During my pre-transition journey trying to figure out why I never felt satisfied with my body, I pursued body building. Your diet and nutrition is like 70% of the process 🫠 someone can spend 6 days a week in the gym and make no progress if their nutrition isn’t tuned to their goals.

My favorite genre! SoL often crosses into other genres, so my answer would probably vary depending on how open we can be!

On the Romance side there’s just sooo many I love- My Dress-Up Darling, A Sign of Affection, Horimiya, You and I are Polar Opposites.

For music - K-On and most definitely Sound Euphonium (in my top 3 all time)

Topic-based- DIY, Ruri Rocks, Yuru Camp, New Game

General randomess - Saiki K, YuruYuri

If I had to pick just one it would be Sound Euphonium. Absolutely beautiful series 🎵

Something I often think about is how gaining perspective is one of the most powerful and influential aspects of being a human! We can find it through experiences, meeting new people, or losing people, safety, privilege, or any other number of things. It can take us deep into ourselves to reevaluate our values, identity, purpose, and what’s truly important to us. I also think about how we can slowly lose sight of that perspective, and it takes some other event to open our mind again. Documenting, journaling, or sharing through posts like this are such great ways to anchor ourselves to those moments in our lives, so I’m super happy you shared and had something/someone shake up your mind and cause so much introspection!

Thank you 🫂 I’ve been through some disastrous code deployments, but I know those experiences could never truly compare to something like this- stress, fear, accountability, and just feeling violated. You all must have put in sooo much effort and had to make some difficult decisions. Thank you for all of your time and knowledge to creating and supporting this space for us 🩷

The generics of 30mg Vyvanse in the morning and 10mg Ritalin in the afternoon (as needed)- usually around 9am and then 2pm. Seems to work pretty well for me!

No amount of alcohol is good for you, and considering the things that are ‘good’ for you can potentially be bad for you (e.g. supply chains making things cheaper for profit without regards to public health), it’s not really worth whatever you’re getting out of it (imo). Sure, it can be reasonable to think it can be fun or different on occasion, but there’s alternatives that are far less destructive to your overall well-being. By less risky I’m not even refering to long-term damage…I mean the potential that someone’s light or moderate relationship with alcohol can, in a single night, pivot and destroy their life or the life of another. That can obviously be applied to literally anything, but again, there’s no amount of alcohol that’s good for you.

Want a head change? Eat a CBD gummy or try some different teas- there’s plenty that can mellow you out the are far less impactful or risky to your health- chamomile, peppermint, kava, damiana, etc (though even some of those can damage your liver long-term).

Ultimately, everyone gets to decide what is worth the risk to them - red meat, lunch meats, preservates in literally everything, pickled things, too much sugar, trans fats, too much screen time, etc. Kind of comes down to the individual to decide what’s worth it. I’d rather enjoy a yummy treat a few times a week over nuking my body with alcohol every now and again.

Super interesting and things I’ll look out for as I get closer to the 4 year mark (half way there)! It is unfortunate that androgens and testosterone do a lot to regulate most of the things mentioned here- stimulates collagen so thicker more oily skin and stronger nails, and higher tear production so less dryness of the eyes. Estrogen tends to lower blood pressure while testosterone tends to increases it- could account for the dizziness. I think all these things become even more clear as we age and most definitely should be talked about! Much of it feels less about being trans and just more about being a woman 🩷

No questions! Just wanted to say I’m happy to see a post from you again, and I hope life has been treating you super great (even if it’s been insane)!! 🩷

Definitely! I feel like this was fairly common knowledge even a decade ago and why people would quickly rebound back to previous size and strength when returning to fitness- muscle memory due to myonuclei persisting even when the actual tissue atrophies. I guess this is an additional state of memory for the body. Super neat!

I’ve struggled with insomnia for most of my life as well and had been prescribed a variety of medication types to try to treat it- ssris, antihistamines, z-drugs, atypical antipsychotics, etc… of those, the only one which absolutely guaranteed I’d sleep was Seroquel; it was a sledgehammer to the brain. It unfortunately was just overall far too effective and would sedate me the entire day and blended my dreams and reality in a very distressing way. It does help a lot if people do might be an option.

I eventually found relief through cannabis, and for over a decade, I was happily content vaping some flower for bed. Insurance obviously doesn’t cover that, and I’m unfortunately at a place in life with no job and income…sooo it was back to my psych to try to address my inability to sleep.

I spent a few days looking at medications that other people have had success with and found some that reported finding relief through Clonidine and other blood pressure medications. I brought the suggestion to my doctor who seemed open to it. I started with the standard immediate relief version. It did semi-reliably get me to sleep, but, as with many, I’d just end up waking up 4-5 hours later and would take another that sometimes would get me back to sleep. I then asked to try the extended release version, and so far it has allowed me to sleep the entirety of the night! Might be worth looking into if your heart is overall fine!

I had been on a fairly low dose of spiro for a little over 2 years and recently asked my doctor if I could discontinue it. She said it should be safe since my testosterone levels had been suppressed for so long and estrogen alone should keep it down now; my last labs coming out to 11ng/dL.

I never really had any issues with it, but I started a new medication that also had the chance to interact with my water/salt levels and wanted to avoid potential complications. It’s been 2 weeks so far, and I haven’t noticed any rebounding effects… though apparently it can take anywhere from 2-12 weeks for anything noticeable. I’ve also had absolutely zero libido since transitioning (progesterone didn’t help), so waiting to see if that returns and how my next routine labs come out!

I am the same way! Come across something of interest, research it heavily for days-weeks, and then finally purchase it to clear my head. Tends to help curve potential regret with more expensive purchases.

I could so understand that! I’m not super familiar with their products beyond looking into things for this post, but I feel like their branding would be on their official products 🤔 If another company is making something similar and using their branding, that would be pretty disastrous.

Disappointing :( It seemed like their overall production quality is what made them popular and revered, so going after someone who won’t be able to source the same materials and match the same production scale does seem super low.

I got curious and did a bit of searching since I couldn’t really think of anything. Apparently Fender (guitars) was originally amazing, was sold to another company and really degraded in overall quality, and then was purchased back by some of its engineers and returned to a better quality. Pretty nice to see that people who were actually passionate about something regaining control and saving something they loved.

https://www.soundunlimited.co.uk/blogs/articles/fender_timeline

I’m sure there’s more, but I was l suuuper put off by the first few episodes of A Certain Scientific Railgun… I was not going to be able to handle Kuroko being as over the top as she was initially. So glad I eye rolled through the first half of season 1!

A more recent one was Days with My Stepsister. I had assumptions about what it would be about and initially didn’t start it during the season it aired, but I kept seeing each week’s episodes rated fairly high and a lot of discussion around them. I picked it up maybe 5 episodes late in the season and ended up really enjoying the story and overall production.

As much as I very much dislike generalizing behavior to gender or any other broad attribute, I do still share similar sentiments with you. I do not feel comfortable around most men, I do not feel safe around most men, and I generally avoid them.

Throughout my life women have been the most supportive, caring, and relatable to me. They have not been the ones to physically abuse me, yell at me, or hurt me in any other way. I do have friends that are men- they are all gay or fall somewhere under the queer umbrella, but even they have left me unsupported in times when I’ve desperately seeked their support. I do understand that my views and feelings are from my personal trauma, and maybe someday I’ll have enough experiences that change my feelings.

My T levels are suuuper low, so I do feel like it is effective on that front. Unfortunately, prog never affected my libido, but everything else has been sooo amazing that it’s just something I’ve learned to cope with. I’m sure I’ll eventually explore options with my doctor at some point, so it’s always nice hearing other people’s thoughts and experiences with things!

Oh wow, I suppose I should do some additional research! I’ve been taking it for ~2 years and haven’t had issues beyond what I expect from suppressed testosterone. Maybe swapping to a different one would nudge my libido back from the depths 🤔

Yesss! Cucumber salads are amazing, and I will so be making once I have more!! I hope you enjoy/enjoyed your salad!