Tag: personal

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

see a lot of the time i want a new job, something that pays better and is full time and has me really doing stuff

but then like, something happens like a manager talking on facebook with me about ace representation and I’m like, this is my place tho

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

 I’m not re-labeling myself yet because my tendency to throw myself into boxes and try and be done too quickly may be at work here, but I’ve been thinking a lot about like, what gender is and what it means to be a woman and if I have a choice in how I identify.

And if I do get a choice, my choice has always been the same.

And ignoring the born-this-way discourse, I think I have a choice.

I mean, I don’t about the dysphoria I have but I do in what I take it to mean. And like, binding aside (and binding not aside, really), there’s nothing about my presentation that I couldn’t do as a woman. Like, it was easier to justify stuff like buying men’s clothes to myself when I had Official Gender Reasons, but OBVIOUSLY I can wear men’s clothes and maybe not shave and do whatever I want with my hair if I’m a woman. I’ve always had a strong admiration for the women who do those things! 

And I think the things I want to change in people’s perception of me aren’t really gender things. And probably trying to use gender to change them isn’t the right way. The fact that she/her hasn’t been bothering me when it comes from people I know respect me is probably a sign. There are some Complicated Instances, but really, what doesn’t have those? 

I’ve had Gender Thoughts for a while, but it’s just as likely that they were presentation based as identification based. It may mean more to me to be a woman as I am now than to be something else. The line between gender non-conformance and being a different gender is something I need to find, I guess. 

I think it’s likely I’ll settle into being a butch woman who happens to bind, but I’m staying open for now. I’ll see how I feel in a week, a month, whatever. I think being open and giving myself time to really consider who I am vs. what I’ve always been told I was may have been all I really needed in the first place.

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

the good news: I’m at a point where I can be ~comically angry~ about gender stuff, it’s not bad handling it when I’m not taking myself so seriously. it’s actually kind of funny.

the bad news: I HAVE BEEN LOCKED IN A BATTLE WITH GENDERFEELS FOR DAYS. WHAT IS THIS SHIT. NO I’M NOT GOING TO RECONSIDER THIS WHOLE NOT A WOMAN THING JUST BECAUSE I HEARD THE SONG “GIRLS LIKE GIRLS” AGAIN AND GOT REALLY NOSTALGIC FOR THE LABEL LESBIAN. WHAT THE HELL, GENDER? IF I DON’T GET OFF THE HOOK FOR DYSPHORIA WHAT WOULD BE THE POINT. WHY. 

(on a mildly more serious note it’s gotten me on the “well why couldn’t I be a woman who binds” thought which i guess is probably a point to actually consider, although that’s not the whole of it)

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

lol @ myself because I’m stuck on a should I/shouldn’t I thing (not a serious one just something my brain is fixating on) and for a second I was like, how about I let music decide. whatever song comes on will tell me what to do

but then I was like. hey remember how that exact method of decision making led you to date a marine for a year in high school? maybe that’s not the best way

(in defense of high school me, he’d asked me out and “Just Say Yes” came on the radio, it seemed like a p unambiguous sign)

~ sittingoverheredreaming ~ Leave a comment

My mom told me a story the other day that I found almost hilariously clarifying. 

So, during one of our first trips to disney (she does not remember if this was when I was two or four, tho she thinks it was two and really the point is just that I was v young) my family went to one of those immersive 3-D shows, the kind that uses air and water spray and vibrating seats to add to the realism. And going in the guy giving out the 3D glasses said not to take them off during the show, they were safety glasses and you should not remove them. Made it real for the kiddies and all that. But at one point during the show snakes and bugs and shit came out of the screen, and because I was v young I thought it was real and it freaked me out. My mom told me to take off the glasses, so then I would see it was just a movie and it was okay. But I wouldn’t. The guy said not to take off the glasses. I had to follow the rules. EVEN THOUGH I WAS STILL SUPER SCARED AND FREAKING OUT I WOULDN’T BREAK THE RULES. She had to fight to get the glasses off me.

And I kind of have to laugh at this, because like, hyperconcern for rules is such a thing for me and it apparently always has been? And it’s something I was lowkey aware of but it really clicked hearing this. (It also clicked that my mom was using this as an example of me being “such a good child” which is kind of a fucked up reinforcement of this behavior and may have made it worse, but ah well.) But idk recognizing it is helping me, because I can rationalize that people generally don’t worry so much about rules and some situations don’t actually *have* rules to follow even tho I feel they do (this is esp. true for social situations, either I have weird ass rules in place or panic about not knowing the rules (I’m incredibly shy despite being a fairly confident person because of this, like some of you may know I get genuinely scared about sending messages because I haven’t established rules and what if I’m breaking them and I have to talk myself into the line of thought that not sending a message could also be breaking the rules))

And obviously this is something I should talk to a professional about, and I plan to, but realizing it is kind of nice. (And not nice, idk, realizing I probably have long standing mental health issues isn’t the most pleasant thing, whether this is a form of anxiety or something else.)