whiteout

I’m narrowly coping. Too many stressors or perhaps rather sadnesses at once, and I am almost out of energy. I feel a need for comfort food but I worry about sabotaging my weight loss from even a single occasion. I don’t feel my body is overweight in a way I cannot handle, I still now feel that I can look OK so long as my bottom parts are not shown. Rather it is some desperate thought that if I only was lean, undeniably lean for my height, then more people would have at least a starting likelihood of finding me attractive. It’s shameful that this all matters to me, that I cannot simply be at peace. And probably it’s illusory, not even as a thin woman would things be that different. But at least it is something I can do. I need something I can do.

More importantly, seeking SRS is something I can do. Psychologist now at least says she will try to provide documents for applying for insurance coverage. I worry it will be rejected anyway. At which point I can still save up, I need to see if I can somehow find sources of income I am presently unaware of. I need a surgery date. My body feels like a corpse and every day of uncertain waiting without knowing when there will be release leaves me with this heavy knowledge that while my mind may be lovable, my body really isn’t.

It might not change anything. But then again it also might. If I retain sensitivity, then at least I may finally feel OK again at least touching myself, even if no-one else will. And while I actively do not want any penetration I can now receive, perhaps after surgery I can want it, and even learn to endure the touch of men; their interest at least I am sure I can attract. I do not want it now but perhaps I can come to want it. Making a trade – he will lick me if I let him fuck me, standard heterosexual script.

I should not care about any of this. But it hurts so much. I feel oceans and oceans of tears behind my eyes. It hurts.

edge

I should sleep because tomorrow means travel, needing to be focused, and moreover I must accomplish important work during the way. But I am unable to – even taking an anxiolytic before sleep, I woke and cannot find the peace to sleep more. I must ride it the best I can, like Inanna passing into the Underworld. Putting down what I feel in text at least will help some.

The experience of being a sexual creature in this body is becoming harder and harder to endure. I can’t ignore it fully. Core, I suppose, is that it seems for a variety of reasons that being myself at this time in this body means it is near-impossible for me to receive bodily manifestations of love and lust. This stems from several reasons.

Weight I will only mention in passing. I am still hovering on the upper edge of the normal spectrum of BMI, and while that now means some curves, I still remember lovers telling me their honest feeling that my weight made it less interesting to touch me, that a desire to be with someone more like themselves remained in the background. And of course I cannot hold this against anyone; if we cannot be honest then what does anything matter? I for my part am trying to let myself care about whether my lovers actually attract me, which I have not always, so I should encourage the same in them. There is also that so long as my belly look like this, protruding far beyond my breasts, I feel always a little like a pudgy man more than a woman. I never knew what having a conventionally fit or attractive body was like, and I feel bitter about it. I deserve to know that feeling. So weight loss, at almost any cost, must be one of my priorities, and I can take some solace within the loneliness of the body that I would have to go through that process anyway before I have a body which I can expect many people to want to touch except out of pity. Very well, this is useful.

More importantly, and requiring more effort and attention, are my disgusting genitals. I did have that one single occasions where someone, for whatever reason, licked me, taking care to warm me up, mask my shape, applying pressure where my opening would have been, and who then brought me over; dealt with my fluids so the dysphoria spike did not come, and I could just sink into a relaxation I had not felt in years. I had not thought I could experience this pre-op at all, really, and it brought me hope that perhaps I can. But I am not very interested in this person on almost any level – socially, mentally, physically otherwise, and I should not play with their emotions, and they are not near me.

Perhaps I must accept that as the exception confirming the rule, because nothing like it happened before for many years, nor since. With partners by and large the respective dynamics of each relationship does not have the other having any real drive to touch or please me; each I am sure feels some misplaced guilt or sadness over it but the fact remains, each feels a desire primarily for what I can induce in them, and surely also out of the love I know to be real a wish for me to be happy, but the realities of how complicated I am leaves that wish no space to be expressed within anything resembling spontaneity. I love them each regardless and cherish what we have.

I recall that girl who sought me out to have me top her, met me once and then broke that off based on how my trans-based body uncertainty was a turn-off; I never mentioned it but she said she sensed it. Surely in some sense this shines through to all I am with. My loathing and bitterness over my body spreads like inky taint through empathy and kills feelings of lust towards me. I suppose unempathic individuals might be exceptions, but the reality is, I want only sex and nearness which is fully empathethic, where there truly is love, not with some mechanical stranger. And I know this to be a very tall order.

That girl was cis; I realize increasingly that I cannot relax fully unclothed with any cis person. With cis women I see our anatomies differ and I am in the darkness. With cis men I see them be similar and the same happen. And perhaps with trans people, I trigger their dysphoria by them sensing mine? Post-op girls, for that matter, I also feel tense around – some part of me is so much in awe and envy; I feel their perspective overshadows mine, it is a fearful respect and it makes me almost unable to make moves on them. It’s much like cis girl envy but in its own way more powerful. I deeply hope this will not happen to me in turn when I am post-op, that pre-op trans girls will feel too scared to lick or finger or fuck me. But I push that fear far far away.

Still my body does crave release as all bodies do. Touching myself is not an option, the feeling of loneliness and additionally dysphoria from stimulating myself such as I am becomes too much. I cannot even bring myself to do this to prevent atrophy even if it will help for surgery. I long for somehow someone stimulating me so that I do not have to be the one doing it, as an act of love or devotion or even out of attraction, a wish to make my mind experience another state. There are ways, but all the easiest ones are ones that treat my genitals as though they were male, and then I cannot relax; I have tried this now with two trans girls and it reminds me too much of how my genitals naively are paced. Getting ordinary “blow jobs” and liking them is something men do, my mind tells me in that moment. Though I would never see another girl so.

What remains is essentially just frottage or toys, and partners who are fundamentally passive feel no real drive to use those on me, their interests drift elsewhere, away from my trying to manage freaking out over being reminded of my shape. It simply doesn’t seem like it will happen with anyone, and I don’t have the energy left to try to go out and search for someone with whom it might. I’ve searched for so long for so many things and it never works. Meaningful things don’t happen when you seek to make them happen, within this sphere, they only happen when you do not expect them to.

So barring exceptional cases of people acting unexpectedly, and where still other mismatches remain an issue (as in, looking up casual lovers is no real option since I will just feel lonely in their company since there will be neither connection nor attraction), it seems genital release is basically off the table for me. There remains being pushed far enough from other kinds of stimulation – my nipples are sensitive to pleasure and even more to pain, and pain at least gets me out of my head. To experience pain with someone, I need much less of complex trust and safety and all these other things. It is more realistic to hope for, and I must take renewed steps to ensure I experience it. I need it. I need my body bruised and sore and aching so I can finally relax at least in some way, at least for some little while. This I should try to make happen, though of course it too is complex and not just something I can expect will come to me, or that I can expect to be able to make happen.

Most importantly, I bitterly and urgently and desperately need SRS now. I know it is no magic bullet. It might just take climaxing off the table permanently by loss of nerves, and I can’t expect more people will want to have sex with me post-op than pre-op. But at least I would be able to be open to receive, to ask for, to be naked with in more ways. I would not have to train each new person on what they can and cannot do, would not have to reinterpret and remap all sensations, would actually be able to be naked and just see what happens. Stimulation, while probably less straightforward, would be easier to ask for or move to receive. I need it already. Every day of waiting is a day in a body where asking to be touched is like asking someone to take out the stinking garbage bag – maybe they will, when it is their turn, but their heart will never be in it. Nor mine.

What is now in the way? I do want to apply for insurance coverage. I cannot myself, my psychologist must do it for me. She is in no hurry, no effort between our monthly sessions. She is happy to drag this out, what does she care? That can just keep on and I have no way to push her, no way to force her, because this is still gatekeeping, still something she must sign off on out of paid kindness. Perhaps something will happen next time. But perhaps it will not even work, and the insurer demand the present therapy continue for another year before they consider it. And while the time spent waiting takes place, I still have no date for my surgery, I cannot have one assigned until insurers sign off. So the long waiting list grows longer every day.

I am not sure I can take another year of this. Right now I feel I cannot. I feel like self-harm and crying and darkness. So my only fallback is to schedule it privately. I feel like an idiot for even considering – it costs 28K in total, which I don’t have yet. If I only wait a few years more insurance will cover, perhaps if I am lucky even a few months more. But right now I don’t feel like I have a year, I don’t feel like I can endure this that long.

So what can I do? I have savings of 20K. I can get the Suporn deposit of ca 3K back, and must. I will have to pay 8-10K in home renovation costs this year. Given yearly bonuses, if I save 1K per month, which is my realistic maximum, then I would have 20K free for surgery by end of the year, and another 8K by next August. The first operation is 19K, the second 9K. It would almost work, at least for a date next year, as it is six months between surgeries anyway. But that leaves me entirely without margins or safeties, if there are any unexpected costs or emergencies, or anything ends up more expensive, this plan breaks and I would have to cancel the date.

Perhaps I have to accept that endurance. And accept I must now save as much as I can, and look for the possibility even of loans. And accept I will burn all my savings and backups and margins on this. Because I feel I can’t go on like this much longer. I will do what I must.

kronos

Having a rare dysphoric spike which I am sure will fade with him; hoping noting it down here will help. It’s simple, really – I read a paper which highlighted how for some phenotypes – lipid absorbtion, liver lipid processing gene expression, and some other related processes – there is little effect of circulating hormones directly or cumulatively, but significant effect of dosage of genes that escape X-inactivation. This couples to those other findings where amino acid metabolism seems to follow in part from a rare example of an Y-chromosome carried transcription factor.

It amounts to there being some biology I cannot femininize with HRT or surgery alone. It is true that I share this with CAIS XY women, which is my first consolation; it can’t make me any more different from a cis woman than they are.

But it still makes me feel a sense of taint about my body, wrongness, thinking of how there are gene programme systems I miss out on. It sticks on me like a dark cloud. And this indeed is dysphoria.

Well, I will do my best. And look eventually for creative solutions.

(Though what can I do? Is there any way to meaningfully amplify gene expression levels in a way which matches the dosage effect of two copies? Maybe. We’d need it to be a strict doubling, amplification, something that still followed the tame tissue- and condition-wide on/off pattern. A global transcript duplicator for chosen genes. Not there yet. Hmmm.)

caput draconis lexis

There was this interesting person saying she was in love with me. She took me to bed and we shared very intimate things about each other. It felt really powerful and I fell so hard and wanted so much to build something with her. Then she faded out. First, it was not wanting to meet other than Platonically. Then, it was not wanting to meet at all. Then, it was just not wanting to communicate. As far as she told me, all of this was just her issues with feeling unsafe with anyone coming too close. Her depression and dysphoria meaning she couldn’t spend time with anyone at all for the moment. Nothing wrong with me.

But then she told me in passing she was so busy with her friends, and with her new boyfriend, and that this was why she had been so distant. So I suppose she actually fell out of love, or realized she wasn’t in love with me after all. Maybe she thought she told me this somehow, but more likely she felt it was too difficult to say it to me other than in this way. So that’s an ex-something. Not an ex-partner, I suppoe, as we were not formally together, despite the above. Yet I need somehow an ex label for her in order to get over her. Ex-love? Ex-flame? Ex-lover? Ex-something, at least. Whatever it was, however little may have been actually reciprocated any longer as time wore on, whatever was there.

So be it. Am I feeling hurt? Yes, of course I am. And that also intrigues me somewhat. I’m glad to know my body is capable of holding emotions I can’t stop. Being able to hurt means I am able to love. I regret nothing. I learned such valuable things about myself, about how I love, hurt, suffer, long, respond. I learned to access my emotions even better, so in some ways she really did succeed in her welcome intention to get me out of my head. I’m stronger and more whole for this.

I’m feeling cruel as well, though I’ll let that mostly pass, I’ll have her in mind as I read of Inanna and Dumuzi in the Underworld. For whatever reason, I was not what she wanted. I am no less worthy for that. Though the pattern of that painful joke remains, that marks three people coming out of an ace/aro period, doing a test drive of intimacy with me, then moving on to whatever they really want. Boys, in two cases, cis girls in one. Not to mention the people who first tried me as a poly/kink adventure in the past. I’ll accept more applicants, I embrace my role as the safe slut to play with. Though be aware, if you get that close to me I’ll probably fall for you too. Fine. Hearts are made to be broken and to heal.

I’m feeling a little bit of headache, and a sort of determined tiredness but also some form of energy. Listening to Tami T who is remarkably appropriate for these moments. I appreciate the meaning my life contains, quite deeply. I’ll spend time making myself better. And if any of those who spurned me see me as whom I will become, then I hope they will appreciate what it was they missed out on.

On another note, did an STD test. HIV negative so far, so nothing there stopping me from surgery with the Suporn clinic.

sens7

Huh. So apparently I have a libido, and aside from it having me fantasize about specific people I feel for, especially triggered by memories of scent, then I also fantasize idly about experiencing a lot of non-penetrative, non-damaging pain – being bitten, being spanked. I have to know it will go far enough that I can’t take it (rather have to take it) and still not leave lasting damage. Damn it. I want that now, eagerly.

cpt hook

So, learning things. I’m actually sad over things I decided many years ago I was not allowed to feel sad over, jeez Louise, who would have guessed? I needed “high hopes, low expectations” and mindfulness in relationships, and it has its uses, but all of me inside is needing to weep over all the times that still hurt, the breakups, the fadings out, the phases in relationships where I slowly got used to not receive any attention or focus, where I got used to being an afterthought or a complement. I can do that but I have to do more also.

I was happy – celebratorily so – at the milestone at finally having cried pre-sleep such that I have to blow my nose over and over again until I actually can sleep. Every teenage girl needs to pass this important milestone and I consider it an important step, a sign that I’ve actually grown. At some point, I will be Psycho Girlfriend, and I long for that day too.

On another level, when it storms, my past inclination has been to try to – usually with no success, but never mind that – seek hookups or escalations of play or whatever. Because validation. The thought of that now is… weird. So I want the perception of being alive and of things being meaningful that good sex brings. But unless everything relationally is Just Right, I don’t really feel that?

That’s sort of new. Thinking back at the last times I was with someone, I felt it interesting because of discovery and exploration and closeness and bonding and love. Not wanting to get off, and not wanting to seek sex in order to get off. After some time of intimacy, I can find myself warming up somehow and wanting to get off? Is this how other girls stereotypically function too? We want to be brought to sensory states and climaxes but we don’t have that wish saliently until we’ve already been at it for some time based in emotional connectivity and more conventional sensuality? Is this that whole foreplay idea?

For me then, getting off once I do want it, that is an issue. I can, with toys. I mostly can’t be seen naked, not even with other pre-op girl I am in love with, though I may be able to learn to. But coming is cumbersome, and cleaning up cum is something awful and I hate it. I really hope SRS will fix this part for me, will fix my parts while keeping them sensate.

So where does that leave me? I want to do hookups because emotion and symbolism and decadence and outlets. But I can’t easily because getting and staying in the mood is hard, without chemistry and with dysphoria, very difficult. And in the end, when I want to be stimulated, it’s a ridiculous and unsatisfactory hassle.

Perhaps once I’ve fixed my anatomy I’ll go out and have people fuck me, I’ll probably try it. May not assuage the need for connection and chemistry though. So how do I get what I need, except in relationships? Good question.

balefire

CW: Not rational, overreacting.

I’m unlovable, useless, impossible to want. I’m too odd, too pretentious, too different, too messed up by dissociation and hypochondria and body issues, too theoretical, too skewed. I’m fat and ugly, aged, caught in androgynous limbo; my voice keeps going too deep. I’m clumsy, I can’t even remember people’s triggers or boundaries, I’m not empathetic enough, not caring enough, not sharp enough to be able to interact with anyone so that I will not hurt them, except possibly by being so focused that I myself can’t stay present as a subjective being.

I’m too selfish, too needy, too clingy. I know too little, I am too forgetful, lazy, undisciplined, I am not smart enough, I don’t feel passionately enough to be interesting, I am almost entirely fake, not authentic, not genuine, useless, uninteresting. I don’t have enough of genuine life or genuine interests or projects for anyone to want to participate in.

Well, more accurately, people sometimes want to try me. I can be a curiosity, a safe game for a night when someone first comes out of a period of celibacy, perhaps. But once anyone tries once, a few times perhaps even, no-one can hold any passion for me. I’m like a corpse that perhaps can entertain a little through dissociated touching and D&D-style fantasy narrating, or who can use a sex toy clumsily, but that won’t last. None can hold passion for me, for what is there to be passionate about? So people fade away and leave me behind.

Or perhaps I am scary? Too weird, too cold, not empathetic enough, too odd, elitist, weird.

What can I do? Well, I can build my own self. I can do the things I should to succeed career-wise, scientifically. Even if I am no genius, at least I can do that, maybe sometime even making a difference. I can be a good friend, I can help and support my friends, entertain them sometime, with no need for reciprocity, though my friends do indeed reciprocate.

I can do some about this disgusting body. I must continue strictly to lose weight, for if I do, my shoulders will slim a little more, by belly will diminish, and my tiny hips and breasts will look a little more feminine by comparison. I can get into shape, because then if I am fit then I will seem healthy, despite my increasing age, and that is something people like. If I like moving in my body, learn more motorics and grace, then I may become actually attractive to some.

I could fix more body things. Bottom surgery is all for me, not to look a certain way to others, but I could reduce forehead some, lower hairline, maybe change cheeks. Weight loss will help there too, as will giving hormones more time. That might make me look a little better.

I will fix my voice, I will somehow get around the laziness and lack of focus and discipline that keeps me from being able to maintain it. I will train, I will focus, I will maintain. I can sound more so that I like myself, and then perhaps others will catch on.

I can learn style. I can learn to tidy up and keep a clean home, not living in a pigsty. That would make me more impressive, and would make it easier for others to stay near me, to want to share some of my everyday life with me.

Getting in better shape should involve sleeping properly also, because then my brain may start functioning better too so I will be able to offer interesting conversation at least. If I can do that then I won’t continually bore or trigger people like I do. I will be able to keep my stupid shit together better, and maybe that will make me more likable.

What else is there? Get more control of my life so I have more freedom to follow the rhythm of others, again letting me become less uninteresting.

Perhaps.

I am a useless needy wreck in real need of therapy and to stop being stupid and passive-aggressive.

And it is very very real that I am loved, I have loving partners who would come to me when I need it, with whom I share crucial sides of myself, with whom I share passions specific to each relationship, whom I would burn continents to save, relative to whom nothing can be more important. They do love me. I cherish this. I treasure this.

Still, the sort of passion that so many other people do experience in their everyday lives, that is beyond me. I am not the kind of person that makes anyone want to prioritize me like that. I will always be less important than various other things, because there is nothing in me that could make me important to others in a way that would inspire romantic devotion.

I should dissociate and get to work. But I don’t want to. I need to stay in pain if I am to be able to heal.

needles and pins

So today I was having first of probably 12 hour-long sessions today of electrolysis targeting the area outlined (NSFW) here: http://www.chet-plasticsurgery.com/dr-chettawuts-recommendation-of-genital-hair-removal/ .

Each single sting has a needle sting, I hate that most. Then the heat/burn; that is not as bad as laser, but combined with the sting it is. I need to focus away from each one, I was babbling in the local language of Babylon the whole time, mostly saying “what is the word that mean… hmmm…”.

Now I applied only a single coat of anaesthetic, and probably not in the right place fully, so may hurt less next time.

But either way I will get through this.

loathing

After a few days of unconditional acceptance at the conference with no issues at all I was sir:d by the lady selling me coffee, despite expressing femme. I tried to speak up but I mumbled and she did not here. Next time I must be harsh and ask until a get a response what the person says. I will do this, will spellbound myself to it. That is a Crone act too. It’s impolite and hurtful but revenge and sharp response is of the Crone.

It must be because the last few days were so good that this hurts now so much. One person did misgender me back then but for her I can think it was habit. Not so here. What’s wrong with my despicable corpse of a body? Holding back tears. Is it the face? The forehead? Probably face length and jaw. Is that even possible to fix? Can more years of hormones do anything? Can surgery? Obsessing, spiraling, hurting deeply. Reached out on instagram. Blogging. Reaching out to loved ones. Disproportionate response. In pain.

What is wrong? How do I find out what is wrong? How do I fix it? For the first time I’m seriously considering facial surgeries. It really is true, the better things get for baseline, the more vulnerable I am.

I hate my form and my features right now, at this minute. Loathing this corpse. Wanting to cry but I don’t have the time.

strike

Third time so far I was explicitly harassed by people in broad daylight where it can be cleanly attributed to transphobia rather than anything else. On a large public square, two teenagers with pig-like features prodded my attention to take headphones off, then spoke to me in the local language. I responded twice in English that I don’t understand, then went away. Could understand enough, something about mother and father, something about trannies. I felt unsafe, even with other people around, and that lack of safety in a physical sense angers and saddens me. And of course, I am mostly sad and bitter that random strangers clock me as trans.

I didn’t set out expecting to “pass“ as cis and still do not. Yet I want to. I’ll note that less than 8 months HRT is only partial puberty. No-one can tell where this goes but of course I have hopes. More to the point, I have a will to act. I’ll get as far as I can.

Later an old woman smiled some at me. That made me feel a little better.