On Nine Months
Mar. 8th, 2024 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scrubjayspeaks[CW for frank discussions of body changes, including hair loss, surgery, dysphoria, and libido. Also warnings for workplace discrimination. I'll be putting these updates fully under cuts, as they are less general interest on the topic of gender/transness and more "what do I personally have going on with my bits these days." Niche interest and all that.]
Nothing is technically wrong, and everything is terrible.
Face
Uh, so, miiiiight be seeing some hair thinning at my temples. It’s hard to tell because of how I have my sides shaved. This is complicated for me. I’m very into my hair, so losing it is Not Cool. But reshaping my hairline at the temples does look much more masculine. But also hair loss is one of those things that will be hard to explain away at work if I’m not out.
Voice
Finally finished listening to all the voice class lessons. I need to do some of the exercises and then I need to make a habit of practicing. I feel like my voice has been higher lately??? It might just be that I’m stressed and I climb up the register when I’m agitated. Or maybe I’m just feeling self-conscious and the pitch is my imagination.
Body Hair
Have I mentioned that I have a happy trail forming? I mean, it’s not like I didn’t have hair there before. But it’s slowly becoming more distinctly shaped.
Chest
20 days until my first consultation with the surgeon. I continue to spin out on a regular basis about all the things that could go wrong. On the realistic end, I’m waiting for all the foolish nonsense my insurance will try to pull to avoid covering it. On the doomsaying end, I’m waiting to have the surgeon just tell me I’m not a good candidate and refuse to do anything.
I am also having second thoughts about nipples, which is certainly a sentence I have now had to type. My initial plan was to get nipple grafts, mostly because the photos of those who went without them did not look appealing to me. But I’m stressed about the possible lack of symmetry--would that bother me more than what it looks like without them at all? Some healed grafts have looked fine, but a lot of them seem to turn out kind of gnarly. Plus, opting out of nipples would make the healing process that much easier. I’m anxious about being able to go back to work in a reasonable time frame.
It’s mostly down to aesthetics for me, though. I don’t have a lot of sensation there anyway. I’m only concerned about nerve healing insofar as I don’t want to have pain or weird phantom zaps for the rest of my life. There’s the option of medical 3D tattooing, the results of which have looked really cool. I just don’t love the idea of needing to wrangle additional procedures when I’m barely coping with the first one.
Still haven’t received notification that the custom binder is ready to ship out--it’s been five of the six to eight weeks wait time they quote, so that’s fair. But it’s been a bad few weeks for dysphoria, and I need it.
So I am basically clawing my face off about everything to do with my tits.
Junk
It doesn’t seem like I’ve seen any kind of bottom growth in months, which is wildly disappointing. I have been the kind of annoyed-horny lately, where I just want to get off so I can unwind and it is kind of a chore. Perhaps paradoxically, I want to buy ALL the sex toys. I have neither the time nor the energy usually to bother with anything ~fun~, so this is probably not the best use of my money. But I am a terrible sucker for the combination of “comes in pretty colors and/or fantasy designs” and “will provide orgasms.”
Energy and Strength
I’ve been dealing with some pain and injuries that make it hurt to do any of my usual things. Also, I haven’t been sleeping well, mostly due to stress. So I’m pretty sapped.
Mental
Oh, friends, it has been poisonous in my head lately. There have been a couple incidents at work that, while no one did anything wrong, have left me in a bad headspace. In particular, there is a potential job opportunity for which I am not qualified but wish I was. If they can’t find someone who is qualified, there is discussion of an internship, which might be my way in, though I feel much too old to be interning as anything.
But it was a swift, sharp reminder that, had I been born male, I would likely have been given opportunities to learn trades when I was younger. There are still things that no one thinks of me as a candidate for, even when I am qualified. Which is shitty because of the sexism and shitty because I should have had a place at their shitty, sexist table anyway. I continue to grieve the life that might have been.
Also, having just come out to my friend, she will be moving away next month. So my brief experience with the pleasure of hanging out with someone who knows what I am is, if not at an end, about to be severely curtailed. So I am trying to mentally prepare myself for the crushing loneliness of once again being invisible to everyone around me.
And finally, I am dealing with another round of deep frustration with my living situation. While my mother is supportive in practical ways--helping with my first T shot, planning to care for me after surgery--she is not, shall we say, affirming. I will never be her son. I don’t have the will to try to force the issue with her. And my father, of course, doesn’t even know I’m any kind of queer. Not officially, anyway. (Though how he could possibly imagine otherwise when I look like *gestures to all of this* is a mystery.) I’m frustrated by living with people who do not understand me, both in my own house and in my shitty little town.
But I don’t want to move or change jobs or start over. I like my home and my dumb little career. I just don’t much enjoy the other people here. And I hate how much time I spend thinking wistfully that maybe when people are dead or retired, I can change my name, come out, go stealth, something.
Nothing is technically wrong, and everything is terrible.
Face
Uh, so, miiiiight be seeing some hair thinning at my temples. It’s hard to tell because of how I have my sides shaved. This is complicated for me. I’m very into my hair, so losing it is Not Cool. But reshaping my hairline at the temples does look much more masculine. But also hair loss is one of those things that will be hard to explain away at work if I’m not out.
Voice
Finally finished listening to all the voice class lessons. I need to do some of the exercises and then I need to make a habit of practicing. I feel like my voice has been higher lately??? It might just be that I’m stressed and I climb up the register when I’m agitated. Or maybe I’m just feeling self-conscious and the pitch is my imagination.
Body Hair
Have I mentioned that I have a happy trail forming? I mean, it’s not like I didn’t have hair there before. But it’s slowly becoming more distinctly shaped.
Chest
20 days until my first consultation with the surgeon. I continue to spin out on a regular basis about all the things that could go wrong. On the realistic end, I’m waiting for all the foolish nonsense my insurance will try to pull to avoid covering it. On the doomsaying end, I’m waiting to have the surgeon just tell me I’m not a good candidate and refuse to do anything.
I am also having second thoughts about nipples, which is certainly a sentence I have now had to type. My initial plan was to get nipple grafts, mostly because the photos of those who went without them did not look appealing to me. But I’m stressed about the possible lack of symmetry--would that bother me more than what it looks like without them at all? Some healed grafts have looked fine, but a lot of them seem to turn out kind of gnarly. Plus, opting out of nipples would make the healing process that much easier. I’m anxious about being able to go back to work in a reasonable time frame.
It’s mostly down to aesthetics for me, though. I don’t have a lot of sensation there anyway. I’m only concerned about nerve healing insofar as I don’t want to have pain or weird phantom zaps for the rest of my life. There’s the option of medical 3D tattooing, the results of which have looked really cool. I just don’t love the idea of needing to wrangle additional procedures when I’m barely coping with the first one.
Still haven’t received notification that the custom binder is ready to ship out--it’s been five of the six to eight weeks wait time they quote, so that’s fair. But it’s been a bad few weeks for dysphoria, and I need it.
So I am basically clawing my face off about everything to do with my tits.
Junk
It doesn’t seem like I’ve seen any kind of bottom growth in months, which is wildly disappointing. I have been the kind of annoyed-horny lately, where I just want to get off so I can unwind and it is kind of a chore. Perhaps paradoxically, I want to buy ALL the sex toys. I have neither the time nor the energy usually to bother with anything ~fun~, so this is probably not the best use of my money. But I am a terrible sucker for the combination of “comes in pretty colors and/or fantasy designs” and “will provide orgasms.”
Energy and Strength
I’ve been dealing with some pain and injuries that make it hurt to do any of my usual things. Also, I haven’t been sleeping well, mostly due to stress. So I’m pretty sapped.
Mental
Oh, friends, it has been poisonous in my head lately. There have been a couple incidents at work that, while no one did anything wrong, have left me in a bad headspace. In particular, there is a potential job opportunity for which I am not qualified but wish I was. If they can’t find someone who is qualified, there is discussion of an internship, which might be my way in, though I feel much too old to be interning as anything.
But it was a swift, sharp reminder that, had I been born male, I would likely have been given opportunities to learn trades when I was younger. There are still things that no one thinks of me as a candidate for, even when I am qualified. Which is shitty because of the sexism and shitty because I should have had a place at their shitty, sexist table anyway. I continue to grieve the life that might have been.
Also, having just come out to my friend, she will be moving away next month. So my brief experience with the pleasure of hanging out with someone who knows what I am is, if not at an end, about to be severely curtailed. So I am trying to mentally prepare myself for the crushing loneliness of once again being invisible to everyone around me.
And finally, I am dealing with another round of deep frustration with my living situation. While my mother is supportive in practical ways--helping with my first T shot, planning to care for me after surgery--she is not, shall we say, affirming. I will never be her son. I don’t have the will to try to force the issue with her. And my father, of course, doesn’t even know I’m any kind of queer. Not officially, anyway. (Though how he could possibly imagine otherwise when I look like *gestures to all of this* is a mystery.) I’m frustrated by living with people who do not understand me, both in my own house and in my shitty little town.
But I don’t want to move or change jobs or start over. I like my home and my dumb little career. I just don’t much enjoy the other people here. And I hate how much time I spend thinking wistfully that maybe when people are dead or retired, I can change my name, come out, go stealth, something.
