[life journey thread]Tales from the WorldTree

There is a type of misogynist that see trans men as men because in their eyes transmen are women haters and therefore not women.

You could ask if he would have abused you had you been born a boy. If he answers no then you know his niceness towards you is sheerly based on your curent gender. Its up to you if you can live with a love that is conditional on you being a woman hating man.

No matter what, the abuse you went through is real. Abusers will never apologise they want you to forget what happened or better yet for you to see them as the victim.

Be true to yourself. Stand by your boundaries. I see you. I believe you. Your trauma is valid.

One of my hypothesis is that my mother used to be triggered because I was born a girl and she herself was abused as a child and therefore would "abuse me for fear of me being abused worse if she did not abuse me first". Or just trauma-repeat. (she would mistreat and neglect me the most while love-bombing my brother the most - not sure which one is worse given it involved enabling my brother to abuse others, turning him into a despicable adult) And that my father, being submissive to her, merely picked up on ther behavior. Or that he was triggered by me being a girl and afraid I would become like my mother towards him.

It is also possible that my father, having two sisters and zero brother, from whom he has only nieces and zero nephew, had a hard time coping with them.

It is also possible that, my brother being abusive towards my father, my mother being abusive towards my father, he just picked on me because I was the only one who would not abuse back. (and he could not pick on his sisters/nieces because they are a pride of lionesses)

Or, all of that together.

Dunno, dont care enough to ask. It is just kinda liberating to have some explanation hypothesis which does not involve "I am a bad person and I deserved it all". Something that is more "bad circumstances, bad luck, one tragedy among many".

Hi

Good to see you posting again on the forum. I wondered if its ok to ask....assuming you worked on building muscle (getting fit) as you transitioned ....did you find that some alters were stronger than others if different ones came forwards to 'work out'? ...did it make you feel stronger if several came together to do a workout together or did it depend who was 'in the mix'?

I am trying to figure out how much that is as 'normal thing with a system' or is a result of stroke damage...as we have quite a significant difference in physical ability between some alters and I'm trying to figure out if its damage related or more lie emotional/somatic issues with just that alter?

Best wishes
Kit

At the beginning, it was easier for the most "muscle alters" to do the workouts or to do it together. I guess that it was a question of motivation and ability to keep going. Now, with more muscle mass and more integration, anybody can do push-ups easy-peasy.

Dissociation can cause a difference in the ability to move the body or access the sensory informations. Integration helps with that. Something that helps with phsyical abilities and integration is to do movements that makes you use one arm and the leg on the othe side, then the other arm and the leg on the first side. "criss cross movements" I would translate that. Because the movement is asymetrical between arms and legs it forces your brain to build more neurone connexions between the left and right hemispheres. Which helps steering the brain towards the habit of building more connexions as a whole (aka integration). They are good grounding exercises and therefore improve focus and the ability to access one's full brain potential (since you are more focused and grounded).

There is a lot of babbles around why it works and what it does to your brain on websites promoting the exercises but from what I gathered by using them and chatting with my therapist, it's mostly grounding and improving the integration abilities of the brain.

Examples of exercises: https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/sim ... -benefits/

Thanks for the link... yes there are a few 'criss cross' type exercises in our routine. Mainly floor ones as standing we need something to hold onto to stay balanced.

Our difficulty is ..Yuna wanted to be host and when Kate is blended with her is fine but if Kate wanted to return inside..Yuna does not switch to controlling both sides of the body...she will then only use 'her side' Coincidentally what Yuna see's as 'Juno/Kate's side' is the side that went numb and is still slightly weaker than the 'good side' (that was unaffected) during the stroke.

I will read that link and add more criss-cross exercises into our routines.

Thanks

Kit

Havent updated here for months

I got all my appointments set for bottom surgeries, the first surgery will be in mid-march and the other set of surgeries will start around mid-summer. Getting the pre surgery appointments and everything really helps to dig out fragments and reinforce the integration / fusion of my different parts as well as anchoring them in the here and now.

I seem to retain a few lightly separate identities, ego states style. At least one of them is me-now shaped which is odd because it's like talking to a mirror and the mirror talks back with my face and voice. But well not the weirder dissociative experience I've had.

The end of the year holidays was better for me this year than last year. I plan on making things even better this year. Not better as in "over the top" but as in "more adjusted to my needs and desires". I have a better idea of what kind of meals I enjoy for the holidays, what kind of activities, presents... Maybe I'll get a tree if I'm reeeeally motivated.

I spent 2 weeks of vacations at my gender fluid datefriend's - first time we met physically since we know each other. It's been a long way and a wild ride to get there. We have changed a lot since we met. Even our bond have evolved, becoming healthier as we progress in therapy. Being physically together really anchored the relationship in the here and now. I was afraid we would make each other dissociate but the opposite happened. Two weeks is the maximum for us to bear eachother's presence tho at the moment due to autistic social overload.

I'm still unearthing bits and fragments of trauma from time to time, but it's less and less painful, it's more and more of a "Oooooh so that's why I have this behavior / psychological belief ! Well, let's work on it then".

Friends who know a lot about animal behavior also help me to understand what my cat "says" when he moves his ears, licks his nose, wags his tail... There are many different subtleties and the friends are kind enough to provide me with home made videos of their own cats to show me the different behaviors in different situations. Apparently my cat is overly stressed because I don't get these subtleties so he has to over-do all his communications. They also gave me "homework" to do on WolfQuest with the emotes as a training to notice the communication signals in animals. No big deal, just to pay more attention to the emotes and later on we chat about what I noticed, how I made my wolf react and they tell me what the NPC meant and why my emotes worked or not. There is a lot of overlap between cat and dog communication so it helps me to understand my cat.

Now, pacing my ADHD attention to better respect my autistic energy limitations, that's another pair of sleeves...

All domestic cats are said to descended from the African Wild Cat. I like to watch nature programs. If you watch programs about African Wild Cats ..your cats behaviour will be more closer to that than of dogs. Cats tend to be more independant and if you look at some wild cats they often hunt alone rather than in packs like wolves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAR3erZ3DrA


Bobby

Thank you! Adding it to my playlist!

Some personal news!

I had 2 bottom transition surgeries so far, I'm just out of the hospital from the 2nd. I'll need a 3rd to "patch up" the areas that the surgeon prefered to leave out. Apparently doing the whole in one go was possible but the risks of complications were too high, so he prefered to leave out the last like... 10% I guess of the whole surgery protocol and patch me up in 6 months. Which I find wise. A bit frustrating but wise. I'd rather spend 6 months with a 90% progress and zero issue than spend 6 months at 100% progress dealing with issue atop issue - which is NOT 100% progress since it's not fully healed, and more painful than to walk around for 6 months being short of a few stitches or something, then adding a couple weeks for the last stitches to be done and healed.

Of course it's something that CAN be left like it is now. If I can use a metaphore, it's like going out with a home-made coat without a zipper on the coat to close it. Still a mostly functional coat, way better than to go out with a coat full of pins to hold it together.

Inside, it's getting quieter and quieter. I used my post-surgery time to do some inner work with the fragments that came out (mostly fragments that were still hiding due to gender dysphoria), did some self-regulation work (to soothe the parts frightened by the hospital and post surgery pain, to manage the impatient parts) and did some re-shuffling of parts. I proposed a structure in 3 "files" : 1- ressources to manage everyday life (host) ; 2- the "public" part of the Self ; 3- the "private" or "shadow" part of the Self. Most of my parts found their place easily enough, one played "flipper ball" between the two for a whole evening so I gave them a "middle ground" or "bridge" area to inhabit. One headache and a few hours of tossing and turning in my bed later, this solution was accepted and I could finally sleep. For like, 20 mins because right after that the nurse woke me up again to check blood pressure, temperature, pulse and oxymetry. Welp. Things happen. xD

I have barely any pain now (such an improvement in 5 days!) but my body is still exhausted - and my brain too with everything that came out of hiding. So I'll spend July and most of August resting. If I'm reasonable you'll see me less on the forums this summer.

IF I'm reasonable. I still have ADHD. Good thing my poor impulse control is mostly about "jumping on PF before my morning coffee is even brewed" and "adding 10 more books to my TBR mountain"

I hope your surgery and recovery goes well. I think maybe our system was trying to work towards a similar way of working but the process got disrupted for some reason.