hey, im zak :)

I never get one fucking second of reprieve from this monthly hell cycle. I swear to god.

After I ovulate, I get hit with intense PMDD that makes me feel like a shell of a person, like the world is falling apart and I want to die.

When I bleed, I feel like I've been hit by a truck physically and get intense dysphoria AND the PMDD. I don't need to explain that.

Just when that is over, the week after, I get hit with a bunch of hormonally driven migraines that go on for literal days at a time and don't respond to medication.

Then I ovulate and the WHOLE FUCKING THING STARTS AGAIN.

I say this as that's where I'm at right now as clearly the PMDD is PMDDing so it's begun. I can't quite believe that I'm already back here after literally just having been through it! Do you wanna know how many days' break I got? Not even one!

Can't access HRT.

Not allowed to take combined BC because of migraines with aura making it a stroke risk

Can't take progesterone-only BC because PMDD is driven by my body basically rejecting progesterone (tell me again how that's not an intersex variant but ok). I've tried before, and the whole point is that it sticks you right in the PMDD hell phase, which literally made me suicidal, so that's not safe either. Oh, and not to mention I gained 20kg of weight on it too! (which I have now lost) which isn't fun for anyone, but as someone who was hospitalised in the past with an ED, yeah I found that quite difficult.

What the fuck do I do? I just want it to stop! But I feel like I have absolutely no control over my body. It feels like there's truly no way out. Every time I think about it, desperate to find a solution, I'm just reminded that I'll never outrun it, I'll never escape from it.

Even if I got on T, I'm not sure that I want to be on a full dose forever, and even if I was, that wouldn't necessarily even stop it either. Regardless I'd still really need a hysto anyway, and there's fat chance of getting that on the NHS. I won't even be able to get HRT, or top surgery on the NHS, not for another at least 10 years on the waiting list.

Since coming to the realisation that I am a trans guy around 6 months ago, I've just felt myself fall further and further into a pit of despair.

I can't medically transition. I can't afford to do it privately, and access to public healthcare in the UK will probably take me over 10 years. I'm already 26, which I know people will say 'isn't late', but it feels late to me. I feel such grief that I will never know what it would have felt like to experience boyhood, to live my early adulthood, or even my 20s and probably 30s, as a guy. I will have wasted half my life, my good years, as someone I am not. As a woman.

I am exhausted. I am so, so fucking tired. I feel like no one understands how bad it is, how suffocating it is. To live like this, knowing now what has been wrong all my life, and completely powerless to do anything about it. If anything, it's worse.

I'm supposed to try to distract myself, to 'stop caring' about being seen as a woman, that if I know who I am on the inside, that it shouldn't matter. But the thing is, I'm tired. Tired of keeping up this fucking charade of lies.

The alternatives are antidepressants. I can access those, but not the care I really need. Here, let's put a shitty plaster over what's breaking you whilst you're falling apart, like it's my fault I feel this way and not just the fact that I was born in the wrong body. Something that could be fixed, not numbed, if only I could access the right healthcare.

It's like I'm just supposed to be fine with my whole life being wasted right in front of my eyes, and I'm supposed to just watch that happen and somehow crack a smile about it. Be patient. Don't overthink it.

I'm so tired of trying. What's the point in bothering, painstakingly binding my chest until I'm having panic attacks, feeling like I can't breathe, or my skin is weeping and torn from the tape. What's the point in deliberating on what clothes I can wear that I deem masc enough, when none of it matters, none of it changes the fact that I am Very Clearly A Woman and will never be anything else, not without HRT. It doesn't matter how masc my shorts are, my vest with my binder showing out the side. None of it hides my body, my curves.

I tried wearing a breathable compression top round the house for a sensory break but to stop my chest touching my body and I look like Mrs fucking Trunchbull

I’ve ripped skin off my chest and am now covered in deroofed blisters because I had the audacity to leave my tape on overnight for ONE NIGHT even though you’re literally supposed to wear it for multiple days anyway but my skin apparently can’t tolerate it for longer than a few hours at a time

The first question they ever asked me about it was 'what do you think about school children identifying as cats and requesting access to litter trays', which is a BAD start comparing being trans and... that, as obviously it has nothing to do with it

Oh and every time I bring up something related to being trans like top surgery (I'm in the very early process of trying to get) they will LEGIT just go silent and not say anything at all and change the subject

Anyway, what I wanted to say was, idk wtf they think nonbinary is but what IRKS me to death is the continued usage of ALL the gendered things, the constant she/her, the continued deadnaming even though they know I changed my name, referring to me as their 'daughter'...

They never ask about any of this stuff. I feel like they just think it's a preference thing for them to choose not to bother with any of it. Like nonbinary is still basically the same to them as being a woman.

Maybe it would make more of a firm statement if I did tell them I was a trans guy, seems like it would be harder for them to pretend to get confused then, but at the same time, if they can't even get this right, me being the whole opposite gender seems a step even further for them to wrap their heads around.

I really wanna just be like 'please stop calling me your daughter' or 'please stop she/her-ing me' or at least like ask me how I feel about it before assuming, given I've very clearly explained to you that I. Am. Not. A. Woman.

Talking of- my mum also called me FUCKING SPIDER WOMAN- when spider man was right there? But no, she literally changed it from what it is actually called, to the female version...

What I’d LOVE would be he/him but I don’t feel like I can ask for that still looking completely like a woman with long hair and pre t and pre everything

They/them is the most I feel I could possibly get away with. But I don’t personally love those pronouns, they’re not fully me. But they’re 100% better than she/her

I can try and ask for they/he, is less provocative, and it is nice to at least get my actual preferred pronouns in even as an afterthought that I know everyone will ignore, but at that point I feel like the he/him part is just seen as a joke when I clearly am not, a he

He/they feels better. With my preferred pronouns at the forefront, making it clear who I am. I am happy to accept they/them as an alternative considering I know most people would struggle to he/him me pre transition as I am. But it’s still not… right. But maybe the best option for now.

Who am I kidding. All I EVER have been called is she/her. I can list on one hand the amount of times ANY pronouns except she/her have been used for me, whether they were my preferred pronouns or not. Anything is better than she/her.

I’m just staying at home today and binders are too thick and too long to wear underneath normal clothes so I’ve got on this gross little super tight bra thing which is the least fabric for the most squish but

a) it fucking hurts because it’s so small the band is cutting into my ribs and the straps are digging into my shoulders

b) having any kind of boob bulge and wearing a muscle vest just is NOT the vibe. Idk how women do it and look lovely but I just look fucking gross

-

I am on a long and arduous journey to fix my relationship with taping but my skin gets super irritated from it and I can’t wait it any longer than like 12 hours at a time and my deflated saggers need an entire fucking roll to themselves each to lift them up from inside my lap to get them anywhere near reasonable

My latest development has been buying super sensitive gentle k tape and using only one small piece on either side to spread the boys and a binder on top. That has worked surprisingly well, means I can get away with a size bigger binder, but yesterday I tried it as I always do to go climbing and had a mental breakdown because even after retaping again, something was going hella wrong because I looked WIDE and fucking deformed. The sports binder I wear over the tape is less of a binder and more of a a shit sports bra but without the tape the lads would fall straight out the bottom

Anyway. None of this solves binders in hot weather, because I have to wear a binder OVER the tape. So this brings me back to, maybe I could try JUST tape in very hot weather, but Jesus Christ finding a way to make my chest look somewhat normal, if not entirely flat, with tape is like fucking origami.

I’m not a masculine woman. I’m a feminine man.

Not because I don’t want to, but because I would feel like an actual joke attending as a man trapped in a woman’s body who is actually aware he is trans and completely helplessly unable to do anything about it

Not being able to access transition is physically painful, and tbh I don’t feel like I have anything to be proud of

Buttt still have some credit card debts to pay off, and won’t financially be in the position for me to take out another loan for my top surgery until next year :’)

Even then, there’s no guarantee I’ll be accepted for a loan. Which, I can’t even bare to think about. It’s the only fucking way I’m ever going to be able to afford it.

Basically things are still shit. I’m still suffering, still waiting. And the urge to just say fuck it and apply for a loan right now whilst my credit is good and actually know what it’s like to experience a life where I don’t hate my body with every fibre of my being every minute of the day, to experience freedom, it’s overwhelmingly tempting.

Idk how many of you are familiar with Invincible (the comics/ TV show)

Myself and my partner were talking to our friends today about which characters we’d be today (and like Halloween costumes and such) and they were like OMG we were talking about who you two would be!

I immediately braced myself internally like oh fucking god. They don’t know I’m trans. They think I’m a woman. This is gonna be bad.

It was :’)

They said my partner would be Robot and I was like hell yeah, sick choice.

A part of me was like, surely? Surely they know me well enough? Surely it would make so much sense to say I’d be *literally ANY male character* instead of a female character. Because how could they ever think I would be any of the female characters. I had a sudden, fleeting moment of hope. It’s not so outlandish that they might accidentally affirm me. I’m very masc, after all (I wonder why)

Who am I?

I’m monster girl :’)

I’m over here googling ‘I am trans’ quizzes, whilst being deeply mournful of the fact that I’ll never know what it would’ve felt like to be a cis man, to have just been born in right body without all the fighting. I’m so sick of the fighting.

What a fucking privilege to just be born in the correct body and never even have to think about it.

I can’t afford to transition rn but I’m still ME, goddammit :’) why can’t you believe me? Even if you can’t see me for who I am yet? Please just trust me. I’m the boy trapped deep inside this female hellscape of a body, and I know that I’m a man :’(

I’m pre everything so still pass as just any other cis woman (although I’m pretty masc and imo anyone with half a brain would take one look at me and assume I was some kinda fruity but that’s just me ig)

I met these friends pretty recently so haven’t come out to them yet as I’m not sure if they’re safe to, as I’m still not sure on their views on LGBT stuff and specifically trans stuff

I was supposed to be going to this event and I had to cancel because I am just not mentally or physically in the space right now, not with the cramping and the dysphoria and everything else.

I wish I gave literally any another reason. ANY other reason. I could’ve just said I felt ill, could’ve said I had a migraine (I have chronic migraines and my friends know this) but I was worried they sounded like excuses so I thought maybe I should just tell the truth. I was already stressed about cancelling anyway and the last thing I wanted was for it to sound flakey and made up.

I know that it sounds stupid because I’m already read as a cis woman anyway, but I just feel so horrible and icky and gross about it all, like I’ve outed myself as a Female Womanly Woman who Bleeds and Menstruates. It feels like a self report, a violation of my identity for others to now know this (even although they most certainly assumed this about me already)

I just feel so shit rn. PMDD, pain, dysphoria and now outing myself as a Lady Menstrator to them.

I know it doesn’t make sense because they already thought I was female anyway. But like, it just took away any remaining chance of disillusion that they DIDN’T see me that way, y’know? As highly impossible as that was. But I’ve now confirmed it to them.

How unfair it is that cis people will never know what this is like and they just get to…exist as they are. They get to just BE the right gender without the crisis, the fight, the crippling financial hardship required just to fix a body I should’ve been born into correctly. They get to be respected, they get to be SEEN