Torn between my vacation and my home

This has been a bad week but I'm slowly starting to get slightly better, at least physically. My crap diet, forgetting meds, crap sleeping pattern, etc had caught up with me bad. That it was pms on top of that as well I didn't know until I woke up this morning with my first period for almost 2 years now. And I was so relieved to see that red spot in my pantiliner. I've never been so happy to see my own blood before, ahaha...

I've gotten a bit better sleep pattern, managed to remember taking my meds for the past few days, and also managed to fix up my diet slightly. My diet had gotten so bad it took a toll on my digestive system with intense stomach pains and constipation, so I had to do something. High fiber toasts instead of muffins, was the only solution I could physically manage, and barely even that. That seems to be helping a lot though, so that's good.

Emotionally I'm pretty much still as messy though. I don't feel connected to my emotions and feel constantly weighed down by them. Like a dull, pounding sadness and built up frustration constantly brewing in the background. It keeps me tense and on edge.

I wrote a reply to a post at Susan's Place that I think really captures how I feel about my body but specifically my face these days. Like I've noticed I do feel a quite strong disconnect to how I look which is probably something like gender dysphoria. I struggle to make sense of the feeling, but it's not like I reject the traits I feel dysphoric about, I just can't connect to them and it's more of a "shut off" feeling.

Like this metaphor I made, I think really illustrated how that feeling presents itself within myself:

"It feels more like a self-loving disconnect like I'm patiently waiting for my body to pick up the phone on the other end but all I get is a "the number you're calling is currently unavailable" and I just keep calling and leaving sweet, caring voice mail messages. Please call back soon, I need you. And it feels like a sad sigh of "oh what have I done to myself" without really wanting to dig into the true depth of that feeling, so it stays at a barely managable surface level."

It's like a haunting feeling of wondering if my body is really alright, like trying to get a hold of a friend who you know is suffering but they never answer your calls. And like you really care about them and love them, and you're getting desperate like "pleeeaase call back, I care about you so much, I just wanna hear your voice" but they never do, and it worries you, but also you know they're still alive and all.

But it's also that feeling like I betrayed myself and am sorry towards myself. Like I really hurt myself and I feel so bad about it. That's what I regret the most. That I hurt myself by transitioning.

It's an eerily haunting feeling, and very heavy. Like my body doesn't wanna respond cause it's upset with me and the changes I've done to it. I'm so sorry and I just wanna help making it better, but I don't know how and my options are limited. I'm scared to hurt you more, again. This "new" (yeah old) dysphoric feeling is regards to my changes from testosterone. And I've noticed I actually feel similarly towards them as I do towards my chest: grief, and regret. I feel very conflicted about my hairiness, face shape changes, obviously my facial hair, hairline and little conflicted about my voice. Cause I do feel like those things made me "less me" like they changed my looks in a way that makes me feel disconnected to myself, cause it's not what I naturally had, it's not something I truly ever wanted (just thought I did), but it was a mistake that I came to love.

Do you remember that metaphor I once made about feeling like my femaleness is like my home that I'm missing terribly, and my maleness is like a beautiful and amazing vacation? Keep that in mind for a moment:

Essentially I'm torn between if I should reverse the changes or try to make amends with them. Cause what feeling often comes along with regret? The fear of making more regrets, no matter which way you go. I am scared to make any more permanent changes to my body due to what I personally think is dysphoria, cause I've been wrong before and it had devastating consequences. So like, me trying to reconcile and make amends with my facial hair, deep voice, etc and having decided to keep those things doesn't mean I have no issues with them.

I can't connect them to my female gender, but I also don't have the heart to reverse of them, cause my heart is torn between my vacation and my home.

I feel like that about my body. Both missing how it was originally and not wanting to reverse it cause I also love how it became. I'm both dysphoric and satisfied with it at the same time and that's a very tough mix of feelings to deal with. Cause I'm clearly not dealing with it. Like I just dunno what to do about it. I feel at a loss with it. It's an intense inner struggle of self-love and disconnect, trying to connect but not getting an answer, feeling betrayed by myself and grieving my lost original beauty. Just because I once had it but now it's gone.

Perhaps I was too quick on saying I've "integrated my male and female sides" cause this doesn't feel integrated at all. Perhaps I've missed a piece of that puzzle and became disintegrated again. And also I feel much more feminine and female than I first gave myself credit for. Or rather I "backtracked" a little bit into my detransing when I started thinking I was more androgynous than I really think I am. Truth is I don't know how much of my androgyny is genuine or "learned" from my upbringing. But I do truly feel like I need to be really female to feel right and connected to my body, although I'm not sure what that means. What's "female enough" for me? How much more female do I need to be? Is there a limit of what would be "too female" for my liking, and in that case what's that?

Boobs and pussy, hell yeah. Thin waist and wide hips too. And smoothness does feel like something I need a bit more of but I don't know how much, and voice wise I really don't know. All my gut and heart is telling me is that I need for my body to be "unmistakenly female" like no one would ever doubt I'm a woman unless they're blind. Like... give me back my passing privilege! I don't think I truly feel like my male traits are "me" in that deep sense of self kind of way, but rather that I just really like them and would panic if I lost them. I wear them like precious jewellery I refuse to take off, but I don't wear them like my actual skin or parts of myself.

I know they technically ARE parts of my actual body, and that's exactly why I struggle with them so bad, cause in my mind I don't connect to them as parts of my actual self, but like additions to my actual self. Like they're part of my style that I really really love, but I want to be able to take off my style and be naked without my male traits. But I can't. I can't take them off and then put them back on again. I don't feel like I'm naked enough when I'm actually naked because of my male traits. Like I really like my black lacey skirts and my wine red lipstick, but I would get really scared and panicky if I one day couldn't take them off anymore.

And I think I've figured out that I feel like that about my male traits. Them being permanent on my body scares and haunts me, but I don't want to lose them forever. It's especially hard when I meet people that I don't want for to see me with stubble, don't want for them to know I grow hair there, and I can't hide it well enough. Just try to imagine having sex with a full face of makeup to cover it up and being so damn worried it'll rub off on the sheets or on my partner that I can't even relax and enjoy myself properly. And forget about them staying the night cause they'd rub up against my damn sandpaper rough stubbly face in the next morning.

I don't wanna have to deal with that. For god knows how long. I can't connect it to my womanhood, I just can't. It's just way too manly. And it makes me feel so awkward and weird and uncomfortable about it. Cause like 99% of people do connect beards to men and not to women. Except from dicks, beards are kinda considered the most male body trait possible. Others don't see me as a real woman with it, and I can't blame them. Cause neither can I. My feelings just keep screaming that at me, and I can't comfort them.

I still need those traits as a temporary addition, but that I can't possibly have. Being stuck with the only two options of either keeping them forever on me or removing them to never be able to have them again... fills me with an existential crisis like no fucking other. Because both those options are wrong for me, probably equally wrong even, and I can't think of any way I could possibly solve that situation.

It makes me wanna cry. It makes me feel inconsolable sadness. Like it's just too painful. I love the way I look now, but I feel a terrible disconnect to it cause it's not how I see myself. Oh what should I do?

I think this might be a period of conflicting feelings that eventually will lead to me realising I'm holding onto the silver lining of a damaged past and not truly going for what I actually need for myself. I think I will eventually come to a point where I'll realise I simply have to let go of my male traits. Cause no matter how good they were for me in the past, they're harmful for me now. I'm just refusing to accept that. It's not my femaleness that is dead or dying... it's my maleness. And I refuse to bury it. Still holding on to its lifeless body. I can't move on... unless I let go of him.

But I need more time. And some fucking useful therapy! How much longer do I need to wait for that!? And who the HELL am I even supposed to talk to about these detrans feelings? I'm spinning in circles, I'm biting my own tail, I'm fucking trapped in my misery and it's just getting worse. And my therapist doesn't get it and I can't convey it, what the hell am I supposed to do?! I'm getting desperate! I'm figuratively biting myself bloody over this. I'm so tired. I can't get anything done. I haven't managed to clean any dirty dishes or get any laundry done for months. Fucking months!!! I just keep buying new clothes, but I can't keep up with that anymore either and I'm running out of clean underwear... I keep eating on dirty plates and drinking from dirty cups. I've drank coffee from the same dirty cup that I haven't cleaned for like... a month?! It's insane! I can't do anything except from sitting on my ass by my computer and going to "therapy" that is utterly unhelpful just hoping it will get helpful soon while I'm fucking withering away in my own filth!

It doesn't bother me on a personal level, like it doesn't gross me out, but I need to be clean in public and if I can't do laundry I will stink. And I can't perfume my fucking underwear, my pussy would hate me for it. Well this entry is becoming a really whiny book on its own... but I'm just so desperate now. And really feeling like I'm just losing it. Like I've gotten lost in my grief and there's just nothing else. I can't zoom out cause it keeps pulling me down. I can't think about anything else, I can't feel anything else, it's suffocating me, day, night, every hour every minute every fucking second even. It exhausts me. Even in conversations with other people all that's on my mind is "grief grief boobs detrans detrans grief detrans hormones boobs detrans grief grief detrans" and I can't even hear what others say when it's not about that. I've gotten so absorbed in it cause I can't process it properly. It just keeps churning and brewing and boiling and tearing me up inside.

I just wanna tear my skin off and scream and smack it against a wall and stomp on it and slash it with knives and stab it and just cry all my million fucked up hearts out. But I can't release it cause it's so much it would shatter me. It is overwhelming, it is far too overwhelming. I can't carry its weight. It's crushing me. And psychiatry leaves me to my own vices WITH THIS!!!?? Yeah, fucking thanks. I don't care if it's controversal. I'm a real person, not statistics, and I'm in need of some real help, not a pat on my shoulder. Who, within psychiatry, even could help me? What sort of expert? I don't know where to turn. I'm just so sad and hurting I literally can't function.

I feel like detransition was the worst thing that ever could happen to me. I was right about fearing it in my transition. I was right about it destroying me. Cause here I am, literally living my own worst nightmare. And I'm trapped within it. I can't go back. To either how I was pre-transition or as a semi-happy trans man. It's all too late for both of those now. I just love being a woman way too much now. But I hate this situation. And I hate my huge loss of control in all of it. It feels like I'm just falling down a hill and all I can say is just "ouch ouch ouch" on my way down. But I don't see a bottom of the hill and I'm getting both really broken and dizzy. How far did I fucking climb?!

I don't even know what's going on with all of my feelings. How can I...? I don't even understand just what the fuck happened since I first began to detrans. How am I a woman?! It's weird! Like.. is this my life now? Yeah, transitioning was most definitely "life changing" alright. It's a little hard on me. I just keep ranting, I'm not getting anywhere... Let's get back to what I was saying before.

The topic of the post on Susan's that I replied to was "What do you see when you look in the mirror?" and this is what I answered to that question:

"I see my past mistakes of transitioning, self-inflicted pain, a lot of regret. I grunt at what to me looks like a man with feminine eyebrows, face stubble, a hairy chest and prosthetic breasts in a bra. I feel weird about it all, and sad...

Staring at my face I wonder how I can find my true self again by hiding it under makeup, and then I think about the irony in that thought. I used to take my femininity for granted and hate it. Now I love it but can't find it again.

I only partially recognise my own face. It both feels familiar and alien at the same time. But it's still my face, and that in itself is a comfort. It's easier with what's below my neck, except from my chest, cause I do notice that my body shape looks unmistakenly feminine, and that's comforting."

It makes me wonder if I've been trying to escape my dysphoric feelings about my male traits because I also like them a lot. Because liking something apparently is not the same as feeling connected to it.

I've always, always struggled to figure out what is "truly me" or just something I really like. Being bisexual also doesn't help with that at all. Honestly it's doing me a huge disfavour that I don't ever truly know if I'm attracted to a guy or want to look like him, or if I'm attracted to a girl or want to look like her! It's with both genders and I'm just frustrated with never knowing the difference between attraction or wanting to look like someone. I think that has a lot to do with my dissociation, actually. That because it essentially means I'm extremely disconnected to both myself and everyone else around me, and the inanimate world too... it also means that on the rare occasions that I do feel some connections, they're haphazard, whimsical and don't make a lot of sense. Like they're incomplete and not properly developed, somehow. Like a new product launched too soon so it's full of technical flaws. And I can't analyse or understand them properly so I misjudge them. Tech support? I think I need tech support for my brain.

It just suddenly made me think one of my favourite movies... it's called "Vanilla Sky" and is an American remake of a Spanish movie. I love that movie so much. It's everything I could ever want in a movie. And I really resonate with it a whole lot. Especially the mind-glitching and needing some damn tech support for my malfunctioning brain cause my dream has also become a nightmare. And now in my detransition, I feel like I'm dealing with a car crash wreck of a face somehow. In one scene, the main character David talks to his team of surgeons who are trying to find ways to fix his face (from the car crash, he got disfigured) when he says: "It's not about vanity, it's about functioning in society" and that speaks to me as well.

That sometimes I think my masculinity is making me socially dysfunctional cause people can't look beyond it and they act really fucking rude around me. How fun is it to buy groceries when the cashier is deliberately staring at something way off behind me or just into their screen, showing such blatantly obvious discomfort that they're literally doing everything they can to avoid looking at my face? Perhaps I should do what David did in such a situation in the movie: say "Why don't you say that to my face, bitch?" (he said that to a guy, a bartender) and then stare at the person to remind them of how fucking rude they are! Like that's not okay, fuckhead!

Seriously, I don't get that! Whenever I've met people who have very unusual looks, or who do have a face disfiguration, even if it's extreme, it's not difficult for me to just look them in their eyes and act like a normal fucking person. But then people struggle to look ME in the eyes? It fucks with me, on several levels. It feels like ice going down my spine and all I can think in such a moment is "this person must think I look so horrible they can't even stand to look at me" which is not a great feeling!

Whenever I've watched that movie in the past, I always kept thinking it must be horrible to be treated like that by strangers, and I swore to never treat other people that way. And I never have. I've always been polite and treated everyone with the same amount of respect, regardless of what they look like. Well, is my karma broken, or what happened?! I mostly just don't get it. I know I'm not actually ugly or disfigured, but being treated as if I was... it kinda puts a new perspective on things. And it makes me feel things I've never wanted to feel.

My body doesn't feel like my own anymore, but I do love it. When I interact with other people and they don't believe I'm a cis woman, it reminds me of that I don't look like myself anymore and it carves at that disconnect I feel towards my body. I am being misgendered, even when they think I'm a trans woman, and even though I don't wanna think of it as misgendering. Cause it takes me back to how I felt in my early transition not passing as a guy yet... like I'm literally back to square one again after a decade of transitioning. Fuck it hurts, man. It feels like I'm trying to navigate my life with someone else's body. It's scary, it's lonely. It makes me scared to form new relationships and connect with other people. Cause I don't feel like myself and I don't think others can see me.

Well shit I thought I had healed away all of my dysphoria but it appears I have not. I'm still dysphoric about my male traits, although I also love them. I thought that just showing myself in public with those traits would be a good way to get comfortable with having them and for a while it did work, or I thought it did, but on second thought that might be why I now feel worse about them instead. Think I'm going back to shaving my face for a while, and obsessively hiding my beard shadow with makeup again. If I'll wear a deep neck shirt I'll also shave my chest again. I hate this. I hate my fucked up situation. I hate that I gave myself dysphoria by transitioning and all the complicated feelings that come along with it.

Yeah, my maleness is my favourite vacation spot. Like a beautiful lake house with wild growing trees surrounding it. It has protected me, it's kept me safe from my internal fears about being a woman, it let me breathe, it gave me hope, and I love it as a very dear friend and life companion. But I miss my home. I miss it so much. But I know that if I leave my vacation spot I can never go back to it, because the only way I can go back home is to erase my vacation spot. I can't do that. I need my missing femaleness back, real bad, but not at the cost of my maleness. Why does my reality have to be this cruel?

Is it better... to let my body get more feminised again as I just let time pass without the testosterone in my body, even if I panic and miss the things that reverse back. And try to at least... just consider hair removal at some point. I'm so scared to let go of what I love... but I think I have to, cause it's not good for me no matter how much I love it. And I do miss the way my body used to be, so it is possible I'll get more connected to it once the panic goes down again and I get more used to my body changing again.

This suddenly became a lot harder than I ever thought it would be. I thought detransition would mean I'd just automatically want to look totally female again and not like any of my male traits anymore. But apparently it's much more complicated than that. And I might have to force myself to let go of my male traits, at some point, probably including my beard, if they really do make me feel worse... no matter how much I love them.