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[Trigger warning: depression] I’m in a very dark spot again.  This is probably another bout of post-op depression and I’m really struggling.  Physically struggling with exhaustion and these stress headaches I tend to get in my left temple with a searing pain (migraines?).  But especially struggling mentally and emotionally, which is also causing most ofContinue reading “Dark spot”

This afternoon, exactly one month after my gender-affirming top-surgery, I went on my first post-op hike: a real, 4.5-mile hike with almost 500 feet elevation gain (after a 2.5-mile walk).  One of my closest climbing buddies took me on the hike — or, rather, he drove us to the trailhead and I took us onContinue reading “Thank you, buddy!”

Today’s exactly one month since getting my gender-affirming top-surgery.  I don’t regret it. I’ve never felt so well and aligned with/in my own body and this is wonderful.  But today I am feeling sad and afraid.  Sad for all that I’ve had to leave behind me and already lost; afraid of what I still mightContinue reading “One month later: sad and afraid”

I used to have a particularly pretty mole on my right breast, visible also in the portraits I got taken of me before my top-surgery.  Until the other day I hadn’t paid attention to this detail. I noticed it again after seeing my pre-surgery nude portraits and my “new” chest as the scars (especially aroundContinue reading “The shifting mole”

This afternoon I showed my “new” chest in person to a friend (a non-medical person) for the first time.  With one of my closest (cis-male) climbing buddies I am working on a project about non-binary/transgender athletes and he came to visit me today to continue some work on this project. We hadn’t seen each otherContinue reading “Taking my shirt off”

It’s hard to put into words how hard this phase is. It might be the hardest experience since my horrible COVID illness in the spring of 2020 (& long COVID throughout 2020).  Today is exactly three weeks since I got my masculinizing mastectomy — at this time three weeks ago I was getting my chestContinue reading “The dark antechamber”

Happy Singles Awareness Day! “[…] When two people visibly ride the Relationship Escalator together, this fact alone often yields some increase in their security, prestige and comfort. These advantages spring from social couple privilege: the assumption that people who are coupled up are more important, and worthy of greater consideration and reward, than other people.Continue reading “Happy Singles Awareness Day!”

Yesterday I experienced the first extremely tangible example of the world behaving differently towards me now that I have a “different”, or new, body.  About a month ago, I proactively scheduled physical therapy to regain mobility and strength in my shoulders, as suggested after my masculinizing mastectomy. When I called to make the appointment, IContinue reading “Transphobic physical therapist?”

Two weeks after my gender-affirming top-surgery… I think part of what I’m experiencing now might be post-op depression… Ouch. It’s painful. And scary.

It is often said that grief comes in waves.  An acquaintance once put it as, “Grief comes in layers became if it came all at once we wouldn’t be able to bear it”.  Whether it’s layers or waves, it comes and goes and sometimes one level hits harder than the others, deeper than expected. That’sContinue reading “Grief comes in waves, or layers”