Surprisingly Thrilling

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.

I really need you to picture a lord farquaad being dummy yeeted into the air by an incoming vehicle while a golf cart of inebriated, glitter and mud plastered coworkers are full-on horror movie screaming together. before we can even process this, lord farquaad gets up like 🤪 how bout that drink?? completely okay, utterly unphased, red hat and bob wig still locked the fuck in. we check on him several times, all talking over each other, and while he’s calmly and pleasantly assuring us he’s fine, he passes each one of us a tiny jesus figurine. he bestows a “god bless you all” and then resumes his jaunt, drink in hand.

I def think everyone should carry a healthy amount of skepticism in an age where virality is often more prioritized than the truth but!! behold, a piece of my workplace’s holiday mailer. my coworker is the designer of this mailer and she included all sorts of references to our experiences in 2025. she was one of my coworkers on the golf cart with me and of course, included an ode to farquaad

*cools ur dashboard down*