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I write and I write and I never publish…

I write and I write and I never publish…

You should see my drafts folder. I have started so many entries and never finished them. Much like so many other things in my life.. I’m actually the worst at follow through and project completion.

Full Disclosure:  Between this paragraph and the last, I cleaned the fish tank, shaved my legs, picked out jamberry wraps with Megan and had a couple drinks.

Motivation is something that has been a recurring discussion with my therapist. That it.. I have none. I don’t know if there’s an answer to that, a solution to that problem? I’ve been doing it for all my life.

That said, there’s been a lot going on in my life in the last couple weeks. The largest and most important was the birth of my second child, Hunter. He was born on Tuesday the 19th of May at 13:37. Weighing in at 7lbs, 7oz with a height of 19 inches. He was born 3 weeks premature, but suffered no ill effects from this. Mom is doing well and is on the mend. Both are home, after a extended stay in the hospital.

Through the joy, I’ve also been wallowing in self-despair, self-loathing and general depression. The thought of how much I’m going to fuck these kids up over the years. The consideration that I will never be a real woman. Even in discussion with Megan, I referred to myself by the dirtiest of slurs in the transgender world.  Basically that I might never pass, I might always be the awkward shemale tranny weirdo.

I’ve cried more in the last 2 weeks than I have in the last 2 years and I think I can attribute most of that to the hormones. I’ve read about this side effect and I had sort of dismissed it because 2 months in, I had seen nothing of the sort. Of course, my first month was at a dosage so low, I could have gotten more estrogen drinking the tap water around these parts.. so I might just be seeing a slightly delayed reaction.

In any event, after that discussion with Megan, I slumped on the floor of Hunter’s bedroom and cried. Just worried that my children will be forever screwed up because their father is a woman. I really don’t want to admit this to anyone, but I think it’s important to put it out there. For a (very) brief moment, I thought being dead might be the better option. Suicidal ideation is not something foreign to me, I used to think about it all the time when I was a teenager. It’s something that crosses my mind from time to time over the years between puberty and now. I’ve never attempted suicide, nor have I ever planned any sort of elaborate plans. It typically goes something like this… “Hrmm, I’d probably be happier/better off dead. The world would be better without you” which is quickly followed by “You’re a god damned fucking idiot.”  So, I just sat on the floor, crying….

“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” — Dr. Johnson

Depression and everything else aside, I continue to push forward with my transition. I sent in my check for the deposit on my surgery with Dr. Marci Bowers. This should occur sometime summer or fall of 2016. We are hoping to get a summer date, so Megan can go with me to California for the procedure. It’s about a three and a half hour surgery, which will have me in the bay area for about 2 weeks. The recovery is something like 6-8 weeks beyond that. Having never had major surgery before, it’s kinda scary to think about. It’s also kinda weird to consider the changes… but something I’ve been researching and thinking about for over 20 years now.

I also changed providers for laser hair removal. My previous place wasn’t actually laser, but IPL which is short for “Intense Pulsed Light”. It’s supposed to work all the same, but it also assumes that the vendor is on the up and up and aren’t playing games with the power output in order to sell you more sessions. I came in so cheap on the initial place that I think I should have known better.  The new place is 10 times the cost, but they guarantee success and give a 2 year warranty on hair not growing back. I start Wednesday. They said a 20% reduction is typical within 2 weeks of the first treatment. We’ll see. I would love to not have to shave my face every day. If I could get away from that, I could probably go without makeup more often.

I guess there’s more to say, but it’s late and tomorrow is my first day back to work since Hunter was born. More later.

Also, dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature…

Also, dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature…

It’s been a minute since I’ve take the time to update here. I think about it, but as I’ve been explaining to my therapist… I have a real motivation problem. She says I’m not depressed anymore, she’s pulled the diagnosis. However, I’m not so sure. It’s not an all encompassing depression, but I certainly think it still lingers. With that, I look at so many things and think, “I should be doing that.” I should be cleaning the house, I should be trimming the bushes, I should have Hunter’s room finished. It is what it is.

So it’s been a big week for trans people everywhere. Bruce Jenner finally comes out and says it on national TV. He still wants to be referred to with male pronouns for now. That’s fine, it’s his own decision. I feel weird referring to anyone who says they are a woman as “HE.” I get upset when people refer to me as he, him, sir, etc. Pronouns and being misgendered is my biggest peeve currently. I totally understand where it comes from, I mean I certainly look like a man most or part of the time. Unless I slather on about 2 lbs of foundation, my beard shadow is a dead giveaway. My voice hasn’t changed. So I sound like a man. That’s another thing that falls under the “I should be doing X” category. It’s just very hard, progress doesn’t come instantly, and I’m embarrassed to do it anywhere someone else might hear me.

On the positive side, I did finally get my name change back. I have a new updated drivers license, social security card, and I’ve even managed to get one credit card re-issued. Yay! I started writing down everyone that I need to call and or write, and it’s a staggering list. Especially for someone with motivation issues.

Another item for the positive category, I had my follow-up with my new Endocrinologist. New Endo is SO MUCH better than the old endo. After rechecking my blood with about 8-9 vials drawn, he’s upped my Estradiol. He’s also added in Medroxyprogesterone (Provera) and Spironolactone. The Provera is supposed to help with breast development. Preliminary anecdotal evidence says that it’s working. I say that because while I haven’t noticed much in the way of growth, they are very tender. That’s a good sign. The Spiro is actually a blood pressure med, but it’s used off-label as an Androgen Antagonist. That is, it helps reduce testosterone.  The doctor said that even after a month on Estradiol alone, my T levels were still pretty high.

This morning, I had my fifth session of laser on my face. After the 4th session, I’m certainly seeing some serious slow down on the re-growth. I’m hoping to see more progress on this session. I have one more pre-paid session left. After that, I’m not sure if I will continue this course of treatment or switch over to electrolysis. I’m kind of scared of electro, because it seems pretty painful. I’m so tired of shaving my face, and even more tired of the beard shadow that doesn’t go away with shaving that I can justify the pain though. We’ll see.

I’m trying to think if there’s anything else exciting going on that’s transition related. Not coming up with anything..  I’ll write more later, maybe. HA.

Oh, right

Oh, right

I also forgot to add that I got my ears pierced on Saturday. Something that Megan and I have been sort of at odds with for a while, I’ve been wanting to do it for sometime. In any event, once we were done with pictures, I paid some lady at the mall to push little rods of metal through my flesh.  All in the name of femininity!

addy-pierced

Why would he do that?

Why would he do that?

So in the last week, let’s see.. what’s happened?

Most of the week was pretty standard. On Thursday, I went to visit Focus and get my hair and eyebrows done. These folks are awesome, and I’m in love with them. Let’s just be honest.  Hair and Brow game on lock.

addy4addy3

 

Friday night, I went out with Lee, Dustin and Jesse to Rubbie’s in full fem. This is the first time that I’ve been out with them as Addison. It was nice to be out as myself. Nothing special to report in terms of that. I used the women’s restroom without incident. Sadly, this is seems to be news worthy to me. My ability to pee in peace seems to be the most important part of an outing to me these days. Seems silly, but sadly true.

Saturday we had family pictures in Elizabethtown. These pictures were at the buttcrack of dawn. Well, 9am. Which means we left the house at 8am. Which means… yeah, we got up too early. I had basically promised Megan one last time in boy mode. For her own sake, for her memories. So, I put on my costume…

sean

Pictures were fine, I love our photographer. She’s really great. However, it felt really weird for me to jump back to being Sean after being Addison. It’s hard for me, kind of sends me back in to a place of dysphoria.

After that, I dropped Megan and Grayson at church for the yearly easter egg hunt. After I dropped them off, I went to Best Buy and picked up a very expensive electric shaver. My mom suggested I might have better luck with electric. I bought the Braun 7 Series, which is the highest rated per Google and Amazon. It’s terrible. If this is the pinnacle of electric shaving, we’re all doomed.

shave

 

That’s about an hour after I shaved. Mind you, this after 4 laser treatments. My regrowth is pretty slow. So… I think that shaver is going back.

So, that’s Saturday. Aside from Kentucky losing.. not much to say. Oh, wait. I changed my name on Facebook from Sean to Addison. I’m facebook official!

Sunday, we went to church. My first time as Addison. First time in church wearing a dress. I did not burst into flames. There were some glances, I’m sure a comment or two, but no incidents. A number of hugs and handshakes. I avoided the restroom on purpose. I had to pee, but I really just didn’t want to find out how “Barrier Free” they were.  When we left, I commented to Megan that I didn’t burst into flames. We’ll call that success.

Next came dinner at Grandma’s. Still in the same outfit. The ladies were more supportive than the men. A couple compliments from the ladies. At best, the men ignored me. At worse, use of male pronouns and my birth name. Being referred to as “big guy” really gets the estrogen flowing. Ya, know? Whatever. It’s a process… at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

So, that brings us to today..

Today I had my first appointment with Dr. Poorkay. I had been looking for a replacement doctor after being treated fairly unprofessionally by Dr. Winters at U of L Physicians. I was pretty impressed with Dr. Poorkay. He seemed to be genuinely more interested in helping me get to what I’m trying to achieve.

He pretty much confirmed that Dr. Winters is either ignorant of the proper protocol for treating male to female transsexual clients or he’s delaying our transition on purpose. I believe it to be the latter.

His comment was “Why would he do that?” when I explained that Dr. Winters refused to prescribe me Spironolactone. I couldn’t answer that question. I explained that Dr. Winters told me that he believed that if he gave me an androgen antagonist that the body would up the testosterone production and cancel out the effects of the medication,.

Pretty much all of the available literature suggests that just Estradiol (estrogen) by itself will not do much, unless prescribed at fairly high doses. At my 1mg twice daily current regimen, I’m not likely to see much in the way of female puberty.

Unfortunately, despite having all my records from Dr. Winters blood tests, Pookay still wanted to do some additional testing. Winters did not test my estrogen or progesterone levels, only my testosterone. So, we’re doing blood work again. Due to how busy this practice is, it’ll be a week before we get results back from the lab.

I have a follow-up appointment with Poorkay for the 21st, at which point, I’m expecting him to raise my dosage of Estradiol and add Spironolactone along with some sort of Progesterone.   He says I won’t get the breast development that I’m looking for without the progesterone.

Based on his interest on my own goals, I think I’m going to be happier with Dr. Poorkay than I have been with Dr. Winters. I’m unhappy with the 2 week delay on getting started with the correct regimen, but it’s better than the 7 weeks I had with Winters… only to get less than half of what I expected.  The two weeks is actually not that big of a deal, it’s more that I’ve been working on getting to this point since December.. which means that if I get scripts on the 21st, I will have invested nearly 5 months just to get HRT. So that’s what’s wrong with trans healthcare in the USA.

Monday Update

Monday Update

I guess there’s plenty to update, although some days it doesn’t feel like it.

I’ll start with work. So I made it exactly one week before someone said something about me using the women’s room. The person wasn’t even in the restroom. They yelled at me when I came out. The dialog went something like:

Her: “Did you just come out of the ladies room?

Me: Yeah?

I just kept walking, didn’t matter. I belong there, HR signed off. However, this marks why I thought everyone should be informed of what was going on. The person in question didn’t work on my floor. So I sent email to the director of that floor to let them know who I was, and explaining my situation and HR’s stance.

This generated HR calling me and then basically they went around and told everyone, small groups at a time, who I was and that I’m a transgender woman in the process of transitioning from presenting male to female.  That was on Thursday. All has been quiet since then. We’ll see how it goes.

Still waiting on my name change paperwork to come back from the state. Seems to be taking FOREVER. In an ideal world, it would show up tomorrow. This would allow me to go to the social security office on wednesday, update them. Once that’s done, I have to wait 24 hours to get a new license. Which would be be perfect because I have a hair appointment on Thursday. So I could go get a new picture taken while I’m fresh to death, kid.

I have my first appointment with my new endocrinologist on Monday. I’m excited for this, because I’m hoping he’ll give me the spironolactone so we can get this show on the road. I’m also going to ask him about Progesterone. I’ve read that I can help with breast development. I want to have the maximum safe effects as quickly as possible.

I think I had more to say, but I’m losing focus.. Maybe a more thoughtful post later.

Buy the ticket, take the ride…

Buy the ticket, take the ride…

No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten. –Hunter S. Thompson

A busy couple of days. All of my days seem busier as of late. I kind of miss the weeks where all I did was take Grayson to school and then come back home and go back to sleep. Where my evenings were spent drinking at Hooters.  That said, the lost sleep is starting to pay off. It’s all happening is a line from Almost Famous that I really like, and it’s kind of fitting for me. I’m starting to see some progress. Maybe not physically, but progress never the less.

its all happening

So, after two weeks of pestering (by pestering, I mean two emails and one instant message) my HR lady finally came back on Monday and said that I can begin to use the women’s restroom at work. This was both exciting and terrifying at the same time. I mean, as I continue to present more and more fem at work, I need to not be in the men’s room. It’s just not right. On the other hand, I still look like a man in makeup. I don’t want to make the other women in my office uncomfortable. As much as I feel like I belong there, I want people to be comfortable.

So I’ve been hitting the restrooms that are less frequently traveled. Trying to run in and out as quickly as possible. So far, this has worked well enough. I’ve only run into one other person. She was walking out as I was walking in. She did a double take on me, and just kept moving. I don’t know who she was.

Today, I finally got my estrogen prescription. My endocrinologist still refuses to give me the spironolactone to block the testosterone. But just having the estradiol make me feel like I’m getting close .

train

Despite it all, I’m probably looked upon at work as some sort of freak and in public as probably a creeper crossdresser. I can actually understand people’s reactions and that’s probably why I don’t get more upset. It still hurts though. When I’m putting so much effort into getting up early and shaving, trying so hard to cover up my shadow with makeup. Applying mascara and lipstick. Curling my eyelashes… shaving my legs. Only to be misgendered by everyone. I went to Target tonight, all made up. I wanted to try on a skirt. I had every intention of spending a bunch of money and buying a few different outfits. The girl running the changing room pointed me to the men’s side. I looked at her, and said “Seriously?” I just walked out.

It’s probably not her fault. I look pretty manly. As manly as someone can look while carrying a purse, wearing skin tight jeans and makeup. But it’s hard, Hard to push so far forward but it’s not enough. You’re never quite there. At least not yet. Two steps forward, one step backwards. That’s still progress though, right?

Ok, It’s time for me to go to bed, if I intend to go file name change paperwork and not go back to bed in the morning…..

Depression, Dysphoria, Drinking

Depression, Dysphoria, Drinking

The 3 D’s in my life. Believe me, You don’t want these D’s.

Before I delve into all that, let me pick up where I left off. My ramble on the doctor had run a little long, and I never got the chance to fill in the rest of the day.  So after the doctor’s office, my feeling of excitement was again dashed. I had felt good about myself, and confident of my appearance. I was excited that I was just right on the edge of getting the hormones that I so desperately need to fully start my transition. Of course, once again I’m still not there. The only good thing that came from my doctor’s appointment was getting correctly gendered on the elevator. A lady said “Oh, I’m sorry ma’am” because the door almost closed on me.

I spent the next hour or so looking for a clinic or doctor in the Louisville/Southern Indiana/Lexington area that would prescribe based on the informed consent model. Basically, a doctor that will say “read this” and hand you a list of what’s going to happen, the risks, side effects and then if you’re ok with it, they write the scripts. No question of if they think you’re ready, or if you’ve shaved your pubic hair, or whatever.

Sadly, there do not appear to be any in this area. Chicago or Atlanta was the closest I could come up with. Planned Parenthood does, but none of the ones here. Mostly in NY and Cali. This is something that’s so lacking in many areas, because trans healthcare is pretty sad.  I tried to call PP to confirm, but after sitting on their menu system for 34 minutes and 58 seconds, I gave up. I really didn’t want to sit on the phone with them for an hour to get the news I already assumed to be true.

So, I decided to cheer up and just try and make the best of a rainy and gray day. I put my boots back on and headed to the mall. I had a dress that Megan and I had impulse purchased at Forever 21 without having me try it on first. Way too small, in a large, I couldn’t get it over my hips or my shoulders. Sad, it was cute. I just probably need a 2X in that brand. Forever21 doesn’t do cash returns, so I have store credit. I walked the store for 30 minutes, and it’s just so…. disorganized that I gave up. I think I’m going to have to shop in the plus size department and I just couldn’t find anything I liked because you have to stop at each rack and go through each garment because there might be 4 different tops on one rack.

I also had a ring that Megan bought for me for Valentine’s Day that I needed to get sized. I took it into the jeweler and actually got two compliments. One girl said she liked my boots and then another said she loved my dress. So that made me feel good. The ring won’t be back for a week. I’m excited to have it, because it’s pretty and girly and that’s kinda what I’m into right now.

My biggest achievement of the day was successfully navigating the women’s room at the mall. One of those huge 20 toilet bathrooms. I tried to just be as confident as I could with that “I’m supposed to be here” attitude. No one said anything and if they gave me a funny look, I didn’t notice because I didn’t make eye contact with a soul.

I went to a few other places that day, Qdoba, the grocery store, etc.. All without incident, comment, ridicule or otherwise. It was great. I felt so authentic and just very comfortable in my own skin. This is where I’ve been trying to get to and it feels so good. However, the highs bring the extreme lows afterwards. Megan is still not comfortable going out with me in full fem mode. So I slipped out of my outfit and back into jeans and a t-shirt for dinner. As soon as this happened and I wiped off the lipstick, I kinda fell back into the dumps. It was like back to reality. The land of “Sir.”

I had to work yesterday, and it was all fine. Except for the working part, but I’m just sort of androgynous. Sort of, is probably the wrong word. If everyone didn’t know that I was married, they’d assume I was just a very gay man. I’m certainly the only “man” in the office that wears jeggings to work. They probably still think I’m a gay man who just happened to be married. Some people know about my transition and there’s been a little gossip, but I don’t think it’s made the full rounds of the office. However, one of the people I work with, who was our team leader when we first came out of training has been very nice to me and kinda checks on me from time to time to see how things are going. That’s been really cool.

After work, Megan drug me out to dinner with Grayson and her mother. I think the thing is, with the way I’m presenting at this point, my male is too gay or fem to pass for male, but not over the tipping point of being girly. If my hair was longer, and if I had boobs, I’d be a woman.. but for now, I’m just a man carrying a purse in some jeggings.  So honestly, I think I get more puzzled glances like that, than I did in the dress.  Megan’s uncomfortableness is with that attention, but I think we’re getting more attention as I am now than we would all out.

So last night, when I came home, I was just used up. I didn’t want to do anything except mope and wallow in my depression and dysphoria… which leads to drinking. Nothing like self-medicating your depression with a depressant. Right? But that’s how I work… when things are great, we celebrate, we drink. When things are bad, we contemplate, we drink. I’m not saying it’s right, but it is what it is.

Megan tried to make me feel better, laid with me. She had me put on one of her nightgowns and tried to ease my mind. She’s so great, I love her so much. Here she is trying to manage her own emotions of losing the man in her life, and she’s trying to help me feel better about things… I’m so fortunate. We’re both trying to minimize the distress of each other, but every victory I have comes at her expense. There is no win here for her, just loss and grief.