL surgery on newborn infants and even assigning them a random gender based on whichever form of genitals was easiest to ‘recreate’ with plastic surgery. These poor kids dont even get to know about what happened to them until they grow up and uncover this horrifying pandora’s box of medical files...

Oh, and speaking of intersex conditions, another possibility is that I might have PCOS, which is like being intersex in hormones but not outer genetalia. But I’m not sure about it cos I don’t have a lot of the more visible symptoms of it, aside from adult acne and ‘weight gain' which is.. well im pretty damn sure I gained this weight the normal way instead XD It also says that unusual hair growth might be a symptom, but it doesnt seem I have it in any of the places that’re common for the disease. I’ve had a weird thing of suddenly gaining light spots of hair on my belly and neck in the past few years. Its weird cos it really is just spots for the neck, its only growing in the right side in a little circle. i dunno what’s up with that! It sucks cos I really would like to be able to grow proper facial hair, I’m only able to do a very spotty mustache that just makes me look even more like a woman I think. i just look like an ugly woman, I feel like everyone can instantly tell I’m DFAB and they’re just laughing at me for this one failed attempt to look masculine. Also it fuckin sucks being overweight cos binders don’t work as well! They’ve gotta be wider to fit around a bigger body of course, but that means its hard to find the right size that’re be tight where it counts withough being tight on the shoulders. I think my current one is too baggy, I can’t stand even looking like a normal dude of my weight level, i cant stand even having regular fat guy ‘moobs’. I WANNA DESTROY THEM ENTIRELY!! Also, incidentally, I’m kinda terrified the most of being diagnosed with PCOS just cos it’d make my dysphoria worse. It’d kinda make me worry that maybe my identity is invalid and I only feel this way cos I have this hormone problem, and I’d probably refuse to take any treatment just in case it somehow cures my transness :P

The one that currently seems most likely is ‘uterine fibroids’. Apparantly its a non cancerous form of tumour that’s so small that its not remotely damaging, and surgery is very easy and non scary. The problem is just that you have so many of these small things slowly stacking up over the years, and being hard to spot until its already gotten bad. Plus even a small thing can be very painful when its in a very sensitive organ. I’m thinking its probably this cos they mention specifically lower back pain and constipation/other bowel problems. The endometrisis one would also explain the constipation during periods, but this one has a wider range of very specific symptoms that all seem to match.

Anyway, writing this up has helped distract me so I can calm down a little and wrap my head around all this. I just hope I can have enough courage to talk to the doctor about it and hopefully find out what it actually is. Oh, and a random tip I learned! Eating too much sugar increases menstrual bleeding! That was what was confusing me about my symptoms seeming to worsen out of nowhere on random days. I was super worried!! I guess the change is just more noticeable than it would be on my regular period, cos this one is lasting so long. I tested this out today by chugging one of the super grand milkshakes from that cool midnight milkshake takeaway shop, and I started getting the big ol scary clotty giant bleed within two hours. Waited a while til it stopped, drank another sugary drink, happened again! Definate correlation! I’m kinda relieved cos this definately proves it’s a period related problem, I’m not bleeding from like an exploded organ or something. This is definately specifically the ol menstrual blood, and I dont have some horrifying sudden septic wound in my vag out of nowhere. Tho seriously i dunno why I was worrying that cos its not like I’ve ever had sex, where would a wound even come from?? I guess I was just going nuts back when I was all uneducated and assumed it was Literally Impossible to have a period that lasts too long. Mannnn talking about this is SO GROSS I’m like cringing into the ninth dimension just from saying the word vag... Anyway now I’m actually feeling a bit lightheaded from the Even More So Than Before heavy bleeding, it probably wasnt a smart idea to test out the sugar thing twice in one day. Now I’m bleeding as much as I usually do on my regular period, which is probably not good cos I’ve already been losing a small amount of blood everyday. Apparantly carrots have a vitamin that helps decrease menstrual bleeding, but its late evening now and all the supermarkets are shut :P SOMEONE BEAM CARROTS INTO MY HOME, AAAAA lol i just need to calm down and get out of this panic attack, its probably just this in combination with the blood loss thats giving me lightheadedness. and then it makes me worry even more about the blood loss and enter an eternal death spiral of anxiety yet again... GAHH I HATE YOU DYSPHORIA DAY I WILL TALK TO THE DOCTOR AND SO HELP ME GOD I REALLY WISH THIS LEADS TO A HYSTERECTOMY seriously lol every time I’m doubting if I’m ‘really trans enough’ i should look back on this conversation where i’m wishing my uterus disease is the worst possible option just so i can get rid of the damn uterus.. ANYWAY BUNNI IS GONNA GO TRY AND CALM DOWN NOW COS I CANT CALL THE DOCTOR TIL TOMORROW ANYWAY