Adventure Awaits

So I'm weeding our ancient and terrible collection of children's books for the first time in possibly ever, and I'm making a decision about a book about migrant workers by Sandra Weiner, called Small Hands, Big Hands. And I'm not 100% sure and I go to just see if there's anything out there about this book's being notable in any way so I do an open web search for

"small hands big hands weiner"

And then I look at my results for a moment

In mathematics, you often consider the two-dimensional plane - you know, the idealised flat two-dimensional object that extends infinitely - which can be real or complex (doesn't matter what that means)

On this, you can perform a mathematical operation called a "blow-up" (resulting in a more complicated geometry)

I needed to look up a formula related to this, so I confidently typed into the search bar:

"Blow up real plane"

I don’t even mean some vague notion of “trans joy” I mean you can make it. You can be a young trans person who grows into a middle aged trans person who gets to be a wrinkly old trans person.

If you are getting gender affirming surgery, especially if it’s your first major surgery, PLEASE be aware that you can become SEVERELY depressed afterwards ESPECIALLY if you have a history of depression or suicidal ideation.

Post op depression is a natural reaction to the crazy mix of hormones your body goes through after major surgery as well as the stress and anxiety of recovery. Think of it like an adrenaline crash, but dragged out longer.

For me it kicked in about 6 weeks after top surgery and the worst of it lasted until about 10 weeks post op. EVERYTHING felt IMPOSSIBLE. None of the skills I’d been practicing worked. I thought everything was going to be bad forever. I didn’t attempt, but I was in the hospital. If it wasn’t for my support system I probably would have attempted.

This is not regret, but it can feel like it. I remain happy about my results to this day (going on six years later).

This is not you failing to maintain your mental health, but it can make you feel like a failure.

Things are not hopeless, but through the haze of this depression they can feel hopeless.

It can be terrifyingly sudden or it can sneak up on you. I didn’t even realize what was going on until after the depression finally passed and my mental health went back to normal.

I am writing this post because nobody told me about this before my top surgery. I was caught completely off guard. For my subsequent surgeries being aware has made all the difference. Being able to treat those symptoms as an expected and normal part of the healing journey has made them far easier to deal with. Because even when my emotions go to dark places I *know* they will pass. I have been able to tell the bad thoughts to take a bad seat and focus on healing.