#T-OCD is not something to hurt trans people with

[crayonurchin]

In 2021 I suffered a very severe bought of T-OCD, Transgender OCD.

This is a subset of OCD where, despite having never experienced thoughts of not identifying as your current gender (it can happen to all identities) you are suddenly obsessed with the thought 'what if I'm not this gender'?

The difference between T-OCD and actual trans thoughts, is the reaction. I cannot speak for transgender thoughts but I can speak for T-OCD thoughts. Mine were a constant terrifying fear that I was wrong about my identity, that if I didn't transition RIGHT NOW I would become so depressed I'd kill myself, I had constant intrusive thoughts of my breasts cut off like slices of ham, of my genitals being different, of facial hair and a deep voice and (essentially looking like my dad when he was young)

and it was horrible. I was so frightened of losing my femininity, something I really cherished. I had a couple nights holding scissors about to cut off my very long hair, something I love. I didn't want to do it, but it felt like I HAD to do it, because if I didn't then something very awful would happen.

I tried being called Andrew and wearing mens clothes and I bought a binder and packed my underwear, my thoughts to my body because extremely distorted, referring to my fat as 'blubber' and my breasts as 'udders'. And with all these fearful thoughts, there was absolutely 0 joy in being 'male'. I didn't want it. But it wouldn't go away.

It was one of the worst OCD episodes of my life and it came out of absolutely nowhere.

It's a tricky thing to talk about because there's a fear of hurting transgender people with this. If any fuckwit thinks they can go to their trans family, friend, coworker or stranger and say "are you REALLY trans or is it just OCD", I hope you step on a blowtorch.

But it does nEED to be talked about ,the same way all OCD subsets need to be talked about. This includes R-OCD, P-OCD, True-OCD and Sexuality-OCD. The more we make them 'normal', the less power they'll hold.

I wrote this because I was listening to a song cover and the singers used illustrations of themselves on screen. The female singer was a very pretty illustration, blouse loose around her chest, lips full and painted, gentle pretty eyes and long, volumeous dyed pink hair.

I saw that picture and thought 'she's so pretty, I want to look like that'

And THAT, is a gender thought that is NOT terrifying because it's female based. It's a good thought.

And I'm very happy I got it.

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

i am working through something and i wanted to express it somewhere but it feels too personal to say publicly.. and your blog feels like a safe place to confess things.. I want to go on hrt but am terrified of my mother's reaction. she knows im trans and is a lot more ok with it than she used to be but she still doesn't understand and is really bothered by her own lack of understanding. and my sense is that when my appearance changes from T shes going to hate it and be extremely upset. I'm an adult and I dont want to be controlled by my mother's feelings but due to my family dynamics growing up I have rotated around her feelings my whole life, its not as bad as it used to be but i still feel her feelings are dangerous and painful to me. I have a great support system, im blessed with so many friends and even my older siblings who I wasn't close with have been very supportive of me being trans. I dont need to be scared, materially I will be safe and loved even if my mother hurts me. but still its so terrifying to me. I want to get over this and not feel so dependent on her approval, but at the same time i dont even know if its possible. who can help wanting their mother to love them? or even more than love, because i know she does love me and thats really why its so hard, i want her to approve of me and be happy for me. I dont want the happiness i know i will feel from going on hrt to be ruined by her hating my life choices. my spiritual life is pushing me to take control of my life and bring my internal self and reality into the material, I know i cant keep ignoring my own physical desires and living with dissonance between the internal and external...so im moving towards that and i know i'll get there regardless its just terrifying and i wanted to talk about it.. uhh ya sorry this is so personal and emotional i hope it isnt uncomfortable for you or anyone else to read because i know these are really painful issues for many people. and i don't expect you to have any advice necessarily i know htese are huge issues to work through... i just wanted to express it and put it into the world that i'm working on this. thank you for letting me use your askbox to talk! hope your day is great

thankyou for trusting me with your confession anon <3 its not at all uncomfortable to me for you to confide your feelings.. Does anyone who's transitioned have supportive advice they cld leave for anon in the replies? i dont want to speak on something i havent personally experienced.

One thing i do relate to immensely is having a mother who doesn't try to see you as a unique individual, and becomes very displeased when u act in ways that don't align with her worldview. my mom will straight up tell me i look ugly with pink hair. my mom knows i make music but she's never asked to hear one of my songs. she doesn;t want to know about anything that interests me or my motivations in life. etc etc. and it's that same feeling of like, well, she does Love me i think, but i'll never feel that she truly approves of me. idk what the answer is..in my own life it has lead to me being quite a distant person, and rebellious in nature, i coped with it by purposefully leaning into the parts of me she disapproved of most. but idk if that's been healthy for me.

ultimately, we will disappoint everyone in our lives at one point or another.. Sometimes even when u try ur best to please someone it still doesn't work out. so please dont be too hard on urself <3 One thing im learning to cope with my ocd spirals (usually body dysmorphia or guilt related) is to "zoom out", try and redirect my thoughts to the bigger picture of life, it makes my own problems feel smaller in a way that doesn;t silence or dismiss them, just re-contextualizes them in that moment and makes it feel less imminent & overwhelming. mayb i can talk more about methods and analogies for this sometime.

Hope u can find some peace anon and i'm sure your hopes and dreams will materialize for u if u just keep going & focusing your energy on ur dreams. Stay safe <333 PMD9

[telepathy-supremacy]

About Me

(Highly recommend reading this before you follow, but that's purely up to you. Just don't blame me if you get caught off guard by something I post/reblog when it's right here lol)

Raelyn

She/her

Main: @raelyn-dreams

Haikyuu Sideblog: @futureacesquad

Twisted Wonderland Sideblog: @pieceofourworld

I'm cool with dark topics in fiction, and believe in freedom of art: banning is a huge no-no for me no matter the content. As long as it's tagged, I follow "DL;DR" to a T, and highly advise other people following me do the same :)

Honestly, I don't have much if anything for interaction rules, but some things you should probably know:

Basically, as long as there's no explicit Not-safe-for-Luke discussions with me, we're good!

Don't drag me into fandom discourse, because a: 98% of the time I don't know what's going on and b: I'm happy in my own little curated bubble, please and thank you :)

I post whatever I feel at any given time, don't really have a schedule, I just kind do what I want.

And, last thing: I'm not a heavy interactor (I've had some bad past fandom experiences and I'm just not that type of person anyway), but I do appreciate any support I get 😊

Writing Request Rules

General Rules:

Please be nice!

Send your request through an ask or PM me.

I reserve the right to decline an ask for any reason (though I'll almost always give an explanation, and you're still free to request other things!)

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Things I Will Write:

OG + Nightbringer events

Anything hurt/comfort (this is my jam!

Angst

Canon-compliant (missing scenes, character studies, etc)

Canon-divergent (provided it's a small-scale divergence)

Fluff!!!!!

Mephisto, Raphael, and Thirteen

Pre-Fall, War, and Post-Fall (before game events)

Alcohol/Demonus Use

Depression, Anxiety, ADHD, OCD, PTSD, Bipolar 2, Chronic Pain

Panic/Anxiety Attacks

Characters of any sexual orientation.

Characters under the trans/nb/intersex umbrella

Characters on the aro/ace spectrums

Anything not mentioned here or on my other lists is also most likely a yes!

Things I Will Write, But May Take Longer Due To Research:

Eating Disorders

Autism, Schizophrenia, Bipolar 1, Severe Phobias, Dementia, Alzheimer's, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Mythomania (Pathological Lying), Narcissistic Personality Disorder, etc (feel free to ask me if something isn't mentioned!)

Cultural Traditions

Celestial Realm/Devildom Lore

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Explicit Content

Excessive Gore

Smoking/Vaping/Tobacco Use

Child/Animal Abuse

Drug Use

Whump

Anything romantic/sexual involving Luke or MC

Anything I feel I lack the knowledge to write properly at this point in time

Character Death (excluding canonically-dead characters)

Suicide-Baiting (I'm aware Asmo does it a couple times in-game - I personally think of it as one of his flaws that he needs to work out, so I personally won't be writing it)

^ Adding to this, any of the characters being complete assholes to each other in general. While I'm cool writing fights, arguments, banter and misunderstandings, anything past what, say, Mammon gets in game is typically a no.

Explicit Demoncest

Anything set within the major events of the game past Lesson 20 (reaper arc, human world, student council trials, etc). This is purely due to the fact that I either haven't gotten to them yet or don't feel confident in my ability to write about them.

Anything heavily including Michael

AUs

[carpathxanridge]

i just remembered something that i want 2 share because it relates to how a gender-based understanding of sexuality is not only illogical but leads to feelings of shame and confusion for ssa people.

in all of my experience of hearing online that lesbians can be attracted to dick, that genital preferences are transphobic, etc. it never personally got to me. that’s not to say that it didn’t make me walk on eggshells with my language, or fear rejection and ostracism from my community... it did. but i guess because the argument that lesbians can/should like dick is so transparently homophobic and comically identical to entitled male lesbophobia and conservative conversion therapy rhetoric, it never really impacted my own understanding of/security in my sexuality. i never for a second bought that not being attracted to dick was a genital fetish.

however, what did impact me was the flip side of this logic: that since trans men aren’t women, including trans men in lesbian sexuality is transphobic. my first relationship was with a trans man, but we started dating when he identified as nonbinary. and there’s a lot of reasons why that relationship fucked me up and was unhealthy, but when he came out as trans i didn’t believe that i’d been in a relationship with a man the whole time, or that either the relationship or my sexual orientation was null. i wouldn’t say it out loud, but i knew that this was true because he was female regardless of his gender identity.

but then over the years, my friends would tease me or side-eye me over that past relationship. at the time, my friend told me that i’d never kissed a girl before, and kind of mocked me for my lack of lesbian experience. and although i kind of agreed that those first kisses didn’t “count” for other personal reasons, i didn’t appreciate the comparison of my traumatizing first relationship with someone who i had a lot of genuine love for, to her differently traumatizing first relationship with a man. because i knew i never would’ve been able to feel that way (as complicated as it was) about a man! and she was projecting her own embarrassment about having been with a man before onto my first literally homosexual relationship in a way that made me very uncomfortable.

and yet even knowing that she was in the wrong and my relationship was not the literal same as dating a man, it still made me feel like crap. like i was somehow even more wrong for how i felt about an experience that already held a lot of baggage. like because my first relationship was deemed nullified, i myself was somehow an embarrassment. and this wasn’t the only time i was made to feel this way. once, i told my friend about how a girl i’d had a huge crush on came out as trans. and he insinuated that i had a fetish for trans guys, saying that it was a “weird pattern.” that made me feel so suddenly ashamed and wrong, in a way that genital fetish accusations never did when they came from the other side. and i also internalized similar sentiments just from being on tumblr. nothing was more transphobic and invalidating than a lesbian saying “i date cis women and trans guys,” and that absolutely couldn’t be me.

so when i developed a crush on a post-t trans guy last year, by then i was like “maybe this is a weird trend.” i knew i couldn’t pursue a relationship with him, because that would be pretty sus, and it was a minor and innocent enough crush that i probably wouldn’t have pursued it either way. but it caused me a lot of confusion and shame, because i just couldn’t make my feelings go away. it was a constant back and forth between berating myself for not perceiving him as male, and convincing myself that maybe i’m actually bisexual. i agonized over whether it counts as misgendering if i just allowed myself to have a crush on him while identifying as a lesbian. any moment as small as him smiling at me and me thinking “cute,” i would later obsess over. i have ocd, so it was very easy for my brain to latch onto this as a point of obsession. (especially because much of my ocd is moral scrupulosity-based, and we all know that the trans community uses a lot of guilt and moral accusation to coerce acceptance of their belief system.)

i think i only just processed exactly how hurtful those experiences were for me, and how much shame it created. it’s one thing to be called an evil pussy-loving dyke for your absence of attraction to men. but to be called a chaser or fetishist for active, present attraction is hard to ignore. just like being attracted to straight girls, when you already know your feelings are likely unwanted it’s even more hurtful to be compared to men’s sexual predation and fetishism. but being attracted to trans men is a perfectly natural expression of lesbian sexuality, and isn’t inherently predatory or wrong. and there are some trans men who feel connected to lesbian sexuality or identify as lesbians. gender identity-based understanding of sexuality invalidates lesbian experience. it is harmful and homophobic! and i won’t be made to feel guilty for my sexuality :)

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

help! urgent! this is a serious cry for help, my mom has blocked basically every website on my phone including yours, i recently came out to her and she is very unsupportive. makes me dress extra fem and won’t even let me trim my hair. when i see a female with shorter hair in public i’ll always say “oo i love her hair” and my mom just says no. my dysphoria has been very bad recently and i was wondering if you had any tips to help me, but without links as i cant visit any websites including yours

Kii says:

Here are two posts from our transmasculine resources, but I linked to reblogs of them, so my personal blog is the origin site, not TTSG.

Lee says:

Since you said “i cant visit any websites including yours” it’s probably easier if I just copy the text of the posts here bc I’m assuming there’s a chance that reblogging our post to Kii’s blog might not get around the block if she’s blocked all Tumblr urls and not just our blog specifically. 

You may be able to see our blog if you go to the public library and use one of their computers, but here it is in case you can’t

We get a lot of questions asking how to get short hair, so I’ve gathered some info that may help you in your quest to chop off your long hair and finally be free!

Take baby steps:

First cut it to just below shoulder length, then after a month or two to chin length.

After a month or two of that, say it’s inconvenient because you can’t tie it back with a hairband because it’s in-between long and short and you’ve been enjoying having less hair to deal with and get a feminine “pixie cut”.

Then just progressively got it cut shorter and shorter each time you go for a haircut.

Reasons and excuses to convince your parents to let you get it cut:

Short hair is easier to maintain and take care of! If you’re disabled or mentally ill this is a real bonus to having short hair.

Other ‘girls’ you know have short hair (if you’re closeted). If any of your friends who are girls (or who your parents think are girls) have short hair, point them out to your parents.

Celebrities who are women/girls have short hair. Find pictures of the celebrities that have short hair in the style that you want and ask your parents to get that haircut.

It’s hot out in the summer and short hair would keep you cool and or/ exercising makes your head/hair gross/sweaty.

You want to try the style for the summer and “grow it back if you don’t like it” (ie pretend the summer is a trial run and if you don’t like it you can start growing it back for school).

You want to swim/do sports and short hair would keep it out of your face. You could claim short hair will make you faster under a swim cap because you won’t have the bun and the weight or that it’s hard to keep all your hair inside the cap.

It looks cute/pretty and is fashionable and you want to try a change of hairstyle.

You’re tired of dealing with having long hair as it always gets stuck to/in things.

You want to keep it out of your face/or stop it from touching your face. If you have sensory issues, you could say it’s related to that.

It’ll make your showers quicker which is good for the environment, and you’ll use less hair product and it’ll save you time getting ready in the morning.

If you have OCD or trich, you could say you want it shorter so you won’t pull at your hair as often or you think it’d help reduce the urge to pull at your hair.

You have gum/glue in your hair. Stick some gum or glue in your hair, a bit closer to the end than you want the length to be when it’s cut. Say that it was done by accident (maybe you fell asleep chewing it) and then hopefully you can get it cut or have an excuse to cut it yourself.

You could say you’re experimenting, or it’s just part of being a “Rebellious teenager” if you think they’d allow it to happen if it’s part of a so-called phase and not permanent.

You think you’d look better with short hair/you think you’d be happier and more comfortable with short hair.

Short hair will help you pass better which can be important for your mental health and physical safety, and if you change your mind you can always let it grow out again.

It doesn’t matter what kind of face you have, anyone can rock short hair. The majority of cis guys have short hair. So does that mean every single one has the same type of face? Nah! Some of them must have round faces too. Nobody says anything about having the right shape of face to them, they just get their hair cut short automatically. Sure, some haircuts may be more flattering than others, but short hair can look good on anybody.

Say you’ll pay for the haircut yourself, and you’re X years old now and your body and your hair is your own responsibility, and nobody can make choices on what you want to do with your own body for you.

“I’m growing up and I think I should be able to decide how my hair is cut and styled. I think I can handle the responsibility of making my own decisions about my appearance.

Say you want to donate your hair to an organization like Wigs for Kids or something, and they prefer longer lengths of hair to make longer hair wigs for the kids, and you’re willing to have your hair cut short for a good cause and you’ve been thinking of trying a new style anyway

Act now and ask for forgiveness later:

You could cut your hair sort of short with a pair of scissors, like I did, just a few inches longer than you’d like it to end up. If you watch YouTube tutorials on how to cut hair, it might go better. Or ask a friend for their help.

Then go to the barber shop or hair salon if it didn’t turn out satisfactory (get a ride from a friend, bike, uber, lyft, or walk) and say you usually have short hair but you didn’t get it cut for a while so you let a friend cut it on a dare and now it’s messed up so you need a trim to fix it.

You can show the barber/person cutting your hair a picture of what you want it to look like, and say it usually looks like that.

You will need to have money to pay for your haircut, so check out the How to save money post.

You also should be confident that your parents will not hurt you when they found out you’ve cut it short. But once you’ve cut it short, they can’t magically make it long again so if they won’t react dangerously, it’s worth a try if you can’t convince them.

Helpful links:

Short Haircuts and the Barber Shop

Pos and cons of cutting your hair yourself

A website you can look at hairstyles on

Look at people’s hairstyles on trans selfie blogs for ideas

Gender neutral hairstyles

Get the Perfect Haircut: How to Talk to Your Barber

How to speak hairdresser

Best haircut hairstyle tips

FTM Hairstyle Guide: Tips and Inspiration

Four Great Haircuts for Trans Masc/FTMs

Haircut anxiety

Hair tattoo designs

Anything with one side shaved like this is popular in the lgbt community

15 Best Black Man Haircuts / 27 Hairstyles For Black Men / 22 Haircuts for Black Men

Can I pass with curly hair?

@ftmh​aircuts

You can also look at people’s selfies on blogs like @brownandtrans for ideas

Here are two asks that have been answered about masculine long hair before, along with some other links:

On Being a Longhair

Caring for Men’s Long Hair

Long Hairstyles for Black Men

How To Grow Your Hair Out

It’s easier to look masculine with long hair if you’re on T, if you’re pre-T then having long hair will make it harder to pass.

5 Basic Tips for Healthy Dreadlocks

16 Terrific Long Hairstyles For Black Men

[magical-agatha]

Hey idk whats going on in your life right now but its not gonna suck forever. If you need to talk with anyone privately, just send me a message

I've said almost the exact same thing before. It's going to get better. Or, nothing lasts forever. Everything is temporary. Just hold on you'll be okay one day. Eventually things will get better.But it's not getting any better. If anything it's getting worse.Thank you for caring. Truly i really appreciate it. But i don't believe you when you say it's going to get better.I've been trying so hard for so long to have faith and to hope that things will be okay one day. But all of my experiences contradict that. Everything I've learnt and lived has been evidence against the idea that things will get better.I've been a freak for 22 years. I've always been shunned. I'm a freak! As a child i wasn't medicated or properly treated for my mental illnesses. The other children avoided me. I had to sit at a separate desk several metres away from the normal children because i was too disruptive. I had violent panic attacks. I was told to leave in grade 4 because the teachers couldn't handle me. And then i was bullied violently at my next school. They called me a faggot. Around this time i was first exposed to the idea of being transgender. In a news article which portrayed a trans person as some kind of freakish anomaly. I began thinking about what if i'm transgender, but it seemed dangerous and was labelled as wrong. In grade six my 'friends' entertained themselves by manipulating me and hurting me. I didn't understand. In grade 7 and 8 i made friends with the social rejects. Because no one else would take me. But i was tall and gentle and didn't like games about guns. And the rejects soon shunned me too. More constant bullying. Some of it violent but most of it verbal or emotional. People hurt me to entertain themselves. Grade 10 i learnt how to appear almost normal. This is when my gender dysphoria began to seriously affect me. I told my mother, she got angry. I was allowed by a group of classmates to spend lunch break with them. I'm still unclear if they really liked me or just pitied me. A psychiatrist I've known and trusted for over a decade tells me I'm not transgender and it's just a phase. I realise my mother isn't on my side and doesn't understand me. 11 and 12 i became a circus animal. Performing. My friends only kept me around because i was entertaining and i said things that were weird and consequently i was good for a laugh. More bullying. I wasn't considered and i was never really included. Tafe. My mental illnesses begin to get significantly worse. Depression and anxiety ruled my life. And a mother who is forcing me to live how she wants me to. I desperately want to transition but am told i can't make that decision and that I'm not actually transgender. I'm miserable and i hate the course im in but my opinions are irrelevant. I have friends, almost. But only by denying myself and pretending to be someone else. Companionship and acceptance requires that i kill off and hide parts of myself. I drop out. 2 years of isolation and part time jobs working for people who treat me like garbage and abuse me. I hide in video games as much as possible. I repress my gender issues but eventually it becomes too much and i create aggy. My online persona. The person i actually want to be, my ideal self. She's cute and happy and gay. More tafe. I start to confront my gender issues by myself. Then i dropout again. And fall to depression. Over the last twelve months I've been repeating a cycle of hope and despair. I start believing i can get better. Then i get worse. Then i force myself to hope again. I get worse. A month ago i got incredibly close to killing myself, i was goin to walk into traffic on the highway near my house at midnight. I was so scared. I forced myself to hope and pretend it would be okay. I started to believe it. I started getting better. I started talking to people online. I realise I'm a lesbian. And then without any reason it fell apart again. I fell into depression again. Nothing is working. I can't keep doing this. I need something to change. I don't know what to do or how to do it. But i have a strong feeling that I'm getting closer and closer to giving up in the worst way. Every time i cross a street i think about doing it.I recently realised that my mother doesn't have the capacity to emphasize with me. The one thing i need from her is reassurance and belief. But she can't do it. I've tried explaining it to her but she can't be what i need. I'm alone again. I reached out and made friends online. It helped but, I'm still isolated. I have one friend irl. She's lovely, but she doesn't see the real me. She doesn't actually know me.Something very painful about being transgender is that unless you are transgender you can't fathom what it's like. I've tried to explain it to people but it doesn't work. It's a very difficult thing and being unable to relate the feeling of gender dysphoria and being transgender is incredibly isolating. I was fortunate enough to make several trans friends online. One in particular i was able to connect to quite closely. She doesn't know it but she probably saved my life. We spoke for hours and hours. Every day for a week. She's incredible but. I'm scared I'll ruin it. She made me feel valid. For a few days i felt truly happy. Like i was a real person.Another painful thing is that transgender people are seen as freaks and jokes. We are excluded even from lgbt.I am a broken person. I have chronic debilitating depression, severe anxiety, bipolar disorder, ocd, adhd, and I'm transgender. A life of emotional abuse has left me with no self confidence or self esteem and that plus common perceptions and representations of mental illness and transgender people has left me broken. I don't think i have any worth. I see myself as disgusting and pathetic. On a core level i believe i deserve to be miserable and it's killing me. I'm my own worst enemy. I'm very self perceptive and i know more about my problems than anyone else. I can't help but look at myself and feel broken. Because I'm stuck.If i force myself to speak logically i know I'm a good person and that i don't deserve to be in pain. But i don't believe that. I'm incapable of believing that. I try so hard to be a good person and i want to help other people as much as i can. I'm compassionate to a fault. But i hate myself. I don’t believe i deserve to be happy. My self hatred is ingrained so deep i don't think it can be fixed. And i guess because i hate myelf i feel like i don't deserve t get better.There's other stuff I've omitted. I know this all sounds very dramatic but it's true. I'm not saying it to get you to pity me or anything like that. I'm trying to get across a point.The point I'm making is that based on my life and what I've been through, how can you expect me to believe things will get better? I want you to prove me wrong please. Please. I'm running out of hope. I'm so close to giving up. Please I'm so scared and i don't know what to do.

[thehangrymom-blog]

Who I am and Welcome!

The Hangry Mom Blog Older Child Adoption What is your story? Is it a beautiful adoption story? Is it full of wonderful supportive people rallying around to support you? Is it a wonderful picture of a well-adjusted child eager to please and ready to adjust to your new family? Is it all roses and bunnies? If so…..you may be at the wrong blog. More often than not, adoption isn’t perfect. If you go into it thinking it will be without challenges, you will be disappointed. Raising children is hard. Raising adopted children, whether newborn or older children, comes with its own set of challenges. For your child’s sake and for your sanity, you need to know this, and you need to prepare in any way you can. Don’t expect the worst. But expect challenges and be ready to do battle for your children. The list is long and it’s really hard to equip yourself with everything you should know. And if you are in the throes of all of it, you may not have the professional letters behind your name, but by the time you have read , and read, and read you feel like you should. You also quickly learn that knowledge doesn’t always come from books. It comes from your children. Seeing into the window of their pain is heartbreaking. Only a parent who loves their child can sometimes see exactly what YOUR child needs. It sometimes goes the other way as well. Sometimes seeing it, living it, and being buried in it can cause you to be blind to what they need and you need a voice from an expert or a friend who has also walked the path to speak into the situation. To put it simply, adoption is messy. It can be beautiful, but complicated and messy. I don’t want to sound like a Negative Nancy. My name is not Nancy. It’s Michelle. Does that make me Mad Michelle? Or perhaps, Melancholy Michelle. Lets leave it at Hot Mess Michelle. That sums up life most of the time. I assure you, I want to be the perfect mom. I know (as in with all caps KNOW) this is exactly where my children are supposed to be. And I’m fairly confident that all of this was God’s plan. And I’m pretty sure He keeps equipping me. And I think He’s watching over me. And well, maybe He will show me how to get through the latest hurdle. And this is how Hot Mess Michelle is created. I really do KNOW God ordained our family. But as the day goes by, I begin to question….well…EVERYTHING! Days become weeks. Weeks become months. Months become years. Yada, yada, yada. Please let me introduce myself and my family. My husband and I have been married 23 years. Pregnancy did not come easy to us. Our first son was born in 1997. Four years later, after trying for some time, we pursued fertility treatments. Nothing worked and after two more years, the doctors informed us that the likelihood of me getting pregnant again were slim. After much prayer, we pursued adoption. Josiah came into our world almost 9 months after we filed our adoption paperwork and it was and is beautiful! And of course, like so many adoption stories, I got pregnant 6 months later. Our family was complete… the end. We were a family blended with adoption and transracial, but we didn’t see it like that. Really, Josiah looked different than our  two bio kids, but when I think of how many of our children are adopted, I have to force myself to remember that he is as well. To us, he was born to us. But growing up adopted and trans-racial comes with challenges that I would be remiss as a mom not to remember. Our story was not over. No, God kept our hearts passionate for adoption and for hurting children. We advocated and stood in the trenches with many families going down the path of adoption. Many years later, God knocked on the door of our hearts. We were pretty convinced that we could bend God to our way of thinking that if we were to adopt, we knew exactly what He would have us do. I’m sure He must shake His heavenly head at us. So we went down a couple of paths He did not mean for us, which means nothing went well. When we finally felt convicted, both of us, it was a little shocking. You want us to do what? You want us to go where? So, in what can only be termed as a miraculous path, we pursued adoption from the DR Congo. Of course, we still tried to “control things” like age and how many. I read all of the books. I knew the issues we could have. I knew what all of the experts recommended including maintaining birth order. I READ EVERYTHING. And still, when we saw the picture of our two children (not one!) on the internet, both of us individually knew they were ours. We came together that night and were blown away that on our own, God had spoken the same message to our hearts. So, we embraced adopting an 8 and 6 year old sibling group. When they came home, we had two six year olds, two 8 year olds, and a 14 year old. For a few months of the year, due to differences in age, we do stagger out. Years have now passed and right now the kids are 19, 15, 14, 13, and 12. Our 19 year old is blissfully away in college. And more days than I care, I wish I could go visit him. I would even take our (current ages) 14 and 13 year old with me. So why call it the Hangry Mom blog? When I think about my life, I’m Hangry. I’m hungry for something better for my children. I’m hungry for God to intercede in our lives. I’m hungry for answers. I’m hungry for that miracle I see occur in other families. I’m hungry for….normal. I’m angry that two of my children endured who knows what prior to coming home. I’m angry when I see the physical scars on their bodies. I’m angry when I see how emotionally broken they still are. I’m angry that sometimes love is not enough. I’m angry that people judge our family based on behavior. I’m angry when people judge my parenting. I’m angry that some people (including family) walked away and didn’t even try to give our kids and our family a chance. I’m angry at other adoptive families who have perfect kids. I’m angry when I see our first 3 children hurting because our other two children are hurters. And maybe, just maybe, there are days I’m angry because I want to taste a little reprieve of normal and I just can’t get there. Believe it or not, I am not a very transparent person. I’m very private. I don’t share a lot of what we are going through or what we are dealing with. But, if God has taught me anything through this journey, it has been to lay aside my pride. I have watched and supported other adoptive families for years. I have listened to other moms cry. I have walked couples through the adoption process and held their hands when things weren’t perfect when they got their children home. I have counseled, listened, babysat children to give others respite, and prayed for and with them. I have celebrated! I love adoption and we have celebrated with so many families. But what I have not done often (as in very, very, very little of) is sharing what is going on in our own home. I don’t know why. Maybe I don’t think anyone wants to hear my woes. Maybe I don’t want to bother them. Maybe its pride and I don’t want all of the people to hear our story that said we shouldn’t have adopted from the beginning – including my in-laws who walked away from our family. But, I have to remind myself, they are wrong. No matter how bad my day is, I still know God has a plan and where we are right now is it. Pride aside, I know what I need is support as well. I have a degree in Sociology. I have worked in human resource management. I have owned my own business. I currently work in higher education. My husband has a Master’s in Intercultural Ministry. He currently teaches for a college inside a prison. He loves working with inmates and investing in their lives. Our kids play sports, play instruments, sing, and are involved in our youth group. We live in the country and my favorite place is either inside our greenhouse with a book or by our campfire with a book. I love watching my kids participate in their activities whether it’s sports or musicals. I love watching my kids excel. Sound pretty normal? Right? Please? This is where normal ends. To explain “our normal” I have to begin by attaching all of those wretched psychological letters and terms to our kids and family. Let me say first and foremost, that I do not think that these letters and terms define who my children are. Our home deals with ADHD, PTSD, RAD, OCD, and just “stuff” that comes along with kids that did not get the chance to develop, learn, and think as a normal child has. We are also a trans-racial, trans-cultural, newborn, bio, and older child adoptive family. What are some of the things we deal with? Oh you know, the normal poor classroom behavior, occasional fights, shaming is a practice among orphans (at least in our children’s orphanage) so they are well-practiced with laughing at others, mocking when you are down and other non-compassionate behaviors. Poor hygiene. Did I say poor? I meant awful, horrible, horrific hygiene. Grudges, lies, and manipulation are a daily response to trials for them. Passive aggressive behavior. Occasional physical outbursts. Nightmares. Social skills are archaic. And this, my friends is after they have now been home for 6 years! We have really come a long way. So, let me tell you what we are no longer seeing. They no longer are wetting the bed. No longer do they spit on my floor in the house. Hoarding is now minimal and only comes out with stress. Stealing is now minimal and occasional and not a daily fear for me. They both have overcome major health issues caused from lack of nutrition (basically food in general and clean water and mosquitos and…). Neither of them  eat the bones when we have chicken now. One still struggles with portion control, but it’s easily managed with the exception of church dinners and big get together’s. They are both almost at grade level in school. Their English is proficient. They no longer call each other dirty names in Lingala (because I don’t think they remember them) and no longer attempt to beat the tar out of each other. They get along well with people and are liked at school and church by their peers. As you can see, we really do have progress. Sometimes it’s cathartic for me to say or even write this down. There is much more that I’m sure I can expound on. The transition for them was difficult. Can you imagine it from their POV? They came here and most do not look like them, speak their language, everything is different, EVERYTHING, their emotional scars are deep, they are scared, they are ready for us to give up on them all the time. We as adoptive parents are trying to make everything perfect for them, but if we don’t see it from their POV, then we will only make it scarier. We did all of the things the books said to do. Keep them at home for an extended amount of time. No church, no big extended family gatherings, no stores, simplified our house, don’t bombard them with a hoard of toys, simplify your food. Basically, hunker down, bond, help your child grieve the loss of all they’ve known, help them to find a new normal, get to know them, introduce new things and new people gently and slowly, take care of health issues carefully as doctors can be terrifying, accept their rejection because just as a normal child will test their behavior limits, so too will an adopted child test your commitment level and just learn to love.  Accept that you are not going to do this perfectly. Accept help from others and be willing to ask (NOT something I am good at-but be better than me). Try to turn yourself to rubber as you hear criticism from those not walking your shoes. Judgement can be harsh. It can come from places you don’t expect and can be painful. For your children’s sake, BE rubber. And the two most important things you can do? Strengthen your relationship with Christ. Pray, read, and be in communion with God in whatever way helps you to have a close relationship with your Heavenly Father. He orchestrated this, don’t walk away or let go of His hand now. Finally, your marriage needs you to be on guard at all times. You both need to be willing to support each other in a way that your spouse needs. Communicate. Communicate. Look out for each other. See what your spouse needs. Strengthen each other. Speak love into your marriage. Don’t get tired from the trials of your day and ignore a hurting spouse. Be your spouse’s best friend. No one else is going through what you are both going through. Make your marriage, after your relationship with God, your priority. It has to be. This isn’t easy friends. This isn’t easy. And no one else truly gets what you are going through like your spouse. You are both going to process and manage what you are going through in different ways. So don’t assume that your spouse needs what you need. Kenny may need space, time to talk, time to listen to music, time to write, time to laugh, time to blow off steam doing something absolutely meaningless to me, and time to process what he is thinking. I need someone to listen to me and assure me that they are on my side. I need quiet space, laughter, a shoulder to cry on, and to know that he is always on my team. If you aren’t sure what your love language is, figure it out. Make sure you know your spouse’s love language. How can I fill him up? It is important that he continually fill me up. I often feel drained from emotionally supporting all 5 of our kids and Kenny. If he isn’t willing to step in and fill me up, nothing goes well. Well, there you have it. I am a Hangry Mom. This blog is devoted to the issues of raising adoptive, bio, non-perfect children in a non-perfect world, with non-perfect parenting skills. I’m trying friends and I know you are as well. It’s not always easy being in the trenches, but I am here with you. If there is a certain topic you would like to ask about, feel free to leave me a message or comment. I will most likely try to avoid over-sharing things about our children’s paths of medicine, counseling, and other personal trials. Most of this will be written from my POV of how we parent, the struggles we are facing, and most likely what I am doing wrong. Pretty sure I do a lot wrong. You are not alone. Feel free to let me know I’m not alone.