I hate this. My life is just one giant ball of stress with no outlets right now, except for the occasional amazingly fun conversation with my sister (wouldn't be funny to relay it, but suffice to say we were both laughing so hard for about 20 minutes straight we felt like we had just done 500 stomach crunches over something super silly last night
).
I've never had to run up against deadlines like this in school before, and three large group projects simultaneously is just... it's too much. (I'm officially project leader in one and defacto leader in a second as well, only increasing my workload. I am anti-social and abhor responsibility, but I'm OCD enough and want to push the group for my own sake I make an oddly good leader apparently. Always reluctant, but I step up when I'm needed. Was the same way in MMOs, I would always wind up being put in charge just because no one else would do it, and then be effective enough at it no one would replace me. It is quite frustrating because I genuinely hate it.)
Transitioning woes have only solidified, as with every good change (my smile is so much nicer now with the slight "redimpling") it just brings the inevitable trials into sharper focus. I'm scheduled for a hair transplant consult in April, which I desperately want/need to happen sooner than later for my mental well being (I've said it before, but no harm repeating it, my hair is my #1 source of dysphoria, hands down). But... unless he gives me really, really good new (ie: only need 1k grafts), I don't think I can afford it. I'm still paying for my schooling, and the money from inheritance from my mom is getting very low. Daily living expenses are just too high meaning I dip into it every few months to py off credit card, and I never can save more (not that SS would let me). Tuition takes a steady chunk out each semester, and I certainly can't forego that, and there are countless other costs on the horizon I have to factor in as well. An entirely new wardrobe at even rock bottom prices is still not chump change, HRT meds are about 30-40 a month and may only go up as dosages increase, I'm going to be reliant on makeup and wigs for a while, after laser session 3 my groupon runs out and price skyrockets, etc. On top of everything else, I really need dental work done, like REALLY REALLY bad, easily high hundreds if not thousands worth. As it is, I think I have to drop my therapy sessions, my single biggest cost at the moment. I just don't have the money, plain and simple. But then that might just make everything else harder without the outlet. I don't think I absolutely require it anymore, but... I really like it, even if just for a chance to be me without reservation for an hour every two weeks.
So that brings me to my diet. It's broken. It's super, absolutely, positively broken. My stress level is too high, and then eating because of the stress just creates more stress in that vicious cycle, ugh. My time frame of weight loss I wanted to achieve of at least 30 pounds by July (about 1 pound a week), is just not going to happen the way things are going, and I will be supremely lucky to even maintain. So that just creates EVEN MORE stress, because I want to just cry and cry and cry when I go to meet someone in particular this summer, knowing I'll still look like I do right now. (And the previous full body pictures and all I've posted are not good indicators of me in real life, I'm very overweight, there's no getting around it. Nowhere near as much as I used to be, but way more than I'm happy being.) I told myself today a few times that something has to give, and it's dieting, because school and transitioning are too important. I wound up eating multiple bowls of ice cream and a ton of chicken wings in addition to normal meals. That's... not sustainable. And I realized afterward that I can't give up on my diet, because the fallout from that would be just as severe as anything else. Everything I've come to at this point has been centered more around weight loss than even transitioning, particularly as it is intrinsically tied into my self image while transitioning.
And everything takes up every second of my day pretty much. I don't have any reliable release. No breaks, no weekends of just relaxing while watching TV, no taking time out to just listen to music or play a video game. (And even attempting to just leads to me feeling the deadline stress even more with school.)
I want it all to just be over(not in a suicide way, in a time travel way), because I can't keep this up. I'm going to seriously have a breakdown at this rate. (Which is really bad considering I'm about to have to stop going to therapy because of finances!)
