wixbloom's journal

Turns out

That for my friend's party this weekend, this bastard has also been invited

That's the final incentive I need to absolutely not go.

I mean, when I cut contact with him I told my friends that of course they could invite us both to social situations and I would go, but the one time when that happened and we both went, he disrespected my boundaries by trying to re-establish contact, and talking at me even though I was doing my best to pretend he wasn't there.

Spending a weekend in a home with this guy? Fuck no.

I already bothered to go to Ana's sendoff and it was upsetting to spend the first hour or so wondering whether he would show up and what would happen if he did. So, yeah, this cements my decision to not go

(Also there's a big nonbinary meet up at the park this weekend and I really wanna attend that, and I can tell I won't have the spoons for both)

 

Note to self: here's some sweet jams for when you feel your job is robbing you of mental wellness and quality of life

 

Note to self 2 electric note-a-loo: it's really shortsighted to expand energy every day self-soothing from the same stressor, and not address the stressor itself. Consider the possibility that maybe you need to reduce your work hour regimen now, and make some financial sacrifices in return for more emotional stability and an overall better life.

 

You know, I was gonna express some upset at how everyone is catastrophizing like THIS IS THE END OF THE FORUM AND ALSO OF THE WORLD, but tbh the huge warning hanging on top of every page like a dark cloud isn't exactly helping me feel like there's nothing to worry about either /:

 

Still, I'd like to ask what's going on in people's minds that they read "nothing is going to be destroyed" and immediately conclude "welp forum is clearly getting nuked goodbye everyone"

(Don't actually answer me, I don't want to actually know)

 

I wanted to thank you for this. It was funny but also genuinely relaxing. I haven't encountered such an effective guided meditation video in a long time.

I liked it enough that I sent the link to my sister, who has been having a hell of a lot of stress in her life recently, and she loved it as well. She said it was very relaxing and honest.

 

Yes! I actually meditate to this one. I'm also gonna recommend Stop, Breathe and Think, which can be used online on your browser or in app form for Android and iOS. It doesn't have swear words UNFORTUNATELY but other than that the structure of many of the guided meditations is very similar.

 

Thank you very much for the recommendation, I will give it a shot! Somehow I'm sure I'll manage to get by with less exciting language. XD

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was able to be in the moment with that video, so maybe it's a good time to attempt to take up meditation again.

 

Muay Thai class last night was intense on core workouts, and then afterwards me and a new girl practiced basic kicks and punches on each other. So, repeated (light) kicks to the stomach region + intense ab crunches + really intense workout overall = my stomach region feels like death and I've been in pain for almost 24 hours straight

 

For the past few weeks, I've been almost viscerally averse to any mention of helping others and any praise of selflessness or altruism. I know this isn't because I'm turning into someone who doesn't want community bonds or turning into a selfish person or whatever, but I'm getting a brand new view of just how toxically self-effacing I've been in my life, and I think that at least for a while I'm gonna overcompensate a little bit on the side of "no no no I don't care I don't care".

I found my old writings from when I was 19-22, and it was a painful read. They were very vulnerable and raw, and I could see in them a person who was struggling a lot and suffering greatly and didn't know what to do about any of it except try to understand it and wait for it to pass. But what was more shocking of all is that barely an entry went by without me very clearly equating my worth as a human being to my relationships - friendships, loves, etc.

When I talk in my old writings about friends, whether they're people I still love and respect or people who turned out to be really bad for me, or just not particularly good or important, there's this constant, overwhelming sense of starry-eyed praise of all their good qualities, submissive reverence, and a sense of overwhelming thankfulness that they even let me breathe the same air as them. When I talk about past lovers, for example, it's very painfully clear that I'm talking like they're making me exist, like they're making me real, like they're able to reshape me at will into the better person I should be, but am not. There's also a reoccurring theme of everything else in my life no longer having meaning now that I know them or when I am with them. Even the things I love the most, my art, my books, all of it becomes meaningless, senseless, without any value, when compared to the mere fact of their existance. It sounds cute on a very superficial level but it's actually horrifying. I also didn't have any sense of boundaries, and that's clear from the raw way that I put very personal information online in a much more public and open way than I do now. I deleted a lot of stuff because it had information that was easily traceable back to me and that I don't want to be so publicly known anymore.

I also got to thinking about how, my entire life from my teens to the time I was 24 or so, I was very adamant about the fact that I really wanted to be a parent, that I really wanted to raise children, that I loved being around them etc., and at one point, more or less around the time I recognized my dysphoria for what it was, I also became really averse to being around children, and I still am. I stopped to examine how much the self-imposed idea that I HAD to be caring and nurturing in order to have worth was entangled in that wish, and also how I had been projecting the childhood I wanted to have had, and the care that I needed in order to process that childhood, and the care that I currently need in order to take care of myself, and turning them all into things that I was going to give others, without examining their absence from my own life and admitting to my vulnerability and emotional needs.

A couple days ago, I read a text by a feminist author I respect a lot who said that people who "hate children" actually are being childish themselves and don't want to grow up and realize that growing up means putting others' needs before their own sometimes, and I genuinely understand where she was coming from, but I viscerally disagree. To me, and I suspect to many women and AFAB people who grew up with motherhood imposed on them as the ultimate feminine virtue, being able to say that I don't want to be around children has been a mark of growing up, and of reaching the emotional maturity necessary to realizing that I can't fix myself, past or present, by attempting to fix other people, and that I can't continue to think that my worth is indicated by my ability to be of service to others.

 

> try to explain some logical fallacies to my dad and sis-in-law
> explain the No True Scotsman fallacy
> example 1: "no TRUE christian would be cruel and horrible"
> example 2, derived from example 1: "no TRUE atheist would be kind and good"
> dad goes "the 2nd one is not a phallacy tho, it's true, if they're kind to ppl they're not real atheists even if they say they are"
> "dad wtf"
> get roped into long, dumb and fallacy-licious "theological debate"
> painstakingly manage to convince my dad that logical fallacies don't magically become true because they defend something you believe in
> and also that he's talking nonsense
> goodbye spoons! i hardly knew ye
> aaaaah, why is my family so annoying.

 

what the hell

 

An emotional vampire colleague is back from a year's leave of absence that she took to finish her master's. She's already doing her combo of whining non-stop about how terrible working here is AND approaching me several times a day with passive-aggressive suggestions of tasks I could be doing. Fucking kill me.

 

Also:

1. I'm gonna have to work overtime today due to a delicious combo of one of my coworkers asking me to cover his 8am shift AND needing to do some extra work which I can only do after the coworkers who occupy a certai room have left, at about 5pm

2. Tomorrow my boss says he's coming over and it's gonna be time for me to again meditate so as to avoid the temptation to literally murder him!

3. There's rumors of a strike day tomorrow, but so far I haven't seen official confirmation and my coworkers are acting like it's official while I'm all, wut?

4. Please note that, overall, I'm havign a pretty decent day, I'm just also very pissed and the prospect of spending literally 11 hours in this office is NOT helping.

 

Turns out that

1. I don't have to work overtime because I don't need to do the extra work I thought I'd need to

2. There will in fact be a strike day tomorrow and my boss leaves for an admittedy well-deserved vacation shortly after so I won't see him in at least a month (probably more since I'm leaving for my own vacation shortly after boss's return) and hopefully that will give me time to cool my head :}

 

Here's a fact about me: I cry a lot. Usually, if I go a week without a good long cry it's a sign that something's not right and I'm probably really stressed out or feeling guarded and unsafe or detached from myself, my surroundings and my feelings. I also cry in a very open, ugly way, face contorting in anguished expressions, big loud sobs, wails, frequent nose-blowing. In therapy sessions, I usually cry at least a little bit, and in most cases the waterworks start about 10 minutes in and just don't stop until I leave. This has nothing to do with depression, and, in fact, it's a sign that I'm NOT having a bad time with it - it's a sign that I'm feeling, living, coping, thriving.

The gender clinic people got alarmed about it today. One asked me "when did you start crying this much?" and I (still crying, but also laughing) said "well, I was born in 1990, so I'd say it was around that time?". I had to explain, more than once (because they brought another professional halfway in to address some concerns I expressed, and she too was alarmed by the fact that I couldn't stop crying) that, while obviously crying is related to my emotions, it's not really about them. Like, I may be crying sadness tears, but I'm not crying because I'm sad, I'm crying because I'm safe and because I'm in touch with my emotions.

Therapy today ended up bringing up lots of difficult subjects. I was actually... surprised by some of the stuff I said. For example, I talked about finding it very hard not to see the doctors as gatekeepers despite their constant reassurance that "we're here to help and not to keep you from stuff" because let's face it, legislation that requires a formal diagnosis and 2 years of "observation" before I can chop off my damn boobs is by definition gatekeeping legislation, and they're a part of that and I wish they'd acknowledge that more, and I said that it's impossible not to think that if we say certain things we'll be Deemed Incapable. One of the doctors asked me what, in my specific case, I was scared to tell them, and I gave this hysterical little laughter, sucked in a deep breath and said "well, I'm a rape survivor for starters, and I've been deliberately skirting the topic because there's lots of really bigoted ideas about AFAB people who 'turn queer' because of trauma and I don't want anyone putting my identity in question over this", but then I said, also, that my abusive mother is a therapist, and she has used the language of psychobabble to abuse me, to use every feeling and vulnerability I've ever had against me to conclude that I'm incapable of literally anything - from college to living alone to having an abuse-free existance. And I said that it's almost impossible to feel like I'm not being judged for all sorts of imperfections and in some vague, almost esoteric way, found wanting.

What I didn't tell them: that the doctors all seem taken aback by my constant crying and they keep asking me if I've been wanting to self-harm (the answer is basically "what??? no!!") and they keep bringing up that I took antidepressants that one time (for a few months, during a really tough time, and in a dose low enough to be more of a sleeping aid than actual antidepressants) and I'm kinda terrified that they'll think I'm Too Depressed To Transition. Which, now that I think of it, is a real silly fear. Like, it's OK that they're concerned, especially since they don't know me much, but I'm functional, with 2 jobs, my own home, a college degree under my belt and a second one on the way, I've been dealing with my stuff really well, and actually, for these past few months I honestly think I'm the happiest that I've ever been in my life - I haven't gone a day this year without feeling that I'm a good person with a bright future of love and happiness ahead of them.

And the tears I cried during might have all looked the same, but they were tears of all sorts: of sadness, of loneliness, of pride in myself, of hope in the future, of comfort, of joy in realizing that, for all my fears, I'm still able to trust others.

 

Spoiler

forum: suicide-baiting is bad
seebs: some people?? use suicide baiting?? to cope?????

 

SCREAMS LOUDLY

WEEPS SOFTLY

TRIES TO GO THE FUCK TO SLEEP

 

Yes cats this is the correct time to meow loudly and run around and have loud territory disputes. Please continue. Not like I need to get up in 5 hours or anything.

 

People who were on the Afterdark skype chat at around this time yesterday might've seen me freak out a bit about my medical exams, which my doctor requested because we're investigating my Reynauld's (link is the wikipedia page, there are no gruesome pictures in it, just lots of pictures of hands). I freaked out because the exams said that it Could Be Some Serious Shit and obviously, like a dumbass, I googled the serious shit and extrapolated from it "I am literally dying right now". My doctor, however, assured me that in my case it's very obvious from my overall health that I have the isolated Reynauld phenomenom, that is, the phenomenom is its own thing and is not a symptom of other, more terrible ilnesses. And the best part is, since I told him the Reynauld's is still severe enough to impair my functioning during the winter, he put me on this medication which, beyond treating the phenomenom, also has beneficial side effects for my cardiovascular health, reducing the risk of heart failure and strokes, and he says it also might help with my very slight anemia (which I have as a consequence of my bone marrow transplant)! I'm SO PUMPED about it!