Floater's diary

Snack: another sesame bagel, this time with truffle oil, nori sheets, tempeh, mushrooms, hot sauce and spaghetti squash; and a cup of sugared coffee.
 
Ooofff I have a sore cyst in my left tit. How ironic considering what I have in store for tomorrow :D But - I had assistance come over and we prepared for tomorrow, the same worker will come over tomorrow before the phone call and stay during it and for debriefing after, so I don't need to deal with the nerve wrecking call all alone.

I thawed green peas and rye bread for snacking later, I might also make soba or rice noodles if I feel like having something more substantial before bedtime. One 200g bag of frozen peas contains 10 grams of protein (rounded; 10.14 is the exact amount), not too shabby as it's only 150 kcal. The rye bread is to complete the amino acids in the snack, and I added a bit of truffle oil and nutritional yeast to the peas to increase flavor and satiety.

The dog has been fed, walked, and medicated, so other than taking her for a quick pee before I go to bed I have everything in order for tomorrow. There's food in the fridge and peace in my heart.
 
Floater said:
the same worker will come over tomorrow before the phone call and stay during it and for debriefing after, so I don't need to deal with the nerve wrecking call all alone.
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That's great!
Floater said:
The dog has been fed, walked, and medicated, so other than taking her for a quick pee before I go to bed I have everything in order for tomorrow. There's food in the fridge and peace in my heart.
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& so is that :)
All the best for the call, Floater 🤞
 
The phone call went really well! I have my first appointment with the same nurse who called me and my doctor in two months. During that meeting I'll be given a rough timeline of what's going to happen and when.

I slept really well, surprisingly, and had a big portion of fried thick rice noodles, cashews, and spinach chickpea curry before the phone call. The autism assistant remarked that if I were feeling super nervous and bad I wouldn't likely be able to eat before the call, which is obviously very much true. These things make me feel even more secure that I'm heading into the right direction and that my desire to transition is accurate; if it were driven by trauma, anxiety or hatred towards my body, I wouldn't feel so good in the body I have as I'm working towards the transition.
 
Oh fuck. I walked the dog, and in the elevator I tried to do a dynamic stretch to help with my back pain (standing in the elevator, I gently pressed the back of my head into the wall, then relelased). Well, something happened; right away it felt uncomfortable, and in a few minutes my neck got so stiff I can't turn it to the sides. I called my local health center and they told me to go to the hospital because the pain is spreading into my arms and I can only walk like a grandma.

Thing is. I don't want to go to the hospital. It's the same hospital I was an inpatient in last summer. I can't put myself through that. So I just pull my shoulderblades together to give me a bit of relief and mobility to, f.e. type this, and wait until 8AM tomorrow, give the health center a new call, and hope they have times available tomorrow.
 
Lunch: yuba, green peas, spaghetti squash and rice in miso broth. Eating hurts. I'll try and take a nap. I´m in no way able to walk to the hospital or take public transit. My ex gets home from work in two hours and promised to drive me to the hospital if I get worse.
 
Thag sounds scary! I assume the anxiety about the clinic call over the past days/weeks increased muscle tone to a point where your back got all knotted up. Let's hope a visit to the doctor and some muscle relaxants are all you need. Take care and keep us informed!
 
LaMaria said:
Thag sounds scary! I assume the anxiety about the clinic call over the past days/weeks increased muscle tone to a point where your back got all knotted up. Let's hope a visit to the doctor and some muscle relaxants are all you need. Take care and keep us informed!
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I also believe this is psychosomatic. Like, the pain is real and my muscles are fucked, but I don't think it's an emergency.

I'm warming up the sauna (my apartment has one), and I informed the assistance folks about the situation. My ex said he has some *herb*; I figured I might just as well try that, as I have previously used it as a muscle relaxant for similar pain, with success.

But first the sauna of course.
 
Great - the sauna seems to help a bit. Only while I'm sitting there, but still. I came to cool down and write down a pleasant realization: now that the trans process has officially started, I feel much easier sitting in the sauna with my body and thoughts as my companions.
 
Floater said:
I came to cool down and write down a pleasant realization: now that the trans process has officially started, I feel much easier sitting in the sauna with my body and thoughts as my companions.
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Awesome! The fact that the difference is noticeable even while your back is trying to kill you speaks volumes about the importance of taking trans issues seriously. Hope the, erm, herbal remedy does its part as well but if it doesn´t please do go see a doctor, ok?
 
LaMaria said:
Hope the, erm, herbal remedy does its part as well but if it doesn´t please do go see a doctor, ok?
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It did, thank you - the original issue is still there, but I'm in less pain and a little bit more relaxed. Let's hope it gets better during the night, but if not, I promise to go see a doctor. I need my body to be in as good of a shape as possible. Because - hear this - IT IS MY BODY! I HAVE THE RIGHT TO MAKE A HOME OF IT! I don't need to mind the opinions of people who will never accept me anyway.

Content warning: your boy is under the influence

There sure has been a huge shift in my ability to keep up healthy habits lately. I'm having shallow fried tempeh, rye bread, home made nutritional yeast dip, oyster sauce and olives for a snack. Do you guys remember what my menus looked like in March? And I have struggled with drinking too much, too. And now - just because this ONE HUGE STEP has been taken, one more crucial core issue resolved, I am methodologically working myself towards an image of the man I have always wanted to be.

When I was a young boy,
My father took me into the city
To see a marching band

Just kidding. I have to have evolved some pretty weird and offputting coping mechanisms just to deal with how my childhood was. I'm not saying I shouldn't behave every bit as smartly and healthily as I can, but the issue is, I'm not healthy. My body isn't anywhere near habitable for my mind. Because I have a man's brain and thoughts. It's pretty difficult to explain exactly, because societies have internally rigid but globally varying ways to code what "manliness" is. And it's extremely hard to act against how you are seen. There were undoubtedly many unsufferable c-words among the women who died in the witch hunts. That doesn't mean it was right. Some people are assholes.

Men are allowed ass-hol-ish behaviors that are forbidden from women. They repeat these behaviors so much that it starts to melt into the idea of manhood, if you don't do these things you don't really fit into the cathegory of a man. It's made even harder because you know that behind that bright forehead, you are what in a male-typical body would be called a twink. It's not just the body that's wrong, it's the thoughts too. Sensitive, needing a lot of downtime and a lot of assurance. Nature boy. Loves pretty things and houseplants. I don't want to fit into the current mold. I want to heal and then let my creativity bloom. That's the ABSOLUTELY FAGGEST WAY TO POSSIBLY PUT IT. If I had been born in the correct body, I would have been shrieking this stuff out loud wearing fishnets, combat boots and a sequin mini dress at 19 after the bar is closed, but I would have been surrounded by either a group of weird queer friends or a gaggle of girls, going through the hen phase in their lives and practicing their nurturing skills onto me. All a bit strange, but mutually beneficial.

As a boy in the wrong shell, I developed an intense interest in reading. It was a way out of my misery. I could put myself in the boots of male protagonists and leave my body aside. I developed an absolute obsession to Michael Ende's "The Nerevending Story", which is why I will never watch the movie. That book became the internal map of my life. The protagonist of the second part was a fat, lonely boy. I was quite thin as a kid and then mostly dieting in my teens, but my body was contorting itself into forms and folds I found horrifying. I learned to spend more and more time in my internal world just to escape the horror of my body. My absence from my conscious life affected my behavior, but I couldn't deal with the stress of being aware of the terror of my existence.

I developed a dream body, the one I mentally used when I was on the other side, hidden from the world's normatizing gaze. On the other side, my body was treated like a woman's would, and I had no power to resist it. It's like being a tiny speck of sand inside a wave, rolling and tossing you around at it's whim. For as long as you are sand, you'll never find direction, you'll be at the mercy of powers much greater than you.

The only solution is to change your element, what you are physically. Your problem isn't being moved around like water: the water is moving the sand around, but also spraying tiny mist of itself into the air above, and the mist is still water and the sand is still part of the bottom of the ocean. You simply want to go through your existence as water, and for that you have to adapt to the form of water. It won't be easy, it won't be quick, but it's doable. The process is different for everybody. It's also two street: you are changing the water as you become it, just by a little of course, but still; and you keep solidifying your identity as water as you are perceived as water by the water around you.

What a nice tongue twister!

All of this has been a "plant-based" rant, of course. But it feels good to just type absurdist text into the web. It takes my mind off the back pain. (Funny how I had back pain in that one dream!) And it helps to see my own thoughts become visible, when they have been hidden from the world for so long. They _come out_.

Anyway, I better TW this for drugs, but I'm feeling pretty fine. I think the back pain will subside, let's hope so.
 
I loved your "rant". Glad you got through the worst of that pain, but please get some help if it feels that it hasn't disappeared.
 
Great news, I got a doctor's appointment at 10.45! And one of the autism assistance folks can drive me there! I'll have to walk back, but I'm going to ask for an injection of muscle relaxant into the sore spot so I should be fine. Besides, I'm pretty sure that this is lumbago, and walking is actually recommended as long as the pain level is tolerable.

I woke up happy. I was in pain the moment I woke up, but when I opened my eyes and saw my home and my plants and realized that the ball is finally rolling, that in two months I'll see a doctor, that every appointment is taking me closer and closer to transitioning... I couldn't help but smile like the Cheshire Cat!
 
Excellent news on both fronts! Surely the happiness about that rolling ball should help shorten your back pain episode. I'm a firm believer in walking as back medicine but I also believe in getting things checked out and accepting chemical assistance when it's available :)
 
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