#recovery progress

[furiousgoldfish]

Okay I know I like to spiral in here and borrow grief from the future, but if I look back on all of the things I've been most afraid during my childhood, and all the things I've most wanted - none of my fears came true, and I got some of the things I never would.

My child self was terrified that I wasn't going to make it outside my parent's house, that I would never have a safe place to live, or a job, or be safe about food and resources. Dying on the street felt like a real possibility. While all the things I got are not perfect - I'm not in danger of becoming homeless.

What's more, people don't hate me, even while I struggle to make friends, most people find value in me and want me around. I've had people acknowledge that I've been kind and helpful to them, one time a roommate even bought me a little gift to thank me for all the help. I've been able to see, with the help of others, that I am needed and valued, and not a waste of space and air, as my parents would have me think.

I also used to be afraid that I could never do things other people do, that my passions and hobbies would always be worthless and discarded as trash, and this isn't even close to true. Having had some time to practice and to do it without any judgment or restrictions, I've been able to create lots of art, lots of crafts, indulge in all kind of projects; sometimes for practical reasons, and sometimes for fun. I've had some people compliment my creations but ultimately didn't even care because I liked them so much it overshadowed anyone else's feelings. That's something I could only have dreamed of! Not only creating without shame, but not caring what the rest of the world thinks, doing it without placing my entire worth into the hobby.

I used to lack faith in myself so much I thought I'd never be able to put together a coherent plan of what I want in life, or make good choices for myself, or even be informed about what kind of choices I was making. That was how my life used to work before, where all my choices would be punished and information withheld on purpose. Now I am at the point where I can see that I made the best choices I possibly could, that I invested into knowledge, information and experience more than anything else in life, and that it's paying off continuously. I know I'm on the right track and where I want to be.

Another of my fears was continuous depression. When I was a teen, nothing brought me joy, I existed only as an empty shell, looking down when walking, expecting nothing but bad things to happen to me. I felt nothing looking at the sky or the rain, it was all the same to me, I felt like a zombie. The weight inside of me overruled all my senses and I couldn't care less for anything around me. I was disgusted and ashamed of myself, and I didn't know how could I change or care about anything again.

This isn't the case today! While I have way less energy and health than I used to, I can experience joy looking at the sky, I melt inside seeing a small bird, I can't stop grinning if I see a small creature doing its thing. I can pull myself out of grief by seeing something that makes me curious. I can want and long and know there's happiness on the other side. It feels like life is store inside of those experiences, while all the dread and stress is temporary and unimportant.

I keep lifting the bar of who I'm supposed to be, and how recovered I'm supposed to be right now, so I always feel bad. But looking back I've come further than I'd expected. Child me would not have believed any of this possible. They'd be so happy to have even this ability to feel good about themselves, to know they are good, and that the world doesn't hate them. For them this would have been enough. And maybe the future me will make all my fears disperse as well. I have underestimated myself before, I shouldn't do it again.

[system-of-a-feather]

Okay so like, we started talking to an old friend again that we haven't talked to in like over a year, almost a year and a half honestly and it naturally has me having to go through the "aight what have you missed in the Feathers Saga" and thinking about it made me go "ok its a good chance to make a list of Total Ws in life and recovery to celebrate a year and a half of progress" cause god damn theres been a lot

Lets GO. 1.5 Year "we got this bread" positivity post to just go "God DAMN we are doing GOOD" (not an exhaustive list though cause that requires me to remember and go through every event over a year and a half and I may be at functional multiplicity but my memory is still garbage)

Trauma, DID, and Recovery Achievements:

Identified and got a system consensus that our oldest sister is a piece of shit and basically our life long "handler" and HARD cut her off out of our life

Rebuilt really good relationship (neutral but pleasant to supportive and reliable) with our other direct family members who don't try to force us to interact with her

Identified that we are probably considered polyfragmented and very quickly accepted it cause quite frankly we don't really care

Got most parts to acknowledge that we aren't faking being Asian (I know but that was a long one I swear to god)

Basically entirely got over our 6 year long difficulty driving cars SO much to the point we have multiple parts ARGUING who gets to drive and actively WANTING to drive

Largely let go of a lot of the anger and hurt directed at our parents for their role in our childhood trauma

Largely helped our main CSA trauma holder basically fully go into PTSD remission to the point hes now an uber helpful tertiary host and arguably one of our most comfortable parts talking about CSA related topics

Cleared stabilization phase of recovery and achieved functional multiplicity as confirmed by our DID specialist at the time

Fused like so many parts ngl. I don't know if Riku 1.0 and XIV 1.0 fused with their respective parts to be Riku 2.0 and XIV 2.0 around then cause it was about the time we stopped talking but there was that, the whole Data subsystem and shit, integrating Chunn into the system and helping him renavigate that crap, Lin fusing with an inner world part and shit - lots of that XD

Became a (Zen-leaning) Buddhist which plays a decent role in how we approach our mental health and cultural identity

Finally went from "undiagnosable autistic" to "Yeah you are autistic" because functional multiplicity enabled a more clear diagnosis

LOTS of gender dysphoria shit and gender shit that is too much work to break into main bullet points

Gained massive insight into how we intend to approach our reclaiming of sexuality

Learned to literally meditate and just enjoy existing

Realized we reaaaaaalllllly have a low threshold for dealing with people who we don't actively and strongly enjoy being around

Career and Direction Wise:

Graduated our undergrad - woot woot

Got a job supporting special ed - enjoyed it made good connections but also noted that god no dealing with people so much is not our cup of tea

Got a BETTER job at a reputable university to support research on aging memory with mice that has really good benefits - really like this job but also its not our cup of tea because we don't really enjoy the monotony

Came to the decision that research wise we really would rather deal with people on the "less" than the "more" end, scratching off a lot of human-focused research interests at least for the time being and greatly narrowing our previously wide scope down to the more animal heavy side

Sitting on old topics we researched and found interest in, realized the one thing our brain kept going back to was metrics of studying animal mental states and that we really probably would enjoy that as a nice balance between our interest and what we have the personal ability to engage in sustainably

Decided we are in fact going back to our PhD now that we have decided that 1) working life as a gear in a machine is cool and relaxing and shit, but it lowkey makes us depressed with how stagnant it is and we need more going on in our work life to keep us happy so "ok we tried that, we don't like it, back to the plan" 2) we have a pretty good idea of what we want to study at least for the beginning of a PhD career that could go in different directions organically

Scheduling currently a Zoom meeting with a professor we are interested in to informally discuss graduate studies

Independence, Hobbies and Other Shit:

We live on our own, sustain our life on our own and live with our fiance who - despite being currently unable to work due to disabilities - we are able to support and sustain (also bless zen Buddhism making it easy to be happy and enjoy life on a lower income)

Made some really nice mutuals - you know who you are - yall are good company love yall

Between the parts that are co-hosting, we have so many hobbies and interests its ridiculous; but we added electric guitar, ukelele, and recently a drum pad to our musical repertoire; gardening and plant care (which we suck at which is fine) added to the hobby

Became painful morning people as a result to our job and kinda realized we prefer it sorry for being that guy

Lost the ability to do the peacock call due to T dropping our voice range like a BITCH but in returned gained Raven calls and duck / goose noises

Also learned to do finch calls

Rescued two lovebirds when we moved to an apartment with our fiance - they are lesbians and very confused about it

Adopted a cat my fiance's mom was fostering from a kitten cause shes a shoulder cat (bird) and also now because of XIV she is also a dog who plays fetch and loves belly rubs (she also has extra toes)

Consistently continued doing art, developing the story world, encouraging my writing partner to get into art, aggressively shaking all my friends to art with me

Got Lin to be obsessed with art with me as well

Kept up a 230 day duolingo streak juggling like 6 or 7 different languages (the last like 120~ days or so have been a lot more 'just keeping it up' and me just doing one lesson of Japanese a day since its the one I know the best but it HAS been kept up)

Transitioning:

Started T and stayed taking T

Got a hysterectomy GOOD BYE PCOS

Am charted for seeing a surgeon to discuss bottom surgery this month

Am charted for seeing consult for top surgery at Some Point when the insurance stuff goes through

Have long since forgone our Dead Name in almost every area and got comfortable with our Chosen Name

Considering participating in Transmasculine No Shave November out of Transpride

[u-r--lovely]

Today I am TWO years sober from drugs and alcohol. Today, I also stepped through the walls of a treatment center but unusually sat at an office desk instead of a chair. I started my very first internship and was able to help and be there for others. The past few years I’ve learned so much and after the loss of my younger brother I didn’t think I’d make it. Yet here I AM. It really does get better you guys. It gets better because YOU get better. I did. And I will continue to do so. 💕

[werevulvi]

For the past few weeks I've felt different about my detransition. Something has changed. It's subtle, but it's there. I feel estranged from my male traits, almost as if they're not really there, as if I distance myself away from their existence, subconsciously pushing them aside. I shave my face almost every day now, also when I'm not going anywhere. It doesn't feel like a chore... it feels like self-care. Voice training is fun yet very demanding, and I feel so very good being able to talk in female pitch and sound like a woman again, that I don't really want to talk in my deep range anymore. I still love my deep voice in a sense. I just feel better with a higher voice. Like something resonates within me then, and that resonance makes me smile. I've been beginning to feel as if I do not need my male traits to feel safe. To not just know, but to also feel that they can't protect me. It's scary but it's also a relief. Because it doesn't change how safe I actually am, only my perception on what safety means. And that is exactly what I'm trying to achieve. I cannot treat my male traits as an enemy, because they are not. They are a friend that I'm clashing with. The enemy is my perspective and irrational fears, which make me both attack and protect my male traits. That causes a huge inner conflict which resembles fluctuating dysphoria. But it's not gender dysphoria, it's trauma-induced sex dysphoria and PTSD. I work with my traumas in quite simple ways. By shaving often but making it a self-care routine instead of a chore, I connect positive feelings to the task and focus on the reward of looking more like a woman afterwards. Of being able to smile at my mirror reflection instead of frowning at it, and thanking myself for having made that effort, instead of cursing myself out for not having done a better job. Because it's not perfect; I can't make it perfectly smooth or hide the "shadow" but I should be proud of myself for doing what I can do. By shaving on days I have no intention of going anywhere, just as well as I do on days that I do go somewhere, I make shaving into a thing that I do for myself, instead of for the approval of others. And same with voice training, it's also something that I do for myself. It is indeed a very simple thing, to just shave and dress up nicely every day for myself, even if I'm just gonna sit alone by my computer that whole day, but it has a huge effect. I'm focusing on that I feel good when I'm dressed up, instead of that I feel bad when I'm scruffy and wearing dirty, mismatched clothes. I don't dress up into some fancy party outfits or anything. Just a regular long skirt, a cute hoodie and my head scarf, and do minimal makeup. Fix my eyebrows, add a little bit of mascara, sometimes contour and blush on my cheeks, and perhaps a tinted lip balm. I can almost swear my face looks subtly more feminine now than it did a year ago, and I'm thinking it's possible that having been off testosterone for a year now has started to affect my face shape ever so slightly. It doesn't really matter if that's true or not. What matters is that it makes me feel better about my bare face, and like maybe I can feel confident without makeup again someday. I miss that. There are subtle feelings building up within myself. New feelings, that I struggle to put into words. I feel lighter, more confident, better about my body and its current state. They are feelings of hope, and of being more grounded within myself as female, and I try my best to nurture them. It's not about my style, or my personality, but I feel more feminine somehow, even when I don't wear makeup, and I adore it. I'm already starting to find comfort in my femaleness instead of my male traits, and it's profoundly liberating.

[vrepit-salt]

So my kidneys are currently not trying to assassinate me anymore so p r o g r e s s.

[brightandblossom]

Despite the frustration and disappointment I am feeling, I channelled those into a win and got myself this super chocolaty flapjack with a coffee break this morning!

[3ladyinred3]

Had a breakthrough during therapy this morning which was exhausting™ and I've learned a ton of new things at work and I feel like I need to sleep for a year to recover from this

[3ladyinred3]

If feeling utterly alone and fucking miserable at best is a sign of "progress" I really want out lol