Stopped by the thrift store to get a white button-down shirt for an upcoming tournament, where I'm on crew duty. Didn't find anything that works for me, but I did manage to assemble the late 90s- early 00's Queer Millennial starter pack, so that's 12 euro well-spent.

I'm not sure if it's middle age catching up with me (what age does that begin? lol), or depression, or if there is even a difference between the two at this point, but I just can't find the fuel to keep myself going.
 - I used to read at every spare minute, finishing 2-3 books a month, but since February I haven't been able to turn a single page;
- normally I love working and would work overtime with drive and passion, but I hate my current job and team so much that I both dread mornings and work all the fucking time, because I'm so unproductive and underperforming;
- I love nature and bird-watching in particular. Always was the "random bird facts" guy. Yet I have completely ignored this year's brooding season. It's almost over and I'm just like "meh, whatever"; Read More »

I was scrolling my feed on the train an hour ago and came across a post that I've seen before, in one iteration or another. The caption is something like, "What would you say to your younger self?" And the image is of "current-day self" bitchslapping "younger self'. 9 out of 10 times I would have reposted that or at least liked it. Tonight... I couldn't. I can't. I don't want to hit or punish my younger self.

Fot the last few months in therapy we've been unearthing old truma for me to process, because I never did, and overwhelmingly I've been feeling profoundly sad about my young self. So much stuff that shouldn't have happened. So much self-blaming and self-loathing, for things that other people - adults - were responsible for and instead I blamed myself for. I don't want to bitchslap young Misha. I want to find him and hug him, and hold him, and let him know that he is allowed to be sad and hurt. To tell him it was not his fault or responsibility. That the grooming and exploitation was not his fault. That when friends died it was not his fault but the entire system that failed them and that he couldn't have filled the entire Maslow pyramid for them - it wasn't possible, he was only a child. Read More »

Shortly after I turned 13 I got a phone call from my uncle. He said, "You're old enough and need to be educated. I'm coming to visit." Two hours later his car pulled over in front of our apartment building and he came out carrying two big shopping bags full of casette tapes (all bootleg, of course). He gave them to me with the words, "You need to listen to this. All of it." There was Nick Cave (almost his full discography at the time), Einstürzende Neubauten, Tuxedomoon, Diamanda Galás, The Residents... Then my uncle's friends started calling in, bringing me cassettes of their favourites - Bauhaus, The Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie and the Banshees, obscure garage punk. Every few weeks one of them would call and say, "Hey, I've got new music for you!" And my uncle wasn't wrong. That was the emotional education that I needed then. Read More »

Today I am so grateful for my partner's perfect act of allyship, by itself, but also in contrast to just six months ago when we were on the verge of divorce.

Today I needed to see a doctor and was really stressing out, because it was not our usual family doctor but a substitute - one with whom I've had negative experience in the past. Already during the triage on the phone I felt condescended to and my pain dismissed, so when it was time to go for my appointment I decided that I didn't have the energy to also possibly have to explain my gender situation. So I decided to dress femme *sigh*

Just as I was about to leave, my partner walked by, took one look at me and asked shocked, "What the hell are you wearing?" I explained. Then he took me by the shoulders, marched me back inside and said, "Listen, you're already in pain and you're anxious because you expect a hostile encounter. How on earth do you think you're going to advocate for yourself if you're also dressed in a way that is distressing to you? Take these off and dress like the confident and assertive man that you've been working on becoming!" I did and he was like, "Well! Isn't that loads better?" Read More »

In therapy the other day we were talking about some BS from my childhood and I mentioned that a weird side effect of that is that my reaction to pain from impact (e.g., being hit during sparring) is to laugh. Made me really unpopular as a sub while I was hanging out with the SM crowd, because the harder Doms hit me, the harder I laughed. And it made it pretty hard to explain to them that I wasn't trying to challenge them but that it's an involuntary reaction.

Without missing a beat, the therapist responded with, "Oh, I know. You do it here, too. Every time we stumble upon something particularly painful you just laugh and laugh." Read More »

I'm fucking depressed and, honestly, barely coping but at least I have tomorrow to look forward to. After two years of postponed dates, my favorite band - Einstürzende Neubauten - is coming to town and I can't put into words how much I need that concert right now. They have been incredibly formative for my taste in music, aesthetics and sensibilities. With my soul so completely depleted, I feel almost physically hungry for the emotions they give me, especially live. At the very least hearing Blixa Bargeld's signature primal scream (at 4:33 and 4:54 in the second video) is going to be extremely cathartic xD Read More »

My head hurts and I feel like shit, so here's a list of things that I'm actually happy about myself.

1) I have been chronically underperforming at work, because I hate working alone *that* much. But for the last few days I've been training a new dev, who's going to be partnered with me, and I'm on fire! Teaching gives me so much energy. He's smart and quick, if a bit cocky on occasion, and I think we'll make an epic pair. And I blew our lead's mind by configuring passwordless access to the server lol

2) Looking in retrospect on one year of transition, I realize that it's done miracles about my assertiveness. Having to repeatedly come out to people and to proactively insist on correct forms of address, or to defend my gender expression, has made me much more confident about upholding my boundaries, standing my ground and caring just a tiny bit less about getting critical feedback. This has spilt over to other, gender-unrelated communication. I'm letting my voice be heard a bit more. I am letting fewer people interrupt me and make sure that if I have something to say that I get the opportunity to say it. I'm not avoiding conflict at *all* costs - I still don't like it, but if I feel I need to oppose someone on principal grounds (e.g., if it's for the good of the team/organization), I'm way more willing to do it. Read More »

Spotify is creeping me out.

So, in the last few days I've been struggling with cravings for alcohol. It doesn't happen often and I've been a very good boy for more than a decade. But the past month has been a tough one in general and something triggered the cravings a few days ago (I blame Feel Good).

This morning I check my Discover Weekly playlist, and it is ALL songs about alcohol addiction. And I can't figure out what data it has aggregated to come to this conclusion, and it's creeping me out.

All that is different this past week has been: I've been listening to lots of Depeche Mode (which is what I used to listen to when I had the most trouble, but we didn't Read More »

Reposted from marbear

It is rare that I feel good about myself, but today I feel so fly that not even the sexagenarian butch who berated me for - among other things - working out at a trans gym and not at the women's gym "like a normal woman" could get my mood down.

Shout-out to the 80 year old in a wheelchair I just met, who was like "Welp, I figured I was a woman when I was 35 but never transitioned, and now I'm living in an old people's home and it's about time I did something about it."

People tease me that I haven't seen any culturally relevant film or series and I usually excuse myself by saying that I don't have the attention span to watch an entire thing. The real reason, though, is that my anxiety is so bad that I cannot tolerate the tension that is built up in the script. I have to have the entire movie/episode thoroughly spoiled before I can watch it, because otherwise I get anxiety attacks at every little conflict.

This post brought to you by me trying to go through a single episode of Feel Good and having to pause it every 5 minutes because my heart is racing so badly. That, even after the fact that I have read the Wikipedia entry of every episode so I already know exactly what happens... I fucking hate my brain. Read More »

Doing combat sports before FTM transition:
- guys would always, always, explain things to me when I didn't ask for it. Did I know the technique? Doesn't matter. I got an explanation. Did I ask for an explanation? Doesn't matter, got one. I ask to please let me try out the technique first, because this is a drill, and to debrief after it? Nope, dudes waste the entire drill time explaining me how things should be done instead of just letting me do the fucking exercise and figure it out as we're supposed to. And in the end I didn't learn the technique, because I didn't get a chance to try it out.

This post is in memory of that one ex of mine who made a huge deal of how disabling ADHD was for ~him~ but then read ~my~ neurodivergent ass for filth when I shared the visual way in which I think and access memories.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I knew pretty early in my teens that I did not want biological children and that adoption would be the right choice for me if I wanted to be a  parent, for all sorts of reasons. Everybody told me then, "Oh, you'll see, you'll change your mind when you're older". I never did ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The pregnancy ship has sailed now (all parenthood ships, tbh), and that's okay with me, but occasionally a day pops in when I wish I had had the experience of carrying a child, birthing it... Today is one of those days ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And then I remember what absolute body horror scenario this is for me and all the ways in which it terrifies me, and any romanticized notions I have of pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding/etc go right out the window! Read More »

My partner and I were talking about an upcoming competition and I was unsure if I still have to compete in the women's pool, considering that I am not in medical transition yet. He said, "There are a hundred reasons why this pool is not right for you, but apart from them, why would you want to cause yourself crushing dysphoria? You don't need that."

We have a lot of differences about my transition and it's been a really challenging time for our relationship. However at moments like this I am reminded that whatever the future may hold for us as a couple, he still cares about my welbeing as a human being, as much as I care for his. This gives me hope that perhaps we could ride this out. Read More »

Gender dysphoria pro tip: no one can focus on your chest if they're completely traumatized by your shirt.

Reposted from marbear