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Better picture of day one on T

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My function today was nowhere near executive, and as I sat feeling ashamed and shitty getting nothing done at my job, I came up with a metaphor.

I'm like a mermaid trying to climb staircases.

So as I'm using my hands to slowly claw my way up the uniqely shaped steps of this particular staircase, I'm also simultaneously trying to map out the steps, design a waterway so I can swim instead of climb up the stairs, and build the waterway as I go. As a result, my climbing progress is quite slow, since I have to stop to rest more often, stop to write things down, stop to plan, stop to dig, stop to build, in addition to stopping for all the usual reasons like eating.

Sometimes things are slow, and I can build the full waterway as I climb, so it's much easier to reach the top next time. More often, I have to put all my energy into simply climbing to make it to the top before the deadline, and have few notes or waterway progress for the next time.

And the whole time I'm doing this, using every last ounce of energy to climb these stairs and plan for when I inevitably have to climb these stairs in the future, I am being judged on how well and how fast I climb these stairs. By my non-mermaid coworkers who are simply: walking up a similar set of stairs.

And when they look at me, they dont see a mermaid. My mermaidness is invisible. They only see another non-mermaid, stopping for long periods of time, seemingly doing nothing, or climbing the stairs very slowly in a sporadic fashion. And they assume laziness. Incompetence. Lack of motivation. Some moral failing.

And if I say "oh I'm a mermaid" they'll picture a large fish that can do nothing but flop around, or say "are you sure?"

And if I ask for help they might explain how to climb the next step by saying "take your left leg and put it like this", but offer very little besides a shrug for "how do I build a waterway here?"

And so I'm left to drag myself up these steps in the hopes that the next staircase will be better, before I fall too far behind and face consequences.

All of that to say, going through this cycle over and over again can leave me feeling very shitty, but now instead of beating myself up for struggling with my work tasks (the staircases), I give myself grace because I'm disabled and I know if I had my waterways (proper accommodations), I'd get to the top of these staircases so easy. And that I'm not uniquely lazy or awful for struggling to start and continue doing what, for me, is an incredibly arduous and labor intensive task.

I might make this into a comic or painting at some point. I really like the visual and could use the reminder on the wall when I inevitably forget about this post in a few weeks. But yeah, just had to write this out somewhere.

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Honestly it might be a tie between Pride & Prejudice (2005), Megamind, and The Addams Family.

rb and tell me what’s your most re watched movie.. and be honest

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(self-diagnosed)

I think being autistic adds such a richness to my experiences and informs so much of how I interact with the world, how I communicate, and what I find interesting. I don't want to not be autistic.

AND

I want to live in a world that is more accommodating. That allows for me to exist without being horribly uncomfortable while simultaneously being told that it's my fault for being uncomfortable.

AND

If the question was "stop having executive dysfunction" I would click that so many times the button would break.

Would you choose to no longer be autistic if you could?

(Extra information: I’m talking about having been born without autism and live your life the same except for everything having to do with your autism)

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Reblog to eliminate a random transfemme person's beardshadow 🩷

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YES I'M GAY:

faGgot

dykAe (the a is silent)

trannY

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Quotes by Sylvia Plath, The Journals of Sylvia Plath

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Playing small in relationships won’t get you very far at all. If you feel like your boundaries are being violated and you’re not going to say anything, resentment will build up. So when you notice something, express how you really feel. In healthy relationships, the other person will respect and listen to your concerns. In an unhealthy relationship they’ll turn it around and make it seem like there’s no problem and/or they fail to validate your feelings. Why are you suppressing your needs? Why are you prioritising the peace in a relationship over your feelings? Remember relationships should enrich your life. It’s about balance and tenderness and consideration. Everyone messes up but is that person tending to you in a loving way? If not, why?

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The human body's response to HRT is actually admirable in the sheer indifference. Just pure I Don't Give A Shit, I Just Fucking Work Here compliance to the new instructions. You can get testosterone injected straight into your body and it doesn't even question where that shit came from, coming back from a coffee break and just going

"Okay, everything seems to be in ord- oh fuck now what? Oh huh. Alright fine. New orders came in, cancel the menstrual cycle. Dig up the genetic balding patterns from somewhere, I don't fucking know they're buried somewhere in the dna. I'm greenlighting the growing-hair-on-your-toes thing. Yeah just cancel the ongoing maintenance processes, new orders came in so this is apparently what we're doing now."

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I love bg3 for so many reasons, but an unexpected one is that it's actually really helping me be comfy saying no to people, or just make decisions more for myself instead of others.

Like there is literally no way to make everyone approve of your actions all the time, so at the end of the day it's just best to do whatever makes you happiest.

And if Astarion approves of whatever that is then well, win-win

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You might think that txj is distressed because, in the midst of despair, he realised that everything he has ever cherished has been burned down to ashes by a mind that doesn’t belong to his body and he doesn’t quite understand why…

In reality he just broke his favourite mug (he and cwn had matching ones)

Edit: I fixed the missing sleeve

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cw // discussion of gender dysphoria

Non-binary (especially transneu) dysphoria is so shitty to have but it's hard to make binary trans people understand, let alone cis people.

Like you know you don't want to look like your AGAB, but it wouldn't feel right if you looked like the other one either. And it just sucks because it takes so much effort (and money) to pull off androgyny, but even if you manage it people will still see you as male or female, and they'll never default to they/them or gender neutral language when they see you in the street.

Like if you're transmasc or transfem you can end up looking masc/fem, be gendered correctly and know everyone's perceiving you the way you want. But if you're transneu you don't get that.

You're stuck because you wish your were cis and binary trans at the same time, but deep down you just wanna be fucking neutral but it's not possible with current society. So you just have to accept you'll be dysphoric forever with nothing you can do about it.

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Get a tattoo at the same time as your top surgery

Tit for tat :)