THERE’S
a lot going on in my life right now! Honestly, there’s been a lot going on in my head for years…
Couple that with the fact I haven’t proactively worked on any writing pieces since basically before the Coronavirus pandemic and that makes this blog very nerve-wracking and a little spicy, a little risky and dangerous on my part. But considering how little other types of journaling work for me, and how much of myself I really want to share with the world and process in some way, I know this is going to be fruitful in the end. Fingers crossed!
Where to start?
I don’t want these to be epic poem-length, so I’ll try to stick to one topic per post. (Even then, I have a huge problem being concise, so expect epic poem-length posts anyway.) Right now, I’d like to talk about my top surgery.
A double mastectomy with masculinization! Big deal, especially in the world we live in today with a political climate that’s more than “hostile” to trans people – it’s actively seeking to eradicate us. For too many people every year, it does. And on Wednesday, I’m – allegedly – going to receive one of the most precious, life-saving gifts a medically transitioning person can get. I can’t even begin to reckon with the privilege that’s been handed to me. I’m not trying to humble brag; I mean I literally don’t have the skills or the tools to process it.
I feel like every time I’m reminded of how sheltered I am from the worst of transphobia as a white, sort of binary aligned trans man with a supportive family,
all I can do is stare down into the abyss of the stratified society I’m on top off, safe from the crash down below but hopelessly isolated from any community or true understanding.
I think a lot of that feeling is situational, though. Aside from mandatory school attendance and some extracurriculars, I’ve spent all my time literally physically isolated (by myself, mainly in my room) or being dragged around with my family (I appreciate them, I just hate going out to their EventsTM). Because of that, I’ve spent an actually unhealthy amount of time with basically only cisgender, straight white people from Suburbia. Of course I feel isolated from the struggles of more marginalized queer and trans people!
Will choosing to be around a more diverse group of people, whose struggles will be similar to mine and different in ways I won’t understand until I know them, repair this abyssal feeling?
I’ll find out…
I said I’m “allegedly” going to have the procedure on Wednesday, in three days, because it’s already been cancelled THREE TIMES this year. The first time at a public hospital after that Trump executive order scared providers away from doing gender-affirming surgeries under 19 (I was still 17 at the time, not even a legal adult yet 🤷🏻). The second time was at a private clinic after their overhead management wouldn’t let them do it under 18 (or 19; either way, I was still too young at the time). The third time was this Monday, as we were boarding a flight to a private clinic in San Francisco (where we were prepared to pay out-of-pocket for an over $9k procedure – see what I mean about privilege?). Their generator failed. They still had power, but procedurally they needed to have backup power because people receiving or recovering from surgeries are on life-support machines and whatnot.
We didn’t board that flight. We went home and cried. And then we waited for days as my stomach churned hard enough to produce the rankest gas you’ve ever smelt in your life (sorry, but the name of this blog does have “TMI” in it, so you were warned). And by some miracle they were able to get it back up and running starting yesterday, Friday, but after all these cancellations and being flung around like a rag doll by medical management that’s far high over my head, over most people’s heads, I can’t truly convince myself it’s really happening this time. Is it real? I keep wanting to ask myself. No way, I think, every time. They can’t actually follow through. That’s never, ever happened before.
And yet I am scheduled to have MAJOR surgery in three days, so I have this whole other part of me that is desperately trying to be prepared. I have a lot of medical trauma (that’s a story for another day), so I’m very anxious to be back in a hospital, around doctors, undergoing medical nonsense. And I’m incredibly fearful for the recovery. On top of worries about the nausea, because I have a bad stomach that deeply affects my mental state, and the restrictions and physical limitations, because I’m turning around and running right over to school only a week or two after the surgery,
I’m worried about my parents taking care of me.
I haven’t been close to them in, like, seven years. There’s a lot of reasons for this, and trust, I will get to all of them. This blog is called “TMI Diary” and that’s exactly the kind of place you put every last buttery detail of your mommy and daddy issues. But the important thing to mention right now is that, as it currently stands, we’re not really compatible in relationship together. So I can’t turn to them for emotional support. They’re alright with physical support, but I’m carrying many devastating things with me that, in this fragile time with all the stress surrounding my operation, threaten to blow nearly every day.
Slouching around in pain doing nothing but watching movies and potentially being trapped in my own head during my recovery is a terrifying prospect when I’m constantly going to be around at least one of them, nervous that I don’t set them off or show too much of my true self and feelings for them to be rejected or ridiculed. This image is part of a thought spiral definitely akin to catastrophizing, but it’s hard to fight when I’m doing nothing soul-feeding these days but laying around waiting to be cut open, and when I have no other support.
At the end of the day, I know it’s just a bad break.
I can
make it through the next few days, the next few weeks, then I’m home free. That’s not much of a comfort necessarily, since it feels like giving up on making things better in the present, but understanding that my mental health is on the rocks because of the structure of my current situation and not something inherent to me is rejuvenating.
For one thing, it gives me hope.
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I feel like what I’m doing here is important. This serves as a footprint, a record, for trans experiences. I don’t know if I deserve to be the voice of the community, but cis people should know these things about what trans people go through and how we feel. Well. Here you are.
TMI Diary Blog 
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