Identity crisis & name
Jul. 1st, 2010 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seishunI'm having a bit of an identity crisis. I don't know where I'm going to wind up when I get through this, but I'm not sure that I'll be female or male. I'd rather be NEITHER right now, if I'm honest. I don't know who or what I am anymore. This scares me.
Being feminine feels like too much work right now. I don't bother to feminise my voice. I shave only occasionally. And the real hell of that is that even when I've shaved it doesn't help much because I know it's just going to grow back again. And, obscenely, I feel more masculine today than I did before HRT. My position on the gender spectrum is sliding back toward the "M" end of things.
So what does this mean to you, dear reader? Well…it doesn't mean much. But I'm not entirely comfortable with the name Carla right now. It's too feminine for me right now. I'll probably come back to it, but for now I'd rather something more neutral. Bea isn't VERY neutral, but it's the first initial of my old name AND it's a female name so…let's go with that for now. Please use it rather than Carla if you need to refer to me by name. As for pronouns…I'm uncomfortable with feminine and masculine pronouns. Please use zie and zir for now. This also means I'm putting the brakes on my name change. I'm collecting the papers the Center's legal support team have prepared for me, but I'm not going to file them until I have a better idea of what I REALLY want to do.
The orchi seems to have opened a Pandora's box of emotional hell. Thank god it was just an orchi. How much worse would it have been if I'd had GRS? It seems increasingly obvious to me that I was not emotionally ready for this surgery. I foolishly believed the only recovery I would have to make was physical. How very, very wrong I was. If you are planning to have an orchi, PREPARE YOURSELF for emotional turmoil. If you're wondering how bad it's been, just go back a week. Last Thursday I was recovering from surgery and there was not an ounce of doubt or remorse in my heart. Today I'm wracked with anxiety and doubt. This is not fun. I think if I had it to do over again I would, but I'd try to spend more time coming to terms with the reality of what it was going to do to me BEFORE the op rather than AFTER. My hormones are wonky right now and that doesn't help anything AT ALL.
So anyway, quick tl;dr recap: Prefered name: Bea. Preferred pronouns: zie/zir. Thank you.
Being feminine feels like too much work right now. I don't bother to feminise my voice. I shave only occasionally. And the real hell of that is that even when I've shaved it doesn't help much because I know it's just going to grow back again. And, obscenely, I feel more masculine today than I did before HRT. My position on the gender spectrum is sliding back toward the "M" end of things.
So what does this mean to you, dear reader? Well…it doesn't mean much. But I'm not entirely comfortable with the name Carla right now. It's too feminine for me right now. I'll probably come back to it, but for now I'd rather something more neutral. Bea isn't VERY neutral, but it's the first initial of my old name AND it's a female name so…let's go with that for now. Please use it rather than Carla if you need to refer to me by name. As for pronouns…I'm uncomfortable with feminine and masculine pronouns. Please use zie and zir for now. This also means I'm putting the brakes on my name change. I'm collecting the papers the Center's legal support team have prepared for me, but I'm not going to file them until I have a better idea of what I REALLY want to do.
The orchi seems to have opened a Pandora's box of emotional hell. Thank god it was just an orchi. How much worse would it have been if I'd had GRS? It seems increasingly obvious to me that I was not emotionally ready for this surgery. I foolishly believed the only recovery I would have to make was physical. How very, very wrong I was. If you are planning to have an orchi, PREPARE YOURSELF for emotional turmoil. If you're wondering how bad it's been, just go back a week. Last Thursday I was recovering from surgery and there was not an ounce of doubt or remorse in my heart. Today I'm wracked with anxiety and doubt. This is not fun. I think if I had it to do over again I would, but I'd try to spend more time coming to terms with the reality of what it was going to do to me BEFORE the op rather than AFTER. My hormones are wonky right now and that doesn't help anything AT ALL.
So anyway, quick tl;dr recap: Prefered name: Bea. Preferred pronouns: zie/zir. Thank you.