anxiety-brain - Tumblr blog

[anxiety-brain]

Self doubt - a short comic (2023)

[anxiety-brain]

i feel so seen!!

(twitter thread)

[anxiety-brain]

i do genuinely think  I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out. should be like. required reading for anyone trying to make claims about gender politics.

[anxiety-brain]

Reading this article made my stomach churn. I couldn't sleep after so I emailed all of my legislators. I encourage others to email your legislators if it is safe to do so. Often I hear politicians use the excuse that their constituents haven't contacted them when they get criticized for discriminatory legislation. I am including the email I sent as an example of what you might send yourself. Making it personal seems to help in my experience.

"I am a nonbinary person who was proud to vote for you based on the values you advocated for during your campaign. As a lifelong Minnesotan, I am grateful for the state taking a stance to be a sanctuary state for trans people. Sadly, the people behind transphobic and homophobic legislation throughout the country have just begun their campaign to wipe out queer people from "public life". In reality that campaign will result in even more trans people dying by suicide or murder.

I fear for the well-being of myself and fellow LGBTQIA+ people in the coming years. Legislation made to protect trans people can be removed or changed based on who's in charge after election season is over. I implore you and your fellow legislators to make lasting legislation that cannot be easily reversed depending upon who has the majority in government. The people who want trans people gone also want a lot of other people gone. We're just the first targets. It's easy to get people to hate a group that they do not understand.

The link below is an article detailing email correspondence between a conservative legislator and various anti trans people who support conversation therapy, sterilization of trans people, etc. The article does a good job summarizing the some of the email exchanges. Reading it made my stomach churn. The full report is over 2600 pages of email exchanges and I don't expect you to read it all. Please just stay informed on this and do what you can to advocate for permanent legislation that protects trans people."

[anxiety-brain]

I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but have you considered that this person is actually saying that yes they are transgender, but the chaos and upheaval acknowledging that this would have on their life is too high a price to pay?

I can acknowledge that I am non binary in the safety of tumblr, but in real life, I’m married, I have a career, and I live in a time and country where the transgender community is treated by media as a problem to society. Losing my husband or my job, alienating my family, it’s just too much to lose.

Was it a relief to learn that there was a whole community of people that had lived my experience? of course it was . It is nice after spending several decades believing something in your head is broken, to learn that you’re not actually missing a part of you, that you are in fact a whole person. It’s comforting, and learning about gender dysphoria has helped me tackle my apparently misdiagnosed general anxiety disorder and given me a new freedom and confidence. But no, I am not ready to announce to the world that I am not what I have spent a lifetime pretending to be. Maybe one day, but until then I am content to support the LGBT+ community the best I can, and hope for a more fulfilling future for the generation that’s not too chicken shit to declare who they are.

That’s just my perspective. 🤷🏻

Do adults realize they dont have to be young to identify as nonbinary

[anxiety-brain]

I joke but it’s nice to live in a time where there are words for my experience beyond broken and abnormal.

[anxiety-brain]

Dealing with depression and anxiety can be a weird challenge. For the most part I exist in this strange neutral space of nothingness, where I have no real energy or passion for anything but I have just enough to get up, eat and work. But then this last few weeks I have felt so intensely down I haven’t been able to get out of bed. I’ve just felt so sad, like I’m grieving for the loss of something that never existed. Then today for no reason at all, I had this sudden surge of joyful manic energy. Somehow I have to sit at my desk and work but I just want to get up and do stuff! I’m half tempted to call in sick just so I can go for a run, or call a friend and do something. Who knows when I shall have happy hormones again! WTF brain, I literally cancelled plans yesterday because I couldn’t stop crying and now I just want to go dancing.

[anxiety-brain]

Accurate

anxiety is so stupid it's like your brain went hey how would you like to experience what it feels like to be a terrified prey animal. you can never turn this ability off btw.

[anxiety-brain]

When you’re waiting for a text message from someone and you can not think about or do anything else until you get it. I have rats in my stomach and jittery hands.

[anxiety-brain]

Selected no and put in non binary. Honestly felt like the right thing to do. I guess it’s not like anyone I know will see it. I just don’t want to have that talk with people.

It’s the same wit sexuality if I’m honest. I find women just as attractive as men. I have celebrity crushes of all genders, but I don’t feel sexual attraction, but I’m married to a man so I just tick straight because it’s easier than trying to get my head around wtf I am.

Ugh filling in the national census.

Question: is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?

Honest answer no.

Problem, though I’m not really in the closet I’m not really out either. Though I KNOW that I am not cis gendered, I don’t quite know where on the spectrum I am, I find the whole thing stressful and confusing and have always chosen to “just do me” rather than pick a label and try and conform.

Ugh.

Clicking yes makes me feel like I’m lying but I don’t think there’s a box big enough to explain how I feel about it all...

[anxiety-brain]

Ugh filling in the national census.

Question: is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?

Honest answer no.

Problem, though I’m not really in the closet I’m not really out either. Though I KNOW that I am not cis gendered, I don’t quite know where on the spectrum I am, I find the whole thing stressful and confusing and have always chosen to “just do me” rather than pick a label and try and conform.

Ugh.

Clicking yes makes me feel like I’m lying but I don’t think there’s a box big enough to explain how I feel about it all...

[anxiety-brain]

Finally got around to doing another comic! I’ve been grappling with memories of my childhood, trying to understand why from a certain period of time I saw myself as being a girl. I never really felt like I related to “always being a boy just never realized it” but maybe that’s because of my upbringing? Parents were liberal with what I wore/played with, and I was heavily groomed into the “tomboy” role, so I never really felt that repression? Or maybe I just wasn’t aware!  Who knows! I’m a boy now, I’m at peace with my childhood and that’s all that matters!

More comics here

BUY MY ZINES, ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE SILVIA RIVERA LAW PROJECT

(Commission Info  Redbubble  Gumroad  Facebook) 

[anxiety-brain]

I know right! For years I was labouring under the illusion that I suffered from social anxiety and general low self esteem. I’d have panic attacks before going out and find any excuse not to socialise. Then I realised that “dressing up” to go out meant “dressing girlie” and that was the problem. The more feminine, the more display my female figure was, the more extreme my reaction. One day I bought a funky trouser suit, waistcoat and shirt combo. My chest sort of disappeared under the fabric and suddenly that anxiety was gone. Like someone flicked an off switch. The more masculine I present, the more myself I feel. Of course, I still have anxiety and low self esteem, but working out which symptoms are caused by what issue has helped a great deal in finding my more confident self.

I didn't realize that the discomfort I felt with my body was dysphoria until I put on my binder and suddenly I didn't look as wrong anymore.

I always felt like my chest and b**bs especially were so awkward and.. incorrect? Like something about my torso was off and it didn't sit right with me.

And I chalked it up to being trained against my body with diet culture.

But the second I put on my binder I suddenly didn't look so wrong! I actually looked like me!

I've had top dysphoria this whole time and didn't identify it because dysphoria was always painted as a total hate for your body or a desperate want for a different body, but as I've experienced it dysphoria as wild and vague discomfort with my body, feeling incorrect and awkward in a way I wasn't sure how to identify, hyperfixating on my chest even though I wasn't sure why it looked and felt so awkward on me.

So anyways I fucking love my binder and you don't have to hate yourself to have dysphoria !

[anxiety-brain]

chipped

[anxiety-brain]

Relatable content.

[anxiety-brain]

Do you really support people sending death threats, rape threats and porn to a female author who expressed her worries about the treatment of dysphoric people and the protection of sex based rights? I liked your posts but if you can excuse that, I think I'm out

No, I do not support people sending death threats and rape threats to JKR. I don’t know anything about the porn but I wouldn’t support that either? I don’t excuse those threats. They’re horrible.

I am trying to listen to trans people. Trans people get to decide whether someone/something someone has said is transphobic. I have listened to the many many trans people who have said that JKR is being transphobic.

This is not a one time occurrence but I’m going to mention her most recent tweet regarding an article on ‘people who mentruate’. She made a comment that there’s a name for those people - women. She didn’t apologise but then made a follow up tweet using the good old ‘I know and love trans people, BUT...’

How can you say you love trans people when you’ve just shown them NO respect? She didn’t acknowledge the existence of people who aren’t cis women, who also menstruate. If you know trans people, that isn’t a difficult concept to grasp.

She talked about it being unsafe for women in single-sex spaces. That is NOT a problem because of trans people. That’s a problem because of men who are abusers/r*pists. She talked about trans people like they are the problem and it’s just not true. Could men potentially use the excuse ‘well I’m in this bathroom because I’m trans’? Potentially yes, but again, THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT THE FAULT OF TRANS PEOPLE.

When referring to her worries about the treatment of dysphoric people she made a comparison of transitioning to conversion therapy. If that doesn’t both alarm and disgust you, it should.

{Juno Birch also tweeted: "JK Rowling needs to be quiet immediately she is literally harming the trans community, she apparently just posted the clinic I went to as a child and said that they are experimenting on us, when in fact the Tavistock clinic saved my life.”} (I’ve taken this from an article in the Scotsman)

She says the clinic saved her life.

Anyway I’m going on too much because you shouldn’t be listening to me. Please go and listen to some trans people who have been openly speaking about this.

If you don’t feel any differently after reading my response (and hopefully doing some research) then please unfollow me.

TL;DR

I don’t support the death threats being sent to JKR. She has made transphobic comments and has not apologised or acknowledged the damage she has caused. Listen to trans people when they tell you something is transphobic.

[anxiety-brain]

Even as an adult, it’s exhausting trying to balance being yourself and camouflaging so not to attract the unwanted attention of the bigots in your family and social circle.