navigating the world blinded by lights

[Sidhe]

a replacement of my fallen love, the blog feature

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as i further my transition, the kind of loneliness and isolation i feel shifts more from purposeful isolation - 'i do not want to be close to people, less they see who i really am, and i am ashamed' - and more of a by-product of my masculinization. never have i, nor will i ever, be especially masculine, but my journey to 'become a man' has pushed me from 'a woman' or 'fem' to become something generally loathed by my previously comfortable leftist and queer circles - 'a man'

i find myself analyzing my entire relationship with my identity, and every single interaction i have with others, in a way i never have before

Do I Not Belong In Feminism Now?

'am i privileged now? do i experience blanket male privilege, like my cis male counterparts?'
the answer to which is complex... of course i am very privileged in many areas - i am white, i am middle class with upper-middle class parents who support me in many ways, i am able-bodied, i have a vast support network through this transition - but do i experience male privilege, in literally any capacity? is it wrong to say no? i do not pass, not even slightly. never once have i been gendered correctly IRL. in every way thus far i still suffer from the effects of misogyny like i did pre-transition, with a fun new trans lens that i don't quite understand how to parse. thus seeing accusations thrown my way that i have male privilege and therefore should 'sit down' for discussions of real issues that affect me personally is, frankly, shocking.

is it wrong? i don't know. maybe i deserve it, but whether i deserve it or not, it is shocking. i didn't expect it, is what i mean

do people hate me now? i wonder. my friends, do they not relate to me anymore? do they not like me anymore, because i am a man? does it matter that i am GNC, in many ways still more feminine than masculine? would people be more comfortable with me if i identified as NB? i don't want people that i love to be uncomfortable around me now that i've transitioned. that's always been one of my biggest fears. and i can't just outright ask, 'do you not like me anymore?' having these insecurities is one thing, but voicing them to someone else? inconceivable.

i've been rambling about this a lot lately, to people that will listen, and if any of them click here and read this they'll probably think that i'm obsessed and need to let things go, but it's very isolating, and quite distressing, because i am a pathetic baby, and i guess part of me just wants someone to pat my head and go 'there, there, your concerns are valid'

or even tell me i'm being a fucking idiot, i guess
i mean i don't want to projectile word vomit into an echo chamber, which is why i haven't posted anything about this in any trans-male circles because i just know those ravenous little red-pilled truscum will find it the very moment they catch a whiff of my insecurity, and i don't want that

i did not anticipate this as part of my transition. this isolation from the communities that i used to take such solace in. i didn't think, upon taking testosterone, that i would be on my way to becoming some kind of enemy. perhaps i should have? the worst part about all this is that i know i'm just being whiny! even as a trans person i don't exactly have it That Hard - i was able to privately fund my own top surgery for god's sake - but this is still something i don't quite know how to navigate. so i ponder it, hoping one day i'll be able to articulate my thoughts and my concerns in a smart way. i know trans women have it worse than me. i'm not trying to argue that my issues trump those of trans women or that they're somehow oppressing me (because there are trans men that honestly believe the latter point and i cannot fathom having my head that far up my own ass)

my number one goal is to uplift the voices of those most disenfranchised but i also feel passionate about speaking to the issues myself and other trans masculine people face, because no one wants to talk about them, and they do exist. but i don't know how to do that without upsetting other people or decentering other issues. at what point does 'trans men face violence too, and it isn't talked about' become 'What About The Men' ?

more than anything i fear becoming That Man. and frankly sometimes i end up wondering if it's worth 'becoming a man' because of all of this. i have my fair share of issues with manhood and masculinity going into this, anyway; even now i am exceedingly uncomfortable around most cis men, especially cis straight men, and i feel guilty for that too - lord is there anything i don't feel guilty for? i feel guilty for existing. 'i cannot be a man if i can't interact with other men properly'. and i perhaps wonder if that alone is part of my issue, that i'm afraid that the women and fem-aligned people i am most comfortable being around won't want to be around me anymore. so i am in this position where i am not comfortable around most cis men (despite all of my closest irl friends being cis men...but they're all queer, and my best friend i've known for over a decade), but i worry so much about making women/fem-aligned people uncomfortable that i wonder if i deserve to be around people at all, except other trans guys and FRANKLY i feel utterly out of place in 99% of trans male spaces anyway, because i'm either too old, too young, not left enough, too left, or straight up not enough of an MRA tool to fit in (toxic masculinity is such a strange beast among trans men but that's a can of worms for another time)

there's also the whole issue of not passing, and the high probability of not ever passing, not if i want to be comfortable with my own presentation; let it be known that i feel like an utter tool trying to 'masc it up' just for the sake of trying to pass. i worry to the point of illness about making others uncomfortable with my 'manhood', yet do any of these people even actually see me as a man? probably not, right? it's hard to accept knowing that the people in my life, my family, my friends, all those who i care so deeply about will never truly see me as a man. even if i looked like my brother, bald and bearded and masculine, they would probably still only see me as their daughter, niece, female friend. and i certainly don't want to look like that! i like being androgynous!

even the people i've met online, the people who have only known me as 'he' - if i met them irl, spoke to them through discord with my voice that six months on still doesn't sound even close to male, would they actually see me as male?

so i find myself floating in some kind of limbo, where i am Too Male for some places, but not Male Enough for most other places, and it feels like in most aspects i am AFAB first and maybe possibly male second, when it suits other people to consider me a man, and almost never for positive reasons

i guess what i'm saying is...now that i am on T, post-top surgery, more comfortable with my physicality i have started being aware of and worrying more about more cerebral aspects of my transition, and in some ways they are even more overwhelming than the physical dysphoria that has plagued me (and continues to plague me) my entire life.

well, whatever...

if anyone read all this you get a prize

 

[Sidhe]

an introspection on my transition

i don't have anyone to talk to and i'm so lonely lol

if i could go back to january i would tell myself, upon receiving my prescription for testosterone, not to go into this with any expectations.

i hit six months on T last wednesday. at the beginning of the year i thought by this point my voice would have dropped, and at the very least my body would have stopped bleeding...but neither of those things have happened. every month, i still bleed. my voice has dropped ever so slightly, but not in any significant way. on the other hand, i've suffered asshole acne, had a scare with my hair (which turned out to be nothing but temporary increased shedding, but was enough of a scare to ruin an entire month of my life), and i'm hot all the time.

first four or so months on T i felt invincible! because changes were happening! but you'd think i would have learned by now to be distrustful of any increase in happiness. that's not to say i'm not happy now, or experiencing any regrets. i am still much happier than i was, and not for a second do i regret any of this. but i'm realizing now that T is (obviously) not going to fix all of my problems.

post-op depression?

you know, before surgery, i read many accounts of this, but thought, 'this won't happen to me; i've wanted this since puberty!' and the first three days post-op, i was over the moon. thought nothing could bring me down. then i stopped taking the pain killers and the struggle of a) not being able to do all the things i wanted to do, b) not being able to shower, c) the strange alien sensation of my new body all kind of crashed down upon me.

so i told myself, kindly, it's ok to feel this way. you just underwent major surgery. this is a major change. which is all well and good, it's good to know that it's ok to feel this way, but --

it's like, with this weight off my chest (literally ha ha !!), my brain went, 'hmm, well, we can't let you be happy. you don't know how to handle happy. how about we hyper focus on all the other things wrong with your life and body? doesn't that sound fun?'

no, brain, it does not sound fun
it isn't fun

i thought, three months ago, again, i'd be invincible, i'd be able to do all the things i had stopped doing for months out of the agony of dysphoria and depression. and for a little while i did! but then i got stressed out with surgery and a responsibility i still don't think i'm capable of handling (how the fuck did i bamboozle a company into hiring me to do illustrations when i haven't drawn anything for over a year, and have the world's worst work ethic?). and then i thought, after surgery, i'd be ok, at least a little, i could get back to normal...

but here i am! almost three weeks post op, and as useless as ever! do you know what i've done for the past week? abso-fucking-lutely nothing! chores have piled up, i literally freeze from anxiety just opening my role-plays to read, i've been keeping Discord closed more often than open, i've only briefly looked at my artwork while telling my contractor (who is a friend by the way!) 'ah, yes, i'll be getting back to work soon', i've become a complete garbage human all over again! i thought transitioning was supposed to fix all this? how come it's worse again? what did I do? or what did i not do? i was scared to come back home and be by myself again after surgery, because i had an inkling this would happen. but i cannot reach out to anybody, lest i risk them thinking i regret all this.

i do not regret anything. i just feel like an alien. and...

my body will never be good enough

no. i have a masculine chest now. that's what i always wanted, wasn't it? things are healing ok, i think. there's a possibility my right nipple might fall off but i guess we'll see (the fact that i am not up all night over this is enough of a testament to my poor state of mind...i haven't even told anyone...the skin peeled up).

but what about the rest of my body? what about the rest of my life?

"i don't care if i pass. i don't care if people call me by the right name. i'm just doing this for myself."
past me, you are a fool. what would you think if you saw yourself now, up all night by every 'hi ladies' you get out with your mom. up all night sobbing over how you don't want to dress or carry yourself like this but you have to or else no one will ever believe you are a man and you'll bring shame to the entire trans community. you know what they think about people like you.

and you'll be alone forever, unless you settle for the first person who takes sympathy on you and casts you a line. look, your best friend even said so himself.

because you will never really have a male body! remember all the things wrong with you. you're just slapping a band-aid on top of a problem and hoping it'll go away. you know no one in your life will ever really think of you as a man, right? they will always only see you as a girl playing dress up. especially if you keep your hair long. especially if you don't butch yourself up as much as conceivably possible. who cares if you're comfortable? you will never be comfortable anyway, no matter what you do.

this is what goes through my head all the time. it is much worse now post-op. and instead of allowing myself peace from this, i open twitter, i open reddit, i allow myself to look at all of the dark things said by miserable people that reaffirm these thoughts. why cut myself when this is more effective?

i need to go to a therapist again, i know. i don't know if my therapist is back from maternity leave or not and i'm too scared to call and find out.

i intended this to have more structure than it ended up having
i did actually hope to have a good way to end this, like it might be some kind of writing and not just the ramblings of a mad man, but then i got lost in thought and everything just kinda went blank in my head

o well

 

[Sidhe]

2020 now
made it thru december without any inklings of seasonal depression, but i realized this morning (well, afternoon) after resetting my alarm from 11, to 1, to 2, to 3, that sleeping all the time is not normal... 'ah, i'm so tired all the time! i could sleep forever! i'd like to do these things, but i just don't have the motivation... i wonder what it is?'

depression! you know the answer, it's depression!

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2020 and...
i'm over being trans!
I would like to move past this in my life. I wonder, will I ever get to that point?

I feel sometimes like erasing my existence from any place I have ever touched and returning as someone new. I wish I had people in my life that never knew me as a woman. Even Iwaku here, and the friends I've made through it, they've known me throughout my transition, from adamantly ID'ing as a lesbian, to my breakdown and subsequent acceptance of being a man, to where I am now, nearly a year on hormones and post top-surgery.

Perhaps it's not a healthy mindset to want to erase all of that, but I want it gone.

Someone at least should be able to see me as a man, because I never will.

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2020 and...
my anxiety is worse than it ever has been.

i suppose that's a little disingenuous; there were times, after all, that i could barely leave the house, and the mere act of going to a restaurant made me so physically ill with anxiety that i couldn't even eat.

but without the thick haze of depression (it's more of a light fog now, one that you can easily shine your headlights through), it's easier to focus on all the ways anxiety prevents me from achieving anything of value. I can't even role-play properly because of it. I can't make friends. I've hurt and upset and ruined potential friendships with others so many times I have stopped counting for the sake of my sanity (a funny joke; there's notches in the walls of my mind, keeping agonizing count of each potential friendship lost, each spark of a relationship extinguished)

2020 and - I've accepted that I will probably be alone forever. I'm 28 now. Will be 29 this year. Fast aging out of all the spaces I used to be comfortable in. Too old for fandom. too old for most queer groups. too old for this, too old for that, not old enough for the rest (but how much of this is just a 'me' issue, something else keeping me prisoner inside my own head?)

2020 and... I need to call my therapist, but I'm too scared.

So I suffer, and

It's my fault. It's always my fault.

 

[Sidhe]

cw: suicidal ideation

i thought i might get through january without succumbing to depression, but a handful of things have contributed to ensuring that would not be the case

the obvious
it is very dark outside

the triggers
i am losing my hair; i fear it is mpb but it's been so rapid i don't really know what the cause is. i have been rendered virtually nonfunctional through my stress over this. my hair is the only thing i have that i've ever felt remotely good about. i want to lock myself away in my apartment and never leave. i asked for a referral to a dermatologist but it could be months.

my acne has migrated from my face to my shoulders and chest. there's so much of it and nothing that helped for my face helps for it. it's sore and it's hideous. i hate looking at myself in the mirror more than i ever have

i think my period is going to return
if i have to start finasteride for my hair it almost certainly will

the spiral
it always spirals, the spiral is inevitable, i just wasn't prepared for how rapid it would be
it started as a lack of motivation, and then the real trouble with my hair started, and so my anxiety skyrocketed; i can barely sleep without ativan
i don't want to be awake, because if i'm awake, i'm anxious. and i'm so itchy!! my scalp is itchy, my skin is itchy, it's unbearable, nothing seems to help. i thought it was just dryness from the winter but no amount of lotion or conditioner helps, and my scalp is sore. i know if i scratch at it, it will just make it worse, but it's absolutely unbearable

and because i am so terrified of losing my hair, it leads my thoughts to dangerous places, like...
should i just stop taking testosterone, because obviously i'm not prepared to actually be a man if i can't handle losing my hair like this! i would do anything to not lose my hair!! and then - i feel so pathetic, because it's just hair!! but it's ruining everything.

and then... i'm not even happy anyway, i'm glad that i've started to pass quite consistently, but the only way i can pass is to butch it up and i NEVER wanted to do this. never, ever, ever, the only thing that got me to accept being trans to begin with was the affirmation that i could still be a man even if i kept my hair long and dressed how i want to dress, but a year in and that doesn't even MATTER anymore. in practice, if other people don't see me as a man, if other people don't see that i'm taking this seriously and yes, i really am a man, please, i promise, you have to take me seriously, then there's no point. i do not get the luxury to be fem. i forfeited that luxury when i opted to transition.

i hate who i've become. i'm not happy like this. but i don't

i always always always move the goal posts for myself, i do, i can never let myself be happy
not until i come out - not until i start hormones - not until i get top surgery - not until i lose weight - not until i fix my...

not until i fix...

not until...

???
my thoughts are stuck on
i don't want to live this life anymore, i don't want to be me anymore, i don't want to be me, i don't want to be me, please god let me be anyone else, i'm back to being a small scared child sobbing every night, begging, praying i can wake up and be someone else, somewhere else, anywhere else but here and like this!!

i hate my body, i hate how it will never be what i want it to be. i want to cut it up into ribbons. i want to escape this prison. i don't want to exist like this. i don't want to have to endure this much pain.

depression and dysphoria took away so much of my life from me. it's all gone now. it's too late. i'm dumb and uneducated and worthless and now i don't even have nice hair. i'm disgusting and stupid. a burden on everyone around me. life is too overwhelming so i am stuck in a screeching feedback loop and oh god i want to get off of this ride i feel sick and i don't want to be here anymore please GOD help me

...

and i hate how alone i am because i either push everyone away or, to those i do have, i am too afraid to actually ask to talk to them. no one needs to hear any of this. so i let it rot inside of me like sour milk until it all comes pouring out like vomit

i wouldn't say i want to die, because i am afraid of death
but i do not want to be here, like this, anymore