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oofensteinsmonster · 5 months

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Detransitioning.

First and foremost I want to address the transphobic people/right wing/terfs in the room and say this isn't for you. You are not allowed to take my story and use it to deny gender affirming care to trans folk. If anything I want it ABUNDANTLY clear that my access to both hormones and spaces to explore my identity is what rooted my self esteem and made me who I am today, even if my identity looks different than it did a year ago, and I have absolutely no regrets about the decisions I made for my body. I was informed of the process every step of the way, I did all of my research, I knew exactly what was going to happen. Kapeesh?

Kaposh.

With that out of the way.

I will be referring to my genders in the third person when I feel it is relevant to alluding to how the situations made me feel. I do not have multiple personalities, but the following situations did cause me to disassociate from aspects of myself.

My experience with my gender has always been at odds. I grew up without a positive and consistent mother figure in a misogynistic southern state, and the male figures in my life were turbulent and terrifying. This mattered to me as someone who mirrors what they see in order to understand the behavior. My friends before I became a teenager were mostly boys because I enjoyed rough housing, games, and exploring the neighborhood. When the adults started separating my age group by sex I had a hard time relating to the girls in my age group who were already flirting with the boys and trying on make up. It wasn't that I didn't like boys (or girls for that matter), quite the opposite, and it wasn't that I didn't like make up or clothes or traditionally feminine things, it's just that I didn't have a lot of experience with that stuff and when I did try it out I was laughed at because I wasn't allowed to be feminine at that point, but because I was a girl I also wasn't allowed to be masculine.

If I played with dolls I was called a sissy, and if I built forts with the guys and wore traditionally boyish clothes I was called a gay slur by my father, or by the older neighborhood boys…and eventually by my friends as well.

There wasn't a safe place for me to retreat into as far as identity went, every outfit felt alien, and eventually I fell into being reclusive and kept to myself.

When I entered my 20s and moved to Texas I was introduced to the idea of different gender identities and it felt right.

I was able to experiment, and for the first time I had positive feedback. I could be feminine, I could be masculine, I could be both and neither. It was liberating and for most of the decade, while I had considered physical changes, like hrt, I was mostly content with where I was and who I was.

This was until my last relationship.

For the sake of the story let's call him Red. Red came into my life at a time that I desired a more assertive lover, and because I am also kinky, I needed a Dominate. This is just my prefered dynamic, I don't buy into that alpha male “all women/femmes need to be subjugated” bullshit, it's a kink that happens to coexist with my more docile and domestic nature, but I can and will still put on my own pair of boots and be a boss bitch when the situation calls for it you feel me? Great. I also want to mention that other than this situation I've had nothing but great experiences in the kink community and am not trying to blame kink on my trauma in any way, shape, or form. It is a community founded on consent, and the people that ignore that are ignoring what makes said community what it is and what it stands for.

Carrying on.

Red started off being everything I thought I needed. I mistook tolerance as acceptance and celebration because I wanted so badly for everything he fed me to be true. He was my “twin flame” *vomit* my Sir, my Master, he saw what he thought I needed and he gave it to me.

At a price….always….at a price.

Without going too much into detail, because I still have a lot of process and heal on that front, he took my feminine side …and used her well past the point of my consent. She was raped in every sense of the word. Abused. Objectified. My traits were no longer my own, they were simply a fetish. I wasn't beautiful anymore, I was “sexy”. My name that I had fashioned for myself for 10 years was discarded for one that he gave me, which in D/s is fine, except he'd only use my real one when he was upset or angry. I was no longer myself, I was what he wanted me to be, and because of that and because of never being given time or space to come back into myself I eventually completely detached from my femininity. I buried her far beneath where I thought he couldn't find her just to keep her safe.

But I still had my masculine side, who

…did not embody my rage and grief but rather helped me juggle them. He held them when I was tired of carrying them around, and when the time came he helped me stand my ground when I finally got rid of Red and his influence in my life.

It was easy for me to assume that this was my true form, and because I'd always batted around the idea of hormones, I decided to try them out. It was a low dose, because in my state of mind I understood that diving in head first was not the wisest decision ( FOR ME…you hear me terfs? F o r. m e. ) I started going by a different name, I cut my hair (note: Korean boy band hair not my best look ) I put away all my dresses ( in my car, just in case ) ( clothes don't have a gender but this was my process ) and that's what I embodied for 7 months.

And I had a wonderful experience with it! My support structure was unmatched, my household never struggled with addressing me by what I wanted to be addressed by, my friends were super supportive the whole journey, my assigned Doctor was extremely clear and concise and never once did anyone make me feel “less than”. It was part of me I needed to pay attention to and explore, even without the trauma that led me there I still think I would have ended up wanting to experiment the way that I did. My masculinity became a place to rest, he said to me “ Let me take it from here for a while. Heal. “ and I will always be thankful for that.

It wasn't until after I finished grieving the break up that I realized I might not be a man. Plus, the changes to my body weren't feeling as at home as I wanted them to. More on that later. So I stopped using the gel for a little while just to see how I felt…and I never picked it back up.

Eventually the parts of me started gravitating back together, and while they don't fit the same way they used to, they are at home within me for the first time in years.

And if I hadn't had the freedom to discover that for myself…if my access to gender affirming health care had been denied or I had been shamed, or put on some kind of fucking registry like Ken Paxton was trying to collect ( fuck that guy ) or thrown into some kind of conversation therapy, I'd still be lost. I'd be so much worse off than I am.

People who detransition make up less than 1% of trangender folks. I am the only person I know that has ever decided to stop. I am the only person I know whose decisions were swayed more-so by personal traumas rather than a sense of long standing identity. I didn't have a sense of identity. And maybe if gender roles hadn't been so strictly enforced/contradictory when I was a child, maybe if I had been celebrated in my curiosity and my fluidity I would have gotten here a lot sooner. Which isn't to say that I am in any way resentful of having gotten here a little later than most.

So if you were wondering if I regret it, the answer is no.

This next segment is to answer any potential questions about the physical changes I experienced while on Tgel, how they made me feel, and how my body detransitioned after I stopped using it.

Note that every single body is different, so what I went through is not going to look the same for someone else.

Skin: As an autistic with sensory issues, while I knew my skin was going to change…it did not change the fact that I hated how itchy everything suddenly was. Your skin becomes more rough with T, and hairy. I never really experienced acne just because my genetics are pretty good on that front, but I did get significant leg hair growth. This did not go away when I stopped taking T, which I expected. But that's ok because it's just hair and I just needed to get a more durable razor. Big whoop.

Also I did have some very hard to notice fuzz under my chin, but that kind of went away. Along with the roughness.

Voice changes: I actually love my voice now. It was a few octaves higher before T, and I feel like it's more bodied and lovely. Not masculine, more androgynous. It didn't go back to normal, and I'm perfectly happy with that.

Bottom growth (tmi warning): I don't care about sharing this information so long as you don't ask for pictures you weirdos. But I started off with a teeeeeeeeny tiny little clit even in comparison to others. So now it's just kind of an average size, and hey I have better orgasms now. Win/win.

Body temperature: before T I was cold natured, and now I'm hot natured. That hasn't changed yet, and I'm not sure if it's going to. I feel pretty neutral about it at least until I try cuddling someone with the same body heat as me in which case *I hate it*.

Periods: still haven't had mine since I stopped which… I probably need to go see what's going on about that but from what I gathered it does sometimes take the better part of a year to restart the menstrual cycle. I'm not in a hurry, though. That was one of the perks of being on T, instantly stopped my period.

Will check back in if there's any issues on that front, however I will say that I have pcos which causes unpredictable cycles to begin with so, again, my body is different.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask, I'm posting this publicly because I want more awareness about detransitioning and debunking a lot of what I feel is being weaponized against the transgender community regarding it.

I will not react or respond to bigotry or hatred, I will delete any fetishizing of my identity or my body, I want this corner of the internet to remain safe.

Wrap up:

Remember that no matter how many changes you experience in life, you are just as valid today as you were yesterday and will be tomorrow. Nobody can tell you who you are, or who you're not.

Whatever you're doing, so long as it isn't hurting anyone or yourself, you're doing it perfectly. 🥰

Be well my loves,

Theo (She/they/ and sometimes it)

#transgender #lgbtqia #ftm detransition #detrans ftm

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oofensteinsmonster · 6 months

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Questions I would rather ask people in order to get to know them instead of the normal get-to-know questions but I cant because they're either too random or too personal and they become progressively more uncomfortable the more information I accumulate pt.1:

1.)If you could pick an apocalypse to experience out of all the ones you're aware of either based in fiction or nonfiction, which one would you pick and why?

2.) Would you rather lose an arm or a leg?

3.) What is your most random fear?

4.) Do you seek stimulation or do you seek to dull stimulation? I.e. If you aim to get drunk/ high is it because you feel too much or too little?

5.) What do you think is lurking at the depths of the ocean?

6.) What conspiracy theory do you secretly kind of but not really subscribe to?

7.) What's the most gullible you've ever been?

8.) If you were a super villain what would be your back story/super powers/ arch nemesis?

9.) If a doppelganger took on your appearance and I had to shoot one or the other what could you say that would let me know without a reason of a doubt that you are you?

10.)What's your brain rot? ( favorite mindless activity)

11.) What is your niche interest? ( thing you're really into that no one else has heard of or just doesn't care about )

12.) What's your cozy language?

13.) What's your legitimate toxic trait?

14.) What do you listen to when you're trying to quiet the demons in your head? Or do you prefer silent contemplation?

15.) What's the hardest lesson you learned from your last relationship?

16.) Have you ever experienced being completely reliant on a person/ system and how did it shape the person you are today?

17.) Did your trauma turn you into the type of person that needs to be in control or the type of person that needs to forfeit control in their relationships, and how do you approach a common ground/ healthy balance with that?

18.) Assuming they've seen groundhogs day; If you were stuck in a time loop where you repeated the same day over and over again, would you commit mass murder during one of the repeat cycles?

19.) Do you need to have a sense of family and tradition, and I don't mean the white picket all American idea of family, I mean any group of ppl you would live and grow with with your own rituals and traditions, or would you prefer a solitary home life where you can visit the ppl you care about on occasion?

20.) Are you the type of person that gets hung up on their past and who they used to be, resenting the progress of years and believing that you'll never reach the potential you once had, or are you the type of person that spends too much time in the possibilities of the future while resenting who you are now, and do you want to do something about that?

#autism #audhd #icebreaker #oversharing #humor

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oofensteinsmonster · 7 months

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I can’t stop laughing at this 🤣😂🤣

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oofensteinsmonster · 7 months

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Apps that I downloaded to help me be less stinky - A report of first impressions mostly.

Health

Chronic insights:

First impressions: Very detailed. For everything they offer up front for free, it's great. There's a long list of symptoms you can add to your daily log to monitor, plus the option of adding something else. You can either log the severity/time/duration or just that it occurred. The only issue I have is that I can't set a reminder to log my symptoms.

1 week report:

1 month report:

Pillo:

First impressions: I've used this before. It's pretty basic, but also not my favorite app. Adding new meds to take at the same time is convoluted.

1week:

1month:

Mental health

Prompted Journal:

First impressions: First impressions are swoon worthy. The people that designed this app obviously care about helping people unravel their brains. It is a donation based project, so while you do need to pay for more than 2 prompts a day and color customization, everything else is free. There's no data collection!

1 week report:

1 month report:

Dailyo:

First impressions: Simple, aesthetically pleasing mood tracker. I use this to monitor my overall mood of the day and one or two thoughts. There's ads on the top and bottom but they fit the color scheme so I'm not perturbed.

1 week report:

1 month report:

Hygiene

Routine Flow:

First impressions: I just use this to remind myself to brush my teeth and track how often I bathe. You can use it for other reminders and productivity monitoring if you want but I just needed it for this particular use.

1 week report:

1 month report:

Tasks/vision board-

Miscellaneous

Wondr note:

First impressions: It's literally 3 dollars for full use of the app. I use this to keep track of my tasks for the day. It appeals to me because I can customize the board to appeal to me aesthetically. I tend to enjoy task apps more when I can fiddle around with the colors and fonts and add pictures.

My only real gripe is that I wish I could customize the size of each picture on the vision board/ the size of each column to have a sort of scrap book effect. I also would like to be able to go back and look at previous entries, but I can't see a way to do that. You could also use this app to journal ideas and dreams but I just use it when I wake up and need to list my priorities for the day.

1 week report:

1 month report:

Vision board:

First impressions: It's cute! You can a bunch of pictures and then edit the music and play a little slide show to inspire you. The other settings aren't very intuitive for me tho? Check back later.

1 week report:

1 month report:

Dreamkit:

First impressions: Great dream journal. You can go into as much or as little detail you want to about the dreams you have. Each entry has the option of summary, characters, place, mood, and what variety of dream it is ( lucid, fever, nightmare, etc. )

1 week report: Nothing new to report, I continue to use the app for its purposes. I have it on my home screen so I remember to document the dreams I have first thing upon waking should I feel the need to.

1 month report:

Photophobic screen apps

Darker:

First impressions:This app is one of 2 that I've been using to make my phone screen more tolerable to look at. It basically makes the screen darker than your darkest setting. You can choose which color to coat your screen if you aren't a fan of the weird red orange that the blue light filter uses, however most of the colors are in the red spectrum. I would like to choose dark purple, however I have to pay for that and I'm not going to. As I already kind of use a blue light filter I just opted to make the screen darker than my phone can make it for when I'm on bed at night or have a migraine. In order to edit the settings you have to hold down the icon and select settings, just pressing the icon will only turn the settings on and off.

1 week report:

1 month report:

Twilight:

First impressions: Your phone already comes with a blue light filter, but this app lets you customize how much of that filter affects your screen. You can dim the screen more, add more filters, color temperature, intensity, etc.

It's a neat little app.

1 week report: The only real concern that I have about using this app is I'm worried that in my attempt to prevent migraines and eye strain by making things dimmer, am I causing eye strain because it's too dim? Time will tell.

1 month report:

#apps #neurodivergent #chronic illness #moodboard #vision board

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oofensteinsmonster · 7 months

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i thought of them immediately

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oofensteinsmonster · 7 months

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oofensteinsmonster · 7 months

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Inspo: Saint Laurent Fall 2023 Menswear

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oofensteinsmonster · 7 months

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oofensteinsmonster · 7 months

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load-bearing

Sometimes people hit a place in their life where things are going really well. They like their job and are able to be productive at it; they have energy after work to pursue the relationships and activities they enjoy; they’re taking good care of themselves and rarely get sick or have flareups of their chronic health problems; stuff is basically working out. Then a small thing about their routine changes and suddenly they’re barely keeping their head above water.

(This happens to me all the time; it’s approximately my dominant experience of working full-time.)

I think one thing that’s going on here is that there are a bunch of small parts of our daily routine which are doing really important work for our wellbeing. Our commute involves a ten-minute walk along the waterfront and the walking and fresh air are great for our wellbeing (or, alternately, our commute involves no walking and this makes it way more frictionless because walking sucks for us). Our water heater is really good and so we can take half-hour hot showers, which are a critical part of our decompression/recovery time. We sit with our back to the wall so we don’t have to worry about looking productive at work as long as the work all gets done. The store down the street is open really late so late runs for groceries are possible. Our roommate is a chef and so the kitchen is always clean and well-stocked.

It’s useful to think of these things as load-bearing. They’re not just nice - they’re part of your mental architecture, they’re part of what you’re using to thrive. And when they change, life can abruptly get much harder or sometimes just collapse on you entirely. And this is usually unexpected, because it’s hard to notice which parts of your environment and routine are load bearing. I often only notice in hindsight. “Oh,” I say to myself after months of fatigue, “having my own private space was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a scary drop in weight, “being able to keep nutrition shakes next to my bed and drink them in bed was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a sudden struggle to maintain my work productivity, “a quiet corner with my back to the wall was load-bearing.”

When you know what’s important to you, you can fight for it, or at least be equipped to notice right away if it goes and some of your ability to thrive goes with it. When you don’t, or when you’re thinking of all these things as ‘nice things about my life’ rather than ‘load-bearing bits of my flourishing as a person’, you’re not likely to notice the strain created when they vanish until you’re really, really hurting.

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