So I’ve started on subconscious subcutaneous estrogen injections and so far so good. I seem to be ok with it mentally. No mood swings so far and I actually have some hope for the future. And I’ve been thinking more clearly, which is a double edged blade.
I have come to realise that I have no good friends who live locally, and the nearest gender queer friend is a 2 hour flight away and they’re non binary (not transfem). I really want to have at least one transfem friend in the town where I live, but I don’t. I know there are other trans women here because I see them out and about. But you can’t just go up to someone and say “hey I see you’re trans! I’ve just started estrogen! Let’s be friends!”. There are no LGBTQ+ clubs here and even if there were, I don’t have the time or money to go out.
Realistically I don’t even have time to maintain friendships, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed by everything going on in my life and just want to speak to someone irl who understands. I’m not really depressed per se, but I also don’t want to become depressed because I don’t have anyone to talk to about my struggles.
You sound like a wonderful mother, you remind me of my mother honestly. She always puts my needs before her own needs.
I want to share just one little thing from my relationship with her: I once came home from school to find her on her own in her bedroom crying her eyes out. She had never let me see that sort of strength of feeling from her before so it was clear to me this was really serious.
She explained to me then that she was really really unhappy in the relationship with my step-father and she had been for years, but she didn’t want to disrupt my life and she didn’t want to seperate me from him because I was so close with him.
She had basically prevented herself from being okay and happy because her highest priority was not disrupting my life, but really I couldn’t have cared less about that dude, or the house I was in, or whether we moved away, I just wanted her to be happy, because I could tell she wasn’t. She was sad and it was obvious that she was even though she was doing her best to hide it from me. Living with that sadness was worse than whatever disruption came after.
I wish I could have told her years before that I would support her and she didn’t need to sacrifice her happiness for me, especially because she was assuming that leaving my stepdad would be really really disruptive for me, and it just wasnt.
Kids are really fucking resilient. I know that you will always put them first, but I hope you can get your oxygen mask on too if you get what I’m saying.
Oh it’s nothing like that. It’s honestly self preservation. My kids are like a hurricane. If I take any time off, I’m just making things a hundred times worse down the line. They can create 2 hours of unnecessary housework in 5 minutes. My partner has chronic pain and can’t run around after them so I either stay on top of the situation or it gets out of hand real fucking quick.
At least 2 of them have pathological demand avoidance, so getting them to tidy up after themselves is about an hour of subtle hints and gentle persuasion for 10 minutes of cleaning (and even then only if I gameify it). Taking a break is the same as ripping the oxygen mask out while the plane is on fire, it just gets much worse.
Sorry for mis-reading the situation. I hope that i don’t sound like I’m being preachy with you, I guess I was just hearing in your story, something that seemed resonant to me, but i was off-base. I really wish you the best off luck.
I still think you sound like a great mom.
I get it, and to an extent you are correct. It is overwhelming sometimes but I just have to remember that it’s not going to get harder as they grow up. So the time will come when I can take a break without sabotaging myself. And you can bet your ass I will!
You deserve it.