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virescent-v · 4 months

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Hello! As someone who struggled with a SH Addiction…as wild as it sounds. I was wondering if you could do Reader(Sh Addiciton) is clean but had urges again and is struggling to fight them with Emily helping them? It would help me as someone whose struggling rn lol

Siren Call

A/N: Hi lovie, I tried my best with this. I have struggled with depression since my teenage years, and suicide ideations throughout that time. To be transparent, I've never dealt with self-harm. I hope I managed to capture those feelings for you and do this justice.

To anyone reading this: Check the trigger warnings. Protect yourself. Please reach out if you're struggling. You're not alone and the world is better with you in it. <3

SAMHSA's National Hotline: 1-800-662- 4357, or text your zip code to 435748 for help near you.

Warnings: Mentions of self-harm/cutting, mentions of razors. It's not very graphic imo, but again, protect yourself if these are not things you feel okay reading.

Word Count: 1.4k

It was a rollercoaster of emotion flowing through you. Ups and downs and turns that you could hardly keep up with. Numbness, but at the same time, a devastating whirlwind of thought. You weren’t sure how you could feel so empty but so full of emotion at one time, but you were.

The depression was not new, a thing carried along with you every day from your adolescence, like a shadow or a tumor. Always there, sometimes bothersome, sometimes silent, and just waiting for a moment to shatter any progress you’ve made.

Everyone you’ve talked to has dealt with their mental health differently; therapy, medications, denial. And, sometimes, those did work for you. You met with your therapist once a week (less, if you couldn’t afford it), you were on your third antidepressant, and you tried so hard to ignore how your mind betrayed you.

The one thing that was consistent, that always helped with the emotions coursing through you, was physically releasing them.

The first time you cut yourself, you were sixteen. You’d only learned about it from the darker corners of the internet, a place you shouldn’t have been. Too young, too impressionable. But, the first slice of the razor against the skin of your thigh felt good. As the skin tore apart from itself, as the blood oozed from the wound, all of your negative feelings went too.

With each drop of blood, you felt the freedom from doubt, worry, anger, sadness. Each cut brought a feeling of euphoria, the dopamine replacing all of the emotions that were burying you.

It was a habit that continued throughout your teenage years, and even early twenties. When the destructive thoughts got too much, the razor was there to bring color back into your life. But, as you got older, you got smarter, more diligent in the way those terrible thoughts would creep into your mind, suffocating the joy from you. You learned better coping mechanisms, learned how to manage the craving of the sharpness of a blade against your fragile skin.

But still, the release would call to you, a siren of a dreadful sea you did not want to be a voyager on.

On such nights, when the waves of despair rocked you too roughly, your girlfriend Emily was usually there to distract you, a life preserver to stop you from drowning.

Unfortunately, Emily wasn’t always there. Her job was demanding, important, much more important than your broken brain. Which made tonight, a particularly rough night, hard for you.

Everything seemed to be weighing down on you, going wrong, unavoidable mishap after mishap. The shadows seemed to wrap themselves around your brain, spindly fingers digging their claws in with no sign of letting go.

The siren call beckoned, a melodious tune that pulled you in, easing the racing thoughts in your mind.

You stood in front of your bathroom mirror, the reflection in front of you hardly recognizable. Your skin pallor, dry, dark under your eyes. You licked around your chapped lips, feeling the fuzziness of your unbrushed teeth. Your clothes hung off of your body, loose from multiple days of wear. Unkempt hair, a tangled mess atop your head. You looked as rough as you felt, the lack of sleep and self-care exacerbating your inner turmoil.

Taking a shaky breath, you looked down at your hands, the newly purchased razor blade sitting in the box. Pretty, new, waiting for use. You imagined the shine of the blade against your skin, how the silver would contrast the uneven, blotchy shade of you. How the deep red hemoglobin would look, how it would bring color back to you.

The call got louder.

As you were about to tear open the box, a single word, a single thought, broke through the haze of your mind.

Emily.

The cacophony of noise halted. You knew that she wouldn’t be disappointed. She’s the only one who ever really understood this habit, this… addiction. Understood how the silence and the noise bantered back and forth in a way that was sensory overload, how sometimes the only way to get it to stop was to cut. To feel something else.

While she wouldn’t be disappointed, you could imagine the look on her face, how her eyes would hold all of her thoughts. She’d get you through it, she always has, but sometimes her looks haunted you more than your own thoughts did.

Instead, you picked up the phone.

It rang twice; she never sent you to voicemail unless she absolutely could not answer.

“Baby?” She whispered. You’d woken her up. “Everything okay?”

You tried to talk. The air was trapped in your lungs, the only noise escaping you a hollow breath, a crushed whimper.

You could hear Emily sit up in bed, the click of a lamp. “Love? Answer me.” Her voice was more alert, commanding, an edge of fear.

You swallowed hard. Your breath coming quicker, everything threatening to rush out of you. “Em,” another shaky whimper, a plea.

“Take a breath for me, sweetheart. You’re okay. I’m right here.” You could hear the rustling of clothes being pulled on.

The box in your hands rattled as it fumbled onto the bathroom sink, your trembling hands unable to hold it. Another thing you couldn’t do your mind hissed at you.

“I can’t - can’t ma-make it s-stop.” You forced the words out, stumbling them into each breath you inhaled.

“I’m coming, baby. Stay on the phone with me. You’re okay.” A car door slammed, the engine roaring to life. A siren.

“Listen to me. I’ll be right there. Listen to my voice.” Emily continued to talk, walking you through the case she was working on. How the weather was. Her favorite movie. Nonsensical ramblings to keep you focused on her. You’d grunt occasionally in response, a way to ensure her you were still listening, still there.

Your vision tunneled, black around the edges, as your grip on the sink tightened. You could feel the rush of blood through your body in your ears, your limbs starting to tingle as the numbness started.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed before you heard the front door slam, hasty footsteps through the hallway. A hand covering yours.

Emily turned your body towards hers, her hands cupping your cheeks, trying to bring your eyes to hers.

You felt paralyzed, stuck in a mud so thick and deep you couldn’t move. You tried to focus on Emily’s voice, the rubbing of her thumbs across your cheekbones. You tried to blink, tried to get your eyes to focus.

Noticing that she wasn’t getting through to you, Emily wrapped you in the tightest hug she could, squeezing you as hard as her arms could handle. A way to help calm down your overactive nervous system, as if she was trying to transfer your energy to her.

Eventually the shaking calmed down, the pins and needles in your limbs still pushing and pulling, beating to the accelerated pace of your heart. You were finally able to look at Emily, her eyes shining in worry, but also protectiveness. A lighthouse in a stormy sea.

She tucked your hair behind your ear, checking over your body for signs of harm. Finding none, seeing the unopened box on the counter, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Let's go lay down, love.”

She all but dragged you to bed, shoving you under the covers before turning off the overhead light. She walked back into the bathroom, presumably to get rid of the box of razors.

Your eyes remained closed the entire time, listening to her fiddle around with things in your bedroom, the sound of her jeans hitting the carpeted floor before she joined you in bed. Her strong, warm arms wrapped around you, pulling you close to her, your head on her chest.

Her hands traversed your body, as if taking note of each inch of your scarred, but intact skin. She paid extra attention to your previous cuts, the scars healed and raised and pink, a testament of your ability to withstand. Each line a reminder that you made it. That while the emotion swelled over you, overtook you, that you came out on the other side stronger.

“Sleep, love. I’ll be here. We can talk about it in the morning.”

All at once, exhaustion engulfed you. You settled more into Emily, breathing in her perfume, realizing at once that she was your saving grace, your protector. You were capable of overcoming anything with her at your side.

Slowly, as you started to drift off to sleep, the blacks and grays of the shadows disappeared, replaced by a kaleidoscope of colors. Emily’s steady heart lulled you into a sense of comfort. In her arms, the noises and silence settled, the siren call faded into a calming ebb and flow of waves. What was once a tumultuous, dark and violent sea became a mellow, sparkling tide. With Emily, you were home and you were safe from the shadows that haunted you.

#emily prentiss #emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss fanfic #virescent v fanfic #emily prentiss fanfiction #please please please reach out if you are struggling #it does get better i promise #ngl i do not like how i ended this but i wanted to get it out #also sorry for all of the water metaphors??? im a pisces lmao

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yevmarie · 4 months

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Light My Fire | Chapter 3

Masterlist

< Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 >

Plot: having lost everything you are drowned in depression, which had happened to you a year ago. Now you need to struggle with the apocalypse as well with no sparkle in your heart. But there is one man who can light your fire to live.

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Female Reader

Word count: 2.4k

Pronouns: you, she/her

Warnings:

angst;

mentions of depression;

swearing;

nudity;

a bit suggestive;

differences from the main plot may occur;

bad English (not my first language).

If I miss something, please let me know. I hope you enjoy :).

Taglist: @your-shifting-gurl

You woke up feeling shitty as the day before had cleaned your clock. The tent was becoming hot as the sun was at its peak. You started hearing people around. Everything was calm, so you assumed everyone was busy with their assignments. You saw a small posture unzipping the tent. As you shared it with Lori and Carl there was no doubt it was a boy. The movement was slow so you guessed he was trying to get sneakily not to wake you.

“I’m not sleeping,” you said, and movements started to be faster. “Hey,” you said seeing the boy. “Morning,” answered the boy walking inside. As you noticed his eyes were watery and red, you sat and offered Carl a hug. The boy didn’t hesitate a second and slammed into your embrace. “I know I can’t do anything magical, but how could I relieve your pain?” you said stroking the back of the boy’s head. The boy shrugged his shoulders and sniffled. “I saw one beautiful place near here yesterday. If you want, we can go for a walk there after I see Shane and ask if the camp needs my help. Okay?” the boy faced you as you cupped his face in your arms.

“He is sleeping; he held a night watch,” said Carl.

“God… You’re right. That was a tough day, it almost feels like a week has already passed. Then I’ll talk to your mother.” He silently nodded in agreement with your offer and went out of the tent.

After changing your clothes you went outside. Women were cooking or playing with children, some men were butchering or cleaning their weapons. You wondered how the progressive society went to its origins when labor had been strictly divided by gender.

You found Lori cooking near the campfire. “Hey, do you need any help?” you asked. “Um, yeah,” she replied confused as you talked not so much lately. “Please play with Carl or whatever. So just he can be in your sight.” You nodded and called Carl who was sitting alone near the RV where an old man, Dale, was on the watch.

“Come on,” you said to Carl and you both went to the place you had found at night.

Carl and you were silently sitting on the hill watching the sight open to you; the quarry surrounded by forest mirroring in the water. The warm wind was lingering on your shoulders. You just closed your eyes imagining the time froze.

“How did you overcome your parents’ loss?” the question asked by Carl sounded as if he was a mature man which made you confused.

“I didn’t,” you opened your eyes and smiled sadly.

“But you don’t cry for them.”

“If you don’t see me crying, it doesn’t mean I don’t do this.”

“Did Shane help you somehow?”

You silenced for a moment trying not to overshadow the man in the boy’s mind. “It’s difficult to answer, Carl.” You replied recalling him being furious at you as he had been tired of your state of constant sorrow. That’s why you split up half a year after the car accident your parents were in. Although Shane looked like alpha all the time, in fact, he was just a weak man who couldn’t cope with your mental condition. But he masterly used this like it was two weeks ago. He got drunk as fuck when Rick was shot and came to you late at night. You couldn’t resist him hoping he would relieve your loneliness. You clearly understood that was not right, you hated yourself for this action.

“But how do you stay calm?”

“There are a lot of methods,” you answered avoiding mentioning therapy and antidepressants. “The main for me was keeping the daily routines, doing hobbies, sport. By the way, seeing my friends like you and your father. I just did anything that could distract me. I struggled to do this at first, but then I got used to it… And there’s time for everything. It’s like a wound, you need to get it healed. So, this time hasn’t come for me personally.” you silenced for a moment seeing Carl trying to hold his tears. “Look, nothing is embarrassing in crying. And in expressing your emotions in general. It’s not pleasant sometimes, but you don’t need to be afraid of it. At least, if you feel you need someone’s shoulder, you should know it’s always here for you.” you said tapping on your shoulder. “I will do my best to support and comfort you.”

Carl sobbed and hugged you tightly. “I love you.”

“I love you too, my sweetheart.”

Carl and you got back to the camp. The crowd of people was loudly talking almost panicking. The group that had been assigned to the city run was standing in the middle. The men were covered with blood, and some of them were badly injured.

“Not all of them returned,” you heard Lori’s voice as she stood up beside you.

“Why?” you glanced at her.

“They said there had been zombies everywhere. Already called as walkers.”

“Bullshit!” you whispered knowing Carl was somewhere behind you.

“Yeah, but that couldn’t be collective hallucination.”

“You’re right, but now this sounds… Like someone’s stupid joke.”

Another hunting group was approaching the camp with Daryl as well. Shane as an opinion leader started to give instructions like keeping weapons in firing readiness and leaving the camp at least in pairs. If someone sees a walker near the camp, kill it and let the watcher know about this.

“I ain’ gonna listen to some dumbass thinkin’ he’s the center of everythin’ here,” you heard the familiar low raspy voice and couldn’t help but just silently agreed. Definitely, these rules make sense if you want to stay alive, but some visceral disgust toward Shane arose from yesterday telling you the opposite. Like in reverse psychology. After Shane’s speech, everyone returned to their activities.

As the night began people were gathering near the campfire where one short-haired nice-looking woman was serving food. Your stomach let you know about its presence and you decided to try to eat. As you approached the woman, she nicely smiled at you and started a conversation.

“I’m Carol,” she said while serving a generous portion for you.

“Y/N” you quickly replied then stopped her “It’s too big for me,” you heard someone’s nasty laugh as from the last seats in the classroom followed by a loud smack. You turned around and saw Daryl screaming at Merle. “Like children,” you commented emotionless and switched your attention to Carol.

“But you look weak.” Carol continued insisting on the portion.

“I can barely eat now. I’m afraid I’ll waste it if someone’s hungrier than me.”

Carol nodded and served another plate. You thanked and walked away where fewer people were sitting in case you felt nausea and you could attract less attention to yourself. You tasted the meal, which was quite nice for the field kitchen and surprisingly the stomach accepted it with pleasure.

After the dinner you found yourself frustrated as you barely knew the people around. Carl was sitting near Lori and Shane, which company you wouldn’t like to join, so you decided to have a walk down to the quarry. Not the cleverest decision knowing about the walkers, but you didn’t care. You went to your tent, grabbed the towel, change of clothes, and a gun thanking yourself you had addressed the psychiatrist willingly, so you hadn’t been prohibited from weapon. You sneakily went out of the tent walking through the dark and wooded area and headed to the quarry.

It was quite cold and the water gave you chills but you wanted to sober yourself from different thoughts rushing in your mind. You looked around and felt a bit of freedom recalling your younger years when you used to swim drunk and naked with your friends. You stripped off not being afraid of someone’s looking at you, because the hell anybody would do the same stupid thing like you. Starting gradually walking into the cold water you decided to dive not to prolong the moment of accustoming to the temperature. You got shivers through all your body so you decided to swim near the shore in case you get muscle spasms. Suddenly you saw the man with a familiar walking. The crossbow was behind his back and a bag was in his arm.

He stopped as he noticed you. “Whataya doin’ here?” he asked with obvious surprise.

“How does it look like, Daryl?” you calmly replied swimming in the opposite direction.

“Don’ ya remember you cannot leave the camp alone?” he narrowed his eyes feeling irritated as he was hoping to have some time alone.

“You are not the exception of the rule as well,” you continued replying calmly when you saw him making a couple of steps walking away to the camp.

“Hey! Why are you leaving?” you asked Daryl not expecting to get the answer but surprisingly to you he stopped and turned around to you.

“Needed to clean myself, but ‘ll do it later,” he was supposed to go away, but you continued.

“Come on! I don’t give a damn about your body and I hope you do so towards mine,” the man looked down at the clothes on the ground noticing your underwear laying above.

I went looking for trouble and, boy, I found her.

Daryl’s heart skipped a beat realising you were naked. Fucking naked. He felt his blood was running hot going down his belly. His forehead was covered in sweat in a second. He started to sink in lustful thoughts and damn, he hadn’t even looked at you. Daryl was afraid of how quickly he got turned on just because of a thought. He glanced at you inspecting your neck, collarbones, and shoulders appearing from the water.

“Don’t deny yourself pleasures especially because of a stranger. Who knows when we’ll be attacked by walkers and die? It won’t matter after all,” he just rooted to the ground and stood silently, obviously hesitating as he started biting his lips.

“I won’t be looking at you,” you turned around and dove in headfirst. He exhaled loudly and undressed himself quickly to get into the water so you wouldn’t see his arousal.

You came back up and brushed your wet hair back glancing at Daryl who was waist-deep in water soaping himself. You noticed his broad naked frame and turned your head around closing your eyes. You started dreaming how his muscles could feel under your palms but your thoughts were interrupted by Daril taking a running dive. He disappeared underwater for a moment.

“Shit, how are ya even swimming here for so long?” he asked you after surfacing cluttering with his teeth and swam to the shore. Realizing he was right you decided to follow him outside.

His back and arms appeared from the water framing his muscles. The body was covered with tattoos and scars becoming blueish because of the low temperature. Daryl brushed his hair back with his arm and continued walking opening the shapes of his glutes and strong legs. The skin glimmered because of the moonlight shining on his body. You felt a hot wave lingering in your veins. He was such a masterpiece alive you couldn’t stop looking at him.

“Y/N, stop being predatory, you stupid,” you thought as you both stood up back to back. He was wiping his body with the towel when he sneakily glanced at you. The view opened of you naked and wet, straining your hair sent him over the edge. He turned around, gulped hoping you didn’t hear, and felt that the cold water didn’t stop him from getting arousal again. “Fuck!” he swore in his head and at lightning speed wore his boxers and jeans. “Are ya clothed?” he asked still standing to you at his back. “Yeah,” you answered and walked towards the camp followed by Daryl.

You were going both silently through the forest when suddenly you heard someone rasping. You both bent on the knees and saw the walker going just several feet from you. You froze with fear for a moment.

“Fuck me!” you whispered and felt Daryl’s hand tightly covering your mouth and another one gripped into his warm body so you cannot do any other noise or move.

“I’ll deal with it. Don’t move and even make any noise,” Daryl whispered into your ear and headed a few steps toward the walker targeting it with the crossbow. His arm muscles tensed and his jaws clenched. The arrow struck the walker right in his head. The body fell to the ground. The man stalked to it, took the arrow out, and looked around to make sure there was no danger around. “Follow me,” he said in his lowered voice when he looked at you.

As you both neared the camp, you saw Dale on night watch. "Dale," Daryl called out. "There was a walker sixty feet away. It’s finished off,” you tried to slip away while the men were talking but felt a firm, and at the same time gentle and warm grip on your forearm. Turning around, you saw Daryl looking at you.

"Don' even think ‘bout walking alone," his eyes looking right into yours which made you freeze. Instead, you just gulped and nodded in agreement. He relinquished the hold and turned on his heels to head to his tent.

Retreating to your tent, you lay down on the sleeping bag and close your eyes, trying to banish the vivid images of possible death from your mind. You had been thinking about death a lot before but hadn’t met it face to face. You were so thankful Daryl was beside you as you would end your journey. Usually, you could defend yourself but at that time you couldn’t predict your behavior in such a stressful situation. You recalled how Daryl gripped you in his body and felt butterflies in your stomach along with the familiar impulses in your lower body. “The fuck, Y/N,” you thought, “What’s wrong with you? You could die but you are just thinking of a man having touched you,” you recalled him walking out of the water and felt how the excitement was filling up your body. “Oh no..,” you thought and laid on your side trying to close your eyes and fall asleep as quickly as possible.

< Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 >

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pastelaspirations · 4 months

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Ta-dahhhh, a drawing that took me too long. It would have taken me less time had I quit second-guessing everything and taking 3 hour breaks after fixing one line. BUT YEE, I ACTUALLY LIKE IT VERY MUCH. For once. (Also, shoutout to my fren, @paintedkinzy-88 for teaching me how mirrors work. It is a long story. Although, probably only "long" because of my habit of telling things 5k words longer than they needed to be-)

Now, long headcanon rambling alert. This drawing is like... the ungodly compilation of so many of my headcanons. I absolutely didn't need to stuff it full of things I believe to be true so wholeheartedly, but I d i d.

First headcanon: Ink can feel. He has the capacity to experience emotions, he just needs a little help to do it. So, he has to take his vials to experience something that many people don't even need to think about. However, this leads to ✧˖°.angst.✧˖°. Ink has a whole lot of self-doubt and he second-guesses his "emotions" all the time because, technically, his emotions are artificially induced. Therefore, by extension, does that make the emotions themselves artificial? This leads well into my second headcanon.

Second headcanon: Ink's vials are basically an allegory for antidepressants. Suppose someone has been depressed for a very, very long time and then they get on antidepressants. They might become really disoriented. Because, really, which version of themself is the truest form of them? The happy, upbeat version of them is strange and foreign after being depressed for so long. Is the happy version truly them, or was it the other, depressed version of themself that they spent so many years living as? So, as ya can see, the 3rd day prompt for Inktobertale fit beautifully with my headcanons. <3

Third headcanon: Ink experiences a strong wave of whatever range of emotions pertaining to a particular vial after he takes it. For example, yellow, he'd experience a strong wave of joy, happiness, euphoria, etc., and for red, anger, fury, outrage, etc. The little sticky note in the corner of the mirror is a reminder that it's easier to take all the vials together than to spread them out. If he takes them all together, he can experience each strong wave in immediate succession. It's exhausting and he nearly has everything taken out of him at the end, but the ordeal is less... awful than if he spread it out for half an hour taking them one by one. That's why the cup is there hehe-

The little pictures on the mirror represent happier times! :D Since taking his vials, or his "medicine," is such an uncomfortable experience, having pictures on his mirror to remind him of happier times and that he has people that care about him really helps. He can pluck up the courage to actually take the vials after glancing over at beloved faces. ;_;

The holiday picture actually has a funny backstory behind it; the three of them were celebrating Gyftmas together at Blue's house, but it was during a time Dream was still fairly new to uh, "modern day traditions." I headcanon Dream acts really old and after being stuck in stone for so long, is like... tragically so far behind the times. He uses old timey lingo, has a very bad habit of comparing his centuries old age to your common AU resident, and comes off as, "How do you do, fellow kids-" more often than he would like. As such, he didn't understand why you would "dress up" for the holidays. He freaking showed up in his normal attire and was baffled why Blue and Ink were dressed differently. They made a lot of fun of him. Ink got a new sketchbook that he's holding in the picture. <3

The other picture... of course has a backstory. I'm s o r r y, okay. It is a problem, I can't quit sneaking Errorink into whatever I do. That little picture is of a time they were hanging out together cuddling in the antivoid. Error wrote the little note on the picture to remind Ink that his emotions are just as real and valid as the rest of them, and that if anyone were to tell him otherwise, he'd fight 'em. He told him to slap it on his mirror as a reminder when he goes to take his "medicine." ;_; <3 Will I find a way to sneak this into a fic/make a new fic with this scene? Probably, but I'm choosing not to worry about it rn-

FINALLY. LAST HEADCANON, I'M SORRY- Some of you may have noticed the sneaky little Asriel hiding in the picture. >:) Even that has lore behind it! :D It comes from an AU I call Storetale that I made up in two minutes solely to excuse the blatant goat bro easter egg.

Storetale is set in a timeline where the monsters and humans live on the surface together in harmony. But oh noooo, one day, Asgore and Toriel died in a bad car crash, and they left poor Chara and Asriel alone. ;_; Not to worry though! Mettaton adopted the two and they both became child celebrities. But not on tv, mind you. Nooo, they became the mascots of Mettaton's extremely successful supermarket chain, MettaStore. The AU follows the two as they deal with their very odd claim to fame, as well as the fact of being children and the face of a multi-million gold supermarket franchise.

I like to headcanon that Ink likes to watch this AU because of how wacko and heartfelt it can be at times. He got the soap in the picture from that AU, branded Golden Flower Soap. I also like to think Ink introduced Error to that AU and he unironically got invested into it too because of the contrived problems it comes up with similar to Undernovela.

AND THERE. THAT IS ALL. This was just the ultimate compilation of all my headcanons into a singular drawing that no one would ever know unless I made this ungodly long post to explain each and every one in detail even though no one asked. ;_; I'm sorry for such the long post. If any of you brave souls read this far, thank you and I hope I managed to spread my headcanons further-

✧˖°.Bonus:✧˖°. Here is a version with alternate eyes 'cus I couldn't choose which one I liked more and then one without a blurred background. Now, you can see the Errorink background details more clearly if you would like :D

#inktobertale2023 #ink sans #utmv #inktobertale day 3 #ink!sans #my headcanons #star sanses #errorink #But only if ya squint #Like yeah it's right there in plain view #but the drawing itself isn't errorink cuddles #This is so wonderfully angsty I love it #Scratching the angst itch m m m m #Am I going to find a way to incorporate this drawing into a fic or compose a new one entirely #P r o b a b l y #By that same token; will I find a way to shove Storetale into a fic?#Also highly likely because I have gotten unhealthily attached to a glorified shitpost au that I made up in 2 minutes #Is it stupid? Yes. Do I love it to death? Also y e s

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meyerlansky · 5 months

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i have now been off my proper dose of my antidepressants for three weeks because my covering GP was out of the office when i submitted my renewal for the 2nd, and the person covering for them declined it because the script says it was a 3-month supply, but my health insurance through the state that i had to go on after i lost my job doesn't actually cover a 3-month supply so i only got a 30-day supply and when i followed up about it once my GP was back in the office it took ANOTHER week for it to get resubmitted and approved and i STILL haven't heard from the pharmacy that it's been filled

so i am REALLY not doing good and there is no fucking end in sight! i love it. i love my maintenance medications being withheld at the whims of the insurance bureaucracy and the fact that a medical professional i have zero background or interaction with was able to go "hm, this script shouldn't be renewed" and just fucking DENIED IT instead of, oh, i don't know, reaching out to me to try and find out why i was appearing to attempt to renew a MEDICATION I NEED two months early

#i am so fucking tired

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ilikecheeseandchocolatee · 12 days

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Minor vent. Read tags before the vent.

So I’m just kinda dejectedly sad right now because I just realized how big the difference is between me and my sister. I love her to bits and I love her to the end of the world but sometimes I’m so angry at her and sometimes I’m jealous of her, which doesn’t even make sense because it’s not like she has it any better than I do.

But she deals with it so differently to me. She can wake up cranky and yell at my mom for every minor inconvenience and have her every need catered to because otherwise she lashes out hard, and she can still do the things she needs to. She has an endless list of triggers and she can STILL function better than me. Me who has to construct intricate plans just to get myself out of bed, just to open my textbook, just to coax my brain into doing things I like and enjoy doing. I have to wake up and immediately practise happiness and gratitude or my day goes to shit, and she can wake up and immediately snap at multiple people and still get shit done. I have to take fucking 30 milligrams of antidepressants everyday and i STILL can’t study, she hasn’t even been to a competent psychologist yet and gets no help whatsoever but still can spend hours each day studying subjects she doesn’t even like. She HATES math, and I LOVE math, but she’s been doing a lot more math than me lately. I’m encouraging her to please please come to me any time she has a math question just so I can explain it to her and perhaps remind my lazy brain that I fucking love this subject. But it doesn’t help when I can’t get myself to get off my bed until 3pm, and most of the day is over and I can’t bring myself to shower just because that day was supposed to be Wash Hair day but I hate washing my hair so I just. Don’t shower, not even just my body. And like that I go 3 days without showering until my brain remembers that at least just body is better than nothing. My sister showers almost everyday and she’s not even getting help for her mental health.

I wish I could function like her. Yesterday I ended up accidentally revealing to her a section of my suicidal urges and she got so concerned that she made me watch this fluff drama she thinks I’ll like and let me play my ukulele while watching, which is something she doesn’t like otherwise. She doesn’t like it when there are other sounds when we’re watching something but yesterday she consciously knew that I was playing ukulele while watching and she just let me do it. I only realized I was doing it when she noticed me suddenly stop when there was a dramatic beat drop in the show. She literally tried her best just to get me out of bed, brush my teeth, eat something, just so I could try functioning, and she doesn’t need any of that help herself. And it’s not like she isn’t struggling because she IS, she has so many triggers and keeps insisting that she’s not autistic even tho multiple professionals have suggested an autism assessment. She has so many sensory issues and she can still function so much better than I can.

That’s another thing, I don’t think I’d call it a hyperfixation but I’m currently super obsessed with Thailand and Thai culture and it’s been like that for over a year now, and despite all that I can’t bring myself to consume Thai media that I actually fucking like a lot. Meanwhile, after I introduced her to Thai dramas she’s watched like over 50 dramas and she didn’t even like most of them but she can still watch that much and meanwhile there’s me, I’ll probably like anything and everything Thai that I consume but I barely watch things, barely read things, I can kinda speak basic words and sentences now but that’s it that’s the extent of my Thainess. I love Thai dramas so much but I think I’ve maybe watched like 6 of those. That’s literally it. And I really fucking like them. And like. I can’t do things I like anymore, meanwhile she’s doing things that she likes AND she’s doing things that she needs to do.

My sister can cook. She’s two years younger than me, has a billion sensory issues, and SHE can cook and I can’t. And a few years ago I was on a Wikipedia binge and realized there’s something called Mageirocophobia which is phobia of cooking and realized that wait shit. THATS what it’s been. Because it’s not just heat it’s even processes that don’t require heat that I completely freak out doing and I was hating myself. And I guess I still hate that I can’t cook. I’m a legal adult now and I can’t cook. A few days ago my sister was teaching me how to make fried egg, and I had a complete meltdown and started crying because i couldn’t crack an egg. AN. EGG. Like it’s not even that I couldn’t do it, I stood there panicking for at least 15 minutes trying to get myself to just TRY cracking an egg, and eventually my legs went wobbly and my ears went blank and I was sitting on the ground because I was dizzy, and then when I finally got myself to just TRY cracking the goddamn egg, i started crying and couldn’t stop for ages. I felt so so stupid and the entire time my sister was compassionate with me. This morning I heated milk for myself and I was so proud of myself for literally heating milk for myself. It’s not even cooking it’s literally just heating this white liquid. I can do math and advanced calculus but I can’t fucking crack an egg. And it’s so demotivating.

I’m so tired of being more unable to take care of myself than my literal younger sister. I feel so incompetent sometimes. What’s the point of being so book smart if I can’t function like a regular person. My mom is so stressed about my state right now, I can’t even bring myself to tell her I need to see a doctor because I need to reevaluate my dosage and also talk about the fact that I missed my period this month for the first time in ages, and the last time I missed periods was when my mental health was supremely shit. She’s stressed enough about a ton of other things that are too complicated to get into in this vent, and my dad isn’t here so until my dad gets back there isn’t much I can do without my mom knowing about it. And I’m supposed to be the responsible one while my dad is gone, because he knows my mom has issues and he has no choice but to go and I take after him so I know how to keep her calm so it’s on me but I can barely take care of MYSELF and my sister is having to take care of ME and she’s literally younger than me and she’s not even a legal adult yet.

I wish I didn’t have to depend on my little sister for so many things and I wish I could function like she does and I wish I could be what my family needs me to be instead of someone who stays on the bed doing absolutely nothing.

And then there’s my mutuals you’re all so nice to me and think I’m such a wonderful person and everything and sometimes I can’t bear it because there’s nothing remarkable about me other than the fact that I have a billion problems. All my friends act like they’re so glad to have me as a friend and my best friends love me so much and I don’t understand. How anyone can feel like that about me. If I were someone else I’d probably like being friends with me but only because being able to help others with their mental health makes me feel better about myself. Except that I can’t even do that anymore. I’ve barely talked to my friends in ages and I miss them but I can’t bring myself to talk to them because it’s really obvious how badly I’m doing lately and I don’t want MORE people to be stressed about me. I’ve already stressed out my mom and sister enough. My dad knows I’m not doing well but I can’t tell him much either because it won’t do for him to be stressed where he is right now.

Sigh this ended up not being a minor vent after all. As usual. It’s almost like every time I sit and let my feelings out they just tumble out all at once. Maybe that’s good. I haven’t journaled in way too long which has resulted in my memory issues going to shit even worse. At this point I don’t even know how I’m going to face all my teachers back at school because they’ll be expecting great things from me, they’ll be expecting me to be rejuvenated and energetic again after all this time off, and they’ll expect me to do fantastic at my exams just like they expect me to. And meanwhile my memory is so bad that I forgot all about further maths until right now literally a month from my first exam and I haven’t studied a single part of it. Not a single part of further maths in the entire time I’ve been off school. And I have a month left to sort out my shit. Further maths is supposed to be a subject that’s difficult to get an A in even with 2 whole years of studying. My official predicted grade is A but I know my teachers are expecting me to get an A* because apparently they just have that much faith in me. I don’t know if I can face them in a couple of weeks when I show up and they ask me how I’m doing and I’ll have to be like yeah. I don’t know shit about your subject. I’m sorry. And they’re so so nice to me but what can I do about the fact that I literally have not been functioning for the past few months.

I’ll probably even end up seeing my ex there because my luck is just that horrendous. And at first I was planning to be so goddamn good at my subjects that I’d destroy him in revision sessions but now I just feel stupid. And he got an offer from fucking Oxford university. I was so ready to beat him at everything and prove that I was more worthy of that offer even if it was just proving to myself. But now I see why I’m not worthy of it. My absolute love and passion for my subjects can’t motivate me enough to get out of bed, of course I wouldn’t survive Oxford. And if he sees me and sees me be shit at everything that’s just gonna make him feel better about himself which he does NOT deserve. Okay admittedly he got a lot of shit that does deserve. But he did not deserve that Oxford offer. He’s literally not even gonna go to Oxford he’s literally rejecting them. He just applied for the heck of it. He did NOT deserve that offer. Ugh and I have to face him probably.

Have I mentioned yet that I’m not looking forward to heading back to the UK.

I’m not looking forward to heading back to the UK. At all. And I hope to never associate with that school ever again after my exams are done.

So this ended up being not so much of a minor vent. I think the fact that I’m literally now resorting to Tumblr Decree just to help me get started and get in the flow, that says a lot about my mental state. I’ve tried everything I can think of and now I’m just hoping the notes thing becomes the reason I start functioning again. In like 24 hours people have already passed the first three milestones which means I should AT LEAST finish astrophysics by the end of the day and possibly try emailing my teacher about The Thing. Tomorrow I should finish the rest of physics. If people reach 800 by tomorrow I’ll also just skim over math real quick. Math shouldn’t be as much of a problem as Further Maths. Sigh I just. Need to get my head in the game. Get that textbook open and just read a couple of sentences just to start off. I just need to read a couple of sentences. A couple of sentences is better than no sentences. I can do this. I CAN DO THIS

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mittenwonders · 14 days

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While I’m pissed off and in a venting mood because it’s my blog!! Another mental health note and PSA for healthcare professionals not to judge or use a patients own mental illness against them.

Counselors are supposed to be unbiased. They’re not supposed to judge or condemn or tell you you’re crazy. Just saying.

Maybe it’s because I’ve seen her for 3 years and we got too comfortable with each other, idk. I finally opened up about an issue that has been eating me alive because I can’t talk about it with anyone and felt maybe that was a good time to explore that and deal with some complicated emotions I didn’t know what to do with.

Instead I was told depression sometimes can cause disillusionment and that they did recently change my antidepressant so maybe it’s a side effect I’m having. The gaslighting for real! Told not to talk to this person anymore because they clearly are not who I think it is and said who they were & also why would they because obvious announcements out there? And then in a very subtle way said I’m too fat. And it caused me to get angry and spiral pretty fast. And that she was worried I was having major psychosis issues and maybe it would be best if I was put in a 72 hour psychiatric hold to be safe.

I said fuck no! Nothing is wrong with me! I know I don’t have proof but a gut feeling and your gaslighting me and making me feel insane right now & you’re not doing your job! You’re judging me instead!! So I walked out. Then she called my family emergency contact that is my sister who then told my parents because they were all afraid I was going to try to unalive myself or something and wanted to know what was going on which I can’t talk about with any of them!!!

So today I was like fuck it! And I checked myself into the mental hospital like she said to and they let me go home after an hour & a half saying nothing was wrong with me. 🙄 She called me tonight apologizing asking me to come back in Friday to hash this out and hell to the fuck no!!

Just saying it’s also a thing that once you have a mental health disorder, it will always be used against you to gaslight you and make you feel crazy. Anyway I have to find a new counselor eventually but I now know that topic is off limits indefinitely so I have to try to figure this out on my own.

Thank you for letting me cry to you last night @lenharvsg !!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ It’s been a rough past couple of days & I couldn’t get through it without you!!

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ghostlycorvid · 4 months

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2023 Introspective

This year started with cutting off a toxic person who had already shut me out of mutual friend spaces but kept stringing me along with "maybe in a few more months I'll let you back in". 2022 was rough on its own, especially pre-antidepressants, but a huge part of it was stuff involving this person. Blocking them and finally accepting that it was not worth trying to repair what little relationship was left was the most freeing thing I've ever done and helped me to continue that with any other rude unpleasant individual I've had to share spaces with. It's been genuinely wonderful to realize I don't have to sit there and listen to bad takes or people who are needlessly mean, so I'm glad something came out of that friendship nightmare scenario.

It still took a lot of time to not sit there in anger and frustration spirals over the way things ended up, but in February I got permission from my bosses to bring my dog Chili to work with me due to needing to keep him and our other dog from playing while she was recovering from her spay. I ended up realizing that even though Chili is a huge anxiety baby, having him with me legitimately was helping distract me from negative thoughts spirals and gave me something positive to focus on when I was getting frustrated by work-related stuff in the moment. He ended up helping a couple coworkers come down from panic attacks later in the year too. My boss likes how "calm" he is enough that he gave me permission to bring Chili to work all the time (within reason), so he's come with me on most non-event days. His progress has been slow, but he's also been improving from the regular socialization!

I finally started to really focus on my own art and developing my own products and designs, both for my personal shop and for the shop at work. I've come out the other side of this year with 9 new enamel pin designs between the two! (A couple I haven't shared yet! ;D)

I was finally given an Adderall prescription which magically solved my problem where I couldn't stay awake during the day no matter how much sleep I'd gotten! And also it started helping me focus a little better too, but genuinely the non-sleepy thing was the most lifechanging part of the medication for me. The pit in my stomach when I was told that person felt like I was stalking and surveilling them if I was quiet in a call or stream despite years of me communicating that I was constantly struggling to even stay conscious was... HOO BOY. After years of fighting for my life to stay awake in college and sometimes even while DRIVING TO AND FROM WORK,,,,,,,, I really thought something was seriously wrong with me (besides the ADHD since I didn't realize it was a symptom of that)

With toxic people removed from my social spaces and general perception, I've finally started to join group calls with my friends again without anxiety or fear of not being welcome. It's helped me start to get back into playing games again, and I've been able to get into a few that either have built in accessibility features to avoid hand strain, or I've been able to modify my hardware setup to help with issues I was running into before. I've finally managed to pick up Warframe again, and I'm bouncing between that and Path of Titans without being hopelessly deep in a hyperfocus.

I officially got promoted at my job to Retail & Visitor Services manager (and got a $3 raise in Nov!!). While I'm struggling with finding help to ease my increased workload, I'm definitely way better off than before we hired on extra staff. It's given me a lot of networking opportunities (and excuses to go on field trips on the clock for ~*networking*~) and I've been juuuust starting to poke my head into local groups. One is a monthly artists crafting meetup right by work that starts right when I clock out! :D

I had the energy and free time to start branching out and trying other arts and crafts hobbies that had been interesting me! Ended up getting a serger machine to help really tidy up clothes that I make! I got into linocut & block printing, and have been having a lot of fun working on designs for that kind of printing. I even made a few printed shirts! And of course there was Andromeda, the first puppet I've ever made, and pretty much my proudest achievement in all my years of art so far.

I've honestly been spending less time on social media proper, usually forgetting to check tumblr for days or weeks at a time. Which has been good and bad, but overall better for me to stop feeling like I HAVE to fully backlog everything ever.

I got my first tattoo this year after wanting one for years and years! And that opened up a whole new can of worms and now I'm ending the year with 5 tattoos and 2 more scheduled in the next couple months oops! My first tattoo was Joltik, with my first ever pet spide!

I started keeping spiders this year after years of being too concerned about keeping pets that required live feeding! That also was a slippery slope. I picked up Indrid my red-backed jumper and Autumn my pumpkin patch t at the end of January, and now I have them, a regal jumper, a red-knee t, and a togo starburst t. You'd never guess that less than a decade ago I was scared shitless of all spiders. :> Especially now that I will occasionally free-handle wild spiders that need relocation to someplace safer. (Mostly still just jumpers tho)

Things aren't perfect by any means and I still have a lot of areas I want to personally improve myself in, but I feel like overall this has been a really really good year for me and I want to keep that momentum going into 2024! More art! More projects just for me! More time with friends! More enjoying games! More tidying my space literally and metaphorically!

#in fairness re: driving it only was a danger when i was seriously sleep deprived on top of the adhd understimulation #i am fine now if i am seriously sleep deprived but taking my medicine. that's normal levels of sleepy

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everythingwasnormalhere · 4 days

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Stan Marsh headcanons?

first i love my main au stan because he's so !! and because he goes thru lots of changes as he grows up,,

Tw for alcoholism, depression, s/h, attempted sewerslide, hospitalization...its stan what did you expect

Most popular stan hc ever: he's an alcoholic. But like,,, till he's like, 12-13, he only drinks in the mornings so it helps him get through the day, like antidepressants but bad 💀

When he's 12-13 some people his age start drinking for fun, and so he sees it's socially ok so he starts doing it too

Yeah everything is way less shitty in the moment, but when he's sober it's even worse than before. Oops

Well anyway his friends don't really notice he's doing this, sure they're kinda concerned when they hang out and he's getting drunk, but yk,, typical Stan it's not that bad

This is an obvious one but he's depressed asf

And btw. All sp kids have gotten something misdiagnosed in their lives, like this is canon the medical system in that town sucks

So Stan has anxiety, but it was misdiagnosed as asthma (haha not me projecting)

He didn't get it diagnosed right until he was in his teens

But he doesn't have it anymore

He also has insomnia and BPD

The amount of times he's split on Kyle is insane

Anyway about his depression !!

It remained undiagnosed for a Long while

It got better and worse and better and worse and yeah you get it

On the worst episodes he would spend weeks not getting out of bed

At the beginning he'd say he's sick but at some point he gave up and stopped with excuses

His friends (Kyle mostly) would check on him but he wouldn't really talk to them much (on another episode of: stan giving up on life!)

Also he would spend time with the goth kids sometimes, mainly when he was at the worst points

The goths were kinda pissed he would leave them every time he felt better, but Stan's kinda their adopted kid lmao they have a soft spot for him<3

Welp anyway he starts s/h-ing at 11-12

At first it's not really noticeable but soon it gets worse

He covers it with wristbands but eventually the wristbands don't cover it all

And so, after his parents find out, at 13 he goes to the psych ward for the 1st time

It's only for a couple weeks, but it gets him to get so much worse

Nobody at school knows what he was doing for those weeks, besides Kyle because Stan went to him first thing after he got let out

Kyle is Worried. btw.

He gets hospitalized 2 more times after that

Once at 15 after he attempts

And another at 16, after a huge ass breakdown in which he asked his parents to take him there because he was scared of what he'd do otherwise

People in town only know about the one of when he was 15 (it was big news)

Besides Kyle and Kenny, Kyle because Stan tells him every time and Kenny because,,,he's Kenny he just Knows

After the 2nd hospitalization, he starts taking actual antidepressants

They don't do That Much but they still work better than nothing

Short after the 3rd time he goes to the psych ward, he finally manages to stop s/h

And slowly he stops covering his scars, as they're a reminder of how he's healing :)

Since he's 14, he starts bleaching his hair every few months

Now it's closer to straw than to hair but whatever issok

It's also incredibly greasy, so much it's insane

When it's really really bad he wears a dark blue beanie with some pins of obscure bands and some his friends gave him

His clothes are mostly black, and the ones that aren't are still alt

He wears eyeshadow all the time

And his parents don't allow him to get tattoos so he and his friends draw on himself instead

He's still in Crimson Dawn, he's the main singer and guitarist :)

His guitar is red and he takes so much care of it

The same can't be said about its case, that thing's fucked up

He's also the one who writes most songs, it's become kind of a coping mechanism for him<3

They're not famous, but they're not completely unknown either - they've played in some cities besides South Park, and they have a bunch of listeners on Spotify

They're the kind of band that almost nobody knows but the ones who do are the most loyal fans ever

"wHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW CD??? You gotta listen to them Right Now"

By the way Stan is late to every practice

The days when he's not arrived at least 10 minutes late are almost non-existent

Same for school

At school his worst subject is definitely math

(He probably has dyscalculia but he doesn't have it diagnosed)

He likes music best obviously

He's also pretty good at history and English

Btw he has a musicals phase for a year or two

His favorites are the historical ones, like Hamilton and Les Miserables

His family life isn't the best

He stays at Tedrigri farms on weekends, the rest of the time he spends it at his mother's

Shelly's kinda physically abusive still, but not as much as when they were kids

Btw he fucking hates staying at Tedigri so most nights he cycles to Kyle's or Kenny's instead

Fun fact he has a scar on his side from when he was 13

The m4 were jumping a fence to get to this one abandoned house (Butters was grounded)

And when it was Stan's turn he got cut with the fence and fell

That scar is huge and he's super insecure about it

Another fun fact he plays Brawl Stars

His favorite brawlers are Brock and Kit

And in general also the ones with attacks like Shelly's and Bull's

He's bisexual :) and ultimately broke up with Wendy when he was 16

(one of the things that triggered that huge breakdown btw)

He also had so many gender crisis, finally he decided he's just non-binary (he/him) because everything else was way too confusing

Aaaand i think that's it? Tell me what you think :D

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lyraeon · 1 year

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at 20 I thought I was faking my depression and was "bad at life" and lazy like my family said. I still earnestly believed I was entirely straight and everyone knew girls are just nicer to look at. I still had a ton of ingrained racism and other bigotry from my Bush-worshipping family. My main dream of being an astronaut had been smashed by my anxiety and health problems, so I was trying to study Japanese because like every other weeb I thought I'd fit in better over there (lol), but I'd already flunked out of one college and been forced to quit another to get a second job. I was overdrawn constantly and often buying gas station gift cards at the grocery store so I'd only take one overdraft fee. I was dating someone horribly controlling who eventually earned the title "evil ex", dialed up my eating disorder, and traumatized me out of writing for 2+ years. I had several roommates because we all considered having the funds to go to anime conventions more important than personal space (and because back then we already thought $600/month was expensive). I spent any other free time half asleep at a friend's house cuz there I could play games and watch Intent videos. Half my meals came free from work, the rest were hacked together from stuff that worked out to $1/serving or so. The power or internet got turned off at least twice a year from non-payment.

at 25 I thought I was too depressed to deserve burdening others with my presence or existence. that I was a burden and purposeful downer and nothing would ever get better. I was still dealing with a ton of internalized transphobia, racism, and other bigotry that I had been taught was Just The Truth and still occasionally fall into. I was massively straight edge against weed and anything else (threatened to call cops on close friends) while also being a half bottle of vodka a day alcoholic just to get my brain to shut up enough to let me write or sleep. I didn't know how to have fun without alcohol, if at all. I had lost my ability to draw when I severely injured my wrist while i had no insurance. I tried going back to school, first for architecture then teaching, and flunked/dropped out of both. I was losing jobs every 6~8 months from being chronically late and being sick constantly. I manged to lose one on my birthday and wound up having to make some other tough choices because of it. I had only just reached the point where being overdrawn was a rare thing and I wasn't buying single gallons of gas with tip money. food was still often just ramen but I no longer had days where I didn't know if I'd get to eat, though I was often dependent on my then-bf. I had multiple teeth rotting and couldn't afford any treatment besides getting them pulled, and often not until they'd become infected.

by 30 I was finally on antidepressants and in therapy. I was on the road to physical therapy for shoulder and wrist injuries that had happened years earlier. I was pretty happy in my relationship. I held down one job for almost 3 years straight after getting medicated, then turned around and flunked/dropped out of college for the 5th time (Physics this time) because I was too anxious to take public transit reliably and STILL couldn't do homework anywhere but in class, so most projects never got done. I'd stopped being able to write (and am still running from the possibility my meds Took That from me because it doesn't come back if I stop them). Food had become a different struggle - I no longer had time, physical health, or executive function to cook reliably so I was spending too much on take out and causing wild fluctuations in my weight. I was hiding my eating disorder from my partner and my friends. I had begrudgingly un-estranged myself from my family to support younger cousins as they came out as queer. I had developed a healthier relationship with alcohol. I had accepted that, outside of addiction, drugs are a bodily autonomy thing and stopped being an ass to people about them. I had finally learned some damn etiquette around things like not accidentally outing people. I started streaming and making videos - stuff I had dreamed of since first watching Dead Fantasy and Red vs Blue and Weeblstuff in high school but had thought impossible after I lost the ability to draw.

I'm currently 35. This year I am living on my own for the first time (aside from 5 failed months at 18). I got divorced - a complicated, regretful process that was ultimately for the best but I could and should have handled better (and sooner). I've been in physical therapy long enough that I'm able to use chopsticks properly again and am thinking of trying to relearn drawing. It's also meant I can do the dishes and wash my hair on my own again, most days, so I'm relearning how to cook consistently. I'm reading (listening to) books again. I'm on year 8 of antidepressants and currently working with my doctor to fine tune what I'm on (and finally have a system to take them consistently). I've been diagnosed with ADHD and figured out I might also be autistic, and a lot of things in my life make way more sense when viewed through that context. I have appointments to get evaluated for ADHD meds, autism, shoulder surgery/other "PT isn't enough" treatments, teeth implants, and new glasses. my clothes have been put away 3 of the last 5 times I did laundry and I've learned that if I only own one dishwasher worth of dishes, the sink can't pile up. I've fully embraced that I'm polyamorous, pansexual, and demiromantic, and that I can be cis while also being "gender agnostic" - none of it really matters or processes to me, but I get that it does to others so I respect it. I'm seeing someone who makes me feel like I can do anything, is inspiringly ambitious themself, and is equally polyam, meaning I might also be asking out a cute girl soon and don't know where board game nights with the nice throuple I met might go. I'm having to do odd jobs and accept help from my dad to make ends meet, but I'm arguably a full time content creator now - something I literally didn't even let myself dream about when I was younger because it felt impossible, but which is fully worth the complications and budget crunching because it's so accommodating to my disabilities and uses so many of my talents. I'm still depressed, but I have hope that ADHD treatment will help cut through the remainder. Most days I just have hope, period. And more days than not, I'm genuinely happy for at least a while.

You'll find yourself.

It might take a while. There will be detours, mistakes, pain, tough choices, and a lot of hard work. But there will also be unexpected joys and more possibilities than you ever imagined.

Someday, you'll find yourself.

And when you do, it will be worth the wait, I promise.

#personal #though you can still reblog if you wanna #I was just having A Moment #and now for all the warning tags #mental health #tw eating disorder #tw alcoholism #ed tw #depression #adhd #tw abusive relationship #tw abuse #tw suicide #if you need anything else tagged lemme know #also sorry it's such blocks of text #i just kind of went full ramble

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jbarkerstargazer · 10 months

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So I've had a hard month.

I'm not looking for anyone to feel sorry for me and I am aware that posting this appears that I am looking for that. Well I'm not. Talking (or you know writing) helps. So that's what I'm doing. I'm gonna put it under the break. It's your choice to read on.

Be aware of mental health triggers. Break down, self harm.

I've been trying to get help with one of my children since 2021 now. And by help I mean going to doctors, nurses and school needing her to be assessed as her behaviour been just tearing our family apart.

I thought I was handling it. Getting up at 6am. Getting 3 kids under 8 ready and off to school. Going straight to work, working 9 till 6, home kids to bed. Weekends filled with day long trips out on Saturday and Sundays spent at the in-laws. Keeping on top of the house. Taking on extra duties at work.

I was happy doing all these things, I really was and so I didn't see that I was cracking. About a month ago while trying to get everyone ready for school said child started acting up. While I did not hurt her my actions did. I scared her and when she tried to get away from me she banged her face off the breakfast table and she bit her lip. It bled everywhere. I went into shock.

My husband took the kids to school and he wanted to be able to help me. The school called Social Services as I was calling the mental health crises team. As a result of the injury my child suffered do to my mental health Social services have told me I can not be alone with my children. They have spent less the half of the last month in their own beds as my husband works nights so they are at their grandparents houses.

Social services want my mental health to be in a better place before they will start to lift this supervision order however my mental health nurse has said that my mental health got worse in the days after the event because of the supervision order.

The supervision order has also meant that LANDO had to do a report. This report was given to my employer but not me. (I'll have to submit a freedom of information act to see it.) As I work with children my employer of 4 years fired me. All the local nursery managers are on a WhatsApp together so I can never return to childcare now.

My relationship with my husband is falling apart because of all this. I blame him for taking the children into school. He says he thought taking them in explaining I'd had a breakdown through the pressures we are under would get both myself and our child the help we need. I'd told him countless times in the past that if we got to breaking point this would happen. That if social services walked though our door I would loss my job and maybe even the kids. He did not trust my judgement. He did not trust our families to come and help us that day. He tells me he loves me and I have no response for him. Yesterday he said he might need antidepressants as everything is getting to him. I had no response. I don't want him to suffer but I also don't want him to be happy. Right now he is inconvenienced, my life has imploded.

People don't ask for help the system just makes it worse.

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windwardstar · 1 year

Text

that one t post

Since there's some of y'all who showed interested, here's the big rundown of my experiences with T. This covers being on T for 3 month at 26, stopping it for a few years, then the first 9 months of being on T at 28. Contains the changes that have happened while I’ve been on T + the interactions with my other health conditions + the process of accessing care. It’s safe for work/reading in public as far as any puberty/medical body talk is. Word count is ~8k.

T round 1 (2019 - I was 26)

If you followed me back in 2019, you might recall me getting on T at the end of that year.

I didn’t have a PCP and was in a very conservative state which made me concerned about finding a trans friendly provider, so I decided to go through Planned Parenthood knowing it was informed consent. The PP that had a gender clinic and was open on my day off was on the other side of the state/2 hour drive one way. But also, when I went to book an appointment they had one for the same week/the next day so I didn’t have to wait. I had insurance through my work that partially covered the visit, the lab work, and the prescriptions. This was out of network for my insurance so I paid more than if it was in network. My local pharmacy was the Sam’s Club which has $4 prescriptions for members- which is what I ended up paying as it was significantly cheaper than my insurance co-pay. (I did not get a prescription for a sharps container and bought one from the local store.) I got my supplies in 3 month batches and didn’t have any issues with the pharmacy.

At the appointment, I was given a big packet of “side effects” (aka the desired results) it included a handy chart of when certain changes would likely happen. My provider went over it with me to make sure I knew what to expect, and asked me a couple questions about my gender identity and transition goals to get a feel for me and make sure this was what I wanted. I was completely out at work and socially. I had very recently moved out of an abusive homelife and was catching my feet mental health wise, but I was in therapy at the time and on medications that had been as a consistent dose for about a year (aka: mental health problems were well controlled), so the doctor was comfortable prescribing me T. We decided to try weekly injections first to limit potential high/lows on a longer dose cycle.

The Labs for this provider were Initial Labs, 3 Months, 6 Months, Then Yearly. My 3 Month Labs hit right at the start of Covid Lockdown, I wasn’t able to get in for them (perpetually overlapping quarantines at work yo), the shift to telehealth hadn’t happened, and then I ran out of my psych meds (antidepressant and an antipsychotic/mood stabilizer) so my executive functioning skills went bye-bye for a while. So I couldn’t get my prescription renewed and had to stop T after like 3 months.

I took Testosterone Cypionate (0.25 ML, 0.50 MG) by Intramuscular (IM) Injections in my thigh once a week. The syringes had a twist on/off for the needles themselves (bigger one for the drawing up, smaller for the injection). They hurt a lot for me. I’d get a bruise around the injection site and the muscle would be very sore for 2-3 days after and hurt when I walked or used the muscle. It wasn’t enough to make me want to stop, but it wasn’t pleasant.

(Because of the long drive, the doctor didn’t have me come back for the first shot, just confirmed I was comfortable administering it myself and knew the process. She said if I ran into problems there were youtube videos I could look at or I could call.)

I did have issues with my needle phobia, but before getting to the part of actually seeking out access to T, I’d done a lot of work to manage it. The few years prior to starting T, I’d had to get a lot of blood drawn for lab work, several IVs, and quite a few vaccines which had helped me calm down so I was no longer having panic attacks around needles. The biggest thing that helped though was mental work and visualization. I started out just contemplating the concept of T injections in the abstract, then read posts with people talking about injections, looked at visuals of needles/syringes and people administering them. The last step was then thinking about giving myself injections and visualizing it. The whole time I tried to associate it with all the positive things I’d hoped to get from T and reminding myself the injections/ivs/blood draws of the previous years had all been perfectly fine and my anxiety was not reflecting what actually happened. (I also got a tattoo a month or so before I started T and after the initial anxiety I was mostly just fascinated by watching the tattoo gun, which was what really made me think I could do the T injections.) It took a long time to get to that point. When I started, I was only able to think about needles for a few seconds at a time. But I was able to give myself my first T shot with only a little anxiety (my hands shook a lot). And with each successful injection, the anxiety went down.

The Changes on T (1-3 Months):

Increased body hair. I noticed the hair on my thighs thickening and darkening around the injection sites, but not really much else. The peach fuzz on my face increased and I got a few dark hairs but there wasn’t really anything to shave. I think I shaved my face once because I wanted to not because there was anything to really shave…

Voice Changes: I sang quite a bit so I noticed that my lower register got fuller and the lowest end of my range got easier to access, but other than that there weren’t any vocal changes that I noticed. I didn’t get any voice breaking or cracking.

Bottom Growth: Yeah, there was some of that. Enough I noticed. Things also got very very sensitive and painful. OTC pain meds and ice packs helped. Loose clothes. Also manspreading.

Periods: They got lighter and less painful almost immediately, and I skipped one 3 months in. Then I ran out of T and got my period back the next month.

Acne: I didn’t get acne until the 3 month mark or so, but that also coincided with the start of wearing masks. It got really painful so I started using the OTC acne cream I used in high school, and it cleared up to something manageable once I was off T. (My teenage acne hit HARD at 13 and didn’t clear up until I was 24.)

Nightmares: The first month I started getting a significant increase in nightmares/remembering them upon waking up. This may have been because I had just moved into my own place and escaped an abusive environment, but my therapist at the time mentioned that nightmares were a common thing for people starting T (it is a big hormone change so y’know).

Other Changes: there may have been some, but it’s been a few years so I don’t really remember.

T round 2: 9 Months (2022 started at 28)

The goal was always to get back on T. It just took a while. Cross country move (liberal state now yo), new job, getting new insurance. Once I did, I had to figure out where to get T again. The planned parenthoods were all booked months out and none open for gender clinic stuff on my days off.

I went through my doctor’s office, found out they have a special gender health program for trans people and transferred care to them. I had to wait like a month to get an appointment, but it means my PCP/GP is versed in trans care and does all my hormones. The experience is fantastic. The whole office used my chosen name and pronouns before they got legally changed and had the ability to change the display name on my chart so everyone would use the correct one.

The initial visit was via phone. It was a lot of the same causal “tell me about yourself and your transition goals” as the last time. We skipped a lot of the “this is what t will do” since I already knew it, and folded it in with talking about my experience being on T previously, what I liked, what I hoped for, what I found difficult, etc. I was off the psych medications I had been on the last time, but since I’d been off for two-ish years and was stable, I was ok to restart T. We started me off on the same dose and frequency I had been on previously, but because the IM had been painful, we switched to SubQ.

I didn’t need any initial lab work done, but I’ve done them every 3 months after starting. I had to go in person to pick up my prescription (which I did the next morning after my initial telehealth visit, the pharmacist called the insurance to get the authorization & everyone there was super great) and meet with the nurse to administer my first shot. The doctor poked her head in to say hi in person.

My insurance covers the visits, lab work, and prescriptions. I did have to get prior authorization and have a letter from the insurance company stating my T prescription is approved for a year. I got a prescription for a sharps container this time since the stores did not have any on the shelves. (The pharmacy was out of the small ones too, so I ended up with the big gallon size. It takes up a ton of space under the sink, but it should last me several more years before I have to dispose of it.) My needles also just have a smooth pop on/off to attach to the syringe.

For the first six months, the depo was a 0.25ML/0.50 MG SubQ injection once a week. Because there were certain changes I wasn’t seeing, at 6 months my dose was increased to 0.40ML/0.80MG SubQ once a week.

The SubQ injections basically don’t hurt after I’ve injected them. A couple times I injected them too quickly (just sticking the needle in and pressing down on the plunger too hard and forcing the liquid in, then pulling the needle out immediately) and those are when I’ve noticed redness, swelling, and soreness around the injection site. So my process for minimal pain and bleeding: wait until I’ve got cool skin (not right after a shower), inject slowly, count to 10 before pulling out the needle. Warming up the vial in my hands so the T isn’t cold and making sure everything is dry from the alcohol swabs before injecting also helps with the initial injection pain.

The anxiety around needles has basically all disappeared so I have no issue giving myself injections.

(I have a problem with my T vials crystallizing. I’ve found they take ages to dissolve, so I stick them in a pocket/waistband to keep them warm against my skin for an hour or so as I go about my morning, shaking it every now and then to see how it’s doing. I do my shot on my day off when I generally have time to do that. This time it’s Fridays. Last time it was Wednesdays.)

I started T (again) in April 2022 at 28

(Idk how the math works on these changes when you start/stop/restart on T. I wasn’t able to find anything. Probably because there’s not enough data on it. Given the length of the break, the T levels in my system had definitely reset, and I hadn’t been on T very long previously. Some of my changes went faster than the expected timeline, some slower, some about the same. So know there’s a parenthetical +3 months to all of this.)

Voice Changes: I noticed a continuation of the pattern from the last time. My lower register got much fuller and easier. My upper range started getting harder to reach. Nothing cracking or breaking, but there were some notes I was struggling to reach by the time the choir concert rolled around in mid-May. I started off bordering soprano/alto and was clinging to the alto range before we broke for summer (1-2 months)

I caught COVID from work over Memorial day (~2 months in) and my voice cracked a bit. I went into COVID being able to talk, was sick for a week, and then when the Covid cleared my voice was fried. I sounded terrible talking. Singing wise, my lower range had extended and my upper had come down, but I was still easily able to slip into my head voice.

Started Summer Choir at the end of June. I spent the first few weeks feeling like the songs were a little low for my range. Then things shifted again (~3months) and my singing range shrank to about 3 notes, I could not reliably open my mouth and make a sound, my breath control disappeared. I had one volume I could sing in, no going louder or softer or the sound would disappear. I sounded like a squeaky clarinet. (I did a very good seagull impression.) It was terrible and I loved every minute of it because it was so euphoric. I didn’t sound like a girl. I was firmly in the Tenor range. I was experiencing the puberty I’d always wanted to. (It was hard to tell with the first drop since it happened while I had COVID, but the second time my voice really cracked, I also had a really dry and sore throat.)

Enter August (~4 Months) my range was starting to re-expand. The low notes/chest voice coming back first. I was also figuring out how to make noise with the new instrument, because speaking and singing is all muscle memory. Which meant everything I knew previously was basically irrelevant at best and counter productive at worst. My brain would know how to produce a note on my pre-t vocal chords, so it would try to do what it had done before and either a) nothing would come out because my vocal chords are no longer capable of producing those notes or b) it would come out but be much lower. (I’m still working on retraining this 9 months in. My mental voice and physical voice do not match. I still think I sound like my pre-t self. Like, the thinking voice in my head sounds like my pre-T voice, it hasn’t dropped yet. Which makes singing difficult because I don’t know intuitively how I sound now. I have to adjust once I start making noise.) I was able to make my way through the concert at the end of August, but there were things too high for me since I wasn’t able to access that part of my range yet.

September/October/November/December (month 5-8) my singing range continued to expand and stabilize, the lower notes got much easier, volume control came back, my breath control returned with practice, and some access to my head range. My voice fatigues easily, but that’s getting better too. The vocal fry/clarity of my voice is getting better as well. I had to stop multiple times per rehearsal over the summer, but by December I was able to make it almost the whole rehearsal before reaching my limit. I do not have a smooth transition between notes and get stuck in low gear so to speak. Pre-t my favorite things to sing were songs where I jumped around my entire range. I miss that flexibility, but there are new things to enjoy singing now. I’m also only 9 (+3) months in, and my voice is going to continue to develop. My goals right now are just to continue exploring my singing voice as things change, and to try and get my brain to match what the new pipes can do.

(January 1st, Month 9 (aka today while I was waiting to do a final round of edits on this post) I had a moment where things finally clicked into place for my singing voice. I was singing while doing the laundry, and I was just able to actually sing without feeling any strain. It felt easy and natural coming out. I had to focus on what I was singing to a degree, but not to the exclusion of doing other activities. The sound didn’t crack or disappear on me, and I didn’t run out of breath mid phrase. I was able to actually sing. It was also a moment where I was able to hear my voice and think “this is what I sound like, this is my voice” as opposed to the transitory state it’s existed in since I first started noticing changes. It’s also just a sense of feeling completed and right. I cried, and there was joy, but the predominant emotion was just feeling that things had finally aligned into where they were meant to be and an overwhelming settling peace.)

My biggest thing right now is just how much more air it takes to make sound, speaking or singing. My laugh has turned from a giggle to just blowing air out through my teeth or a bunch of kekekekeke where the sound is from my tongue stopping the air rather than my vocal chords making noise. Singing, I am having to breathe much more frequently than before. Speaking, I sometimes don’t do enough air and sound doesn’t come out. I go nonverbal A LOT more than before because the physical act of speaking has become harder. That initial start up to making noise is sometimes more than my brain can figure out in the moment.

My speaking voice has also changed a lot. The pitch has dropped, it’s gotten much rougher, but I tend to speak in a very femme manner. People have definitely noticed it’s dropped, but it sounds more “cold/laryngitis” than “guy.” People have definitely started reacting differently when they hear me speak over the phone, but I’ve yet to get any comments and it’s not been enough to keep strangers from misgendering me. I have the ability to sound like a guy, there are times when I am relaxed and can hear it come out. The bulk of how my speaking voice sounds is from how I’m using it. I sound like a girl to others because of all those aspects of speech that have nothing to do with how high or low it is. (Aka sounding like a guy at this point for me is about technique not physical ability. This is where speech therapists would be useful.) My dysphoria over my voice has essentially disappeared. I love my voice now, and I’m filled with so much excitement over seeing what else unfolds with it as I get used to it and how to use it.

Acne/Skin Stuff: First off, Puberty 1.0 gave me terrible acne. It set in at like 13. Regardless of what I did as a teenager, I was unable to really control it. I had products but they didn’t really work and my mother wouldn’t get me to a dr for it. My skin was dry and oily. It would crack and peel and bleed and had reactions to every product I put on it. It got better in my twenties and was mostly gone by the time I was 24. It came back when I started T the first time + Covid Masking at 26. But by that point I’d found an acne cream + lotion combination of products that kept things almost clear.

I expected to have acne bad again on T because that’s just what my body does with hormones. By the end of the first month the acne was back. It progressed to being painful cystic acne by 3 months. I told my doctor and got a prescription cream. I’m meant to use it twice a day, I did at first, but it made my skin too dry, so I use it mostly once a day (generally after I’ve showered). I use it + a plain lotion for moisturizing/keeping things from getting too dry. I still have pretty bad acne, my face is red and skin is perpetually breaking out. But it’s not painful, and that’s my biggest goal with controlling acne. Especially because I react very strongly to products on my skin.

My acne still gets worse around my periods, so I know a lot of it is hormonal stuff going on. There’s some slight increase in body acne, but nothing that I even have to put cream on as it’s not painful and goes away on its own. The acne usually appeared in spots where hair was growing in for like a week or so while the hair started growing in thicker/darker.

The rest of my skin also got super oily. And I got super sweaty. And smelled funky for a little while. Previously I showered and washed my hair every other day because that was the balance of keeping my scalp happy. My skin also couldn’t handle more than that as it would get too dry and crack even with lotion. 1-2 months in, I was showering every day, over the summer (~3-6 months) I was showering once in the morning and once at night (mostly because sweat, but also smell) and washing my hair every day. I did not really experience any dry skin. Somewhere around the 7 month mark, that all decreased. 9 months in, I’m showering every day (with an extra shower if I get gross) and still have no problems with dry skin on my body.

The T has affected my scalp*. I started reacting to the shampoo I’d been using for years about a month or so into starting T. I switched to a different shampoo that worked for the most part, but then started causing problems about 7-8 months in. I’m currently trying a new shampoo + washing every other day or so, and hoping it works. This is getting brought up at my next appointment either for medicated shampoo or a referral to the derm if the current shampoo doesn’t work. *I don’t know if it’s causing a reaction to the products, or if there’s some interplay of the increased oils + increased sweat + my hair being wet for longer + more washings causing more dryness and more irritation + the hair dryer causing more irritation. All I know is my scalp is hurting and I am trying to figure out why + what I can do to make it stop.

Aka: I had terrible acne during puberty 1.0. Puberty T.0 is running about the same in terms of getting acne, but I’m able to manage it so much better because I’ve a) found a lotion I can apply to my face to help with the dryness and b) got a doctor to prescribe acne cream that actually helps. I’m having worse scalp problems now though, but working to manage them.

Facial Hair/Body Hair/Head Hair:

I started getting dark hairs on my chin first. It was within the first 3 months. It also coincided with the acne. Because my skin is so sensitive and the acne was so bad, I decided to use an electric razor since it doesn’t cut as close and tends to result in fewer nicks and cuts and ingrown hairs. I would not have been able to use a razor without cutting myself at the start. I also tend to react to shaving cream so the electric razor allowed me to not have to figure that aspect out too. I started off every few days, then every other day. Somewhere around 6 months I started needing to shave every day to keep the stubble away. If I have a few days off in a row I’ll skip the shaving so I can see what it looks like, but I shave clean if I have to work.

I’m not really sure when the body hair started growing. I noticed the leg hair on my thighs started growing in a little thicker and there was a bit more hair on my belly 4-5 months in (mostly because the bandaids from my shots started hurting when I pulled them off lol.) At 9 months I’ve noticed the hair on my arms and thighs has gotten darker and a little thicker, and my belly has gotten a lot more dark and thick hair, and there’s some chest hair appearing. I want to say somewhere around 6-7 months, I really started noticing the body hair and getting euphoric and happy about getting fuzzy. (Idk about lower leg hair since I frequently shave it due to wearing compression socks and finding them sensory hell and painful with leg hair.)

(Also got more hair on the butt and the butt crack, which was making getting clean after pooping during colitis flares difficult. Solution I’ve found is shaving/trimming that area (you know how it works with long-haired cats and dogs?) and using wet wipes if needed.)

One thing I did notice for both my facial hair and body hair, is that my skin would get mildly itchy the week or so before I started noticing more hair growing, and would continue for that first week or so + there tended to be some ingrown hairs during that stage. It was rather similar in feeling to what my underarms or legs feel like when I shave them and the hair starts to regrow. The itchiness is pretty mild for me so I didn’t really do anything about it.

The spot I inject the T got darker thicker hair first. And by spots I mean like the circle immediately around the injection sites was noticeably darker and hairier than the surrounding body part. It’s evened out on my thighs since my SubQ are in my belly, and the belly is starting to even out 9 months in.

Head hair. It’s started thinning up top right around my part, and on the sides of my temple. Really only noticed it starting at the 8 month mark. I’m currently in the process of trying to figure out if this is related to the scalp issues (since they can cause hair loss) and reversible, or the permanent slow march of time kind of balding. I really like having long hair. It’s fun. I haven’t cut my hair (which would improve my chances of passing as a guy or at least not getting consistently gendered as a girl) because I like my hair. I want to keep it.

I know finasteride and minoxidil are both things that can be used to treat it. I’m hesitant to use finasteride since it blocks DHT and I want the effects of that more than I want to keep my long hair. I’m worried about minoxidil exacerbating my scalp problems and causing more hair loss.

I’m contacting family to find out more information about family history of hair loss (including the ones where there were auto-immune skin conditions that caused it) and will talk with the doctors to figure out what the best option for me is.

I was a lot more anxious about the potential balding when I first noticed, but after a couple months to process it I’m not as alarmed as I was. If I do go bald though, I like the idea of getting tattoos. It’s also something that hopefully will be slow enough that I’m not gonna lose everything right away and can still enjoy having long hair for a while. But also you know the meme, if you can’t produce your own, store bought is fine. Wigs do exist.

Muscles, Fat, and the whole Musculoskeletal Shit

My timeline on this is a little blurry. Mostly because I’ve always built muscle easily and been rather buff just through having jobs that require some level of physical labor. I’ve also got hypermobile joints + low back pain from falling down stairs in 2019 + chest, rib, & shoulder pain from binder (haven’t been able to bind since pre-pandemic) and bra. So my focus on/awareness of physical ability was less on ease of strength and more on whether or not I had pain that made breathing/movement difficult. I’m going to guess it was easier to build muscle fairly early since I did notice some other changes that would track with things being affected.

So first thing I noticed was that my hips weren’t as prone to slipping out of place as usual and the days where they were painful decreased as well as the level of pain. It got to a point where I basically wasn’t having hip pain except around my period (pre-T the pain would get worse around my period, this is a continuation of the existing pattern). I’m not sure if I noticed this by 3 months, but I did by 6 Months. My guess is that the T strengthened the connective tissues and helped build muscle to hold everything in place. When I did a lot of walking and fatigued my leg muscles, the hip pain would get worse pre-T, but now I don’t really notice that at all 9 months in. If I get sore after movement, it doesn’t knock me out for several days. I still have to be careful about how I’m sitting and sleeping as the joints can still get knocked out of place that way. But also, the threshold for pain happening is much higher and I have fewer days of it. I’ve also only had to use my cane a handful of times since starting T.

My rib/chest pain got less severe at some point… I know I’m able to tolerate wearing my bra all day without feeling pain most of the time. That shift happened some time over the summer. So 3-6 months. (This was because my body finally managed to heal from the injuries from binding and the stress injury from using the deli slicer 2-4 hours a day at work in 2018.)

My back pain has kind of been figuring out what makes it worse and better. It’s gotten better overall over the past 9 months, but idk how much I can attribute that to T and how much is just figuring out what makes it worse and not doing that.

I’ve also noticed a significant decrease in flexibility. To the point I can stretch muscles I’ve never been able to stretch before. I can stretch my muscles without hyperextending joints. I started to resume a lot of the stretching I stopped in 2018 because whatever support my joints now have is enough that I don’t risk being too bendy to hold them all in place. My hands basically don’t dislocate/sublux any more, and the pain in them is gone. My grip strength has never been better. I can open water bottles without fucking up my fingers. (Aka T has definitely helped with the hEDS.)

My skin has also gotten thicker and less prone to getting cuts. If you follow me, you probably saw the post I made about the changes on that, but basically, my skin is tougher. It doesn’t get cut up as easily and I don’t bleed as easily. My mouth doesn’t get cut up as much by rough foods like toast and cereal and brushing and flossing doesn’t cause bleeding and tearing (no gum health issues this is just hEDS stuff, although I also notice the sensitivity of my gums fluctuate with my period), I don’t get papercuts as easily, sewing is a lot less bloody. This has made it slightly harder to put the needle through my skin for the T injections, it used to go in completely painlessly but somewhere around 6 months it started pinching a bit.

I also have a little adam’s apple now! Which I wasn’t expecting since I’m nearly 30 and I figured things wouldn’t shift too much. I started noticing it grow 3 months in or so when I would touch my throat and it slowly got just a bit bigger. 9 months in there’s something visible in my throat when I talk or swallow, just a tiny visible bump but it’s more than it was before! It also tends to sit REALLY high in my throat, which I know is also part of the problem I have with my voice being high and strained. I have a couple vocal exercises that lower it and my voice and reduce strain. But also this was one of the things I wanted but was realistically not expecting to get so !!!

As far as muscle and fat (re)distribution and such, I noticed somewhere around 4-5 months that when I looked in the mirror after showering so a) i didn’t have my glasses on and things were hella blurry and b) the mirror was somewhat fogged, I had a more masculine look. When my hair covered my chest (it was waist length at that point) there was just enough shifting of things to look masc. (My boobs have gotten somewhat flatter/deflated. Around my period I definitely get a feeling that they’ve gotten bigger/swelled back up.)

Body wise, my shoulders have always been broad, and the ratio of tiny waist to huge hips has always been a source of dysphoria for me. There’s nothing T is gonna do about the underlying bones, but I have noticed my hips and thighs slimming down somewhat / my waist filling out. It’s changed my silhouette away from the hourglass and into something more masculine. It’s helped greatly with my dysphoria when I see myself in the above sink/counter level mirrors. (Full body mirrors/reflections are still hello dysphoria hips.)

My shoulders also got slightly broader, my neck thicker, and my feet got slightly larger. I know for sure around 5-6 months, as I pulled out my long-sleeves for winter and the ones that had been tight and with no stretch the previous year were too tight to wear comfortably. I also pulled out my performance clothes which I hadn’t worn since month 2 on T, and had to let out the collar on my bowtie by a solid inch and get new shoes as the previous ones were too tight (again I’m almost 30, my feet bones didn’t grow but I did have to go up a shoe size). I had thought around 4-5 months that my neck was getting thicker since it didn’t look quite as stick-like. Around that time my face also started looking a little swollen around the jawline. It may have been puffiness or just things shifting around. I’m faceblind so I don’t know if my face has changed, just around that time looking at my face made me think the jaws looked a bit like my sister’s did a week after getting her wisdom teeth removed. Whatever puffiness I saw then, I don’t notice now though.

Idk if I’ve gained or lost weight since I don’t own a scale and don’t actually pay attention to that because it’s not actually important. Shrug emoji.

Periods & Bottom Growth:

If you’ve read this far you’ve probably guessed my periods didn’t stop early this time. As I stated, the first attempt at T, they stopped three months in. My third period came two weeks early this time when I caught COVID. We increased my dose at 6 months because my periods hadn’t stopped. My 8th period happened a week late. This month for the 9th I’ve gotten some light cramping and joint pain (but another week or two will tell if it’s stopped).

I did notice by 6 months the pain/cramping and other things associated with my period were less. (The flow decreased somewhat and the cramps were less severe. I was able to still walk and function with the OTC pain meds, and I had to take fewer for a shorter time frame to get relief. My blood pressure didn’t tank as drastically, so I wasn’t at risk of passing out every time I stood up on the first few days of my cycle each month. I didn’t get chills and shaking. I still get increased acne, bloated, migraines, and my joints all get loose and painful.)

(Outside of my period, my POTS has also drastically improved. Around 7-8 months, all I really started to notice is the tachycardia. The blood pressure problems aren’t forcing me to sit down to avoid passing out, my low blood pressure migraines have mostly disappeared, and my heat intolerance has drastically decreased. The heatwave in 2018 is what ended up with me in the hospital. I made it through the heatwave this year without too much difficulty. I still get migraines when I get too hot, and get weak and exhausted, but I recover within a day rather than a week. My migraines have tons of triggers, but overall I’ve gotten fewer of them since starting T. The only trigger that’s increased in causing them is my low blood sugar.)

Bottom growth has happened!!! I was ambivalent to slightly apprehensive about this part prior to starting the last time, but discovered pretty quickly I was actually really on board with it. For a while this time I was worried starting/stopping/restarting T meant I wasn’t getting any this time around. But the past month or so (month 9) has given me indications it was just taking a while to happen (like my periods not stopping 3 months as previously). This time, I haven’t experienced much in the way of pain + too much sensitivity, but the sensitivity has really increased in the past couple weeks so that may start again as well.

Appetite & blood sugar :

The increased appetite has probably been my biggest most noticeable thing in my day to day life and the only thing that has actually caused me distress (as opposed to annoyance and irritation with the acne). I noticed pretty quickly an increase in my appetite. This brought back problems with my blood sugar just crashing (and tanking my blood pressure with it) that I’d had while growing up. I would also wake up hungry in the middle of the night. 3 Months in it was the biggest change I noticed.

6 months in I was up to eating every two hours, waking up twice at night, and if I skipped one my body would get ravenously hungry and would have headache and shaking. But I was also getting more used to the routine so I got better about keeping food on me and my blood sugar didn’t crash as often/as severely. My grocery budget effectively doubled so that was yikes to my bank account. I also couldn’t get full or stay full. I was constantly hungry. Since I had a history of food insecurity as a kid, the constant feeling of hunger was distressing and started making my anxiety and ptsd get worse.

(There is a link between testosterone levels and blood sugar. Most of the data is on cis men. But the little information packet that comes in the box of my testosterone vial includes: In diabetic patients, the metabolic effects of androgens may decrease blood glucose and therefore, insulin requirements. Presumably, the doctors know to monitor this with diabetic patients and to mention it to them. But also, a reminder to read all the paperwork you’re given because neither of my prescribers mentioned this aspect to me, even when I mentioned having problems with my blood sugar dropping.)

9 months in, my appetite has decreased to pre-T levels which also coincided with getting heart burn/acid reflux for a solid week and a half. I’d never had a problem with that before, but I was also eating/drinking and then immediately laying down (aka eating right before bed and a midnight snack) for like six solid months, which is a big clue to the cause. The biggest surprise there is that it took six months to become a problem. I’ve been mindful of staying upright after eating and after a few days the problem went away.

Dysphoria, Mental Health, Mood and Energy;

T has been fucking amazing. Like. It’s fantastic and I’m thriving and have never felt so stable and capable of handling life. I can’t attribute everything to T because I’ve done a lot of work on my own mental health and my living situation improving (moving away from abusive family, getting engaged with friends and community, fulfilling job) but its positive impact on my mental health and general mood is undeniable.

My dysphoria is so much less than it was before. I love my voice now, I am starting to remember what it feels like to be comfortable in my body. There’re still a bunch of things that are dysphoria inducing that will take more time or surgery (top, hysto, bottom) to change and relieve, (and when I am reminded about the dysphoria inducing things like boobs and people misgendering me as a girl, it feels terrible and I want to crawl out of my skin). But the entire experience of being on T has been a daily blessing of euphoria as everything happens.

I used to joke that you knew trans people were really trans because who else would willingly go through puberty a second time. Puberty 1.0 had been soul destroying terrible. I hadn’t had a single positive experience from it. Everything about puberty 1.0 had made me hate my body more and the changes just kept getting worse. I couldn’t imagine anyone willingly going through that a second time. Somehow despite knowing I wanted all the changes T would cause, my brain didn’t make the connection that I’d like the process aka puberty 2.0. I’d figured I’d suffer through puberty again and in the end I’d have a body I liked and was comfortable in, so it’d be worth all the suffering of puberty.

I was terribly wonderfully wrong. The first time I was on T, I didn’t really notice a ton of changes, but even the small ones I did I liked. It wasn’t terrible. And then, I was off T and the strength of my desire to get back on T and go through those changes was a physical ache. The past 9 months have been full of joy and excitement. Every little change I’ve noticed has made me happy and been something I loved to find. (Barring the acne, and hunger, and potential hair loss.)

Puberty 2.0 is so powerfully positive for me. I love it, and it’s letting me love my body.

My mood is a lot more stable than it was. With my dysphoria lessened, I’m not constantly feeling shitty about that which overall helped my mood. I’m not as depressed (and when I am, it’s so much more mild than before). My mood tends to be either in a stable state or hypo/manic. But there’s no irritability or violence or any of those fear mongering things. T didn’t suddenly change me into the TERF and bio essentialist’s boogey man. T doesn’t change your personality. If you have anger issues on T, you likely had them before. (Also I really want to stress this because I saw warnings about T and bipolar disorder for years: T did not make me irritable or angry or violent. It hasn’t changed the profile of my mood disorder to include symptoms that were never present.)

(As for crying. I don’t cry out of frustration or anxiety as much--which is likely because my mental health has improved and I’m not pushed into those strong negative emotions as often. But I tear up just as easily when I see heartwarming news stories or videos of puppies or see something heartbreaking on the news. I haven’t been cut off from health emotion, or healthy crying.)

Energy wise, I have so much more energy than I did before. I’ve managed to wake up easily all winter rather than take an hour to drag myself out of bed every day. I can work a 12 hour shift, and/or not take a nap and be fine with 8 hours of sleep (or less) at night. I can run around and do things on my days off. I have enough energy to function. I don’t have to have an entire day off just to sleep (although I still enjoy a good afternoon nap and sleeping in).

I don’t notice my energy level fluctuating with my shot (I do weekly injections to avoid my levels fluctuating and causing other things to do so as well), but I did notice my energy levels increased within the first month. But! There’s also a lot of other things going on that are affecting my improved energy levels. Some of this might be because I actually started taking a vitamin d supplement (and I definitely notice less energy when I forget it). The lessening of my dysphoria has freed up a lot of mental energy for other things, the lessening of my dysphoria has lessened my depression* which gives me more energy, the reduction in joint pain + other chronic pain means I’m not constantly having that low drain on my energy and resting better at night, and the reduction in POTS symptoms means I’m not having that massive daily drain on energy reserves.

(*I’ve noticed an increase in energy at my stable baseline, and an increase in the sustained energy while hypo/manic from my pre-T mood cycles without an associated increase in the severity of other symptoms. My depressive moods have reduced in length and severity because there aren’t as many things fucking triggering me during them (which can also be attributed to the better living conditions and social connections, since I noticed this prior to restarting T), but I also have an increased energy during them as well. Which all tracks with the physical conditions improving and no longer draining my energy as much.)

(I still notice when my blood sugar drops, I get my period, or I have an anxiety attack that my energy levels for the day drop accordingly. But I’m also quicker to bounce back to my new baseline. My anxiety has more or less stayed the same. Also randomly feeling tired has become a much more reliable migraine aura because now being tired tends to have an easily identifiable cause.)

As I mentioned in the appetite section, there has been some downsides to my mental health while on T. The constant hunger was triggering for me, but since I'm in a stable environment and have money for food, it’s something I’ve been able to work through. I’ve also experienced more nightmares since being on T, especially around when I first started and when my dose was increased (biggest changes in hormone levels). But the nightmares also increased in general, which I also want to attribute to having more energy while on T. Before T I had a tendency to be so utterly exhausted I didn’t dream and/or I woke up too frequently during the night due to joint pain/needing to reposition that I didn’t complete sleep cycles and wasn’t dreaming/having nightmares. (The biggest argument for this is also that I’m straight up actually having non-nightmare dreams now too. I rarely had dreams and/or remembered them before. I get them decently often now. Which is nice! Dreams can be fun! And weird. Dream logic does not make sense upon waking up.)

“Passing” / How people perceive my gender / General Reception

Gender is a party and transitioning is the grab bag. I’m basically completely on board all the physical changes T is making to my body (bar the acne and the balding). Presentation wise, I lean heavier into the men’s clothing than the women’s and would prefer to be read as a guy rather than a girl if people gotta gender me, but I’m not a guy and not actually interested in passing as a guy. So I don’t put any effort into passing as a guy. Being my authentic self and transitioning into my nonbinary genderqueer gender basically means I do what I’m comfortable with and just vibe (until someone misgenders me and then I dark side dysphoria vibe).

Basically for those keeping track: I have long hair, I shave clean (and wear a mask anyway), my boobs are still visible (can’t bind), my hips are still a thing, and my voice sounds mostly like I have a cold (lower but with girly customer service inflections). My chosen/legal name is still femme. I’m also 5ft/160cm and relatively small. I dress in men’s clothes for the most part. Strangers still assume I’m a girl. Even in trans friendly spaces I get she/her’ed by default.

(I’m out to management at work but very few others. There’s been maybe one person who might have noticed something. Most people I interact with through work--if they notice anything-- notice my voice change. But all the comments I’ve gotten indicate they think I’ve strained my voice from singing, have a cold, or it’s related to my breathing problems. (I had to wear a mask/scarf outdoors before covid due to the cold making it impossible to breathe, same with smoke. Also I caught COVID right before my voice cracked so…))

As I said, I don’t bind and my hair is long and don’t try to pass as a guy, so it makes sense I won’t. I’m sure if I had short hair and didn’t have visible boobs the default gendering by strangers would shift to a different percentage of girl vs guy vs awkward pause as they guess. So if you’re wondering how long it’ll take you to pass as a guy or confuse everyone, I’m not gonna be too helpful. But if you were concerned about being able to hide being on T/keep your transition on the DL until you’re ready to come out, you can definitely do it, just come up with some excuse for your voice because people will notice that.

Congrats I guess if you’ve read this far. Hopefully this was helpful and/or informative. The TL;DR of it is that the bulk of the changes kicked in somewhere between 3-6 months and are gonna continue for another good while. It’s having a lot of positive effects on my various health conditions (POTS, hEDS, migraines). I’m having a blast with everything that’s happening and am delighted by puberty 2.0. The drawbacks are just kind of inconveniences (and aside from potential balding, seem entirely temporary) and are nothing compared to the overwhelming joy and euphoria of slowly getting to exist more comfortably in my skin.

if you've got questions, feel free to ask. Just know depending on the question and whether or not I even know who you are will influence if I answer it or block you.

tagging myself so i can reblog if i need to @owlsofstarlight

#tag for me #also wow this post got long #and took forever to write and edit up #i apologize if it's hard to follow #but also don't complain if its too long i'm not forcing you to read it #the big t post #t timeline

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