I’m very sorry. Are you getting counseling or other support for this ill-timed accumulation of family losses?
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I liked the dress I wore this morning but apparently it screams “tranny” so it’s off to the donation bin. To make things worse, I wore it on a visit to one of those churches with an “everyone welcome” sign where it turns out everyone… isn’t.
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That’s terrible, I’m sorry it happened to you, and the rottenness of not being treated as a fellow child of God happens to newcomers cis or not in many “welcoming” churches.
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I’m sorry to hear that you had that experience. People can be really crap sometimes.
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I see a shrink semi-regularly but I’m largely of the mind that there’s nothing to be done and I can only move forward. I try not to spend too much time stuck on regrets or else I probably couldn’t get out of bed in the morning.
It also doesn’t hurt that my family is all hundreds or thousands of miles away so I can feel semi detached from all this tragedy.
It’s still hard, though.
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Did they tell you that at the church?
Don’t bin it just yet. If you like the dress, keep it, screw what other people think.
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If you dare return to that church for services, wear a different dress: a light-coloured solid you can paint or use fabric marker “IF GOD LOVES ME JUST AS I AM WHY CAN’T YOU?”
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I think you must be a kinder spirit than I, because from my way of thinking that’s not a ‘Fuck Today’ that’s a ‘Fuck Them’.
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Oh no, it was nothing that explicit, sorry, I might have made it sound like a bigger deal than it was. It was more of a thing like, I know very well what those smirks and giggles mean and don’t need to feel this out any further, which isn’t a uniquely bad human experience by any means. Just not hitting the aspirations to welcome everybody.
I changed clothes later and hit the much more comfortable “most people figure out I’m trans but they think they’re mildly clever for it” level rather than “people immediately assume it’s public knowledge I’m trans” which is altogether a different experience – sorry I’m so bad at explaining this stuff, a lot of it is hard-won intuition over the years.
I think part of the reason I don’t avoid religious spaces, is even if they can sever the emotional & intellectual ties to the tradition I grew up in, they shouldn’t be allowed to pretend I don’t exist altogether. In a weird turnabout, I often catch myself thinking “my presence here is a blessing to these people,” which might be a little over the top, but contains a kernel of truth.
Sorry for kinda rambling. I go through phases where I don’t want to talk about this stuff at all, because I worry I’ll be defined solely by it, and then phases where I figure this stuff is still playing an important role in my life – and I don’t want anyone to feel scared to broach the subject – so I should probably just be open about it. I’m still finding that balance tricky.
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You’ve just described my feelings about my mental illness(es). Which is to say, thank you, because even if it’s about something different, it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one hanging on to that pendulum.
offers Internet hugs if you want them From the view here, you’re awesome.
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I always take hugs!
Hugs back
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I totally get it.
Yep. With the first one, they see being trans as part of your identity. With the second one, it is your identity, and you don’t have a shred of humanity beyond being trans.
This more or less reminds me of how the Catholic Church views gay people. For years, it was more or less an official position of the Church that gay people were trolls bent on infiltrating the Church and changing it from the inside. They say that’s changed now, but I don’t buy it. There was an uproar when gay marriage became legal in the US, and they still use terms like “disordered” when referring to homosexuality. This whole thing turns my stomach even more when I think about how they handled, and continue to handle, sexual abuse cases.
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Day 17. The bandage is off but the drama continues. The tape that was attaching the bandage to her foot has made the skin raw so the next few days mean she needs to be in an E-collar with a steroid ointment applied. She’s pissed off and miserable but at least she can walk reasonably well now and use the litter box on her own so big progress there. Our vet says it’ll be a couple more days before that heals. Sigh.
So exhausted. Still have barely slept and I don’t see this getting any better for at least a few days. I can basically fall asleep at the drop of a hat now because I’m so damn tired.
As promised here’s a picture of her awesome scar:
I’m hoping it doesn’t skew her stripes when her fur grows back there.
Here’s a picture of her and her BFF a couple of days ago:
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Get well soon kitty!
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You’re a good pet parent! Sounds like your coming around the final bend, though.
And get well angry kitty!
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My god, the heat!
It’s officially reached the point in the UK where “Sorry I’m late for work, the main road in, melted”, is an Actual Thing.
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In the US, this happens too. It happened to our driveway, and that was in the upper midwest.
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Oh for sure!
As I’ve said before, [ETA: This has been a frequent rant in the last few days, and I’m losing track of where I actually have made this complaint ] lots of the UK people hereabouts are crotchety and suffering because we’re in the middle of the two-week summer.
Other places absolutely have both more heat, and longer heat, but like with the two-week winter that also shuts everything down, it’s such a dramatic change from the middle-range weather that we get for the other (48) weeks that we’re never suitably equipped for it, either personally, or systematically and people and services quickly fall apart. Including me. 
Every winter we scramble for salt, and every summer we scramble for fans. Many of us are now waiting for the inevitable thunderstorms that signal the resumption of normal temperatures.
(We’re much more used to rust than suntan, I find)
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I knew we were called British Columbia for a reason. 
Okay, so it’s only a small part that is like that. But go ahead, ask the rest of Canada if people from my region* even know what weather is.
*If you can see the mountains, it’s going to rain. If you can’t see the mountains, it’s already raining.
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Fuck today.
After nine months of leading me on, a job finally told me they’d chosen someone else for the position. Several interviews, endless waits…
I’m conflicted, because it would have meant a large raise now and the potential for significantly more money. But working for a company that takes nine months to hire- that seems like it might be indicative of other problems. Maybe I dodged a bullet?
Anyway. At least I can stop worrying about it.
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