Thought I’d write something about how I’m settling into my new face seeing as it’s now approaching 4 months since, due to good fortune from an old friend, I went to the amazing #FACIALTEAM in marbella. To begin with I really want to acknowledge how lucky I am to have been able to access this as I totally know how near to impossible it is for poor people to access life affirming surgeries. after the bandages were removed I was in shock. I didn’t like it. I felt sick about it but didn’t know what to say as everyone was so brilliant and lovely. as the swelling started to subside and the popping things under my scalp started to melt away I realised my initial feels were shock of how profoundly the difference was and my reaction was actually to a face that was swollen, stretched & kinda tight. I couldn’t believe how much space there was between this new tiny tip of my nose and my top lip. That massive bulb was actually gone. my top lip, I thought looked thin and drawn. It dawned on me how much of my nose they had got rid of. I started spiralling thinking about a lip lift or some kind of plumper that I might need. luckily, especially over the last 6 weeks or so I’ve really started to settle into it. I wasn’t looking for some kind of surgical view on what makes a woman pretty or attractive or any of that, I was looking for enough momentum that a couple of procedures could do to nudge my own view of myself into how I actually saw my self internally. This has done that. Totally. Gender has coloured everything in my life since I was a kid and when I finally got it together enough again and transitioned I wasn’t actually looking at some nebulous goal of ‘woman’ it was always about pushing away from something and I knew that FFS done the way facial team do it, would give me some final momentum and help me finally reduce the tinitus of dysphoria to a level as low as possible. I now no longer think about gender any more which, for myself feels like reaching some kind of state of total enlightenment and for that I am supremely happy. Thanks eternally to zed, Nat for the understanding of this & obviously @facialteam for being subtle yet profound and brilliant ❤️
