"lost" youtube video

Video I found on my camera that I had forgotten to update. It's from October.. oops.

First Therapy Session

Therapy has begun! I had my first session on Monday afternoon. I ducked out of work early, went home and changed and had some lunch, then hopped on the bus. Stopped at the library to return some books and pay my library fines so the SPPL book police stop chasing me then went to May Day Cafe for fortification in the form of tasty scone before heading over to the appointment.

My therapist's office is in the basement of the house he and some other people live in. You go down the stairs at the side entrance, fill out a form sitting at the bottom of the stairs, then wait for him to show. I was a little early to fill out my insurance information. I'm still a little nervous that insurance won't cover, however I think that's a little silly. I got the necessary permission prior to having the appointment, so it should all go through. I think in general I'm just a little skittish about insurance.

Anyways. We did general first therapy session stuff, talked about how I was feeling, how I was doing in general. Talked about my living situation, my family. Any medications I was on, any hospitalizations. We talked about whether or not I had ever been suicidal or had tried to commit suicide. Talked about the times I've felt most depressed in my life.

Then went on to talk about sexuality and gender identity stuff. When I first noticed gender and sexuality. I talked about my childhood, how my brother and I were really close when I was young and that changed at puberty. How menstruation and puberty sucked in general. How I hated having to wear a bra in 6th grade and how my mom would make me wear one to school and I'd take it off and shove it in my locker in the morning and put it on again before I went home and would wear baggy clothes. How in 8th grade I would completely break down and cry in department stores because of all the mirrors and having to look at myself. Fights about wearing dresses to church. Then the session came to an end.

I really liked him. He is very easy to talk to, and I am comforted that he has experience doing therapy with trans people. I don't feel like I need to educate him about the issues, which is a big relief. I have my next two appointments already scheduled, so hopefully I'll know soon what the general time line for hormones will be. I'm excited, I feel like I'm actually making progress and finally doing something tangible to get rid of these damn breasts and start living in the world as I want to.

Updates from Youtube!

My wonderful friend over at jadedjabber pointed out I should embed my youtube videos. So here goes! A brief introduction from early october, then an update from a few days after that about my visit with my dad.

whiney post

I feel like shit today. My back hurts like hell from wearing my binder and my cursed quickly arriving menstruation. (For reference, the -ed in cursed should be emphasized curs-ED. May not be grammatically correct, but so much fun to say). Said binder is also rather difficult to remain cool in during the summer, and also rather difficult to feel physically comfortable. I much prefer fall and spring weather when I can still wear hoodies and long sleeve shirts without frying. I usually feel grossly fat and unattractive in summer because my breasts just feel way more prominent than in the winter when I can hide them under more layers. I'm aware that neither of those statements are true, I'm just saying that's how I feel.

I'm getting nervous about the conference in San Francisco. I wish I could put my finger on what exactly has me freaked out, but so far it's remained pretty difficult to determine. I just feel this vague sense of dread. I'm kinda nervous that the Lutherans Concerned people won't like me, will think I'm a horrible person to pick as their intern, and that all the "youth" in the session I'm co-leading will think I'm weird in a bad way.

I finished a rather horrible book yesterday from the public library called "The Left Hand of Darkness." I just didn't really get into it. The author was trying to (I think) make the point that having a society in which the social differences between men and women will be erased only when men and women share child-care equitably, and trying to point out how incredibly important one's sense of gendered self is in most societies on earth. I just felt it was rather heavy handed and utilized ideas about what gender is and how we are gendered that I just don't really agree with. Oh well.

On a less narcissistic note, came across this story about a pro-life congressional candidate in Oregon whose not-so-pro-life past actions have come to light. *headshake* Funny how that works. On the topic of abortion, I got into an interesting conversation with one of the kids here at summer seminars about abortion. He is Catholic, and follows the Vatican's opinion on abortion. Maybe it's just a warning of things to come with LC/NA, but I found it was extremely difficult to discuss abortion with him without getting upset and shutting off while remaining open and listening to him. I just feel like most debates about abortion or lgbt issues and the church are just circular arguments where both sides end up saying the same things with no real progress. Granted, I'm biased, and for me progress is people against abortion or lgbt rights or women's rights realizing that they should shift, not me recanting my ideas.

back pain

Today my back hurts. A lot. This is mainly because I've been binding on a regular basis, and apparently the muscles in the human back are not meant to stand up to being compressed every day by the binder. I think it's only aggravated by the fact that my binder rolls up and pulls right across my lower back whenever I engage in anything more active than sitting. Unfortunately I haven't figured out a good way to keep it from doing this yet. If any of you have suggestions, I will try them and let you know how it goes.
I think the back pain isn't helped by the fact that I'm currently being visited by my monthly nemesis, menstruation.
Anyways.
In other news much happier news, I've been doing some research, and I think it's possible that I'll be able to afford hormones next year. It will depend on how much visits to the endocrinologist are, how often the endo will want me to come back to check my levels, and how much (if at all) my insurance or job will cover/reimburse me for medical stuff. So the next step for me is to make an appointment at the tranny clinic and start getting answers to such questions. And really, my quality of life will improve. It's become abundantly clear to me that try as I may, I can't really be completely happy living with tits and hips. And I do think that LVC would be a safe place to start hormones, which is also important.
So yeah. If anyone has any binding suggestions, let me know. Happy trails.

last jterm ever

I finished my last day of jterm ever today. Woohoo! I'm pretty excited about it. The class went well, even if it did drag during the discussions. The ride home today was rough. We were stuck in stop and go traffic for a long time. My lower back started freaking out on me. It's been rather upset lately, what with the cold, ace bandaging and sitting in the car. I should probably ease up on the ace bandages, and order a new binder already, as has been pointed out to me more than once in the past few days. =)

Anyways, it's just my parents and I at home this weekend. My brother is back to college and my sister is traveling with friends. It's strange, after you grow up with these two other people, always being around them, knowing what's going on in their lives, sneaking into each others rooms in the middle of the night to talk, then suddenly you're in college, and we don't really talk anymore. I think part of why I feel distant from my family is that I don't know how to talk to them about being queer. When I first came out I was terrified of being rejected, and I just let so many things go unsaid. I've never actually spoken to my brother and sister about it. They know that I prefer dating women, my mother and I have talked about the fact that they know. I'm pretty sure they don't know I want to cut off my breasts though. I often feel like being at home puts a "don't ask don't tell" policy into effect in my life. Part of that is my fault though. I don't make the effort to open up to my family, to let them in to that part of my life. I am the one that keeps jumping back into my role as Amy, the oldest daughter, the older sister, instead of just being who I've become in the past four years.

Since my brother and sister aren't home, I've resolved to sit down and talk with my parents. I want to tell them I've picked out a new name. I also want to reiterate that I want surgery, and that I am already planning for it. I would also like to ask them for a very small loan so I can purchase a new binder. As I mentioned before, the ace bandage is not treating my body well and I shouldn't do that to myself.

On a completely different topic, I watched the movie Gray Matters this evening. Woo netflix. It's a decent movie. Much better than many "lesbian movies" in the world. And Rachel Shelley is in it and that's great. I think she's hot. She's not a main character, but that's perfectly ok with me. I was actually planning on going to sleep and watching the movie tomorrow. But after laying in bed with the lights off for 45 minutes without even feeling tired I decided to just watch the movie.

Interesting fact from my life, it seems that every time I come back to Milwaukee, I have a hard time falling asleep the first few nights. Maybe it's just sleeping in a different place. Or maybe it's because I usually resolve to talk to my parents/family and then get worked up about it and psyche myself out. One of my friends told me I over analyze sometimes. That's probably true. Actually, I know it's true. Luckily it's also true that I only over analyze sometimes. I'm starting to ramble. Here's to take two of trying to fall asleep.

broken binder

A great tragedy has occurred. My binder, which I have not even had for a full 12 months, has been damaged in such a way that it will not function in an effective manner. I trustingly lent it to a friend for a play that she was in, and it came back to me with rips by both side seams. It's not that the seams themselves have been ripped, it's the fabric. Even if I have someone stitch up the sides, now that the fabric itself has ripped it will be more prone to accidents in the future, and it will also have two bulky seams that will itch.

Really, the good thing is that I am going to have help converting it to a shorter binder, not the full body tank top style it was. Still, I am saddened by the loss, and the "conversion experience" won't occur until winter break.

I am freaking out a little bit because I'm finding it difficult to function without the binder. As the semester has gone on and it's gotten colder, that binder became my second skin. Unfortunately, since I've been stressed out and a little depressed this semester I have been letting myself get bogged down in feeling negatively about my body. And I know, that's not good to do. I'm doing what I can to not beat up on myself. Thinking negatively will not change anything.
Nonetheless, I do need to figure out something for the really bad days, and I don't want to go back to using an ace bandage. It's really bad for my back muscles, I've already bruised my ribs using that method before, and it is difficult to breathe if you don't wrap it properly. Still, there are just some days when the sports bra, although the two i have are mighty indeed, just aren't enough.

Oh well. On the upshot, I will be getting my october paycheck soon so if I decide that I want to have two binders, I can consider purchasing another one from underworks. Until the time that I have a binder again, I will try and think happy thoughts and also try and think of alternatives to the Ace bandage.

bad body days

Just a warning, this post may be a little whiny, a little emo, and possibly a little self-centered though I'll try to keep it to a minimum. So if that's not your thing, you've been warned.

Today has been a bad body day. Usually, I'm able to get along with my body pretty well. I can ignore that I have breasts, and the day goes pretty well. Unfortunately there are days like today where I just feel them all the time. They shift around, they feel like they are bouncing all over the place, they itch, they generally feel huge and cumbersome.
Days like this are just really hard. I try to remember that there are many people in the world who have it a lot worse than I do, and my problems are small potatoes compared to a lot of shit people deal with. Still, it's difficult. It's hard to have a good day or even an ok day when I can't stop thinking about the breasts. And unfortunately my binder is getting ragged and stretched out so it isn't as effective. I still have my ace bandage, but that does horrible things to ones back. I've gotten bruised ribs before and that's just not comfortable either.
I've been realizing more and more this year that there is a huge disconnect between what my mental image of myself is and what I see when I look in the mirror. Its rather disconcerting. I know that that's me, but some days its like "oh right, I have those breast things."
Either way. Tomorrow will be a new day.