MONTH TWO, DAY THREE:
Today was certainly a very interesting day in regards to changes. This time, the change that has happened has pretty much shaken my entire sense of normality. My change this time was not in my body, it was actually in my head. Today I've discovered that the ways I respond to stress have suddenly changed, and the things which I find pleasurable have suddenly changed too.
So, basically, I woke up today still feeling completely crappy. I was tired, irritable, and just still feeling completely down on myself, unable to drum up any enthusiasm whatsoever for either the gender transition or even going into "girl mode" for the day. My feelings really were along the lines of "I don't care, just leave me alone." And this was the THIRD day in a row that I was feeling like this, so it was getting quite old, and I was getting genuinely worried that I was either developing depression, or that maybe I was wrong about the gender transition making me more happy. I didn't know. I spent all morning re-reading every single post that I've made since the very beginning of this thread, and actually feeling really bad as I got to all of the happy parts, because it was like "Man... I was SO happy, and so sure of my new identity EVERY single day before my stupid supply of estrogen ran out last week. Nothing has been the same since then, even though I'm back on it now." And it was just this terrible feeling where the misery just wouldn't go away no matter how much I tried to use my normal coping strategies of getting rest and relaxation. And I was also worried, because stresses from the previous day NEVER used to have this kind of long-lasting effect on my mood. Usually as soon as the day is over, and I go back home and can just chill, I almost instantly feel better, and it NEVER lasts until the next morning. But today it did. And not only that, this was still the EXACT same negative line of thoughts that started two days ago when I failed to make a convincing girl in my four-week update video. Negativity has NEVER impacted me this much, or made me feel this depressed before.
The odd thing is, this stress and depression didn't feel like the same kind of masculine stress and depression that I was used to, it really felt more like feminine stress and depression. It didn't feel like a "dull grey drear" mode where my stress and depression were manifested by feeling angry, annoyed, tense, and snappy. It was a more feminine kind of mopiness, if that makes sense, where I felt more whiny and complainy rather than upset. Not really angry at anything, just annoyed, kind of like a teenage girl. And when I realized that, that was when I suddenly realized... if this kind of depression was a more feminine kind of depression, maybe I needed feminine coping strategies to deal with it rather than masculine ones. Maybe rather than retreating into "the cave" and isolating myself, trying to relax until the bad feelings disappeared, maybe I needed to do what girls do... combat the negative feelings with positive ones. Do what Jenny does. Watch a silly comedy movie, or look at internet videos of cute animals, or eat serotonin-bo
d wouldn't you know it, after three straight days of feeling like total crap, that
g happy. (You can thank THIS (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiHXASgRTcA) video for doing that... OMIGOD, SO MUCH CUTENESS!!! They're so fluffy I'm gonna die!!!) Suddenly, out of nowhere, after immersing myself with laughter and cuteness for about 20 minutes, every single one of those self-defeating mopey thoughts just absolutely vanished... POOF! Into thin air! And then after that, I watched yet a
fter" female hormone videos, (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p52kfhZa-Qs), suddenly for the first time in what felt like forever, I started feeling optimistic again, started feeling like yes, if I do stay on this regiment, I really will have a completely female body one day, and that it's actually something that's worth waiting for, rather than getting all whi
lf. (Late-day addition: THIS (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sretVbbdpGo) video is just completely awesome too! It's almost exactly what I've been feeling recently.)
So that was the first sign today that something REALLY major is changing. My very mind is changing. The way that I respond to stress has suddenly changed. As a guy, stress was just a minor annoyance. I could ignore it, go back home and relax, and everything would be fine if I just gave it time. Where as a girl, it does NOT leave you alone. If you let it, it will consume your life and reduce you to a crying lump in a fetal position feeling like the whole world is against you. To beat it, you can't just ignore it or shove it off to the side like guys can, you have to face it straight-on. Fight depression with happiness. Find something to get your mind off of your own problems and back on to happy things. And then, POOF! It will be gone. And this is a BIG change for me. I'm REALLY used to responding to stress with rest, relaxation, and ignoring it. I learned this from my dad. After a hard day of work, he always insisted on being left alone for at least an hour so that he could sunbathe and take a nap and chill, and he was right back to being normal after that. And I've always done that too. Whenever I'm feeling bad, I just go into my room and lock the door and enjoy some nice R&R, and I feel better. But now suddenly that doesn't work anymore. I was trying to do that for two days straight, but I woke up feeling just as crappy as when I went to bed. So this is something that I'm REALLY going to have to pay attention to. It requires a complete change in lifestyle, a complete rethinking of what is pleasurable to me and what is required to make me happy.
And while we're on the subject of what makes me happy now, there has been a big change in that too. One of my favorite ways to pass the time has always been to play Franchise Mode on Madden Football '05 for hours on end. Beating the CPU by ridiculous scores of like 102-0 was always so fun, and such an enjoyable way to just waste time. But today, for some reason, it did not give me ANY pleasure at all to play that game. There just wasn't that same feeling of accomplishment and enjoyment. Almost as soon as it started, strangely, it just felt different. I wasn't able to get into the game like I usually do. Suddenly, it just felt like a pointless game, where I was playing against "intelligence" that wasn't even real, and that the game just really didn't matter. It just seemed like a waste of time. (If someone had told me that I would EVER be speaking that way about a video game, I would have laughed them off the stage. I just can't believe that suddenly I'm feeling this way.) So somehow, the things which give me pleasure are now changing too. I'm getting less pleasure from certain things... from games, from gadgets, from competition where I can really get into the emotional highs of victory and the low-avoidance of defeat. And I'm getting MUCH greater pleasure from others... from cute things, and things that make me laugh, and things that make me smile. And this is SUCH a huge change, I can hardly fathom it. I'm so used to getting pleasure from certain activities, certain things, and now suddenly that pleasure-response that I always got just isn't there anymore. There's just not the same joy in them, even though it's the exact same activity. And again, this is going to require a complete change in my everyday life... I'm going to have to find new things that make me happy when I'm not doing anything, and new ways of dealing with stress when life gets tough. My very daily routine is now suddenly going to be different, and the things I look forward to are going to have to be different. I REALLY did not expect this. But suddenly, my mind just feels like it is rapidly changing into a female one.
And you know, I can feel this change happening also in ways that have nothing to do with my interests or my pleasures. I've noticed that suddenly I can multi-task better. As a guy, my biggest problem dealing at my poker tables was always being able to follow the action at the same time as other things were going on around the table. As soon as I took my eyes off the action in order to fix my chip rack or talk to a new player, I would COMPLETELY lose track of where the betting was. And even sometimes when I actually was paying attention, I still wouldn't notice that everyone had checked already, and was waiting on me. This was my biggest problem for MONTHS, all the way from when I started in September all the way until about last week. But suddenly, my brain is just working better when it comes to being able to keep up with the action. Yesterday, God, I just couldn't believe how well I was able to keep up. I was able to fix my tray, clock someone into the table, and STILL know exactly where the action was at the table. I was dictating the action almost perfectly all day, and hardly made a single mistake where everyone was waiting on me, while that used to happen MULTIPLE times at every single table. And it absolutely blew me away that I was suddenly able to do that. That ability just came absolutely out of nowhere.
After some research brought on by wondering about these changes, I've discovered that hormones can have a profound effect on the mind with time... that they feminize it too... that with time, the brains of transsexuals actually start having female proportions, and the thought patterns change to more feminine ones. And there are a LOT of case reports of people's interests suddenly changing like this. So although it definitely caught me off-guard, I must say, it's quite interesting. My mental gender identity has NEVER felt this feminine. So that's what's been going on. I'm definitely going to have some real adjusting to do, as I can only assume these feminine thought patterns are going to be showing up more and more over the next few months, but it's definitely exciting. I REALLY feel like a girl now. (And yes, I still absolutely love it, even though it's definitely different.)
Also, I think you will all be happy to know, "girl mode" is officially back. Today once I finally shook the depressed state that I was in by looking at Youtube videos of cute kittens, I was once again successfully able to feel excited about the upcoming changes, able to appreciate the degree to which I've already feminized physically, and I once again finally was able to feel extremely feminine with the wig on. In fact, if you ask me, it looks REALLY good now. My physical feminization has really accelerated in recent days, so now I'm once again feeling confident about going out into the "real world" as a girl. (Especially since I spent pretty much all night working on my voice.) I have a LOT to talk about in regard to the most recent updates on my physical changes, but since I spent so long talking about the mental changes today, I'll leave it at that for the night, and get into my physical updates tomorrow.
Good night, everyone, and God bless! Things are looking up again, it's like EVERYTHING is suddenly starting to change (for the better, I might add,) and I once again feel great! (here's another amusing "trans girl diary" webcomic on the topic:
http://transgirldiaries.com/?p=120) Anyway, byee!!!
-Carrie
〈( ^.^)ノ ♪
(The moral of the story is, cute kittens solve everything!!! At least if you're a girl... :p)
(=ＴェＴ=)ω *meow!*
)