Droplets from the voyage of a trans-woman

Long time, no post. Process-wise, pretty much nothing has happened. Life in general has been another question though. My gf broke up with me bit over a week ago. I'm still completely crumbly. Last week's friday was the worst, I wasn't able to do much other than cry. I wasn't able to eat in three days other than breakfast, which I have to eat because of meds. And even that was hard. I have lost 4kg of weight. I think her constantly. I miss her. I want her to become back. This has been extremely hard for me. I have thought things which would have resulted this and was able to figure out several. I hope I can at least apologize about those in person, I don't want to do it over some messaging app. And because that isn't enough, my mom was officially transitioned to terminal care. She has had type 1 diabetes for 65 years (she is 68), and several doctors have said to her that it is medical miracle she is still alive and well. Well, her legs are typical so right l

Rough three weeks. My gf had halloween parties bit over a week ago, which was basically another tracon how much it taxed us. Things are normalizing again but it is really hard to push through by just seeing on a glimpse every now and then. It is a negative feedback loop, which is really bad thing in a relationship. Fortunately the loop gets broken rather soon after the event and turns into a positive feedback loop. But it was very hard for both of us anyway. I have to be careful with those negative loops as it is cumulative and possibly can end the relationship if it gets too bad. Or to burn-down of either, which is even worse. But it is good to realize it now, so things can be taken account to. And we have got some quality time again, went to amusement park and to see maleficent 2 in to theater. Though, not as much skinship  as I would liked but I'm bit demanding in that, so I'm trying to restrict myself and not to cling too much. But that is so very hard. I linked my bl

Way, way too long time. So much has happened and my mental strength hasn't been enough to deal it all. Voice therapy (finally), Tracon, Ropecon, great amount of time with gf, 1.5 year checkup, and what else? Lots of mental roller-coaster. I'll start with the voice therapy. It contained mere 3 times, of which two were about one week apart and third one month later from first. I got couple of very important tricks from there. First, widen the larynx to allow more air to go through while speaking, which alone was enough to get pitch up a bit and make the voice quite a bit louder. It is rather tiring to do it and requires a lot of conscious muscle control. Second, to soften the start of words. Like imagining unpronounced H in the start of every word starting with vowel. It was actually rather easy to get almost automatic. But these two tricks reduced the amount of low creaking sounds from my speak. Which in turn made the voice much much more natural. But, a lot of practice is st

Two weeks. At the same time those have been very long and very short. I have spent basically the whole time with my girlfriend. There is her work and was one convention in Kuopio which were almost the only things keeping us separated. When two people sync together this well, it is so frightening! We have tried to progress slowly. It feels like we haven't achieved that. The more we get to know each other, the more we want to spend time together. To the point that she is almost living at my place now. Only downside in that is that my bed is only 90cm wide, which is way too narrow for two people. The relationship has been doing good things to both of us. We are able to take care of ourselves. I have been able to take care from my apartment. I feel so much more energetic that before. It feels so good, to be able to actually do things without psyching up and do several things in a day! It amuses both of us that it has been only two weeks. It feels so much longer. Part of the re

Two years and one week. Wow. It's been quite a voyage already and I still feel like it's just the very beginning. I just have to start with most recent news, it actually happened today, or during the last night to be exact. I'm in a relationship again. I found this wonderful woman, with who I'm on exactly same wavelength and the waves are aligned perfectly. With who I'm more relaxed than with anyone else. Who makes me smile like a fool for the whole day. I had major crush on her, told about it to her on saturday, found out that it was mutual and today we decided that we aren't hallucinating and started to go out. She also happens to be goth as well 😂💜. And why we thought we were hallucinating? It is actually really scary when you have known someone for just a couple of days, and you already are able to read each other's minds. But, the feeling we are having is just.. I can't even describe it. And both of us are loving it. Loving the fact how relax

Another rather nice week. Apart from monday, rest of the week has been rather nice. Not especially good days but clearly more sunny than rainy. I have also slept better than in ages, for some reason, which has been really nice. I even remember seeing dreams (though, not what happened in them), which is huge. I haven't had dreams in something like 15 years. So, slowly to the better. I have kept myself busy as I just can't handle whole day without seeing people. It feels so weird. The better I get, the more extrovert I become. And I don't have friend network of an extrovert. Today I went to see my parents and felt down because I had "socializing hungover", but because I haven't seen people enough , not because I have seen them too much. Yesterday was Hypecon, so I saw people but as our studio wasn't advertised and it was bit hidden, not many people found it. And for the same reason I just looked people wandering around, which isn't enough for me. I w

I was bit too busy yesterday (and got stuck later into interesting conversation) so didn't have time to write. Doing it now then. Past week was underlining the fact I'm extrovert. Thursday was public holiday so I took friday as saldo leave, to get 4-day weekend. That friday was major mistake. Being at home whole day passivates me so much that my mood goes through the floor, trying to crawl into the soil. Even though I spent pretty much whole thursday and saturday at work playing Elite: Dangerous with the VR set we have there. But friday was very hard mentally. Fortunately there was some Tracon stuff happening on sunday so that was good reason to leave home for a while. The passive feeling is so numbing. I don't want to read, watch, play or otherwise do anything. So I just start reading manga or book, read it little bit, then put it away if it wasn't interesting enough (those rarely are in that amount of reading). Or play enough to get into the game and then put i

I'm writing this under TMI section because I want to open a little bit, but it is still mostly my usual mindflow. Just be warned. Past week was actually rather amusing. I have had so many good days in a row now that I feel puzzled. There was only one less good day in the middle but even that was more good day than bad day. I was just exhausted from the trip. The work trip itself went really well, it was good to see people I'm working with. I was also able to do rather long work days on monday and thursday, so even when I had friday off on purpose, I was able to get 20 plus hours, so I had almost normal work week in 100% contract! That's a lot of hours in 4 days. But the hectiness didn't stop there, on thursday we had unit evening. On friday I had appointment with psychologist and after that I went to see my parents. Yesterday was Tracon's recreation day. So we went to play some mini golf and had dinner after that. There happened to be some party of one of the a

It's fascinating how my mind swings work. Today was slow-starting day, I didn't even have alarm clock ringing as it is weekend. After eating breakfast and overthinking everything once more with coffee, I managed to psyche myself up to wash some laundry and do some paper war. But, those services had maintenance break so ended up just chatting with friends. And after I got laundry to dry, I went to work to play Elite: Dangerous as we have VR headset (HTC Vive) there and my colleague brought his HOTAS there as well. So I have spoiled myself with those, that game is so much better with proper flight sticks and in VR. After playing some hours, friend/colleague (=ex-co-husband) sent message that if I was still playing Elite at work and as I was, he paid a visit. After finishing my remaining missions, we went to grab some dinner (in burger king...) and as it was so nice day, I decided to walk home. My friend went with me as his wife was at work at the same side of the city where I

This is mix of HRT update, rambling and whatever. I just had so bad feeling that I had to let it out somewhere. Though I don't even know what should I write. Last month hasn't been one bit easier than previous one. I'm getting exhausted so easily that I wonder how I am even able to do anything at all. Three hour workdays are pretty much maximum for me currently. If I work longer, I'm just laying on a sofa rest of the day or something. I also divorced from my partner. I wasn't able to put enough effort towards it and she was so busy with her life that she didn't have time or energy to keep up the relationship by herself. And relationships aren't like that anyway, they need support from all participating ends. So, our feelings just died and we agreed that we will drop the romantic part away and stay as just friends. It's easier for both. I'm also feeling that I'm not going to be in a relationship for a while, I just don't have enough energ

It has been extremely rough one and a half months. This post will be more me writing out the bad feelings than about the HRT, as not much has happened. Well, let's talk about the HRT first. Last month was just sum up of previous year so looking bit further than one month. After the depression med, voxra, was left out, hormones started to work differently, more strongly. Because of that I went to blood tests, and doctor said that they are now in very good levels, testosterone was 0.2 (way less than cis-woman normally would have) and estradiol was 0.62 (around same amount cis-woman would have). So, happy about that. My boobs ache every now and then so they are still growing and my muscles are sore. And I notice more and more that I have lost a lot of strength. Though, my weight hasn't changed much, so it must have been converted to fat. The sick leave ended with me going back to work. But as I was almost 6 weeks away, my occupational doctor thought it would be good idea to ta

One year. It's a short and a long time at the same time. So much can (and has) happen in a year but it's still just 1.27% of average lifespan (79 years). This post will contain TMI part, which I will disclose as this post is gonna be very long one. It's mostly just a sum up though. So, 1 year ago, about 08:00 in the morning, I applied first patch to my skin and took first anti-androgen pill. How the medication has went? I'm using Estradot patches as estrogen and spironolactone as anti-androgen. In addition to those, I'm using migraine inhibitors. The dosages started with 25µg with estradot and 50mg with spironolactone. Estradot is small(ish) piece of white, translucent, flexible plastic patch with glue on the other side. The estradiol is mixed into the glue and it will permeate the skin and go straight to the bloodstream. The glue is same in every dosage, only size is different. Spironolactone is normal pill. In addition I'm using finasteride as I was baldin

One of the big days process-wise. I went to see psychiatrist in HYKS/HUS in Helsinki today. I also called yesterday to hormone clinic as hormones are working differently now. The nurse couldn't say anything and doctor was busy so she called today. She didn't know either anything just by talking about it so I will go to blood tests to see current hormone levels and go further from the results. Hopefully this is just my body working like it should be. Today I had appointment at 14:00 in Pasila, Helsinki. Takes about 2 hours with train to get there. And as it's not exactly good weather for trains lately, I reserved one hour for the train to be late without me being late. But against my realism, the train was on time. So, had one hour wait before seeing the doctor. The doctor herself was ..interesting. She was overly gracious, which was bit annoying. She asked about the first round and the time between and what I have thought and so, pretty basic questions considering I h

I have had pretty bad anxiety in form of dysphoria lately, and just a moment ago I realized why. I will write generally about my dysphoria in this post. It will contain text about my libido, how I handle the dysphoria now and generally things you might not wanted to know about me. Asexuals might want to stop now. I will start from the beginning. Like I have written previously in this blog, at least indirectly, my dysphoria wasn't that strong at first. It has always been around but I realized it's existence about 10 years ago. After that it has made me think things more and more. Enough that it made me to go to trans clinic. It might be good thing that I didn't start the process 8 years ago, even though I regret that I waited this long. After visiting there and having the examination period done, it never left me alone. As I didn't get the diagnose at first, I lied to myself that the dysphoria is just some form of transvestism or something, tried to ignore it an

I so late again. But still better late than never? So, another month. I have filled my calendar with stuff so haven't had much energy or time to write here. Also, hormones have done things so sneakily. Ending the Voxra caused my weight to hop up some kilograms, so I have had hard time controlling how much I should eat. I'm not sure if that or hormones have caused that my boobs have started to grow again, they are almost filling D cups already 😵. I'm also feeling that it has caused my body work better like it should. It do have caused some migraines but fortunately I have working medicines to it now. Rizatriptan have helped a lot in a form of orodispersible tablet, so it will help rather quickly. Not much have actually happened by hormones, boobs yeah but my mind has settled quite a bit. My way of thinking have stabilized to be like any woman's. Though that means I use cryptic and ambiguous sentences, which causes bit too much trouble of people. I have to practice

I can clearly feel that I'm much more functioning than before, so decided to write even while I don't have that much of a things to say So, the depression med withdrawal symptoms included serial migraine, I got migraine attack on last Sunday, and on this week's Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I went to see a occupational doctor (not my "own" as she didn't have any free times left) on Wednesday and she wrote me sick leave for the rest of the week. Ironically I didn't have migraine attack on Thursday anymore, though it has been tickling my brains the whole week. But even having migraines, I have slept better. My smart watch tracks my sleep and there has been quite a much really short spikes that I'm awake. Amount of those are at least halved. And I can really notice that even while I don't remember being awake at night. As when I had sleep polygraph done, they found that my brains awakened 130 times during the night so it's likely that my watch

Hectic two weeks again. Some updates anyway. Like I wrote last time, I lived about two weeks at my partner's place. Last week back to work after vacation and very hectic week as other things started as well. I also went to see occupational doctor. The time I spent at my partner was very relaxing and I was able to charge my batteries quite a well. We watched Star Wars episodes 1-6 (in that order) as I hadn't watched them. We had fun times overall and I really enjoyed the vacation. It was (and is starting to be) just bit hassle to keep the relationship secret from my parents. I wonder if my mom suspects anything, I think she might. Last week was rather hectic at work as there was some things which were pushed to my plate. I also joined to tech team of theater group and it's first rehearsals were on tuesday and wednesday. As that is university student group, they kinda like to drink. So, there is some sitting in the bar after each rehearsal, I hope that doesn't cause

New year, another month. Looks like I forgot to write in two months so covering those as well now. A lot has happened. Much of it has happened mentally and my life has been in quite a havoc. Like I wrote in last post, I'm now in relationship again. The relationship has helped me really much, as I can be very womanly. It has also helped with the bitchy side as I can be very soft with my partner. My partner is quite mentally strong as well, which helps. And the softness has really helped to discover and explore the feminine side of me. Helped me to get rid of the unnecessary roles and to change the base role closer to the core, or take the tint away from it. Like I wrote previously ( #58 ), I'm feeling like Mira and woman. I'm starting to love myself and my looks. I have gotten more confidence. As I was starting to feel back in the previous post, it really have started like I thought. The bud is already half open, embracing the sun. I feel now that pursuing CS was holding