Sleeping Arrangements: Addendum 1

In my experience, there are four approaches:

Take an existing name, and translate it into a unisex or opposite-gendered equivalent. (I went from 'Lawrence' to 'Lauren'.)

Select a different - but otherwise traditional - name. (Often this is as simple as a person seeing or hearing a name and thinking "I like that; I could be a _____".)

Choose a name with symbolic connotations. (I know a devout trans girl that settled on 'Faith'; and another that chose 'Phoenix' for fairly obvious reasons.) This option appears to be particularly popular with non-binary individuals.

Create a new name from whole cloth; running letters together until something unique and lyrical emerges.

Of course, one can combine these approaches in various ways. (One girl I know chose a new first name; and then converted her original first name into a female equivalent, and made that her new middle name.)

As for suggestions? Well, that depends on what direction your child wants to go in. Do they want to retain the spirit of their current name? Then seek out other-gendered versions. Are they looking for something different? You could stroll through a baby name website together. Perhaps a more representational name? Then discuss how they see themselves and how they want others to see them.

Lastly: don't feel pressured to get this right first time. Let your child try different names on; call to them by their new name, and see how they feel. Even if you get all the way down the road to a legal name change, there's generally very little preventing you from changing it something else if needed.

(I mentioned that I went from 'Lawrence' to 'Lauren'; I skipped over the year in between I spent as 'Lawrie'. It's okay to take your time on this!)

So like, if you’re a parent whose child not only trusts you enough to discuss their trans journey egg hatchery with you, but asks for your input on their new name-

Like, that’s a big deal and you’d want to do right by them, right? So how would you go about finding/making suggestions? Aside from avoiding names prevalent in pop culture and/or that can be overtly or incidentally connected to people/things that suck.

Multiple of the above!

I take my extended-release Adderall and half of my estradiol in the morning. Generally I do this by sheer routine; and it’s very unusual for me to forget.

Addendum 1: it helps that I’m also responsible for giving one of our cats her medication at the same time; so one event acts as a reminder for the other, and vice versa.

Addendum 2: if I do forget, it’s usually because I am under the weather, and my neurological issues are making a temporary appearance - in which case, my Adderall isn’t going to be of a whole lot of assistance anyhow. 🤷🏻‍♀️

During the day, I take omeprazole and an instant-release Adderall. I have alarms set for these; but I’ve also found that if I don’t take them at the exact moment the alarm goes off (or do something to remind myself as soon as I’m able, such as move my phone to the wrong pocket) then I absolutely will forget.

Addendum 3: my spouse will kindly follow up a few minutes after my afternoon medicine alarm goes off, to make sure I’ve taken it.

I take the other half of my estradiol before I go to bed; which again, happens to coincide with medication time for Old Lady Feline.

…

Everyone is different; and what works for one person might not be true for another. What I’ve noticed for myself however is that:

Taking my medications at home isn’t too much of issue, because (a) they are in a place where I can see them all the time (which is a helpful reminder) and (b) I’m not distracted.

Taking my medications at work is a whole other ballgame; partly because they are out of sight, but mainly because there are too many unplanned interruptions that distract from the task and / or apply unwanted time pressure.

(Which has me thinking: I wonder if I could block out time on my work calendar for taking my medications; and more critically, set my availability to “Do Not Disturb”? 🤔)

Alright I'm terrible at waking up to take my meds on time and I'm not sure if it's OCD, ADHD, or just my fatigue. So anyone who has this or a similar problem,

Please reblog for a bigger sample size!

Third generation Daemonettes! Juan Diaz really captured their unearthly grace in a way unseen before or since; and the sculpts are highly sought after (as evidenced by their 2016 rerelease via the Made-To-Order program).

Diaz also produced a set of Seekers; with the riders sculpted in a similar style (and one, memorably, perched as if preparing to launch herself at an enemy, daggers first)!

I have a set of my own that I desperately need to paint up (if and when I can actually decide on an appropriate color scheme)…

My FLGS had gotten a troupe of some oldhammer daemonettes, and I just couldn't resist that temptation.

Holy crap these models look good for being made in 2001.

A year in review: 2020 edition

Looking back on my progress this year.

(To be fair, the first picture is from March of 2019 and really shouldn’t be included; but I was still so camera-shy at the start of the year there simply aren’t any pictures from that period.)

Me

And the photoshoot results are in!

It's not often I do something like this - I'm still very self-conscious about my appearance - but it's nice once in a while to see how far I've come.

Questionnaire

When I set up my MRI appointment, the scheduler needed me to answer a twenty-five point questionnaire. This is very understandable: an MRI machine is one of the most powerful magnetic devices an individual might interact with in their life; and if that individual happens to have in or about their person items that react strongly to a magnetic field, Consequences Might Ensue.

You can reasonably guess the sort of questions asked:

“Do you have a pacemaker?”

“Do you have any implanted electrodes, pumps, or catheters?”

“Do you have any artificial joints, plates, bone screws?”

Now this is all good and well - until we get to the use of contrast. Under some circumstances, patients can be injected with a special fluid that will highlight the inner workings of the area being imaged. This is generally harmless...

...Unless you a pregnant.

This is why the questions veer towards:

“Are you pregnant, or have reason to believe you might be pregnant?”

“When was your last menstrual period?”

I clocked pretty quickly why I was being asked these questions; and answered with “Definitely not” and “Never” in short order. “Never?”, responded the scheduler. “Yep; I can’t get pregnant and I’ve never had a period. Crazy, right?”

(I suppose I could have cited the time I had menstrual cramps; or perhaps the five days of rampant bleeding that followed the installation of a genital piercing during my younger days. I’m not sure this would have clarified matters any, however.)

Once everything was set up, my health system’s very fancy patient portal sprung into action; letting me know that I had... a pre-MRI questionnaire to fill out. I dutifully did so; trusting that providing a date of “N/A” was enough to get the point across.

Yesterday I had a phone call from a very nice scheduling person; reminding me that my appointment was coming up and covering a couple of last minute items. One of these was that she needed to know whether or not I might be pregnant; and if I happened to know the approximate date of my last menstrual period.

Again, I stated that the answer was “Never”, and she responded incredulously, and I gently explained that I was a trans woman and that as much as I would like to be the proud owner of my very own uterus, medical science hadn’t quite come that far yet.

I might come across as a touch bothered by the repeated inquiries in this area; but if so, it’s only because there seems to be a lack of communication inside the health system. (My medical record lists my trans status, but this data point isn’t taken into account when the questionnaire is presented; one can indicate that the question isn’t applicable, but this isn’t recorded.)

Truly, I would not be surprised if I get to my appointment and the very first thing they do is to inquire once again as to whether I might be pregnant...

There is however a silver lining in all this medical madness: every clerk, technician, nurse and doctor I’ve talked to in recent weeks apparently had no idea that I was anything other than a cis woman - and was surprised when it became necessary for me to inform them.

For someone that never thought she would pass, who still feels like she doesn’t pass: that’s kind of amazing.

Unexpected HRT side-effect #6

I’m not really up to speed on Tumblr etiquette yet, but I believe the polite thing to do when dealing with heavy material is to provide a content preface. To that end: this is a kinda heavy. There’s abuse and stuff.

Sooo... PTSD. This is an actual, unexpected side effect of HRT. Let me explain.

I’ve previously touched on the idea that I have a female-structured brain; that certain parts of it require estrogen to function correctly; and that during the pre-HRT portion of my life, these parts operated poorly (or not at all).

A large - and rather nuanced - group of these malfunctions come under the umbrella heading of ‘emotional processing’ (or lack thereof); including the inability to:

Fully feel my emotions,

Understand them,

Connect them to my thoughts,

Communicate them to others;

...And perhaps most importantly, make sense of (and move past) the various negative events that life likes to throw at us.

Once HRT kicked in and supplied the estrogen my brain so desperately craved, all of this changed! I cannot stress what an incredible experience it was to go from zero to full emotional processing capacity virtually overnight.

The next thing I discovered, however - much to my chagrin - was that far from passing through the troughs of life with a stiff upper lip, rather I had simply deferred my response to those events. Now the bill was due.

I relived a lot of grief and anger: at the loss of loved ones; at lines crossed; at years in the wrong body.

One day, I had a disagreement; the matter was settled amicably, but afterwards I felt ill at ease. Without even understanding why, I gathered up my three animal friends and retreated into our walk-in closet; turned out the lights, and just... sobbed. Great, unrelenting torrent of tears. I didn’t understand what was happening; only that I was terrified, and hurting.

After what felt like hours, my wife coaxed me back into the light and to normalcy.

As night approached the following evening, it happened again. And again. And again. Every night, for months on end.

During these episodes, I would experience repetitive, intrusive thoughts for which I had no context. “Please don’t hurt me!”; “Please stop hurting me!”; “Let me go!”; “Why did he hurt me?”

In retrospect, what I have been able to piece together is as follows:

These events were flashbacks. They relate to a trauma that I have no memory of; perhaps because it happened very early on in my life. Based on the intrusive thoughts - and other indicators, such as an intense phobia of forcible restraint and what I believe may have been unconscious efforts on my part to relive the original acts - I believe the trauma was sexual in nature.

HRT kick-started my brain; and the first item on the agenda was - completely unbeknownst to me - processing this forgotten trauma.

For the curious - I’m much better now; my wife and I are no strangers to PTSD symptoms and well-versed when it comes to handling them. Still; I cannot say that when I undertook that first estradiol shot, that I ever imagined it would unearth this particular landmine in my psyche.

Joe

Once a week, I meet with my guitar instructor; and will usually arrive as he's finishing up with the previous student. The latter happens to be an incredibly sweet, cheerful, older fellow by the name of Joe; and I always enjoy our little interactions.

Today, Joe addressed me as "Young miss"; and while the accuracy of this statement might be disputed on both the first point (I wish I was still young!) and the second (in as much as I'm married), the sentiment was nonetheless greatly appreciated, and a highlight of my day!

Well woman

A few week’s ago I had an annual check-up; the first in two decades. (Hooray for America’s dysfunctional healthcare system!) I wasn’t particularly concerned ahead of time; but then I received an automated reminder from my provider that had the appointment listed as a “Well Woman Exam”. This lead me down a bit of a rabbit hole as to exactly what that entailed; and then I proceeded to freak the fuck out. Even now, I’m not entirely sure what the problem was - there was definitely some anxiety centered on the more intimate aspects of this kind of exam; but having spent a significant amount in analogous settings (e.g. laser hair removal), I didn’t think this was the issue. (There’s also the matter of my PTSD cranking up in some medical settings; but again, there doesn’t seem to be a particular rhyme or reason as to why and when that fires off... or doesn’t.) A friend suggested that perhaps the issue stemmed from having to speak to my provider, openly and honestly, about my transgender status. My provider is a very nice fellow, and has a fantastic bedside manner (something of a rarity in the US); but even so, transitioning is in many respects a form of magic, and pulling back the curtain on how the trick is performed is not fun. When the actual day rolled around, my heart was racing; and I had to apologize repeatedly to the nurse practitioner for my ridiculous pulse. Thankfully everybody was very understanding; and my provider made the necessary conversations about as straightforward and easy as they could be. (It actually turned out that between various changes in recommended screening guidelines and where I am in my transition, that there’s basically nothing to screen for for the next five years or so; so no poking or prodding there.) I did elect to get caught up on some immunizations while I was there; including getting the HPV vaccine (which is now recommended for everyone, up to the age of forty-five). The administering nurse was perfectly nice; but her technique was slow and methodical (not what you want when getting needled); and the HPV vaccine in particular stung something fierce (which I guess is a known issue with whatever they put in it). In the end, everything worked out okay; but I worry that there will be more of this sort of thing in the near future - I’m out, and as far as the majority of big ticket items are concerned, transitioned; but I feel far from confident in my newfound place in the world as a woman or my ability to pass, and it’s going to be quite some time until that changes.

Hon, correct me if I’m wrong, but - don’t you play the violin?

(I ask because my vision therapist once informed me that this is a common adaptation seen in people that practice independently focusing their eyes on objects at different distances - e.g. violinists, and their violin, and sheet music.)

(That being said, both I and my prescription go both ways; so perhaps there’s merit to the idea that they are connected? 🙂)

Complicated news from eye doc today but part of it is that one eye is nearsighted and one is farsighted so the punchline is even my eyes are bisexual 🤷🏼‍♀️