I dunno what just hit me but suddenly I just felt like a wave of sadness from out of nowhere and like the life force was sucked out of me. Like someone just blew out a candle light within me. I dunno why, or what caused that feeling. It's really not nice and I thought maybe if I write about it a bit I could figure it out. I dunno though.
I started a new drawing but stopped it after not even 10 minutes cause I couldn't focus on it at all and felt no motivation what so ever. I can't write on my story either. I just really, really wanna create something but I can't. It makes me feel so empty. Like I've lost some really important part of myself that I really need to feel better, and I've already lost too much. I know my creativity isn't gone forever though, but I still hate that it's temporarily gone. It causes a chafing restlessness within me that can't get out. And I don't need that feeling on top of everything else.
I feel so disconnected to everything that life is. Everything. Like I'm just barely even here, barely interacting with the world, and barely interacting with myself even. I don't know if that's dissociation or just depression. My sadness is really tearing at me. I don't think this like "clinical depression" but rather the kind of depressed you get when you go through something in life that is very hard to go through. Like if you'd lose your home or a job you really love, that might make you feel like utter shit and like you have depression but it's not the mental illness kind, but caused by external circumstances. I've had that a lot in my life, and here I have it again.
I guess... maybe I feel defeated by life. That I tried so hard to make life better for myself and it was going so well... but then detransition happened and it just completely killed my spirit and I feel like I've lost a lot of progress. I can't take care of myself or my home cause my feelings are just constantly choking me and making me incapable of doing anything that's even the slightest bit productive.
I took a shower late yesterday evening, around midnight. And it was so hard... I didn't know my chest grief/dysphoria had gotten so bad until I stepped into the shower thinking nothing of it. I couldn't touch my chest, couldn't look at it. I couldn't keep my arms far enough from it. It weighed so heavily on me. I could barely even wash myself. It hasn't been this bad since before my top surgery. And it saddens me so much that I used to feel exactly the same kind of bad about my chest with boobs before the op, as I do now almost 5 years after the op. Like I literally got back to square one. But now missing my boobs so badly I can't... I just can't... function.
I wrote in a comment in a facebook group about that: "Last time I felt this bad about my chest was before the op. Oh sigh." Cause what else can I do but just sigh at this misery?
The breast forms barely help at all now, but without them I get a literal panic attack and break down completely, so I need to wear them for whatever little comfort they can give me. I've started wearing them with a regular sports bra while just at home. It helps giving my chest and back a break from the much harder mastectomy bras, but the tiddies don't stay in place well in them. They overlap at the middle a lot which gives an annoying and unsightly "mono boob" look, even in mastectomy bras, but much more so in a regular sprts bra. I think it's because they're too wide across my chest. They're like a soft triangular/cone shape and that "bottom" width is too wide for my tiny chest, so they keep getting pushed towards the centre, and overlap. I should probably get myself properly fitted for actual breast prosthetics so I can get something of a size and shape that actually fits my chest, and not this pair which is probably made for huge drag queens... ugh. Well that's why they were cheap!
I jus don't know if I could get fitted for prosthetics because of both reasons that my mastectomy was my own stupid choice (and not cause of cancer, etc) and because I'm looking into getting a reconstruction as soon as possible. But I'd still likely end up being stuck with prosthetics as my only comfort for like a year from now. And I can't imagine a breast doctor or plastic surgeon or whoever would outright DENY me just getting fitted for a pair that I could then pay for myself. Cause I really doubt I could get that kind of cost covered, considering they usually cost between 100 and 400 euro, for a pair. I wouldn't go above 200 though, I think. But if I'm desperate and dysphoric enough, I might. Cause maybe that's one of the things that make me struggle more with the boobs now... cause they don't act like real boobs and that just annoys me and reminds me of my brokenness. Cause my false limbs don't sit right! Gah! I mean, that, if anything, really makes them feel false, you know...
I'm gonna need to buy one of those fluffy shower sponges so I can clean my chest without directly putting my hands on it, and possibly shower in the dark as well. This feels like a defeat and maybe that feeling from last night's shower is what's lingering and tearing at me. Cause usually showering makes me feel better cause it's soothing and all, but not that time. It was terribly dysphoria-inducing and made me feel utterly horrible.
Am I making any progress at all or am I falling apart? Cause it feels more like the latter now. I just wanna lie down and cry, but I can't. My head hurts, I'm hungry but I can't eat anything at all cause my sadness is killing off what little appetite I once had.
Also my favourite comic magazine and only one I like reading (Nemi) is gonna stop existing, or stop getting published sometime around spring or summer next year. That saddened me too. What else am I gonna read when I'm waiting for food stuff to get done in the kitchen? I don't know, I don't care. I don't feel anything.
Maybe this wave of sadness was just all those little things gathering up together into a lump that infested my mood and killed it.
Some days ago or I don't recall when, I read a few random texts by random people here and there that made me think as well. It was stuff like... trans people thinking detransition would be "too late" for them cause of how far they had gone in transition (but not actually wanting to detrans, just fearing it), some trans woman who decided to detrans only because she lost her boobs to cancer, and some ignorant person on youtube saying hurtful shit about how much of an idiot I was to transition. I dunno, maybe that got to me too. Or more than I first thought it did.
It both makes me think like... how can anyone let their physical situation stop them from living the way they see is their truth? And how can they not understand that for me staying true to myself matters so much more... even though it hurts like getting run over by a truck and being left to bleed to death. I had no other choice... it makes me so upset, that I had no other choice. Cause I couldn't continue living as a man knowing I'm a woman and loving being one... but I can't enjoy being a woman in this mess either. I was stuck with two utterly terrible choices. Like lose your body or lose your mind, what's better? Well I chose my mind.
I just feel more and more broken, more and more lost and disconnected from my body. I don't know why, cause I like it getting less hairy and slowly more feminised again, and I like that I got my periods back, I'm looking forward to getting more and more womanly-looking again and I am getting closer in that direction but at the same time I'm feeling worse. Perhaps I just zoom in on what hasn't changed yet. Or... perhaps it could be that since my mind has changed to a lot more feminine again on the returning estrogen, I react more distressed towards my male traits? Well I think it might make sense, in a way. I dunno though, consider it a loose theory.
But also, my mood swings have been incredibly insane today. Like literally laughing my ass off every other minute and then feeling super sad every other minute. It's a mess, and yeah I'll talk to my doc about that on Monday as I have an appointment with him then. I haven't had this bad mood swings since I started my meds for that, like 3 years ago. And it's pretty obviously my hormones causing this change, and not my borderline personality disorder. Actually, estrogen was never a good combination with that disorder and the testosterone helped with a lot of my symptoms of it... so well yeah let's see how crazy the return of my estrogen will make me again then!
I guess I just feel so beaten trying to live as a tit-less, hairy woman with a beard and deep voice that I'm just... I feel freaked out by my own looks and horrified by what the mirror shows me. I don't see a woman. I see mutilation and sadness. I feel disgusted and sad, and I just can't cope with it. I realise that I've literally never felt at peace with my body or like it reflects me gender-wise, and now it just fucking flipped in my detransing from one kind of gender-discomfort to another and I just... fuck, will I ever be able to find that peace? If so, how much and how long will it take? Will I ever be done transitioning in one way or another? I started at age 19 and I won't be done before 30... maybe 32 if I'm lucky. I just wasted my entire 20's being miserable about my body and altering it medically for no good reason. What a fucking waste. I'm so sick of all this gender-chaos, I need a fucking break. A vacation. Just something nice. Can I just borrow another female body that is whole, just for a little while, so I can get a little peaceful break to regain my strength? And play with the tiddies? Nah? Fucking thought so.
I wrote this comment reply to a post in an fb group where a trans guy was venting about still not being able to pass at some 1,5 year on testo, that the only change he's gotten so far is face- and body hair. I at first thought I was just being solidary but then kinda realised my situation is probably worse... but anyhow:
"I was reallly disappointed by my T changes as well, back in my transition when I thought of myself as a man and had what I thought was dysphoria. Except from that I did get a deep voice, I had the exact same issues as you. My body shape remained very curvy, my face shape didn't change. The only changes that could be noticed were voice and hair. I was stuck in an androgynous state, and didn't pass until almost 3 years on T.
Here's what made me pass: being able to grow a decent looking beard (learning how to trim and style it well helped, and yes your beard will continue to fill out, it takes some 3-4 years at least), dressing myself in very thought-out ways that gave the illusion my body had a much more masculine shape, changing my mannerisms and body language to appear more stereotypically male, and pretend I was confident. People automatically read me as male then, but it took a lot of work.
As you don't have the deep voice which I got, I'd suggest doing voice training additionally as well. If you can't get it deeper, just changing flow and tone can help really a lot (I got that advice from mtf's who struggle to get their voices to sound higher.) Yeah I was dysphoric while naked but at least I could pass while dressed. My hip-fat dysphoria that the T couldn't change the looks of even caused me an eating disorder, which I'm recovered from now, but it was hard back then. Sometimes hrt doesn't give us what we want and disappointment follows. It sucks, undoubtedly.
But the irony of it all for me, is that now in my detransition I struggle to pass as female instead. I get gendered male about 70% of the time irl, and I can't even figure out why. Probably cause I can't fully hide my facial hair, though. Cause I worked so hard and for so long to pass as male so I could feel better and live a decent life, but then I ended up realising I never even had dysphoria and am really a woman, but now I can't pass as female instead. It makes me feel like... I'm too sad to cry about it so I'm just gonna laugh at this cruel fucking joke instead. Sometimes we're just dealt really shitty cards in life, huh? Well, I feel that a lot. So I think you're allowed to complain."
And I dunno but that gave me a lot of heavy feels. I don't think I've until now in my detransing thought about just how much I struggled to pass as male, then finally managed after really a lot of hard work and dealing with my eating disorder and feeling like it was just all hopeless I could never look like I wanted to... passed well for some 4 years... and then this. It feels like a huge blow in my gut. That I tried so fucking hard to find peace and look good and just live a decent fucking life cause I thought I was a trans man... to only 4 years later realise I had been completely wrong all along and now I can't fucking pass as female.
It really does make me too sad to cry. Like it's just baffling how incredibly unfair it is. And it makes me feel like I just wanna give up. What's the point in trying to pass when it literally never works and what's the point in trying to look pretty when people keep treating me like I'm a monster? It's just getting harder and harder to make myself leave the house. I don't want to. I don't wanna be seen by anyone. Least of all myself but not by anyone else either. I just wanna stay inside for months or even years unless I'll start feeling better.
Maybe I wanna try a more neutral style for a while and see if that feels better. Wear a scarf over my head. Can't be bothered with wigs, they piss me off. I don't have the energy to try to fix them up and they are all in need of fixing. Fix fix fix fuck it! But I know I'd rather wear a paper bag over my head, that covers my face too. Just two small holes for eyes and one hole for my mouth so I can smoke. But wearing that would surely get me the wrong kind of attention too...
I don't know what I want to do with my looks. Cause I think it's really just my dysphoria itself that makes me feel like crap in public, even when I'm not getting misgendered. Like I just keep expecting it to happen and it keeps me constantly tense and on edge. And I don't want a more neutral style. Well on some days maybe, but not like always or in general. Mostly I'm just sick of having to spend so much time and energy on hiding my stupid beard before I can leave the house. It takes me at least 2 hours to just get ready the simplest way I can and I just feel like... to hell with it! I'm sick of it! Like if I have to keep doing that for every single time I wanna go outside.... man I dunno how much longer I can keep it up. Like how much longer I can force myself through that frustrating ritual until I'll just stop answering the phone and just refuse to leave the house altogether. Cause it's gonna hit a breaking point eventually. I just know that.
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