Stressy Days, Bra Fittings, Realisations, Reminders & Diva Goggles!
The past week or so have kind of sucked so far until now. I was pretty hard hit by the visit to that GP and frustrated and upset about how things had gone. I'd come away with the sense again that no one could really help me. I didn't know what to do and it was just too much for me to cope with.I have known for some time that I feel I'm benefiting from the hormones and anti-androgens or either one of them. I maybe shouldn't keep trying to work out why I feel better. I want to run through some thoughts though here though. My first theory is that blocking my testosterone has been the beneficial thing here. I find it difficult to believe that I could mentally be affected by testosterone but there is something going on there. I believe that since starting the meds I've been more open to explore inside, and my initial anxieties and distress has gone away mostly. Quite a few times I feel so good and claim to myself that's its not the meds. Other times I even forget that I'm even taking meds and think that my current state is the result of nothing. I think I can surely say that the meds do help me because several times I've decided to stop in the belief that I was fine, and then my distress and anxieties have come back really strongly. Most of the time I hate taking the meds and wish I didn't have to take them. I have frustrated moments when I feel like they are a ball and chain. Though I can see how many people in different situations feel controlled by their meds. This has often led me to desire injectable oestrogen and sub-dermal anti-androgens. It's like I want to take something as little as I have to and still have the benefits.Last Wednesday I met a friend of mine in Birmingham with the intention for me to get fitted for a bra.I wasn't happy about this in the first place and my anxieties, even though buried deep down, were strong. I just tried to act as normal as possible with my friend. I've realised how concious I am of my male body these days. As usual the spirolactone I take made me want to pee again and again while in town. I wasn't sure where and which toilets to use. I seem to get quite anxious about whether people gender me as male or female. I often worry what will happen if someone will claim I'm in the wrong toilets. This hasn't happened to me yet and I am expecting it. I don't know how people might react to this. So, using the public toilets was such a big deal then and I ended up walking into the male toilets and walking straight out in panic. That upset me so much and I've realised I have to work on this anxiety. I couldn't bring myself to walk into the female toilets and the disabled toilets were occupied. I was so upset and that really affected my mood. I seem to be so scared of confrontations with people in life and try to avoid them at all costs. I am not always good with words when I'm anxious or nervous about something. I felt deeply frustrated that I'd walked away instead and ignored my urge to pee. As soon as we had left that situation my friend walked into a lingerie shop nearby and I freaked out. I dug my heals in and verbally and stubbornly refused to enter the shop. The situation was out of my comfort zone. I've been in lingerie shops dozens of times with girls but this time I got stuck to the spot. Even though my mind was really clouded and I couldn't think straight, I think I've identified one aspect of my fear. I felt like I wasn't allowed there in that shop. I believe that through their duty to sell things the women in that shop would deep down feel I didn't belong there at all. It felt like the women in there were scary monsters ready to rip me to sheds with their thoughts. People always tell me I shouldn't care what people think of me but to me that doesn't help. I have always been very aware of myself and worried about how people see me. There are positive aspects to this I'm sure. I have never liked my image being looked down upon and people have misinterpreted me in the past. So, I'm concious about everything now. After a couple of moments I suggested we go the department store 2 minutes away in the mall. This felt like an easier place to get fitted for a bra. In my head I couldn't imagine any young girls looking down on me in the department store. We went up the escalator and walked around to find the changing room. When we found it I had a big panic attack and walked off shaking. Again I felt out my comfort zone and unable to control things in this situation. My friend was so sweet about it but I just couldn't go back to get measured. I felt I had blew my chance of normality there and didn't want to cause more of a situation there. I wanted to get as far away from the place as I could and find somewhere quiet. I thought a few things out with my friend as we sat down in the mall. I couldn't exactly work out what was wrong but a few things went through my head. I think I had blown the whole bra fitting situation all out of proportion in the first place. I had tried to understand why I was going and what I was expecting to feel. Maybe in a naïve way I had expected it to be a black and white situation, feeling it would either be right or wrong for me. I had formed this image in my head that if it were right, I would feel at home there, feel like it was perfectly normal, or/and feel like a woman there. I created this situation in my head that if I didn't feel these things then everything was wrong. I estimated that being trans would be wrong, and being male would be the right thing. This, however, didn't work out like this and I felt a lot of emotions because of this situation. I talked with my friend about a few things until she decided she had to go home so we parted company. I went walked around the shops for a bit and actually felt quite relaxed. I felt like I more able to express my androgyny alone there at that time. I went into a gay and lesbian store and sat in a bookshop and looked some books. I noticed something I feel is quite significant about myself. I crave the knowledge of how people gender me and it grinds me down not knowing. I know I have a preference as well about how I want people to gender me. I'm constantly wanting people to gender me as female. Yet I can't deal with this activity that is called passing. I don't want to make a concious attempt to make people gender me female. I wondered whether to be trans meant that it is normal to always want to conciously attempt to make people gender oneself as female as well. Maybe I'm asking too much but I crave people to gender me as female however I”m acting, whether it be butch, andro or femme. The train journey ride back home was terrible. The major thing was much I noticed a divide between male and female bodied people. Maybe it was because people were dressed formally and this often means they can't really express exactly who they are. This affected me and I felt very much on the fringes of the people around me. I felt because of my appearance I was being made invisible. I say invisible because I believe if people can't gender me they will ignore me. On the other hand I was also scared of confrontations maybe involving people that would be frustrated that they couldn't gender me.I was so thankful I had a counselling session the next day. Maybe I had strategically arranged for my counselling session to be the next day because I knew I would have many issues to talk about from the day before. Well, the session went amazingly well and I was so happy how open I was about everything. I even started to cry and that meant to me that things were getting sorted. I realised that I need to express myself in so many different ways, and also that I find it very difficult to anchor myself in a definable binary gender. The crazy thing is I had knew this all for a long time but had lost touch of things. I had began to try as hard as I could to make people gender me as I needed and wanted to be gendered; female. I had began to think that the only way people would give me my right to be known as female would be to try be as femme as possible. This is not easy because for a start I feel incredibly uncomfortable expressing my femininity at the moment in my life. I have linked my anxiety about transitioning with a new fear of being pigeonholed and dictated how I should act. I have gained the opinion that those around me will not really understand me and believe that if I want to transition to female bodied I have to act a particular way. I feel that people will insist that if I am female than I have to act extra feminine (even more than cissexual females). I don't know how to get around this and am trying to find enough energy inside me to work against this. It's not that I don't want to express myself as girly girl because that is also part of me. But I also want to be able to be free to express my female masculinity and androgyny. I realised again that at this point in my life that my gender is fluid, and I experience a dynamic mix of masculinity, femininity and androgyny. I really believe being on hrt and anti-androgens has allowed me to explore and find more about who I am inside. I know that I don't feel male or female. Many people have asked me what it is to feel male or female anyway but I just can't tell people, especially trans people who understand gender dysphoria that I will ignore this and just state I'm female to them. I have realised that mentally I flow between androgynous and female. When I say androgynous I mean neither male or female, and I specifically mean not male. For some reason I seem to my self image seems to flow very close to female, but won't anchor there. I don't know why it doesn't anchor and maybe I shouldn't over analyse it. One strong feeling is that that I want to be free of the gender binary and its rules and suggests. Maybe one day I will change but for now this is how things are. On Wednesday night I did become pretty distraught because I thought I had only one option and that was to carry on letting people gender me as male. This actually instilled an immense feeling of fear and despair from me. I have come so far in freeing myself mentally from that wrong imprisonment and I want to find my freedom. After my counselling session on Thursday I was so happy and realised that I don't have to let people force me into the male gender. I can be who I want to be inside and can work to build foundations to reinforce this on the outside. I truly feel relaxed when I allow myself to flow and acknowledge my fluid androgyny, and my femininity and masculinity. The only thing I'm worried now is getting back into the work place. I expressed this concern to my counsellor because everything is taking a lot of energy out of me. I'm going to try do more physical exercise and even might take up Yoga. This should improve my mental energy values. \ I'm also worried about people around me thinking everything is just dandy now that my mood has got better of late. I don't want to keep emphasizing that I still have gender dysphoria and I am still transitioning though as that feels like overkill. Maybe I have to find a subtle way to make sure my improved mood isn't just the result of being happy as male. Saturday was a fantastic day as I went to Manchester with my mom. I really get frustrated how feminine most female clothing is at the moment in my life because I feel unable to wear such clothes yet. But I was over the moon when I saw some shades in an indie shop in the N'arcade on Oldham St. I wasn't sure whether they were women's shades but I tried them on, loved them and bought them with my mom there. I don't think she knew or cared but was happy I found something I liked. I was so happy with them I plastered IRC with photos of me wearing them. Well, this could be the very first item of female clothing that I have worn boldly and angst free in front of the whole world. I posted a photo of me in the shades on my Facebook and one of my female friends wrote on my Wall 'Look at you and your diva goggles ;) Miss you, Cath x and that message made my day. My friend knows I have gender issues and I hope she will be the first of my friends I properly come out to.
