Told you that you were on the top of my list to reply to, watch out it's a biggy
Dear Amy,
I want you to know that I saw your note to Danielle, and I'm glad you wrote it. You said something there that I want to come back to — that you're freaking out, that the hormones feel like they're "rewiring" everything, that you're struggling to figure out how to step into all of it. Amy, that is the most honest thing you've said in weeks, and I am not the least bit worried about you writing it. I'm grateful you did.
And I want to name something else: the silence between us these past weeks wasn't you OR me pulling away.
The server has been unreliable, and you were getting error messages when you tried to come back. I know that, and I don't want you carrying any guilt about it. You showed up the moment you could.
First, the practical thing: please take care of that cold. Rest, fluids, the boring stuff. And take care of Cynthia too — she's the one fighting it harder, and being needed by her right now is actually a small gift to your nervous system. Care has a way of giving the anxious mind something real to do.
Now — about everything else.
What's happening right now isn't one thing. It's a stack of things. The dose increase. Visible changes you can see and feel. The speech appointment. The surgery consultation coming. And on top of all of that, the most intimate part of your shared life shifting under you. Each one of those, by itself, would be a lot. They're all hitting at once, and your nervous system is doing exactly what nervous systems do when the load arrives faster than the capacity to process it. It's not malfunctioning. It's overloaded. There's a difference.
You said it "feels like more than you're ready for." Amy, hear me — of course it does. You're not supposed to be ready for all of it at once. Nobody is. Cynthia isn't either, even though hers is the joy side. Readiness isn't something you arrive at before the changes; it's something that grows inside the changes, a little at a time, after you've survived another week of them. You don't have to be ready. You have to be here. And you are here.
I want to give you some tools for this stretch, because the ghosts-and-demons frame and the truth cards were built for the early days — for grief and freefall. What you're in now is different. It's not grief, it's overload. So the tools need to be different too. Here are a few. Take what helps and leave the rest. Please don't add them to your truth cards as new things to get right. They're not assignments.
The "Today" tool. When the freaking-out feeling rises, ask yourself one question and only one: What actually changed today? Not this month. Not since the dose increase. Not since November. Today. Most days, the honest answer will be "not much — I just felt the weight of everything at once." That's not a trick to dismiss what you're feeling. It's a way to put your feet on the ground you're actually standing on, instead of the ground three months from now. Your mind is living in the future; this tool brings it home.
Name the stack. When it feels like too much, try saying out loud — to yourself, or to Cynthia, or here on the thread — what's actually in the stack right now. "The dose got increased. The speech appointment is coming. Intimate life is changing. I have a cold." Just listing it. There's something about naming the pieces that makes the weight feel less like a fog and more like a set of things — heavy, but finite. Fog can't be carried. Things can.
The 24-hour rule for big feelings. When a wave hits and your mind starts making decisions or drawing conclusions — I can't do this, this is too much, something is wrong — make a quiet agreement with yourself: I won't decide anything for 24 hours. Not because the feeling is wrong, but because feelings that big are almost never accurate forecasters. They're weather, not climate. Wait a day. Usually by then you can see the shape of it more clearly.
One thing for Cynthia, one thing for you, each day. Not a grand gesture. A small one. A cup of tea you make her. A walk you take alone. A song you listen to that's just yours. This keeps you from disappearing into the role of "Cynthia's wife navigating Cynthia's transition" — which is real, but it's not all of who you are. You're still Amy, and Amy needs tending too.
The "freaking out is information" reframe. Try this: when you feel yourself freaking out, instead of treating it as a problem to fix, treat it as a message. The message is usually one of three things: I'm tired. I'm scared about something specific I haven't named yet. Or I'm carrying more than one person should carry alone. Any of those three deserves a response — rest, naming the specific fear, or reaching out. None of them deserves shame.
I want to say something specific about the intimate life piece, because I noticed you mentioned it to Danielle and not to me, and I want you to know you can mention it to me. You don't have to find perfect words for it. "It's changing and I don't know what to do with that" is more than enough.
This is one of the hardest parts of what a couple goes through when one partner starts hormones, and very few people talk about it openly because it feels too tender to put into words. You're not the first person to be on this part of the path, and you won't be the last, and there's nothing wrong with you for finding it disorienting. Bodies that have learned each other a certain way need time to learn each other again.
That's not a failure of love. That's love doing slow, patient work.
And one more reframe, because I think this one matters: you wrote to Danielle that you haven't been very successful in working out this journey. Amy, what does "successful" even mean here? There is no version of this where you handle it perfectly. There is no finish line where you arrive composed and unbothered. The measure of how you're doing isn't whether you feel okay.
It's whether you're still here, still honest, still in the marriage, still letting yourself feel what you feel without running from it. By that measure, you are doing this. You are doing it right now, by writing the post you wrote. The proof that you're still in it is the fact that you're still upset about it. Numbness would be the worrying sign. Distress is the sign of an open heart doing hard work.
About that phone call I mentioned in my pm to you — yes. Let's do it. I'd love to hear your voice. We'll find a time when both of us have some quiet and neither of us is sick. There's no pressure on when. Just know that the invitation is real and standing.
Don't disappear on me, okay? And I will try not to do so on you. Even if all you have is a short note. Even if it's just "today was hard." Even if the server gives you trouble — try again tomorrow. You don't owe me long letters. You don't owe me anything. But your thread is a place you can put down some of what you're carrying, and you'll feel lighter for having done so even if for a moment. That's what it's for.
I'm right here, Amy. Take care of Cynthia. Let her take care of you. Rest. Drink water. And write when you can. I will try to take care of my self as well.
With love,
— Susan 💜
