Alien Girlybrain

8 years ago on 2 September i stood up for two seconds in a courtroom and when i sat down my legal name was something different to what it had been before i stood up.

the judge even congratulated me which was nice.

i feel so much conflict now about having transitioned but for a short while in my early 40s i was full of certainty that this was the right thing for me. wish i could get that back, or know for sure that going back would fix anything. ah well.

sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo…

( JFC this got long; medical blather under the cut )

ANYWAY

so next month i’ll be in the Midwest for a quick visit with the ol’ Parental Units and other familiods. Mom and Dad seem happy in their new apartment (though they’ve been there over a year now so it’s not really “new”, is it?) but Dad’s continuing to deteriorate because, Parkinson’s gonna parkins i guess. it’s hard, and that’s added to my stress. i want to see them as often as i can, but since they’ve moved and don’t have room for me to stay for long periods anymore, that’s not as easy as it was before. still glad of the chance to see them now.

I am still alive. I have thoughts about what to do with this space but I'm not sure anyone's actually listening anymore so I'm not sure as I should bother. We'll see.

The kitten is amazing and I love her. Travis is amazing and I love HIM. My parents are still alive and I love them. I was gutted by Leonard Nimoy's passing. I still get migraines but I have insurance now so the meds don't cost an arm and a leg.

The cosmic ballet goes on.

Short one.

Today was pretty wretched. I do not have a diagnosis, obviously, but I think one of my mental issues is bipolar disorder. If this is bipolar disorder, it is the "ultradian" form, as I can cycle multiple times in a single day. Obviously this will be one of the first things I get checked out once the insurance is active, because while I can GUESS at this, there's no way for me to know for certain. If nothing else it can give me a starting point with a psychiatrist.

Also? As of this moment, my preferred pronouns are they/their and my name is reverting to Carla. I'd rather it were something more gender neutral, and I suppose I could go back to calling myself B or Bea, but whatever.

I would give a large sum of money to never, EVER have to deal with gender (either my own or others') ever again. I fucking hate gender, sex, sexuality and all that. It makes me nauseous.

Cracked open the first jar of my homemade refrigerator pickles. They're pretty darn tasty.

I've spent most of the day depressed (again). I'm trying to do self-care (took a shower and washed my hair, for instance) but it's not making much of a difference. It doesn't matter how good a job I do taking care of myself if I don't believe that I deserve to be treated well. And the fact of the matter is, I don't. I feel like I deserve every iota of pain and misery I've been feeling lately, much as I'd like it to stop. I don't think I've done anything specifically to deserve any of it; I just DO. If there's a pill or an elixir to make me mentally healthy and well-adjusted, I'd like some right now, please.

I might be going to try to learn German. You might ask, "Why German?" Well, I like it. Deutsch ist so schöne Sprache. I did some self-study a while back and it seemed pretty easy to grasp the basics. I won't be coming at it from the standpoint of someone trying to achieve fluency. I think I'm too old for that possibility, but it would be nice to be able to be able to hold a conversation with a native speaker.

The new season of The Simpsons started tonight and it was pretty good. We're going to watch Sleepy Hollow and maybe Agents of SHIELD at some point, though I'm a little less interested in those right now for various reasons. In the case of Sleepy Hollow I'm concerned that it might be a little to serious and intense for me in my current frame of mind. And I'm way behind on SHIELD. I think I have about half a dozen episodes from the first season to watch, and I've really, REALLY not been interested in watching them, so I may never pick that up again. Dunno.

Doctor Who continues to be a blast. I think Peter Capaldi is my favourite of the new Doctors, though Paul McGann's turn as Eight in The Night of the Doctor shows just a small taste of what might have been. The interplay between Twelve and Clara is so sharp and it's obvious she's discomfitted by the changes but she's up to the challenge of getting to know this occasionally nasty old man she's been saddled with. It's hard to believe we're halfway through the new season already.

Travis has the day off tomorrow, and we're renting a car (go, Zipcar!) to take my iPad mini back to the repair place to get the screen repaired. I hope they don't give me any shit about it. The glass is intact and there's no way on Earth they can tell me that the screen should have gotten fucked up from a light press. It's clear to me they damaged the screen when they replaced the glass.

I think I'm going to go attempt sleep. Depression and anxiety are exhausting.

Today's been a day. I got the job at Ralphs, which is good, except inasmuch as it's a huge stressfest for me whenever I start a new job. This is the third job I've had in as many years, and each time I've started one I fall into a major depression. Such fun. Once I actually start working I'll be fine, but until then… yeek.

But today I went to Ralphs to sign papers and to start on my computer training. I will apparently be working in the deli, so before I could do my orientation training (which will be on Tuesday at the Ralphs in Koreatown) I needed to complete a food safety course. This consists of five modules of computer instruction. Boring. As. Fuck. To compliment the stress of the day, I started developing a migraine (my third or fourth this week; I've lost count) during the training. So I'm sitting in a small room right underneath a speaker blaring music interspersed with the occasional announcement/page while trying to read the text in the flash video on the PC. Which is crashing a lot. Suddenly half the store is in there gabbing about work, birthdays and gods know what else. With the PC crashing and the PA blaring. Finally they disappear and, one huge crash later I'm back online and everything's running smoothly when the manager comes in and starts to eat her lunch. Then she puts on the speaker phone (which was about 10x louder than it needed to be—at one point everything was too loud and I had to plug my ears and she actually turned the phone down) and dials in to a conference call. *sigh* I was on the verge of tears when it all ended. Her call and my last module ended at the same time. She got me a t-shirt for my uniform (boo, hiss, it's a crew neck) and I was done for the day. BUT WAIT, there's MORE!

Now that I'm done with the food safety module I need to go to orientation. In Koreatown. At 7am. Whee, fuck. Travis is going to get a Zipcar and drive me up there that morning. I can easily take the bus home. Then, next week, I get to go to COMPTON every day from 7 to 4. This is a 2 hour (minimum) bus ride, through unknown territory and with multiple bus changes. I'll need to be up by 3 so I can be out the door by 4 (because no fucking way am I going to leave any later than that—I will NOT be late to work for ANYTHING). Really, REALLY not happening. So I started freaking out once I got home and realised what this all meant. I called my manager and asked what could be done. She said she'll see if I can get a ride with someone else. But if we can't make that happen, we'll just rent a car for the week. Travis discovered we can get one for around $100 if we rent it for the whole week. We'll be able to run a bunch of errands that way if we need to (and there's always something needs doing).

( This got seriously long. )

I took a look on Craigslist tonight to see if there were any voice acting gigs available. There were a few, but nothing good. Certainly nothing I could use as an entrée into the world of voiceover work. There were several "this is not a paid gig" postings, a bunch of (presumably duplicate) postings searching for a boy band singer and one really disturbing posting from an older couple looking for a young woman to have sex with them. Yeesh. So maybe that's not the way to go. I'm going to keep looking though. You never know what'll turn up. In the meantime I should probably work on making some recordings of my voice for a demo reel.

OK, it's been a few days.

Wednesday I was feeling…well, not suicidal, but I felt an emptiness and a depth of despair I didn't think I'd survive at the time. Clearly I did, but that was by no means a given thing. We took a walk down to the beach and walked up to the Promenade.

Thursday…I don't really remember. I don't really remember Friday, either.

Today… Hm. I woke up around 6 needing to use the bathroom. I had a migraine halo which was nearing the end of its cycle. I was surprised, as I've never had this happen before and didn't know it was even possible. I'd always assumed halos were dependent on consciousness, but they apparently are not. I guess it makes sense; halos are a neurological phenomenon and it stands to reason they don't need to be observed to exist. tl;dr: I got up, took a sumatriptan and lay in bed for a while afterward trying to get back to sleep despite the nausea. (Spoiler: I did, and I felt fine when I woke up again, four hours later.)

I had a pretty big crash in the late afternoon, but I recovered pretty well. When Travis got home we ordered pizza for dinner and watched a few episodes of Better Off Ted, which is the greatest show in the history of show.

Heidi has been a major snugglebug today! She followed me around from room to room and every time I sat down she'd jump up and settle on my chest for loves and skritches. :) She is a serious doll, though I think she took a piece of paper from my desk and hid it somewhere. She also likes getting up here and taking q-tips to play with/eat. She's a little silly sometimes. :)

Keeping this one short as I'm very tired and heading to bed.

We'll be getting $50 a week from someone who's going to park his car in our driveway four days a week while he attends classes at SMC. His mom was going around dropping fliers off at houses in the neighborhood. I talked to her a bit and one thing lead to another. Woohoo! Free money!

I watched Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro today. Haven't seen them in YEARS. Certainly not since starting transition. It was wonderful to see them again. I've got some more Ghibli stuff lined up for tomorrow (including Mononoke-hime and Nausicaa. Should be good.

We went over to a little burger place that opened up a while back near us, Shaka Shack. SO. GOOD. They have super delicious onion rings, too. We'll be going back again soon, I think.

Tomorrow we'll finally find out what Travis's raise is! You'd think they'd've told him, but no. Ah well. Also tomorrow I'm heading to WeHo again for another exciting installment of "Sitting in a circle with a bunch of other trans people". It might not be so bad if not for the fact that other trans people kinda freak me out a little.

And finally, on Saturday we're going to a pet adoption at a local pet store to see if we can find a kitten or cat to bring home to live with us. I really hope we can find someone who likes us and who'll take good care of us. :)

Oh, one last thing: I'm watching a SERIOUSLY AWESOME doco called "I Know That Voice" which is about—get this—voice actors. It's fascinating, and it's making me wish I could find a way to break into voice acting. I don't think I'm anywhere near good enough, but maybe I could be. Of course, being trans and having a largely masculine voice means I'm LOADS more self-conscious than a cisgender actor might. But I'd still do it. I have a few impressions I'm not awful at. I doubt I could parlay those into anything meaningful, but… I dunno. Maybe someday I'll find a way to at least make an attempt to get into the field.

Today's been good. The first really GOOD day I've had in a while.

I walked up to Trader Joe's to get some bits and bobs for tonight's dinner—roasted veggie pizza. The last time I went to TJs I got some sliced crimini mushrooms and some frozen artichoke hearts, and then when I got home I tried to think of what to do with them.

I roasted some tomatoes, a red onion, a bunch of garlic and then artichokes and mushrooms, and put them on some TJs pizza shells (they sell these frozen and ready-to-use) with some leftover pesto and shredded fresh mozzarella. Let me tell you, that was a SERIOUSLY delicious dinner. And there are plenty of veggies left over for at least two more pizzas, probably more.

I think the depression is mostly past me now. I kind of have a hollow feeling, like something's missing, and that feeling usually accompanies the passing of depression. Assuming this is really the end of this depressive cycle I'll find balance in the next day or two. Of course, I'll need to stay vigilant during this time to make sure I don't fall back into depression, which can happen all too easily.

Tomorrow, Travis has the day off. We're planning on doing NOTHING all day because next week will be very busy for him. Not only is he now the assistant manager but his store is currently being remodeled, and this coming week they'll be working on his sections. The store manager has told him he'll be able to get overtime this week so he's determined to take it easy tomorrow as he's not even sure he'll be able to take his other day off…erm…off. And they *STILL* haven't told him how much of a raise he's getting. The manager confirmed that yes, he's getting a raise, but he had no idea how much of one. He's supposed to be looking into it but he's working 12+ hour days and not getting his days off during the remodel and transition so it's completely understandable that he hasn't had the opportunity to find out yet. You'd think the main store would communicate this information to Travis, but no.

So let's see… The last time I posted was over a month ago. What's happened in that time?

Well… mostly not a lot.

I spent a couple great weeks in Wisconsin visiting my family. We went to Washington Island for a large chunk of the time there, staying in a house owned by my uncle's college roommate/best friend for life. It's right on the water, which makes for some lovely views, depending on the weather (which was mostly cooperative). There were more mosquitoes there than I've ever encountered anywhere else in my life. They were THICK. I'm amazed I didn't inhale any.

Time with my family continues to be equal parts frustrating and fun. Frustrating because nobody seems to be able to call me Carla or she with any reliability. Fun, because they're my kind of crazy (to a certain extent) and I just like spending time with them.

The visit was marred by a couple migraines, which sucks, but I had meds and was able to deal with them reasonably easily.

After I got back home, Travis and I went out to Pono Burger—an amazing little burger place that opened last year (?) here in Santa Monica—for his birthday. Then last weekend we celebrated our 16th anniversary by…um…ordering pizza one night and Thai food the next. We know how to live it up here, oh, yes we do. :)

And I've been battling severe depression the last several days. It comes in waves. I'm ready for it to be over, because June was mostly awesome, as was the first week of July. I was afraid the depression would come back, though, and it has—sadly—failed to disappoint. One hallmark of my worst depressive episodes is the feeling I should detransition. It's not that being a guy was/is better than being female as much as it is a feeling of discomfort with being female. I've been trying to unpack these feelings and there's definitely some kind of misogyny underneath it. It's a feeling of women and "female" bodies being… bad, dirty, disgusting. Misogyny, maybe? Whatever it is, it's interfering with my ability to accept myself and I'm ready for that to stop. I plan to get back into therapy (my last foray into therapy having been with a therapist last year in Chicopee who had less focus than I do and who seemed to want to put fires out as they started rather than dealing with deeper issues, and who seemed to be more concerned with Damian's mental health than mine tho he was not her patient) just as soon as I'm able to get insurance. I'd like to be a functional human being for once in my life. That's not too much to hope for, is it? I sure hope not.