Things I Want In My Future:

Tattoos (which I keep getting more ideas for, lol)
Breast reduction. Or removal. I feel like I might still hate whatever was there even if I could get it down to an A cup. Also considering not having them put the nipples back on, since the most common surgery they do for diabetics (and smokers) leaves you with a nipple that is not connected to anything anyway, and I personally have very little use for mine anyway, and without them I would never have to worry about them showing through clothes. However, I am not touching dealing with how various and sundry relatives/some people I know might react to the No More Boobs option.
DOG. Possibly boxer mix. Something mediumish large.
CAT.
A job. Obviously.
A house of some sort.
Less anxiety and depression, hopefully.
More Local-to-Me Friends than I have right now. Which would certainly be easier if the anxiety and depression can lessen.

me: ::attempts to go back to sleep after getting up to take meds::

my brain: actually, now is a perfect time to go over your complicated feelings about your gender/gender presentation and your complicated relationship to/feelings about your boobs and how you might handle that.

me: …

my brain: also tacos sound really good right now.

Things that are awesome:

Getting complemented on my outfit (striped slacks, vest, button down shirt, and tie) by two teenagers of indeterminate age who were at the HP thing at my local library. As a gender nonconforming future teacher planning to teach teens, this felt really positive.

Things that are not awesome:

Forgetting that sometimes “don’t read the comments” should be applied to more than just news related writing.

Read a blog post about why dfab/afab people who are not trans men might want top surgery and things to consider when considering that as an option written by a woman who had gone through that process, with the inclusion of post-surgery reactions of others to her decision.

This is an idea I relate to. And many of the commenters did as well.

But there were also the comment(s) along the lines of “cutting off healthy breasts makes you a bad feminist”, “you did this for horrible reasons”, and “you were only uncomfortable with your breasts because of gender norms/expectations/stereotypes/etc, only the abolishment of gender, not surgery, will fix this problem and this article made me sad.”

So what if someone’s issues with wanting their breasts reduced or gone does have something to do with the negative impact of Western gender bullshit? If all the gender bullshit was abolished tomorrow, that wouldn’t change anything for people who have spent their whole lives dealing with it. It wouldn’t do jack shit to make them feel better. And treating people who feel this way as if they are wrong and to be pitied also changes nothing for the better and only makes things worse for them.

I think it pinged my anxiety, because I got that “ohshit” chest-tightening fight-or-flight chest pain. It didn’t last as long as it would have before I got on my current medication, but the reaction was still there. Now mostly I’m just sad and minorly pissed off, but better for having gotten the feeling off my chest. Which is a bit bitterly pun-y way to put it given the topic.

6 Random Facts about Yourself and tag 10 people

Tagged by sniperct. Not tagging anyone ‘cause I…just don’t usually tag people.

I am putting this under a read more because a couple of them could kind of use content warnings.

1) In fourth grade, I was the one the other girls in my friend group came to for relationship advice. At the time, I found this very confusing because I was the only one who wasn’t ‘dating’ and had never ‘dated’ (I found the entire concept of fourth grade dating bizarre). Later I realize they probably asked me because they realized I was probably the last person in the world who would ever attempt to “steal” their boyfriends.

2) I once had a moment of such intense anger that I literally “saw red.” I also think it was a good thing that the person who provoked that response was online and several thousand miles away, as if we’d been in the same room I probably would have also found out what it felt to punch someone in the face.

3) Changing medications for my anxiety/depression combo made me realize I’d probably been dealing with at least the anxiety side of things for way longer than I’d even reallized. Probably since around puberty, or at least since my puberty got re-jump-started after I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, started on insulin, and started growning again.

Also, one of the manifestations of my anxiety, starting about…six or seven years ago was compulsive eating. I gained somewhere in the area of 50 to 60 pounds almost entirely from the combination of anxiety-driven compulsive eating and having to give more insulin to cover those carbs. Since getting on new medication, the compulsion to eat has stopped, just like a switch was flipped (it flips back on the week of my period, though, which sucks), and I’ve gone down almost 6 pounds.

4) I don’t like my breasts. I have never liked them. I have never wanted them. After getting on insulin, puberty really kicked in and I went from an A cup and sports bras only to a C cup and underwire minimizers in…a really short amount of time. Now I’m somewhere between a D and DD. They make clothing harder to shop for, the contribute to my back issues, sometimes feel like they are flatting my ribs, and I just…do not like them at all. They are like housemates that I cannot afford to kick out and thus just deal with them. For the moment. I really want to get breast reduction surgery someday.

I am torn between trying to go down to an A cup…or just having them off completely, nipples and all (I’m not really that attached to my nipples, either, and the type of surgery they usually do for people who have diabetes (or smoke) involves a way of doing it where the nipples end up not attached to nerves or anything once it’s done. So they’d basically be there for cosmetic reasons, and I wouldn’t really see the point for me, personally, to keep them). But while I might enjoy having a flat chest, I know I would not enjoy dealing with people’s curiosity over why it is flat. Because many people really wouldn’t be okay with an answer like “I didn’t want them.”

5) I tried starting a novel in 7th grade. I introduced all the major antagonists, including their full names and ages, within the first two pages and then stopped because I realized it sucked. That world, though, continues to grow and evolve–it has changed a lot since I first started poking at it in 7th grade–and even though I haven’t really written anything for it.

6) There are for quotes on my potential tattoos list. Two are from books (Doctor Zhivago and Harry Potter), one is from a comic (a Captain America quote), and one is something my mom said to me as I set out to…take an exam or something shortly after I changed meds and started feeling better.