Responsibility

This is hard for me to talk about.

For the past two years I've had no responsibilities. I've lived my life in that time as I've wanted, playing games all day, seeing friends whenever I wanted, and just generally not even trying to make an effort. This has, of course, made me very lazy in many ways.

It's snuck up on me too. I don't think of myself as lazy, because I didn't used to be. But when I really think about it, I'm terribly lazy. I recorded footage of an event my trans group held and even though it was over a week ago I haven't uploaded the footage to anyone, or even looked at it. I'm meant to be a big part of this group now, as I'm helping organise an introduction group for new people once a month, and I let the latest one almost slip by without any form of effort to make it happen.

I'm shocked at myself, and it makes me feel really discouraged. But I know this is just a side-effect of my lifestyle over the last few years, and if I make an effort to change this I will.

I don't want a reputation among these new friends to be unreliable and lazy. I value them and their opinions too much.

What I want for christmas

Mum has been hassling me about christmas. It's a complicated issue with this family, but it boils down to her pressing me that I should want X when I really just want Y.

In our extended family, we do a non-anonymous Kris Kringle. We all pick a name out of a hat and that's who we buy for, because our family is so large. I'm buying for my grandmother, and my uncle Vin is buying for me. Mum has been telling me for a few weeks now that I shouldn't just give my uncle a list of DVDs or one big thing, because "it's boring" to do your shopping in one place. So she's talked me into trying to think of things that aren't just movies or music, and I keep coming up blank. There isn't anything I want that isn't like that, nothing that would keep me in the closet anyway.

I saw my psych today, and she cheered me up. She finally got it into my head that I'm allowed to want what I want for christmas, and tough shit for mum if she doesn't want me to want it.

Amazingly, since I've gotten over this little hump, I've thought of things that aren't just in one shop. Go figure.

I'm going to ask my grandmother what she wants.

So that's my extended family sorted out, now for my actual mother...

She's asked me for a list of stuff, and again, I keep coming up short. I don't know what I want her to buy me. There's only one thing I can think of that I really want for christmas, and that' a name-change form. I want my real name to be what I've been going by for the last 2 years. I have to think when I introduce myself as my birth-name, and be careful not to say my chosen-name.

I want my name for christmas.

Binging and quitting (Motivation 3)

I can't do moderation. I just can't. If I let myself have even a little bit of junk food, I'll just keep eating it and eating it.

With this in mind, my diet has been to basically cold-turkey every food I love, because everything I love to eat is terrible for you. People kept saying that it shouldn't happen like this, but I can't do it any other way. I can't have just a little bit every now and then. I need it all the time, or never.

It's been about a month since I started doing this , and I set out mostly what I wanted to: To fit back into my lolita outfit.

About a week ago I got really really depressed about it, all I wanted to do was to eat something that tasted good. So I looked up how much your mood should change on a diet, and every single result I got was that if dieting makes you miserable you're being too hard on yourself and too strict. But, once again, that was the only way I could do this. So that night I weighed up things in my head:

Would I be happier eating what I liked, and be chubby
Or
Would I be happier being thinner and not eating what I liked

So yeah, I went with the chubby food-loving side.

It's not all bad, though. The night after I decided that, I went to McDonald's, just cos I wanted SOMETHING unhealthy. I ate it, and guess what? I still didn't like the taste of it.

So I reconsiddered what I wanted, and how I was going to achieve it.

It's taken a few days to think it through, but I think I'm going to continue with what I was doing, but giving myself a break, and trying moderation. I don't think it's going to have a good result, but trying is better than just resigning myself to a weight I'm unhappy with, right?

Motivation pt2: Life without caffeine

I'm not sure if that's the correct spelling of caffeine, but it doesn't look right no matter what.

Anyway, after my terrible realisation and about 3 days of self loathing, my feelings about it weren't going away. So you know what I did? I did something about it.

I'm losing weight, and fast it seems. My psych has already seen a difference, though she may just be saying it. I'm already to the point where I fit into my lolita outfit quite comfortably again.

What am I doing to lose weight? I've cut back on a lot of things, and cut out a few things almost entirely. I'm trying to eat better food, and generally lower quantities. No more coke or soft drink every day. In fact it's been a week since I had coke, and before that it was 5 days that I'd had any.

For the first week it was utter hell. I had a migraine every single night, and my stress levels went through the roof. The headaches have gone for the most part, but the stress thing  is still a bit of an issue. I'm coping as well as I can though, and Serina has been a huge help at keeping me level-headed and in a healthy area of the spectrum. By now I'm pretty sure I would have either just eaten loads of junk every day in an effort to cheer myself up, or completely starved myself in an effort to just make some sort of progress.

One thing I don't like is how people react to me losing weight. They ask how much I weigh (I don't know) and ask how I'm losing the weight, and what my eating habits used to be like when I tell them. Then they say "Ohhhhh, that's really bad for you". I know! That's why I've stopped!

One thing I'm struggling with is the guilt. Sometimes I can't tell the difference between a treat and me gorging myself on sugar. I'm pretty much only eating junk food on saturdays, which is the day I work. And I think I'm only doing that because of the stress work gives me, so if I don't work I just don't eat junk food.

Well, at any rate, this seems to be working. I feel lighter, less clogged, I sleep a lot better, however my energy levels have gone way down. I was under the impression they'd go up, but oh well.

Motivation

Tonight I had a big startle: I can barely fit into my lolita outfit! I only got it in june, and I somehow gained enough weight to make it extremely tight.

I immediately got onto google and looked up how to lose weight, only to find out I already knew what I needed to know, because I've googled it a hundred times already.

This happens a lot. I get the urge to lose weight and be more active, and then I lose it just as fast. I know I want to lose this weight, but instead of getting on my bike and going for a ride for half an hour, I sit at home and play TF2. I used to feel guilty about it, but now it's just part of my life. It's pretty consistent, to the point where I'm not even expecting to think about it at all tomorrow.

So now I'm googling how to fix my clothes for my fat ass, and the funny part is I won't even do that. I'd like to say it's because it would be like giving up, but no. I just can't retain motivation anymore.

Permission

There's a transgirl I know who is extremely determined to transition. She is full of self-loathing and insecurity.

The last few times I've talked to her she's mentioned her increasing health issues to do with her over-exerting herself on a constant basis. She barely eats, and exercises to the point of exhaustion every single day. Naturally, this made her unwell. She went to the doctor and became furious when he said to stop her routine.

She thinks that having any fat on her is muscle, and muscle is what men have, not women. She isn't listening to reason, and seems to want permission to keep doing what she's doing. I refuse to give in and take the apathetic attitude I normally have. I care about this girl, and I want her to succeed in a healthy way.

I've tried to talk her down so much, but I see that's pointless. If I push too hard she'll push me away, and just keep doing it. I regularly give her advice, whether she takes it is another matter.

She regularly says "When I transition". She sees it as a black and white thing. Something quick, and painless. If only it were. I've also tried to tell her she already is transitioning, but I got a confused reaction. I suppose the best thing I can do for her is to keep her near, and help pick up the pieces if she falls apart.

Scared

These last few weeks have not been very good, for my headspace. My mum is getting increasingly difficult to deal with, as well as some other things going through my head.

The first being transitioning. I feel like I've hit a ceiling, which I shouldn't be feeling right now. There's always something stopping me, whether tangible and realistic, or totally in my head. I've been feeling very out of control of my own life lately. My mum steering me to places I don't want to go, which keeps my transition from progressing. The first and most prevelent is my job. The job that I hate, and only do on saturdays, that won't take me anywhere in my life.

Then there's my family, who don't know about me, but the more frustrated I get the less I care. Mum's been pushing me away from them for a while now, so that might be part of it. They're pretty much already not involved with my life, so why hide it from them?

This random irrational fear has come out in a very strange way... I've stopped taking my hormones. I talked to Serina about it, and she said it's a way for me to gain some form of control. I think she's right. She convinced me to take them again in front of her, but I haven't done it since. It's been about two weeks off them, and I've noticed the change. I feel heavier, and more masculine. It's kinda scary. Actually it's really scary.

All of this on top of the fact that my life is going nowhere. I'm not in school, I'm working at a job that doesn't really let me go anywhere, and I'm stuck in the middle of transitioning. I'm just stuck where I am.

I keep trying to imagine a realistic solution to all of this, and what I'm coming up with is to quit my job at the end of the year, move out, change my name (this is a huge priority for me right now) and go to school. Easier said than done, but it's realistic.

First order of business is to get back on hormones.