Hiiii!
Today: a short yap about computer hardware:
Damn I love the AM4 socket its so upgradable yay, bought a Ryzen 9 5900X for our old desktop soon to be homelab and so excited for it.
Computers are fun! ~~(and expensive)~~
Join our public Matrix server!
https://matrix.to//#/#tracha-space:transfem.dev
https://rentry.co/tracha#tracha-rooms
As a reminder, please do not discuss current struggle sessions in the mega. We want this to be a little oasis for all of us and the best way to do that is not to feed into existing conflict on the site.
Also, be sure to properly give content warnings and put sensitive subjects behind proper spoiler tags. It's for the mental health of not just your comrades, but yourself as well.
Here is a screenshot of where to find the spoiler button.
~~~~~~~~
spoiler
Aww, losing your glasses suck. I wore my boy glasses for a while, even after socially transitioning and starting hormons but it was absolutely more feminizing when I picked girl glasses. I should've got girl glasses so much earlier, lolYou've never talked about your highschool stuff on here before, I don't think. Did you want to vent about it? I have no idea if dredging it up with make you feel worse or better. Personally, I was a little upset my mom never knew how much I was struggling with my gender and identity during highschool. On the one hand, fair, I didn't really know until I was like 25 and in hindsight it was obvious. On the other, that was my mom... someone I had hoped who could've seen.
For me, I learned to keep my problems small and not take up space. My brother and my sister had way huge needs, emotional, physical. I felt I was doing my part (like starting before kindergarten) by not talking about my stuff. When I talk to her about it now, she finds it painful and sometimes shuts it down. I've told her I didn't like my childhood and she cried, I didn't mean to hurt her but it was true. I've talked to her about how having children was an obvious mistake for her, she should never have had me at 18 years old to a guy she barely knew and that while I guess I was thankful cause I exist, to not expect any of me or my siblings to have their own children considering what we had grown up with - in response to talking about grandkids, her youth etc. I remember opening up a photo album she kept, I saw her jumping on a bed, fresh faced 18. My dad had taken the photo and it was their first apartment together. All I could feel was "get out get out you should not be there leave" but of course, as much as I could have wished for that, it all happened.
Anyway, even when I was very little how I learned to "help" my mom was to keep things inside and quiet. To be the good kid out of the problem ones. So she doesn't really know me even though she raised me to 18 and we talked often. She's often surprised by my interests (like in horror movies, apparently it's something I share with my dad ๐ฌ ugh) or my personal pursuits, like theatre or violin or math. Even when we talked it was mostly about her or my siblings. I'm trying to break that and bring her in to stuff going on with me and to talk about things I had hidden, especially after I came out to her.
::: spoiler spoiler It's a small thing for sure. I'll get new frames, the hour or so when I realized I lost them was painful. I can see 90% fine without them and I like my face more than I thought I did, so hooray?
I haven't talked about high school really! I stayed busy with school. I dated a girl on and off, it was just very emotionally confusing. We broke up a month after we both went to college. One of my siblings transitioned, and the other entered a complicated relationship. These things took up a lot of my parents' energy.
I didn't really have space to feel everything I was going through, my own thoughts on what my siblings were dealing with, etc. I kinda internalized that I have to deal with stuff alone, I think. I was insecure about my masculinity for a while, I didn't begin to question my sexuality until towards the end of college.
I relate to so much of what you wrote. I always felt like I was being good by keeping to myself, that I was helping them focus on what seemed important. Realizing that that's a mission with no real end goal has been tough. I assume I'm supposed to be quiet and helpful, and when I want to be loud or say something important, I don't know where or when or how. The anxiety kicks in.
I have to remind myself that I'm on my own, not like, Forever Alone, just like, I'm doing my own thing. Which is fine! The feeling of needing that attachment is something I'm working through though.
spoiler
I think it's a pretty common experience for trans people but trans women more often, I've heard it from a few people. I don't know why it is that we seem to work very hard to be hyper independent and to make our needs small, especially before transitioning. I thought I was being a dutiful son as well, maybe I was but the role of the kid is to be taken care of by the parent. I shouldn't have been so focused on protecting my mom from my needs when I was 5 or 10, which is probably part of why my mom feels so sad when I mention how hard a time I had at that young. She was busy, she was going to university and law school and working and raising 3 kids with a dead beat divorced dad.Getting past that and starting to claim your space, to ask for help, is so fraught for people like us. Because some people cab be quite unkind to adults asking for help, not merely rejecting (hard enough particularly if someone is sensitive to rejection) but like... harsh. Keep doing what you're doing! It's good that you vent, that you make your needs known (sorry if I've been misinterpreting them lol).
I'm glad losing your glasses ended up being alright. I can understand how it might feel like you were losing part of your ability to feminizie a little, glad you like your face though!! That's amazing!