Fia's gendercake was full of wasps and this is a totally unexpected development (kinda)

[infiniteandsmall]

Okay it wasn't totally unexpected I've been mulling over it for like three months? Kinda?? But idk at some point it was really unexpected

I've worked every day this week, I just have tomorrow night and then I'm off until Sunday but will still be going down to the barn for fun stuff like riding/hanging with friends/the barn christmas party. Yesterday I was filling in for the usual groom, one of my really good friends who I don't get to see a lot was the junior groom, so it was really fun, and then while I was finishing up cleaning a saddle my lease horse's owner came into the lunch room and said, "hey, do you want to ride Skip? I hurt my knee and I can't." So I got to ride him and ended up getting home at seven ready to drop. 

Today was a little rougher, while I was getting ready to leave I started getting really bad period cramps. Which, sigh, I generally do not get my period, it just does not happen, but it was the second one I'd had in less then three weeks and I was very done, but as they got worse the weird gender dysphoria that had been lurking around since I put on the third sports bra rose up and was just...a lot. And it all feels so strange because for a while I considered myself to be pretty firmly a girl, like that was my identity and sometimes I even liked to present pretty femme. But lately I haven't been polishing my nails and I can't stand wearing any of my more feminine pairs of earrings and when my mom makes me wear skirts to church it's less omg-these-are-annoying and more OMG-WHAT-WHY-THIS-ISN'T~RIGHT~. I wrote a post on vacation that was partly about glee and party me messing around with the idea of possibly being genderqueer, but it's so daunting and confusing and I don't know where to start but my skin doesn't feel comfortable some day and I want my hair short but I know my mom would kill me, I want my boy's clothes again, not baggy jeans that are feminine, mom jeans, but baggy jeans that don't show the hint of hips, and I want a binder so so so bad I'm sick of wearing so many bras and still being able to see boob. Thank god I am tiny-chested and look pretty much like a prepubescent boy as it is. I took some painkillers and found myself scratching at my chest hard enough to rip the skin and was like oh great now I have to go into work like this. At this point my stomach was cramping and now my chest and boob area was throbbing and my feet and legs did not register and my hands were spacing in and out of my brain list of "things that will work" and everything was kind of miserable. 
But then I had a riding lesson and I have a blister on one third finger but not on the other because Spike was leaning into my hand more on the one side, and that blister belongs on my skin and it burns a little but the burn is not the burn of -this is not my body this is something strange and foreign and what am I doing in this- it is the burn of -you are human and you have skin and this skin encompasses your mind and also your heart and also your nerves and it can be molded it can be changed but you you are the mind you are thoughts you are electrical impulses- and it is comforting.
Tl;dr today was WEIRD AS FUCK and kinda terrible and then it got better 

Comments

[sylvaine]

Oh bb. *hugs* I'm glad the day got better, but I'm sorry it was shitty to start with! I... I know that feel rather well, the sudden dysphoria after after some time of wondering, and ages of feeling fairly happy with being femme and feminine and female. And I'm so sorry your mum makes you wear skirts to church, omg, that sounds awful in that kind of dysphoric phase.

(And I don't mean "phase" as in "oh, it's just a phase". Just, the way that you used to feel perfectly comfortable with femininity & now not so much, sounds very familiar, and in my experience - though of course yours may be different - that dysphoria comes and goes. (Which is why I call myself genderfluid between genderqueer & female, when I'm being really accurate.))

The whole questioning your gender identity and genderqueer thing and all of that really is so very confusing. Particularly since there's so little resources or support to be expected from much of mainstream society. If it helps, it's perfectly valid to just try on the label for a bit to see if it fits. Or to feel absolutely comfortable with one label for years and then decide it doesn't fit anymore. Or to have multiple, even contradictory labels (are you familiar with yaygender.net?) Or to make your entire rlist be part of your confusion by writing long navel-gazey posts on the subject. (Like I did.) Or to refuse all labels. (Or to be so confused you just throw up your hands in disgust and fail out of the whole thing because it's too brain-hurty. That was me for a long time, too, tbh.)

Do you have a fairly reliable deadline for how long you'll still be living at home? The first thing I did once I turned 18 & went to work at my grandparents' for two months was cut my hair short. It was much easier away from the influence & immediate freak-out of my father. (Though I also have a supportive mum & siblings, which helps a lot when I'm at home.) Point being if you know you'll be away in, say, a year or two, the added dysphoria of not being able to dress how you want to may be easier to bear because you know it's not permanent/long-term.

IDK about the US, but here so-called "boyfriend cut" jeans are/were fairly popular recently? So that might work for a way to sneak boyish clothing past your mum. As for binders, IDK how much better they'll work than sports bras - better, certainly, but ime they don't completely flatten your chest either. :/ For me, they work best with an undershirt+a loose unisex t-shirt on top, but ymmv. If you have a way to buy stuff online without your mum's involvement, I bought a couple binders from a seller from China (or Taiwan?) on ebay recently and I'm really happy with them. They're fairly comfortable and super-cheap (like, 10$, and not all that much extra shipping) and can totally pass as just an undershirt/tank top and they're easy to undo surreptitiously/without taking everything off if breathing does get too difficult. (I can't figure out how to find them on my phone rn because ebay is being a pain, but I'll add the link tomorrow when I'm at a computer with internet.)

*huuuuugs* I'm always available to talk if you want/need to. Skype or email or What's App - whatever works best for you, I'll PM you my deets.

(The way you described the difference between the pain of the blister and the pain of the cramps, btw, is SO ACCURATE and SO WELL PUT. I've always tried to put to words why the former kind of pain - the pain of having done something - is so much less painful than the pain of period cramps, but I've never managed it to my satisfaction. This, though, is great.)

[out_there]

*hugs*

[adafrog]

Well shit. Glad it got better.