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Almost there
7 months ago
General
I've got 9 weeks left of the base of my course. 9 weeks out of three years of study.
I havent completely finished, I am hoping to be properly done and dusted with my course by september, but I've got till Jan to actually build the last of my hours and hand in my portfolio of work, but the actual final class session is in 9 weeks.
It feels like I've been doing this forever and at the same time it feels like I've only just started. I've learnt a lot about myself and the person who started this course and the person I am now are very different people. That's not a bad thing, more I've just expanded, grown bigger in my awareness of how I am in the world.
I still havent been drinking alcohol, not even a wobble since March. I've lost 15lbs in weight, been walking and crochetting and doing gardening. Being out in the sun, breathing.
The world is a mess and I can't really do much about most of that, but I can look after myself, and if i look after myself that means I can help the clients that I see manage their anxieties and depressions and thats largely what I'm doing to help. I recently helped a guy find his spark in life again after he was struggling with a masturbation addiction and that made me feel like I was doing good work, actually helping folk, one person at a time. Chipping away. Now i'm helping a girl with her childhood trauma and another get in touch with her inner child to find ways to help parent herself. One by one, piece by piece, hoping that if/when i leave this world the place might still be burning but there will be pockets of people who are doing ok.
I've been thinking quite a bit about my gender as well. I think I spoke a while ago about being 'gender disconnected' Like I absolutely get body dysphoria when i look at my boobs or it's that time of the month, I will happily hand all my plumbing to any of my transfem friends because I really dont want any of it, and sometimes I think its gender related, and other times I think well...maybe it's age related.
Like if someone calls me ma'am or lady or woman I absouletly bristle, like it feels so wrong I recoil and that's how I've always felt since the first time someone called me lady Blerugh.... but being called girl doesn't get that same reaction. Boobs and periods are a sign of being grown up and maybe it's all lodged in my want to be babied/my little self being faced with the fact that I'm indeed not little.
Then another train of thought (and I'll admit that this is messier and just in relation to myself) was very much not feeling like a woman because i don't like a lot of stuff that women do, and I dont relate to a lot of women, so it makes me wanna step away from that and yeah stand in the non binary camp somewhere or like I said...gender disconnected. But maybe thats because i dont see many women like me, mainly because women like me have stepped away like ive done, said hey this isnt for me because I don't recognise this as who I am and so carved their own path away from what a woman is. Maybe if I stayed, it could change what a woman is more women like me would see representation and feel more connected with their gender? I dunno Its something i've been thinking a lot about. Like its society thats broken right? society gets to largely make the rules around what is and isnt a woman so like if those that dont conform to that stay in that category and show diversity within that category would that be enough to shift what a woman can and cannot be?
I havent completely finished, I am hoping to be properly done and dusted with my course by september, but I've got till Jan to actually build the last of my hours and hand in my portfolio of work, but the actual final class session is in 9 weeks.
It feels like I've been doing this forever and at the same time it feels like I've only just started. I've learnt a lot about myself and the person who started this course and the person I am now are very different people. That's not a bad thing, more I've just expanded, grown bigger in my awareness of how I am in the world.
I still havent been drinking alcohol, not even a wobble since March. I've lost 15lbs in weight, been walking and crochetting and doing gardening. Being out in the sun, breathing.
The world is a mess and I can't really do much about most of that, but I can look after myself, and if i look after myself that means I can help the clients that I see manage their anxieties and depressions and thats largely what I'm doing to help. I recently helped a guy find his spark in life again after he was struggling with a masturbation addiction and that made me feel like I was doing good work, actually helping folk, one person at a time. Chipping away. Now i'm helping a girl with her childhood trauma and another get in touch with her inner child to find ways to help parent herself. One by one, piece by piece, hoping that if/when i leave this world the place might still be burning but there will be pockets of people who are doing ok.
I've been thinking quite a bit about my gender as well. I think I spoke a while ago about being 'gender disconnected' Like I absolutely get body dysphoria when i look at my boobs or it's that time of the month, I will happily hand all my plumbing to any of my transfem friends because I really dont want any of it, and sometimes I think its gender related, and other times I think well...maybe it's age related.
Like if someone calls me ma'am or lady or woman I absouletly bristle, like it feels so wrong I recoil and that's how I've always felt since the first time someone called me lady Blerugh.... but being called girl doesn't get that same reaction. Boobs and periods are a sign of being grown up and maybe it's all lodged in my want to be babied/my little self being faced with the fact that I'm indeed not little.
Then another train of thought (and I'll admit that this is messier and just in relation to myself) was very much not feeling like a woman because i don't like a lot of stuff that women do, and I dont relate to a lot of women, so it makes me wanna step away from that and yeah stand in the non binary camp somewhere or like I said...gender disconnected. But maybe thats because i dont see many women like me, mainly because women like me have stepped away like ive done, said hey this isnt for me because I don't recognise this as who I am and so carved their own path away from what a woman is. Maybe if I stayed, it could change what a woman is more women like me would see representation and feel more connected with their gender? I dunno Its something i've been thinking a lot about. Like its society thats broken right? society gets to largely make the rules around what is and isnt a woman so like if those that dont conform to that stay in that category and show diversity within that category would that be enough to shift what a woman can and cannot be?
And for all the other stuff you've talked about in here, maybe some self reflecting on who you are as an individual might help. But that's just a guess I'm throwing out there.
A lot of time has passed since then, and I've worked through a lot of the internalized misogyny I've suffered from. I still feel times where my body is a bit of a surprise to me, like "What are these lumps again??" But I suspect for myself, like you mentioned for you, that it might be related to age more than gender. I feel a very strong sense of wrongness when someone says "You're an adult!" to me, like it can't possibly be true. Spoilers, I had one of those childhoods where you get parentified early on and miss out on being a kid, ha.
I know you get a hundred offers to talk with someone, but I'll say it all the same. From one weird-feeling, nonbinary-ish, adult-baby to another, if you ever want to chat or rant about how confusing it is to be a woman and feel this way, I'm happy to commiserate.
I've always felt like im a kid playing pretend, dressing up in some other adults wardrobe and sorta infiltrating the adults, sometimes I wonder if anyone will call me out on it, and I suspect, like you, having been parentified at like a crazy young age, there was no obvious transition between the responsibilities I had at age 6 to age 18. other than the fact that when I finially moved out I suddenly had LESS responsiblity as I only had to look after myself rather than my sisters and parents. Suddenly I was freer, suddenly i could start actually having space to work out who i was without all of that.
Girl I'm so proud of you for getting there working things through.
(((Hugs)))
As for the reminder all I can say start a path of exploration around being an adult woman, why girl feels better to you whither that's more a sense of physical dysphoria or how you feel you are on inside age wise doesn't fit within other peoples ideas about what being your birth age is.
I can tell you straight I prefer girl, and generally don't feel adult even if I inevitable have to do some groan up things and often felt like saying "Stop the clock NOW, I'm at my destination thanks"
I can't think of too many XX people who like having their period, or worrying about pregnancy, or childbirth, or parenthood.
For some it comes naturally, and those people who want to be parents will probably be really good ones.
But for those who know deep in their core--have always known--that parenthood isn't right for them, hauling around the plumbing for making babies for thirty-odd years is torture.
However, getting a hysterectomy brings with it a bunch of other problems, health-wise, and should not be contemplated lightly.
Hang in there. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light is called Menopause!
Zia in particular likes to say she's been 22 for the past 11 years <_<
And re: world being a mess, we find it helps to remember that every moment of joy, every glimmer of hope, either within your own self or inspired in others, is a shining act of defiance of those who would do ill to you and yours~ 💖
There is only one thing you need to conform to in life, and that is to yourself, not by other people. You set your own mould, and you can adjust that mould any way you see fit to yourself!
Well done on giving up alcohol, and keeping yourself busy :)
Everything you mentioned about the maam woman stuff too, I feel this for sure. There’s a reason I find myself gravitating towards the term “trans girl” as opposed to “trans woman”, and usually I explain it to myself like this. I’m still finding myself, still growing, still transitioning, and in this pseudo-puberty I feel like I haven’t quite earned the right to call myself that yet? So the premature term feels like it fits me better? Which I know is silly because the state of a persons transition doesn’t necessarily validate or invalidate their womanhood.
After reading this I guess it’s more tied to my little side than I realise. I don’t feel ready to “grow up” yet, I still want to experience a childhood more reminiscent of the one my cis girlies went through. I still wanna be able to find joy in the little things, and have a sanctuary to go to when the world feels like it’s all going to shit. I guess despite my age and apparent maturity, being little reveals to you that it’s okay to have these feelings, to find comfort in being a Peter Pan type figure who wants to retain their childhood bliss and carry on living a life of fun and whimsicality, even if it’s comprised of stuff most others have “grown out of”. That’s what’s special about having a little side, how it reveals that the world doesn’t have as many rules as we thought it did as kiddos, and how our identities are what we make of them, our lives are in our hands and we don’t have to sacrifice our childish comforts to live a life devoid of that fun and whimsicality. We can keep growing, even after our bodies have stopped, we can keep finding ourselves, even after our peers have already found themselves, and we can still thrive in our own little sanctuaries despite what the big wide world may expect of us.
Wishing you all the best in getting through the final stretch of your course! And in navigating your own journey too, it’s never about the destination, just the road you choose to take, and you take whatever road will make you happiest 💜
Also have you ever considered a double mastectomy/hysterectomy? You can technically get them done for your mental health
And I will also say that society likes to put a lot of expectations and requirements on women, and we really just need to be who we're going to be, regardless of who that is. I say a woman can be anything, and you don't have to be a woman if it doesn't suit your gender definition of yourself.
I'm sorry if this didn't make any sense.
Also, GOSH do I feel that struggle with gender. I've flipped back and forth so much between woman and non-binary for the same freaking reasons. Whenever people make assumptions on me based off my gender, it's always wrong. I often feel like an outsider in more "Feminine" based topics because I just don't relate to them more often than not.
At the current moment, I've settled on gender-nonconforming woman, and that feels alright at the moment. If I'm a woman, I get to decide what that means for me, y'know?
I defiantly can relate to not feeling enough to be any gender. I'm a pre-hrt transfem, I struggled most of my life trying to live to being man enough and created a mask of what being a man was to me. (Stoic, calm, cool, and collected) and I try to avoid what I thought it meant to be a women (kind, caring, confident, and full of emotions) after many years on this earth, I found what I thought a man or women was, was forever shifting and was different for everyone. I've been working on how I want myself to be apart from everyone else's impute. So far I'm settling on (resourceful, confident, calm, caring, and joyful) for how the world would see me. If that says man or women or in between, then so be it. I have adopted to using this definition for women and men (Adult human who's personal schema aliens with the female/male sex ) where girl and boy would be adolescence instead of adult. NB would be (Human who's personal schema disaliens with female/male sex) Basically how you categorize yourself if where you belong. Hope you find where you belong in this cacophony of genders and say screw it to the nae sayers.
Also just remember throughout the 1400's - 1800's popular men's fashion was using the color pink, heels, puffy blouses, corsets, skirts, lace cuffs, stocking, suspenders, make-up, wigs, and fainting when over come with emotions. The world changes by many people thinking what signifies a gender in society changes.