Day 1 of X....

 Hey all.  I've been thinking about this all morning (all night really; didn't get as much sleep as I wanted to last night), and I think it's time that I restarted a blog, in part to hold myself accountable.  Firstly, I'd like to address those who have been actively sent a link to this blog by me: you're all important people in my life that I trust (among other things, you all qualify for my criteria in wanting you here; the simple test of "Has this person intentionally harmed me in the past?"  Heat of the moment anger doesn't count; you can't conciously control that stuff, not entirely.)  Due to the way I'm built, mentally, it's important to me that you have access to these thoughts.  Not so much that I expect my words to be all that engrossing, or even relevant to you - it lands somewhere around a need for honesty as complete as I can manage with those I care about; there's a little bit of unhealthy thought behind that, in that there's some testing that you'll tollerate me after knowing my truths, but I think the overall net effect is still going to be positive. So don't feel like you have to hang on my every word; this is honestly much more about me than you.  At the same time, the level of truth I envision is going to require some anonymizing; I don't have a right to expose my friends' secrets by proxy.  So, you may recognize yourself in some of my writing under a different title, or it might be referring to someone else entirely - I'll try to keep some doubt in play to make everything fair.  I would ask, however, for those that know who I am in real life to keep that information to themselves, at least in relation to this blog - this isn't going to end up being very useful if I start off by having to censor myself relentlessly throughout.  With that thought, please have patience with me if something does manage to hit too close to home; I'll always be willing to change names further if you don't feel safe with what I've used - just let me know it's an issue and that's enough.

For any of the rest of the internet that's wound up at my doorstep, welcome!  (Yep, I'm talking to an imaginary audience that comprises 0 people right now, even in my head)  This is probably going to be as much screaming into the ether as it is asking why in general, but please, see if maybe you can find some commonality to relieve a bit of your own self-conciousness - it's about the only effective means I've ever found to decrease mine.

With regard to the chosen name of this blog, well, I like to feel like I'm a bit clever and ever so slightly rebelious when dealing with things I don't like.  And I don't like my brain.  It's defective.  Proveably.  A couple of years ago, my last medical provider (through a previous insurance contract) ran an MRI of my brain for me to check up on physical causes for my chronic migraine; I have a gross idea of what started the process (chemical exposure during the military), but the actual mechanism by which it torments me has never really been explored to any conclusive end, regardless of numerous methods of testing applied and dozens upon dozens of providers being involved over the years.  This wasn't my first test of this nature; MRIs and CT scans have become something I expect to be part of my care every year or so, just to keep an eye on things, even if it doesn't prove anything.  This time was marginally different, but I have completely latched onto that difference and made it very much a part of how I saw myself since that test.  I don't have easy access to those records at the moment; I had had some idea of making a artsy faded out version of the scan to use as a background here (a little more of the morbid clever flavor that attracts me so much), but at the moment I'm trying to be ok with leaving that impulse unfulfilled.  I'm afraid that "trying to be ok" is likely to be a recurring theme here; OCD is just one of the many diagnoses that have been tacked onto my record, and I've got to admit that that is one I'm helpless to argue against.  My current therapist, who regrettably will be passing me on to a new individual in the coming weeks, describes the fundamental point of my experience of OCD perfectly - "It's an intollerance of doubt."  Even if he hasn't been able to help me as sucessfully as I'd like lately, he's got that one locked down.  In any case, what shook me about that experience was that in the description field was a mention of "increased atrophy", almost casually thrown in amongst other dry terms.  I know it's just two relatively innocent words that probably don't net out to mean much at all, but I absolutely convinced myself that I saw the damage clearly on that scan - it felt enormously obvious to me that there was way too little density, that there was a huge gap around all of my grey matter, and that I could see random thinning of the tissue here and there.  So I've always thought of myself as having a swiss cheese brain, since then.  Not exactly complimentary, but it's felt absolutely, utterly true.  For what it's worth, the several CT and MRI scans I've had since, with the new provider that we're paying quite a bit extra for each month, haven't mentioned a thing about abnormalities in size or density.  Doesn't seem to shake the self-image much, at the moment, though.

On top of that, I have diagnoses of memory loss and ADHD piled in there, thus the scramble, and the general "hey look, a squirrel!" feel of things so far.  The other major truth of my life that I'm trying to come to terms with at the moment is that I'm transexual.  If it offends your politics or worldview to talk about the alphabet soup issues (LGBTQ, etc), well, this probably isn't going to be a blog you'll want to follow, and that's ok.  You don't have responsibility to give my words any value in your life.  To clarify what I mean by that, well, I've lived as a man (formerly boy) all my life.  At this point, after a number of self-relevatory moments of catharsis that have shown up relatively recently, I know that I want to live life as a girl/woman (both terms are attractive to me for various reasons).  Honestly, I've always wanted this, for as long as I can remember, but it's one of many thoughts that I shy away from almost instinctually, thanks to a rather ugly patriachical upbringing.  Shame keeps me away from a lot of things I want in life, or at least it has been that way for a long time.  The last holdout point finally gave up just a few months previous, when two of my friends formed a rather incredible bond over the internet, overseas in fact, that eventually led to one of the lovely ladies migrating stateside to be with her love, and eventually finding a flavor of wedded bliss there.  The critical fact?  One of the two was transgender MtF, as I've felt matches my own definition, and the other is a cisgender female.  For whatever reason, in considering transition previously, I absolutely fixated on being with men, even though being attracted to men has been an experience that has shown up very rarely before.  Suddenly, joining the girl's team without having to give up being involved with girls opened up as a conceptual possibility and the remaining doubts I'd had about being trans just fell utterly away.  Essentially, I just happen to be a lesbian that started out with the wrong equipment.

From there, well, now my major concern is how complete the change will be, and surviving the interveining time without too many more mental breakdowns.  I detest my body, for rather a lot of reasons, but even just in the looks department, I'm not all that pleasant to begin with.  I run away from mirrors and cameras alike with equal fervor, and the relationships I've had thus far have always been tinged by a bit of almost manic disbelief that anyone would want to be with me, or would stay down the road, once they'd had the chance to fully consider me.  The previouly mentioned OCD doesn't play nice with incompletes, either; there are dozens of hobbies and skills that I've given up on after a single attempt (or none at all) due to not acheiving the results I want; I can viscerally imagine how badly that's going to play with my head during the intermediate stages of my gender change.  The idea of ending up as the prototypical "man in a dress" image that's sensationalized in media terrifies me.  On the other hand, I've been doing a lot better at trying to reframe issues to find a useful response since getting back from the whacko shack (I spent last week in a mental ward to try and stabilize depression) - the honest truth is that my impulse NOT to be male is nearly as strong as the impulse to be female.  Obviously not the absolute healthiest perspective to be coming from, but I'm getting some leverage from the idea of just not being a man, finally.  Some level of androgeny as an interim state, or even a final product, might not be that bad, when I look at it from that angle.

I think maybe that's enough for a first post - walls of text are a bad habit with me.  There'll surely be more in the coming days and weeks, as I work through processing what all of this means to me.  You folks are welcome to come along for the ride, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary this time, despite my general dependance on external validation.  I think it might be enough to know that you guys know it's here.