lifeblogging stuff

AJ, 24. genderqueer This is the lifeblog for tumblr user windything. A lot of what I post about is my experience with the Lap Band procedure and also Gender Stuff. Some times I also have things to say about school or depression so expect to see that too.

[windylifeblows]

nostalgianmemories:

reblog this w the reason you didnt kill yourself yet

bc i tried, and i failed. and i was really scared for a long time that i even tried at all. considerably more upset and scared than i was that i hadn’t managed it. 

bc eventually, the worst of the desire to do it did pass. it felt like it never would, and even if i had thought it might eventually, i didn’t think i was gonna make it far enough to find out for sure. but, i did. 

and yea. in time i went on a down swing (or several) again, but. i remembered that i made it through this before, and i kinda had to make myself remember that i could do it again. 

it’s like one piece of art advice a professor gave me years back. he said something like “don’t be afraid to erase or go over that, you already drew it before, you can do it again.” 

i think i’ve applied that to a lot more than just art. if i stop being happy for a time, that doesnt mean i forgot how to do it forever or i can never do it again just as well. i’ll recover. i really need reminders that i’ll recover. i try to force myself to look at times when i was happy and not think this will never be me again but think of it as a goal. it’s hard, but. it’s helped me. 

plus, i have a cat who is really really fond of me. she’s kept me from being alone when i lived by myself and was at my worst, and whenever i started crying she would come up to me and nuzzle me and purr and do her best to keep me happy. sometimes she’s obnoxious as hell for this exact reason bc she’s needy and never leaves me alone but i’m needy and never leave her alone so i guess fairs fair. 

and my mom. i. the rest of my family, i might be sorta whatever about because of something that happened years ago, but man. my mom. she already lost one of her best friends years ago to suicide and has never recovered from it, and i know that i would be a significantly worse hit. i couldn’t. 

and honestly i just? i’ve kept telling myself that i don’t want to die a failure. 

but i don’t think that’s exactly what it is. when i have it in me to think of the more positive side of it, it’s that i really feel like i can achieve a lot in my life. i can and want to become something more than what i am right now before i die. i believe im capable of something really great, even if its not something thats gonna change the world. it’s gonna be great bc it’ll be something thats right for me. and i know one day i’ll get there. and if i’m gonna do that, i don’t wanna be the thing that stops me from achieving it. 

[windylifeblows]

in case anyone ever doubted: it's actually really hard to catch babby hair growth on camera because its so light. BUT ITS THERE. i swear its there. 

my body hair is more noticeable on camera but i don't really feel like showing that off on this blog haha sorry. 8') 

[windylifeblows]

so in case anyone was curious, AJ is henceforth going to be short for Atlas James. i'm not gonna change my legal name from AJ again or expect anyone to call me Atlas (tho u can!!) but it was important to me to find a new thing for AJ to stand for 

[t33j]

[yourpersonalcheerleader-deactiv]

Cognitive Restructuring for Anxiety

[wristfevers]

god damn this is so important & I’m going to reblog it every time I see it

[windylifeblows]

is it common not to know where you want to be in ten years? or even five years?

sometimes i try to think, hey, what's my long game? and frankly, i have no idea. i genuinely can't imagine me at thirty-four. try as i might, i really can't. i can barely imagine where i'd like to be two years from now. 

and part of that might be the depression speaking, even though i've admittedly been making my way to a pretty alright place after a few months on anti-depressants. but after spending years feeling like i can barely make it from day to day, maybe that's part of why i struggle so hard to imagine what could be ahead. 

[windylifeblows]

my poppy is in the hospital - I came home to NY to visit him. Though he's only two days out of surgery he seems to be doing alright, imo. Which I'm really glad about. 

I hung out with him for a few hours today and there was something of our conversation that stuck with me. 

He apologised for sometimes calling me by my birth name. It didn't spawn out of our conversation or anything - he'd just noticed after a while he'd been calling me the wrong name and apologised for it. I was really touched to hear it. 

He said, "AJ, trust me. I understand not liking the name you were born with. My father... man, I tell you, he pitched such a fit when he saw [preferred/middle name] on my diploma instead of [first name]. But I'm an old man and sometimes I goof up. I want you to know I'm not doing it on purpose. AJ is who you are, and I respect that. I think it really fits you, babe."

A few people in my family have told me outright that they're going to ignore my choice because "well, I always called you [birth name]" and bc they didn't want to learn to change or some bs like that.

So his words just. meant a lot to me. 

[windylifeblows]

so i haven't posted to this blog for a while.

my life has seemed mostly unexciting. i can't find work and i'm fighting depression, so a good day is one where i get up and actually cook something or go outside without strictly having to. 

my family has finally moved into their rebuilt house. it only took about a year and 7 months after the fire for it to happen, and its still being worked on, but it looks rad and they're happy to be in there. 

also i started t on august 10th.

it's a low dose and my body's been reacting a little fussily to it (i think that hormones + the lap band are causing a stomach upset more often than not) but things will even out eventually. i was really excited to post about it at first and maybe catalogue the differences it makes in me but, y'know, depression killed my enthusiasm regarding doing a thing regularly kinda quick. which is unfortunate. 

but, hey, it's only the beginning of this particular journey so who knows how i'll feel about posting more in the future.

[windylifeblows]

I was received as male more often than not this past saturday at katsucon. It was really nice. This is the first time that sort of thing has ever happened to me. I'm gonna have to contour more often, I think it makes a difference.

[windylifeblows]

wow another gender rant cool

I know I usually put this sort of thing under a cut but I've finally hit the point where it's like THIS IS MY LIFE BLOG, WHO CARES. I SURE DON'T!!!

Which is refreshing.

In any case.

I have been asked several times in the past (and more than once in the past week, which is what spurred on my writing this) when I am going to move on to being entirely male-identifying. This question has come about in many ways, from asking whether or not I felt the term "bigender" is what fits me right, to saying things like "well you could always be a femme-boy if you still like wearing pink and stuff". (I know at least one person who has asked me something like this is probably going to see my writing here and I just want you to know that yes, while my talking with you might have probably encouraged this, I'm not writing it as some PA way to say WOW SCREW U, I'm just clearing out my mind space.) I'm not going to say WOW NO WAY I WILL NEVER BE MALE IDENTIFYING because, who knows, maybe at one point I will sit down and go, wow, I feel no connection to being female any more, and I feel no connection to being bigender any more, I guess I am a guy 4realsies. But as of right now, I am not. And I do not see that changing presently. Yes, I am often grossly uncomfortable with the parts of me I see as feminine. Like, to the point where I cried after a recent skype chat with new friends because I thought everyone present was going to misunderstand that I am a person who feels I'm masculine despite my really girly voice. And yeah, sure, I would rather be seen as male if someone's going to put me in either binary gender category. I mean, I'm even wholly comfortable with someone using  "he" to refer to me in place of my requested "they". Sometimes I even feel I'm more comfortable that way because then I don't feel I have to explain the whole nonbinary thing. And, I dunno, some days maybe I feel like I'm kind of fluid between NB and male, but good god I don't feel like making that kind of distinction, that's so needlessly complicated. But. BUT. Still. I dunno. I have a problem with people basically making me pick sides. Yes, I'm more inclined to one end of the gender scale than the other. Yes, it makes me really uncomfortable because that side is the opposite of what my body is and what most of my appearance is and what most of my life had been. Yes, I will get frustrated when I don't "pass" as male because I don't feel there's really a way to "pass" as NB in todays current society even tho I think that would be really lovely and would make me feel good as heck. THIS DOESN'T MEAN I HAVE TO PICK SIDES. I wouldn't feel comfortable as "just" male in the same way I don't now feel comfortable as being perceived as "just" female (the fact that I currently don't like being seen as female very much at all aside).

One day, hopefully, I will have a body that better reflects some of my masculine image, and maybe then I will be able to comfortably express my femininity again, or maybe then I will cast it away entirely. I will not know until that time comes.

For now, I know where I stand, so seriously stop asking me to pick. I really am not comfortable defending my identity on the spot, especially because I feel like NB isn't taken seriously, and I would like to stop being made to feel embarrassed for it.

There's nothing wrong with me. :(

(It took me a really long time to admit that to myself, when it came to my gender. I struggled so long with acknowledging my being bigender, and nearly had a break down when I realised that put me under the trans* umbrella, because I didn't want to be, I didn't want to struggle with that identity, even though I already was doing that without the extra label or acknowledgement of the community (that has since been good support). It's taken me a long time to get here, to a place where I am mostly comfortable and relatively sure of myself as to where I stand even if it doesn't always mean I'm happy.

This is my place. I made it myself and decorated it with stickers. Handle it gently and be nice to it or I s2fg I'll cut u.)

[maddiwaddy-deactivated20170828]

What is something someone told you to change about yourself?

Hi guys, I’m doing a senior thesis on others perception of beauty and how people feel the need to comment on anothers physical appearance. Please tell me what people have said what you should do with your body. Be it hair length, weight, wearing something, glasses or contacts, makeup, adding or removing a tattoo…anything. Something someone else has pointed out about yourself that sticks out in your mind.

this would help me a lot so please reblog with your answers to get more viewers!!

[windylifeblows]

here's some backstory: I had weight loss surgery a year ago. It worked out pretty well for me and most people who have known me for any longer than a year either know about it or can actually see the difference. Also, I buzz my hair off! I think it looks cool and it spares me from looking too feminine because I have Problems with that.

So, I was at home visiting my mother at her job, and a lady from her office told me, "now that you've lost that weight, maybe you should grow your hair out so you can be pretty".

My memory is legitimately terrible but I am like 95% that's almost word for word what she said. So I can be pretty. I can't even begin to describe the ways that got under my skin, but I'll spare you the rant. It is definitely something that sticks out in my mind tho so there you go.

Also from the age of like 13 to 17 or so my mother made me regularly get my eyebrows waxed to look "thin and pretty" even though I am really prideful about how big and beautiful my eyebrows are.

[windylifeblows]

Sometimes I want to shout from the rooftops that I made it through this semester okay, genuinely okay, no one understands how it's amazing that I'm okay.

I don't know if I ever blogged about it but literally my families house burned down in February. To the ground. I learned about it while I was at a convention, and wound up pretty much in shock for the rest of the weekend. I lost everything that I do not have at my apartment for immediate use. Everything from my childhood is gone.

Due to Circumstances, I don't really remember my childhood before like age sixteen or seventeen, so the physical things I had from it mattered, because there was a story to them I sometimes thought I could piece together.

But thank goodness I had some photos and stuff on my computer, right? No, because in March my entire hard drive crashed and I lost everything, including my thesis, which I'd been digitally painting. In hindsight, I should have been backing it all up, but I had to learn the hard way just why that's important to do.

Let's just not talk about how also my dog and one of my cats died this semester. And also my great uncle. And also how my entire phone crashed in April and I lost all my photos on there and all my contacts as well.

So, yeah, I have every right to be fucking down.

It's a shock that I'm not. Last summer I was supremely depressed. I mean, full out crippling depression, where were I not too listless to do something drastic, I honestly might have, and I was too fucking scared about being judged or turned away for my hopelessness that I couldn't bring myself to confess it to fucking anyone.

Naturally, I was terrified of that I was going to become depressed over all that happened this semester. I mean, I know depression doesn't necessarily have such clear on-off switches, but I thought that I'd not find my footing and would fuck up my thesis and would just spiral downwards awfully, again.

But that didn't happen. I managed to keep my head above all the bad shit, even though it kept hitting me left and right. I didn't go three weeks without something legitimately awful happening to me since the start of 2013. 

But I'm still okay.

Sure, I keep getting sad from time to time. I have really emotional days, and get really down on myself, especially because graduation just hit and I didn't graduate with the rest of my class (which is, admittedly, something I saw coming from a ways away). But I'm okay, and knowing I had the strength to overcome all that is really, really great to me. It was something I didn't know I had in me. It's something I hope I can continue to call upon.

[windything]

an announcement!

since i was reminded to bring it up to the internet today. so here it is: i’m not going to go by jillie any more!

i’m pre much going to answer to AJ exclusively.

admittedly i might come up with another handle at some point and bleed it into my online life (i say, as if i do not have one in mind already), but mostly i just don’t want to go by jillie any more so please respect that and address me as AJ.

thank.

[windylifeblows]

I feel like I should edit this to say that I've decided on Oscar as a handle.

Because Oscar is a fantastic name.

[windylifeblows]

I really, really should give an update on my life post-surg some time soon but I really need to just get some gender rant stuff off my chest because I can't figure out where else to talk about it.

It's all behind the cut because I don't have the balls to post it without despite this being my life blog where I am not supposed to give a fuck about posting read mores.

.

Ok so. SO. As I've said once before, I've comfortably identified as bigendered for a while but I'm growing increasingly less at ease with anything associating me with being female over the past. idk, while.

My preferred pronouns are either they/their/them or ey/eir/em (i find the simplicity of they/etc. easier to ask of people, though the latter makes more sense to me to address a singular person) but I still, like, have people in my life who, despite knowing this, refer to me with feminine pronouns and I just. cant for the life of me bring up the nerve to ask them to stop.

Like, I don't have a problem asking people to call me AJ instead of my given name (and side story but ugh, one of my neighbours found out my given name off mail they accidentally got in their box and it really bothered me). But, I dunno, it's not like correcting someone when they get your name wrong is really that much to ask of someone.

Sigh.

These things are just something I have a lot of trouble bringing up to other people.

Like, a lot.

A lottt.

I mean, I can talk about gender things! But when it comes to how they personally affect me I get very quiet and private. It makes me really uncomfortable which is strange because I am such an open person usually.

I just don't... discuss this with anyone. Mostly anyone. There's admittedly a single person I will breech the subject with, but that is the full extent of it. 

Ugh it just makes me so anxious.

Man though I really have been dealing with some serious issues with how my body is versus how I want it. I can't stand my breasts. I have wanted my chest guyflat since as far back as I can remember. 

And, of course, my main binder stops fitting me right and my older one is way too loose on me after I lost as much weight as I did and I ORDERED another but my fucking mailman never got it to me they just returned it to sender through a whole frustrating chain of events that took like a month and a half so it's easily going to be another month before I get it to me and blah blah blah. Basically I can't bind properly right now and it's. . .

It's just been really hard on me.

Really. More than I even thought it would be.

God I could go on for ages about the things I am not okay with on a daily basis. Like how I hate my voice because it's so cutesy girly and how it's even worse when I talk to strangers since I make it even more light and girly and unoffensive as possible out of nerves over the fact that I wish I was doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of that. And I could rant about how I don't even know how I feel about my piercings any more because they just seem too girly and. and. and. etc.

Man I usually take so much pride in being someone who likes my body but I'm so. I need to change. I need to come off as more masculine to myself as others to feel comfortable in my own skin or it's going to just keep making me impossibly sad.

I keep thinking like, how far do I want to push towards the masculine end of the scale - do I want to try being addressed with male pronouns? But I just. I don't know. Man. Ugh. I just don't know. I've thought about it but, like, I dunno. I know I'd prefer male pronouns over female ones if people aren't going to fall back on they/etc. but... I feel like I'd need to change more to be who I want to be before I can make that decision to ask people to try and see me that way, too. 

Ugh man this all probably made not even a single lick of sense I just sort of needed to get these feelings out somewhere because I was too unsure to unload this on a particular person.

[windything]

#weight loss things (but wow good things)

usually post about this on my lifeblog but idgaf rn because I just realised a thing and i’m so fucking happy. 

I went to my surgeon yesterday and found out my weight is 164, which puts me at 41 pounds under my starting weight (think what i looked like at otakon, guys!).

Seeing as how my end game i have set for myself is about 125, I have ACTUALLY HIT MY MIDDLE WEIGHT. which is like?? wow!

(being as short as i am as low as 105 can be considered “healthy” but i dont think i’d feel comfortable going under 110 even in theory tbh it just feels Way Too Tiny???)

[windything]

I AM THE DANCE HULK

so my older (half-)brothers wedding was today. it was really nice and i had a great time, but his mother and our father were not there, so when it came time to have a family dance he surprised me by having the DJ call me up in their absence.

it was really sweet and my mother cried.

but now i am going to tell you why i am the dance hulk. as we were dancing we did the sort of I AM SO THANKFUL TO BE YOUR SIBLING YOURE AWESOME exchange of words. and then it came to like, “i am going to come visit you and kick your ass at call of duty even though i cant play it” “oh fuck you you’re on i will own you” you know. while we are slowdancing. and i was like, “is this even appropriate family dance conversation.” and he was like, “man, right now, i bet we are both moshing in our heads” i told him, “that’s my secret shawn, i’m always moshing” and he goes “what are you, the dance hulk?” and we both cracked up AND MEANWHILE MY MOTHER IS OFF TO THE SIDE CRYING BECAUSE THIS MOMENT IS SO TOUCHING AND WE’RE HUGGING EACHOTHER AND LAUGHING BECAUSE I AM THE DANCE HULK

[windylifeblows]

I got my first fill yesterday!!

4cc's!

What exciting stuff.

[windylifeblows]

So do other lap band people have the same problem I do? Where sometimes you just have hungry days?? I mean I used to get them all the time prior to the surgery but now some days I feel like I need to eat a little more than I do on other days.

:1 Is this normal??