Grrr, why is this so complicated?

[amberwaves]

Hi girls,

So I survived [emoji23]!  That was an interesting experience.  I wasn't sure what I was getting in for so I opened for lidocaine injection.  I am going to go straight next time and skip the lidocaine.  The injection hurt a good bit on the upper lip.  I have a pretty high pain tolerance though.  A couple of grunts and some controlled breathing, and just a few involuntary tears for the first one, took care of that. The lady who administered the lidocaine told my electrolysist, "she's really stoic".   Too bad I couldn't actually see when she was doing the injection because that would have made it significantly easier to ignore the pain.  Apparently, I am a bit odd in that I can pretty much ignore physical pain if I can see it and be prepared for it.  I can do the same thing with shivering from cold and being ticklish.  My brain can just turn it off.  I know it's not a unique ability, but it certainly seems to be very uncommon.

Since I had four hours and lots of numbing I explained that I wanted to focus as much as possible on the upper lip since that is the most sensitive area.  She did a pretty good job and looks like she got about 60-70%of them before switching off to the darker chin hairs.  It doesn't look like it but I have incredibly dense hair coverage on the lip and chin.  After about 3 hours she told my lip was looking really inflamed and we should leave it alone for now.  Seeing as I don't want to deal with super amounts of swelling I was okay with that.

The lidocaine did not last the full time, but that's okay.  The center line of the upper lip was most worn off when she reached it.  She told me she could have them come back and give me a bit more numbing, but I declined.  That was a good way to tell how well I would be able to ignore it for future sessions.  It's really not that bad.  My chin was almost entirely normal by the time she got down there.  And other than a few hairs it was almost a non issue.  Maybe like a bug bite or something similar.

I was very ill prepared for aftercare, because I am terrible at planning and also very scatter brained.  I have a 3.5 hour drive to get down there, i.e. I also have a 3.5 hour drive back.  After we were done she rubbed the area with witch hazel and applied aloe.  I then had an incredibly annoying drive home where in I forgot to bring an icepack, or the aloe I have at home, or even painkiller, because I am smart like that.  I am also to cheap to stop and buy things I already own.  So I drove the whole trip and then had to do a few things before ever getting home at 11 pm and dealing with aftercare.  Next time I will definitely be more prepared.

The redness was gone by morning.  My upper lip is decently swollen and tender, my chin is a little bit as well.  I imagine a bit of that is from the injection and the rest is from the work done.  Annoyingly, I have lots of white bumps on my lip where hair was removed.  I should have expected this, but wasn't thinking.  I initially had the same reaction pretty much everywhere the first time I epilated, e.g. chest, arm, thighs, etc.  It's a histamine reaction.  They go away, but it is annoying to have them front and center.

I am going to discuss this next session.  Oral antihistamine prior to epilating didn't help historically, topical antihistamine immediately after has helped a bit.  However, given the length of the session I am not sure if it will be applied within a reasonably helpful window of time if we wait to the end.  When looking in the mirror at my car I noticed a number of them had already formed.  Oh well, even if we cant figure a solution out I can manage regardless.

The conversation was very neat and really made time go quickly.  We talked about kids which was fun.  When I mentioned that my daughter has ADHD and the change in seeing her medicated caused me to finally go through the work of getting treated myself, she brought up her teenage son whom she is starting to suspect may suffer from it.  She asked me a lot of questions about the various symptoms, behaviors and quirks that I have and my daughter showed.   A striking number of them were present for he son.  I urged her very strongly to get him tested for his own benefit.  It's quite treatable and the early you can intervene the better the outcomes.  I explained how a lot of the medications work and that the key part is they mitigate symptoms so that an individual can learn and work on life skills that just don't develop, or barely develop, when untreated.  Also, that it is significantly harder to develop these skills as you age and that currently that is a huge problem for me being undiagnosed for 36 years.  I also explained that even if they find him not to have ADHD the testing will identify weak points that can be addressed and improved upon.  She assumed the testing for ADHD was just one test and I had to explain that there is no single test for it.  It is a battery of psychological tests each that look at a single factor, such as working memory, focus, sensory processing, executive functioning, etc.

I hope she gets him checked.  I explained that untreated one thing that happens quite often is the development of self esteem issues.  Chronic underperformance slowly eats you up inside.  You get told repeatedly that you are just lazy and if you would only focus, or try harder, etc.  Meanwhile, you are incredibly impaired from that due to the way your brain is wired.  This is problematic on many levels and is one of my biggest problems.  Granted I had a terrible environment that exacerbated all of these problems, so my experience may be more extreme in intensity,  but reading other sufferers accounts they are pretty common.

We talked about general transition stuff and my experience with it.  She meets lots of transwomen and always finds it interesting to see how each of us discover things and experience things differently.  I explained that aside from this forum I have almost zero interaction with the community.  There aren't a whole lot of us in the area I live and, while I do see a few transwomen shopping where I work, it would be incredibly rude to call them out on it even if it's just to share.  This is one very odd side effect of passing extremely well.  I can see them, but almost no one sees me.

She told me that she was incredibly surprised when she first saw me and had to double-check my paperwork as to why I was there.  She told me that I just don't look like a transwoman and she initially thought I was a cis-woman.  That's incredibly validating.  I was blessed genetically I suppose, but since it seems to be so rare it's hard to talk about my experience without seeming arrogant.   I was at consistent male-fail at only 3 months on hormones. I don't have to try to blend in, I just do.  Even my mannerisms and speech are just natural.  I never worked on them and almost never consciously recognize how I am interacting with the world.  I am stealth without even trying to be so.  I don't deny being trans when it comes up (and the one time someone actually picked up on it and asked).  The only time people can tell is when I talk about certain things from my past.

There is a disconnect in my brain about it.  I see all of the very subtle signs.  Since I am trans I am very aware of the fact that I am trans.  Other people are not and just see me as a woman.  My mind just has an incredibly hard time accepting that fact.  It's getting better but the magnitude of the adjustment just surprised the crap out of me when I stop to think about it.  It's kind of lonely tbh.  I want to discuss this face to with people but it's so outside of normal experience for cis people that there is almost no way to relate.  I just get comments like, "well that's what you wanted, right?" Which yes it is, but I still would like to discuss how weird it is.  My experience seems so far removed from what most transwomen experience that it's almost impossible to talk about because of jealousy or it seeming like narcissism and bragging.

Sorry, for the long and vaguely rambling post.  Just recounting my experience and putting it out there for the world, I guess.  Seriously though, I can't be the only person who has had such an effortless experience, can I?  Also, it does not mean my life is easy.  It would just be nice to find that I'm not alone in this.

Amber

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[mm]

Good luck with your first electrolysis session, I know it should be a new and exciting experience for you.

[Roll]

I'm glad it mostly went well! I'm also happy to hear for my own sake that the pain was manageable for you when the lidocaine started to wear off, because the way you describe your pain tolerance is similar to how I am (a childhood of blood work tends to jade you about certain pains I suppose). I keep worrying I'm being arrogant about how I'll deal with the pain of hair removal, but I'm feeling a bit more sure of myself about it reading this.

I hope your daughter continues to do well with her medication as well! My sister has ADHD and some sensory processing issues stemming from it (I think they stem from it at least), and though relatively mild I still see how it affects her life so dramatically. She's highly intelligent but it has done a number on her in school in particular. Testing is a nightmare, and since she doesn't want to feel like an outcast by requesting accommodations for the ADHD and sensory issues she just suffers through exams and SATs in a situation less than conducive to her success. Then after school she won't even take her medicine until she needs to do home work. But partly because of the ADHD she puts off doing that homework until late. And then she won't take her medicine because it keeps her from sleeping.

[amberwaves]

Testing is a nightmare, and since she doesn't want to feel like an outcast by requesting accommodations for the ADHD and sensory issues she just suffers through exams and SATs in a situation less than conducive to her success. Then after school she won't even take her medicine until she needs to do home work. But partly because of the ADHD she puts off doing that homework until late. And then she won't take her medicine because it keeps her from sleeping.

If you are similar about pain then you should have no problems.  Perhaps some ibuprofen or Tylenol beforehand and good to go.  I imagine you may still have some tears for the ones right up by the nostrils, but that is mostly just physiology. I know I can get tears like that from plucking nose hairs. It's funny because my children all seem to naturally have that same ability. My wife most assuredly does not.

That is unfortunate that your sister won't ask for accommodations.  They are there to help. Especially if she has some sensory processing issues.  Fwiw, accommodations would not have been useful to me.  I am very good at testing. My biggest issue was rushing through things sometimes and making careless mistakes.  I eventually (like only 5 years ago) learned to just do a second pass and reread everything.  Even that is difficult because it is boring.  My daughter is incredibly bright. She had had issues with her hearing, but the ear tubes served to have helped with that.

I am very thankful to be medicated. I'm an sure there will be some adjustments made on my follow up visit. For me the medicine for not keep me up at night.  In fact if I take a break and have nothing to do while it's in my system I get incredibly tired and feel like I could just nap (I actually did one time).  Typically, it takes me an hour or more to fall asleep this cuts that down significantly.  My issues are the duration is not nearly long enough and the resulting crash is annoying.  When I start to crash I can get very emotional and depressed. Plus without the medication in my system there is nothing stopping the negative self talk cycle.  These are all things I'm going to address at my visit.  There are a number of different formulations and meds, perhaps an adjustment or trial of a different one would be useful?

Thanks for checking in roll.  When do you play to start the electrolysis process?  For me I just started and I've been on hrt for 14 months.  It just want a big priority until recently.  Granted I am very blonde so I don't show a whole lot of beard shadow (just certain spots).  I imagine that if my hair was very dark it works have been a much higher priority.

Amber

[Roll]

I'm probably a ways off from electrolysis, since I'm going to give laser a go first (pale skin and dark hair makes for horrible beard shadow, so hopefully it will at least pay off on removal), and even with that I can't really start for a bit unfortunately. I'm going to have to go the groupon route for financial reasons, and closest place that has a discount for it is about 90+ minutes away. Which is a problem when you don't have a car. Talk about an expensive and awkward Uber ride. So yeah, I've gotta get transportation sorted out before I can do much of anything unfortunately.

[amberwaves]

I'm probably a ways off from electrolysis, since I'm going to give laser a go first (pale skin and dark hair makes for horrible beard shadow, so hopefully it will at least pay off on removal), and even with that I can't really start for a bit unfortunately. I'm going to have to go the groupon route for financial reasons.

I did the Groupon thing and tried laser. I am pale skinned, but there just isn't enough dark hair for laser to do much of anything.  Was worth a shot anyway in my opinion.  I did have to go somewhere about an hour away for it, but I have a car.  I can't imagine how hard it must be to do all this (especially closeted) without reliable transportation.

I plan on writing out a full update later on. I just don't have time right now and honestly my mood is very crappy today.  It's slowly improving, but certainly far from pleasant.  I'm trying to process a lot right now and my brain is having none of it.

Amber

[amberwaves]

Well I have been meaning to write an update for a few days, but I keep finding reasons not to.  Even having the last two days off my mind has just been focused on other things.  I'll think about posting at odd and inconvenient times like in the shower or before bed, etc.

So things have been going relatively well.  Monday and Tuesday I had a a nasty chest cold.  I still am coughing up gunk, but it's less everyday.  That certainly put a damper on my mood earlier in the week.  I would have liked to call off work, but that wouldn't have done my wallet any favors.  It wasn't too bad except for the painfully swollen lymph nodes.  I could tell when my medicine would start to wear off.  Adderall and coffee we're the only things keeping me functional.

Therapy on Monday was tough.  It's funny to realize that you have very few distinct memories of your household growing up.  I can remember most things from school and with friends, but home is mostly a blank.  It's more just a memory of the negativity and poor treatment that repeated like a motif.  Granted a significant portion of my memories of school and socialization are bad ones of being bullied, teased, outcast, and beaten up.  Why then do I not remember specifics of my home from the same time?  It makes it hard to discuss with your therapist if you don't know beyond generalizations.  That left me feeling very upset and just off for most of the day.

Tuesday I finally had my psychiatry consult.  Once again I got to give an overview of my problems along with what medications I have taken before and what effect they did or did not have. I mentioned that I am not a fan of the atypical antipsychotic class because they are generally ineffective and I typically get odd side effects like anxiety from them.  She was puzzled because most of her BPD patients respond well to them.  Same with the SSRI class of antidepressants.  I typically receive no benefit and historically get sexual side effects from them.  I told her that the Adderall was a new thing (about 4 weeks) and that Thursday it was likely to be adjusted when I saw my Dr for a follow up.  We kind of ran out of time.  We are trying Prozac at the moment, but that will take weeks to see any benefit (if at all).  She suggested Abilify, but I told her that I would like to do more research before saying yes or no to that.  I go back in 5 weeks and we will see where we are at.

One of my big concerns with antipsychotics is that they are mostly dopamine antagonists.  As it turns out because of my ADHD the dopamine system in my brain doesn't seem to work correctly on its own.  This is why stimulants are prescribed.  They act to up dopamine activity and this helps regulate attention and focus.  They system is deficient and adding an antagonist would essentially exacerbate things.  I like how I respond to Adderall, it seems to be the first medication I have responded to in what could be considered a typical manner.  I don't want to start something that will screw that up.  In my research I learned that while Abilify is an atypical antispychotic, it acts differently than the rest of the class.  It is a partial dopamine agonist.  Particularly working on the a1, a2, and d1-d4 receptors in the frontal cortex.  So theoretically it may be a decent medication to try (though dosages need to be monitored and are typically lower for those on stimulants).  I'm leaning towards trying it when I go back.  Just depends on how things are going by then.

I was correct that on Thursday meds were adjusted.  We upped the dose slightly since I felt we were just barely at a theraputic dosage.  Duration is problematic.  It lasts for about 8 hours, but that doesn't cover the day at all.  I have had to choose between taking it in the morning so I can function in life but crash in the middle of my work shift, or wait until later but most of the benefit happens while at work, where I honestly don't need it.  He was hesitant about adding a small immediate release booster until I mentioned that I typically work 2nd shift (until 10 usually).  So we added that to the mix.  It's a little early to tell yet, but the upped dosage seems to be more consistently effective.

I finally got off my butt and did the leg work to publish my notification of name change.  That costs more than I cared to spend.  Why do they have to make this process so annoying.  I understand the concept behind publication, but I still think it should be more circumstantial and easier to waive.  So once I get the proof of publication in the mail it's just sit back and wait until the 22nd of November.

All in all the week started as crap, but got significantly better.  Mostly I hate the inconsistency of it all.  The rollercoaster ceases to be fun after so many years.  I'm working at it.

Amber

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[amberwaves]

Life is weird.  The last week or so has been nothing but pleasant for me.  I got to spend some time with my wife.  I got to spend some time with my kids.  I got to spend time with both.  I got to spend some time with a friend.  I made a new friend.

I had my neuropsych eval for adult ADHD.  It's pretty obvious that it's there and even the Dr agrees that this is pretty much just a formality.  Therapy was good and we are working on addressing negative thought patterns.

Holy crap the Adderall adjustment has been helpful.  It's too early to tell yet, but it seems that a significant portion of my mood instability derives from my ADHD being untreated.  All of the spare processing power in my brain seemed to fixate on negative cycles of thought just in the background until I am miserable and blow up over things that are only tangentially related.  My triggers seem to have a fuse now, which gives me a chance to do something about it before reacting, unlike before.  I am cautiously optimistic that I can start to enact real change to the maladaptive processes and reactions for the first time in my life.  I feel vaguely hopeful for the future this is very new to me.

I love some of the physical things going on right now as well.  I still have a good bit of facial hair and have to shave regularly, but she got a good amount of the darker hairs on around the corners of my chin and it is so less noticeable now when I am unshaven.  I am still shedding pounds and have quite a good curvy figure underneath being revealed.  I found an amazing sparkly blue nail polish and I am in love!

A bit of weirdness right now though.  My wife and I are going to a wedding on Saturday.  So we went clothes shopping (almost never happens so it was fun).  While there I decide to try on a few dresses too.  I find this little purple number randomly on the rack. It's size 16 which is very questionable for me.  I typically need to wear 18 or 20 because of my chest and shoulders.  I think what the hell, no harm in seeing if I can squeeze into it.  Omg it fits.  It's quite tight in the shoulders, but not obscenely so.  I need her help to get it back off again because of this.

I look in the mirror and wow!  My nerves are going haywire and I dont fully know why.  It looks amazing.  If I saw a woman looking like this wearing it I would be totally hitting on her.  I've never looked in the mirror and had the word beautiful pop into my head.  Not a shred of guy.  My figure looks amazing.  It makes my breasts look so prominent and busty.  It's tight, but in a good sexy way.  Very excited to buy it.  Some of the nerves is attributable to that.  I have no idea why I am freaking out otherwise.  It looks good, I look good.  What is the freaking problem...

I am sure this will pass, but it's disconcerting.  In many ways this is exactly what I wanted.  To be confident, passable, sexy and wear nice things.  It does feel right and amazing.  Why the hell am I so absolutely nervous and scared.

Once I doll up on Saturday I am totally posting this to the fabulous thread.  I just hope that the camera will love me for once instead of magnify my flaws.

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[Roll]

Happy to hear you had such a good week!

I love the thought of getting to the point of looking in the mirror and thinking "I'd hit on myself...". I'm looking forward to seeing your fabulous thread post!

[HappyMoni]

Life is weird.  The last week or so has been nothing but pleasant for me.  I got to spend some time with my wife.  I got to spend some time with my kids.  I got to spend time with both.  I got to spend some time with a friend.  I made a new friend.

I had my neuropsych eval for adult ADHD.  It's pretty obvious that it's there and even the Dr agrees that this is pretty much just a formality.  Therapy was good and we are working on addressing negative thought patterns.

Holy crap the Adderall adjustment has been helpful.  It's too early to tell yet, but it seems that a significant portion of my mood instability derives from my ADHD being untreated.  All of the spare processing power in my brain seemed to fixate on negative cycles of thought just in the background until I am miserable and blow up over things that are only tangentially related.  My triggers seem to have a fuse now, which gives me a chance to do something about it before reacting, unlike before.  I am cautiously optimistic that I can start to enact real change to the maladaptive processes and reactions for the first time in my life.  I feel vaguely hopeful for the future this is very new to me.

I love some of the physical things going on right now as well.  I still have a good bit of facial hair and have to shave regularly, but she got a good amount of the darker hairs on around the corners of my chin and it is so less noticeable now when I am unshaven.  I am still shedding pounds and have quite a good curvy figure underneath being revealed.  I found an amazing sparkly blue nail polish and I am in love!

A bit of weirdness right now though.  My wife and I are going to a wedding on Saturday.  So we went clothes shopping (almost never happens so it was fun).  While there I decide to try on a few dresses too.  I find this little purple number randomly on the rack. It's size 16 which is very questionable for me.  I typically need to wear 18 or 20 because of my chest and shoulders.  I think what the hell, no harm in seeing if I can squeeze into it.  Omg it fits.  It's quite tight in the shoulders, but not obscenely so.  I need her help to get it back off again because of this.

I look in the mirror and wow!  My nerves are going haywire and I dont fully know why.  It looks amazing.  If I saw a woman looking like this wearing it I would be totally hitting on her.  I've never looked in the mirror and had the word beautiful pop into my head.  Not a shred of guy.  My figure looks amazing.  It makes my breasts look so prominent and busty.  It's tight, but in a good sexy way.  Very excited to buy it.  Some of the nerves is attributable to that.  I have no idea why I am freaking out otherwise.  It looks good, I look good.  What is the freaking problem...

I am sure this will pass, but it's disconcerting.  In many ways this is exactly what I wanted.  To be confident, passable, sexy and wear nice things.  It does feel right and amazing.  Why the hell am I so absolutely nervous and scared.

Once I doll up on Saturday I am totally posting this to the fabulous thread.  I just hope that the camera will love me for once instead of magnify my flaws.

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Amber,
   I'm just guessing here but is it a feeling like "I have put up with so much for so long, maybe I can't trust that it can be looking so good. " You gotta believe you deserve good things and that they really are gonna happen. We both know the trans roller coaster and its up's and down's. You are building your future, accept the good.
Moni
Oh, the other thing is that change can be scary, even good change.

[amberwaves]

accept the good.

Oh, the other thing is that change can be scary, even good change.

Moni,

I am seriously terrible at accepting good.  Also, the last point is probably closer to the truth of things. 

I spoke with a friend about the dress thing and eventually she made a quip about how scandalous me going out and enjoying myself looking sexy is.  That gave me a good laugh and really gave me some perspective on how silly I was being.  It's crazy some of the things you internalize without even realizing it. 

Amber

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[HappyMoni]

You just need practice 

[amberwaves]

Well time for a long update.  So much awesome, weirdness, and self discovery the last few days.

Saturday I got coffee with a friend.  It was so nice to get together outside of work. I see so many parallels between us in how we respond to things and interact with the world.  I eventually broached the subject of BPD with her.  I let her read a description of the condition because she didn't know much about it.  For her it rang far too true and was almost as if she wrote it.  I know what that is like because I felt the same way when I first read about 7 years ago.  It was still a great time out and we plan to do it again sometime.

Around 1pm on Sat it was time to get ready for the wedding.  Much like the other day I started freaking out hardcore again.  Severe nerves bordering on panic.  I could not for the life of me figure out why there was such a strong physiological response.  I was fine by the time I was done with my makeup and the evening went great and was nice.  It was so nice to see two good friends finally tie the knot.  I did put a picture up in the fabulous thread.

Sunday my wife and I met up with a good friend for a holistic and psychic fair that was going on.  I was mostly there to hang out with my friend but it was pretty neat overall.  Back in high school I used to be fascinated by all of the new age stuff.  As I grew older my logical brain took over and killed most of that part of me.  I sometimes wonder if that was just a part of me repressing everything about me that I was uncomfortable with.  I do miss that more spiritual side of me.  I will slowly figure out a balance.

While there my friend got a tarot reading.  She was pleased with the answer she got.  My wife decided to get a rune reading.  The answer was fascinating and very relevant to the question she had.  Nothing to read too much into, but pretty spot on about the current situation and the likely outcome.  I asked a few pertinent question about a possible interpretation and the lady asked if I do this sort of thing.  I haven't read up on runes or tarot in 15 years or so.  I guess I'm a natural?

I got a tarot reading because, why not.  I got a 3 card spread in the format of situation/complication/advice.  My question related to my transition and desire for GCS.  For those that don't know, you just think about the question, you don't tell the reader what it is.  It was a fascinating response I got.  First she asks me if I am spiritual.  I give a noncommittal response and she suggests that it may not be spirituality so much as a question of faith, either internal or external.  This is fairly apropos since the whole scenario of my transition has been one of mostly blind faith.  The complication card she asks if there is a cocky male figure in my life.  Apparently, there is a strong, arrogant, and pushy male figure that is complicating the issue.  That male figure is easily me and the lady was very confused when I commented along those lines.  I forget sometimes that others don't automatically realize I'm trans.  My wife and friend (who merely were guessing my question). Immediately thought of me on that as well.  The advice was that I need to let things go, like water under the bridge.  I found the whole reading interesting because it really does sum up my whole transition and the problems I still struggle with.  It's all based on a belief that things will turn out well.  That this is what I want even though I can't always explain why.  The biggest hurdle has been the masculine persona I built up over the years and his refusal to be cast aside.

Monday was a very messed up day.  I had therapy in the morning.  It was difficult to admit that I don't often know exactly how I am feeling and I am terrible at putting words to it, despite my massive vocabulary.  We spoke about the dress situation.  I once again ran into a wall trying to explain why.  I realized that during the session I was talking around the issue and was very upset with myself. 

On the drive home I forced myself to confront my thoughts and fears.  This did not go well.  I finally admitted to myself that I am attracted to men, I likely always have been.  I repressed the >-bleeped-< out of that.  That is why I was so scared about the dress.  I looked good and deep down I want to be attractive to men.  I am attracted to women, but I no longer know how much of that is real, versus how much is part of that false persona.  I am scared about how much I don't know about myself.  I like my life.  I love my wife and kids.  Why can't I just be happy with what is.

I talked with my wife about this discovery that night.  I told her I'm scared of myself and I want nothing to change for us.  I realize it's not just a physical/sexual attraction.  I don't understand fully why I see it with such shame and guilt.  She was concerned, though mostly for me rather than about me.  She hates to see me upset like that.  I haven't felt like that since I first admitted to myself that I was trans.  I am better now.  I accept the reality of the discovery.  Nothing changes for the two of us.  Like always we will deal with life one day at a time.  I am just very scared of the possibility of inadvertently losing that spark for her.

Also, I am coming to realize that I likely have always been a woman inside, though I wasn't aware of it.  I was so traumatized over the years because I was different that I did build up a hard and false shell of a person to protect me.  I don't like who I was/had created.  It was an amalgam of some of the worst traits.  I am still not sure how I feel about that.  In many ways there are still two fragments of me warring over my soul.  Denying reality does me no favors.  So I must learn how to move past this and become a whole person.  Luckily, I am resilient.  Tata for now girls.  Thanks for reading.

Amber

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[amberwaves]

Nothing ever ends well and no good deed goes unpunished.

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[Roll]

Nothing ever ends well and no good deed goes unpunished.

I know the feeling.  Is it anything specific you want to talk about here?

[amberwaves]

Sorry I don't wish to discuss.  Thank you for inquiring.

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[amberwaves]

I'm done.  I don't want to try anymore.  Even when trying my hardest everything still goes to >-bleeped-<. I'm tired of being the villain in my own life.  I'm not ending it, just gonna sit back and let everything crumble.

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[amberwaves]

Apparently my life and experiences are so radically not normal that talking with others about then and asking for advice is just inviting insult.  No wonder I closed everything off for years.  Don't mind me, I'm just going to be over here rebuilding a bunch of walls.

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[amberwaves]

Well finally time for an update.  I don't particularly think may of you read this thread or care much about my life, but for the few of you who do here's some stuff that's been happening.  I will apologize for the sour note of most of this post, but I am sick and also slowly falling back into a depressive spell after the last two days events.

So a few weeks ago I was incredibly upset and posted a few times very vaguely about it.  To those of you who reached out to me, even though I did not wish to talk, thank you.  The story of that is kind of crappy and in some ways is an excellent example of how I manage to inadvertantly make life much more difficult than it should be.

I became friends with a girl from work a few months ago.  She doesn't have many friends that she is close to and neither do I.  She is substantially younger than I at 19, but we have some similar interests.  We both have a rough past.  For whatever reason we both felt very comfortable sharing details of our pasts with each other.  It was nice to find someone I could bond with so effortlessly.  She has know from day one about my being trans.  However she sees and interacts with me comolet as a woman and has been a huge help in getting me to realize how others see me.

I told her very early about having BPD.  Also, that this means I am freaking terrible at maintaining healthy boundaries with others.  After hearing some of the things that have happened to her and how she processes things I suggested that she might also have BPD.  I still feel this is quite likely and recommended she get back into therapy.  There is just way too many similarities in these aspects between us.  I have had a bunch of extra years dealing with this and am in a much less chaotic time of life so I want to be able to offer advice and guidance to her.

Unfortunately, like most every time I get close to someone, I started to develop strong feelings for her.  Not sexual feelings, though they occasionally crop up, mostly romantic feelings.  I decided it was in everyone's best interest to address this with her.  I am incapable of acting on any of those feelings.  I suspected that she may have been developing feelings towards me as well. 

This seems to be the point where things went wrong.  I brought everything up to her.  Turns out I was correct and that she did reciprocate the feelings, to a lesser degree, but they were still there.  We discussed how we don't want anything to change about the friendship.  I had a rough night because knowing that she also felt something I got caught in a mental loop of just expecting that at some point I would >-bleeped-< everything up somehow and something would happen.  Thereby ruining my marriage and my friendship.  She got to see some of this consternation.  Unfortunately, she has a history of sexual abuse and her brain ran wild with things too.  Suddenly, I am lumped in with all of her abusers.  The next day things fell completely apart.

I spent the next few days completely heartbroken and blaming myself for screwing things up.  I never intended to hurt someone, but I did.  I never intended to get too close, but I was unable to prevent it.  Deep down I am an incredibly vulnerable person and I opened myself up to being hurt again.  We both got burned to some degree.  When I did reach out for help and advice I got >-bleeped-< on entirely.  Suddenly, I am just this creepy old >-bleeped-< preying on a young girl.  Not what happened, nor what was intended.  I have about zero control over my emotions. This is one of the unfortunate side effects of that.  I tried to be an adult about things for once and put everything out in the open and got burned for it.

I finally reached out to her to attempt to set things right.  We worked through a little bit of the misunderstandings and decided we can try to be friends.  Here's the rub.  When texting each other things seem relatively normal.  However, seeing each other in person is awkward as hell.  We both have our walls way up now.  I have no idea how to move forward and every in person interaction (all brief and at work) has ended with one or both of us upset.  I really wish we could sit down and discuss all of the misinterpretation and false assumption that our brains are doing, but I have no idea if or when that would happen.  I hate the current situation and blame myself heavily still for screwing everything up (i.e. being me).

In other news my name change will be official on Wednesday. I should be excited, but honestly, I am not.  It's pleasant to know it'll happen but I'm just dreading all the legwork to contact and change it with everyone.  My ADHD makes me particularly terrible at that kind of thing.

I had my second session of electrolysis last week.  No lidocaine this time.  It's not bad or even really painful, more uncomfortable than anything else.  Even after just 2 sessions of 4 hours the improvement is amazing.  We have focused entirely on the lip and chin.  While there are still lots of little hairs there, the thickest and darkest are gone.  This has been remarkably helpful.  I have mostly blonde facial hair.  It's not that noticeable usually, though I did have a little bit of shadow in those two areas.  That is mostly gone now.

This week I received my first letter toward GCS.  It won't be long until I get my second letter.  Then I can get my insurance to pay for genital electrolysis.  I will have to get the letters updated closer to August when my consult is.  I could have just waited until closer to then to do all of this and done the electrolysis later, but I see no real reason other than inconvenience not too do it all now.

Sorry for the incredibly long post.

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[Megan.]

Amber,

I'm very inexperienced when it comes to personal relationships; but the simple choice is cut ourselves off, or reach out and risk hurt to ourselves and the other party.
It would be a sad world without love, you made a brave choice in being open.

Even if you're not excited I'll say congratulations on the name change. Yes it does come with a seemingly endless amount of paper work (I have a diagnosed severe allergy to this [emoji6]),  but it's also an opportunity to make your mark and tell the world who you are!

Good luck on that second letter,  then it sounds like you'll be taking those next steps. X

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