I was thinking of making a community engagement post last week in the run up to the Easter weekend and transgender day of visibility, but it got lost under a recent promotion at work and a few busy days.
So yeah how was your Easter weekend / TDoV? 😊 Most of my family is on vacation so I just had a quiet weekend at home with my partner. All the drama that went down with TDoV landing on Easter Sunday was… unsettling to say the least. I hope everyone was able to weather that storm of hate and propaganda safely.
I continue to exist @.@ In apparently one of the trans-safest places evar, which is good. Forward progress looms like doom, threatening to cause me to have some kind of life or something. There are many good critters around here! I’ve touched some of them so I’m pretty sure they’re real too @.@
Maybe not a significant thing for anycritter else but my brain is a tasty snack so I’m kinda terrified of going anywhere even when I’m not in a totally new place doing it a totally new way <.< Anyway, I’m thinking about doing a tiny lil bus trip just to the nearest Taco Bell tomorrow 😅 Just to help get myself a lil more familiar with the buses and riding them and pathing about the city and going out at all. Big adventure @.@ Tons of fun?
Woo! Good to hear that you’re feeling safe to be you 🫠 I hadn’t really given thought to minnesota before your posts tbh. I’ve always liked the idea of the west coast but the thing I would miss most over there is SNOW, I don’t do well with hot weather or sunshine either.
Edit: funny story I’m now remembering about a taco bell experience. I was working second shift at the time so I would go there at like, midnight to 1AM. One time for shits and giggles I decided to put on a Santa hat and go there in the middle of summer
I go through the drive thru, and the whole time I place my order I hear cursing and screaming in the background from inside
I get to the window, and this pissed looking dude looks at me, and completely FREEZES, and after a few seconds starts cracking up, his coworkers are wondering why the dudes quiet, come to the window, and crack up a little too but not as much as the one dude, I think I broke him a little xD
Okay, the Taco Bell was quite nice. Last one I got food from (an Oklahoman one!) was realbad. … Then I decided to trek around Target. Was pretty comfy for a bit but then it got busy and I got stressed. Bleh! Then I missed a bus. I blame Google. Also I should maybe not have taken a jacket. Lots of walking (including on and across roads, eep!) and heatness and drank a bottle of water but I’m still dried out and bleeeeeh! Now all is stress and frustration and ugh. Some stress involving the critters to talk to about progress toward ‘supporting myself’ or whatever. Also never gonna understand why people think their horrific experiences will make me feel better and not worse :-\ I feel like I don’t fit anything people think I am, in fact I keep feeling like at least some people understand me backwards. Weird and frustrating. Maybe it’s my fault for being an alien 🤷
It can be hard being an alien, but learning how to interface with people and navigating the bizarre world can be a rewarding (if at times exhausting) endeavor. I wouldn’t place disconnect in terms of blame, though it is easy to do so - better to think of it neutrally, as information to help orient yourself.
I find when I blame myself and get caught up in being wrong I have a harder time staying emotionally aware and doing the right things, so even if just for pragmatic reasons it is good to be easy on yourself.
It’s more important to be going the right direction and to persist, to have an element of quick recovery and trying again, than to punish yourself for failures. It’s even less useful when the failures are caused in part or by whole by the conditions you are in rather than the way you are; for example, if you were on-time according to a schedule but the bus didn’t follow the schedule, it’s good to know that you might have to come earlier than the schedule says to eliminate that possibility of missing the bus, but it is also reasonable for you to follow the schedule and it’s not entirely on you that you missed the bus.
Either way, sounds like you are on the right track and doing a great job considering your circumstances, and that’s the best anyone can do. Exploring the city and riding the bus to get more familiar is really smart, it’s much better to miss the bus and learn the lesson under these circumstances than when the consequences might be worse (like if missing the bus made you miss a job interview, or something like that).
So, well done, you’re doing great!
I don’t really mean “my fault” like I’m sorry for what I am, just that I’m out of place here and not fitting into this ridiculous world of hunams (apparently I’m Spathi now so I call them that 😅 ) smoothly, easily. I like to think that I’m not sorry in the least for anything about myself that isn’t a wrong choice I’ve made, and kinda pride myself on that. No one should be sorry for existing but anyone who causes avoidable harm should seek to change. It’s a pretty simple rule that I think serves well as a kind of root, most basic kind of thing for living life: if you’re hurting someone, stop. If you’re not, then do you.
As for the bus thing, yeah, that’s the idea :3 Partly struggling with my anxiety problems but also just learning how to get around and having a chance to directly see and experience some of the city. Getting some idea of how to get around, how to get to and from places, how to use apps (mostly Google Maps <.<) to guide myself, figure out when and where and how I’m gonna have to wait for buses, how to orient myself and pick and board the right bus (as opposed to the left one, which has the same number but a different letter and goes the other way)… Making the mistakes on the way to/from Taco Bell was most definitely part of the point nodnod I really do not want to have to figure out all’ the basics en route to something important because even little oopses can totally ruin me. Anxiety’s still hellish, though :-\
Thankies!
Kaity and I spent our easter weekend at home, doing not much of anything, whilst she recovered from surgery
Hope she’s recovering well! 😊
As well as can be expected. A bit of pain, and feeling housebound, but otherwise good
I drove to Ikea on mostly empty highways, got me a mini-shark, then went to Jungle Jims and got some tasty stuff and groceries, got out of the parking lot and saw (NSFW)
!a lady driving through the intersection, sucking a pink dildo stuck to the inside of the driver door window!<
so that was… unique.
not particularly religious nor is my family so no easter celebrations to pretend to he interested in 😅
Lost my dad over eastern, he’s alive and well, I’m not
🥺💙
I started working out again and got my second laser appointment lined up on Friday. And next Tuesday is the big day where I will (with 99% certainty) get my first HRT prescription! So all in all I’m feeling pretty good although a bit nervous but excited.
Poor sleep, stress, poor mood. Hopefully I get fully rested tonight. And hopefully I van talk to at least one friend in person this week.
sorry to hear that :-(
hope you are able to get some rest and relief soon!
Well I got sleep!
hey hey, I’ll take it!
I had to work. Wouldn’t have been so bad, except I had to work an hour and a half over, and a part of that was spent dealing with an extremely picky customer.
Did find out my partner scored us tickets to a show! Going to see Bebop Bounty Big Band, which just sounds like a fun time. She also found some lipstick that I’m going to be trying. First time since I’ve come out I’m really going out feeling like I’m showing my real face. Really excited, kinda quietly scared, but trying to keep my head up.
Congrats on your promotion! Glad you had a quiet weekend at home, those are the best IMO.
On my end I’ve been painfully, patiently waiting for the results of a karyotype test I had blood drawn for over a month ago. Found out today there was a communication break-down and the test was never ordered. So I got the blood drawn for the test today!
I also came out to my grandfather and he was supportive, so that’s nice.
I’m glad that your grandfather is supportive of you! 😊 I hope your test results come back well. A month is a long time to wait, only to find out they’d forgotten to process it. 😕 hopefully you won’t have to get blood drawn again, I always pass out when I get blood work done.
aww, thank you - I don’t expect I have a chromosomal intersex condition, but I think I would regret not getting tested to find out. I think any outcome is fine with me at this point, I just want to know my chromosomes.
I had to get blood drawn anyway to test estradiol levels and liver enzymes, etc. and I had a really good phlebotomist. I’ve nearly passed out when I’ve had less good phlebotomists, though, so I feel you - I really wish I could get over my needle phobia.
Been getting relentlessly sirred and brothered anytime I go outside which is destroying me. Won’t be able to do anything about FFS until I can get my braces off which I don’t currently have a timeline on.
Had my first experience with “trans broken arm syndrome” and the doctor blaming a health issue I am having on HRT. I wouldn’t take that for an answer, and I eventually got them to take me seriously but it still sucked having to deal with that.
The ghosts of trauma have been haunting me this week as well, bringing everything else down with it. Wishing I could be less of a downer lol
Congrats on your promotion though :)
Ugh, I hate when people feel the need to gender you every other word and repeatedly get it wrong. I’m sorry but like it’s not that hard to tell if someone is a woman or not, and even if you’re unsure you can just as easily avoid gendered terminology. So frustrating 🙄 I go out fully done up, push up bra and makeup on, wearing a cute dress and using my voice and sometimes still get misgendered seemingly out of spite.
Sorry you had that experience with the doctor. They can be so honed in on specifically us being trans. I’ve only ever had it once, but I know how invalidating and frustrating it is. Medical transphobia is so serious. I hope that’s your one and only experience with this.
I’m sorry you had a bad week with trauma :( are you seeing anyone professionally that you talk to about it? It’s so important to take our trauma seriously. It shouldn’t be debilitating, and we often just accept it as how life is for us. I hope you’re doing better today! ❤️
And thank you!! 😊 super new role for me, and the first time I’ve ever gotten a promotion, haha, so it’s all very new and exciting.
Thank you for the support @LadyAutumn ♥️ ♥️ ♥️ You always know what to say :) I dress pretty androgynously, which I know isn’t helping, but my fear keeps me from going out full fem in my current location. I’m really really trying to get over it so I can stop compromising on my appearance.
I am in pretty intensive therapy currently, which I’m sure is why stuff is rising to the surface. I think I am doing better today :) It’s Friday and Fridays are always good lol
I think once the promotion dam breaks you’ll be getting one promotion after another! It sounds like your hard work has really paid off and I hope the new role is super rewarding!!
Easter was pretty good actually, but the lead up to it was terrible, coupled with being told by someone important that it “can’t be trans day of visibility because it’s Easter. It can’t be anything else”.
Buuut I made it and I’m okay. And I got to see the parts of my family that support me while the parts who don’t ignored me, so that was nice.
