and here's the thing: I could hypothetically talk to My mom about transitioning, but I just don't even want to bother. it's always so hard to tell what she will or won't support because she's not really consistent in her parenting or ideology, but I don't even feel like it'd work out.

she's been pretty inconsistent when it comes to My gender, but I've almost never felt fully supported: first it was "you'll never be my son," then she "did research" and apologized, then she started misgendering Me again out of nowhere.

and when I finally confronted her about it a few months ago, she said that she simply thought I silently detransitioned because I started presenting more femininely. which is weird because she still called Me by My real name (even though she calls it a "nickname") and celebrated pride month with Me and watched Me identify Myself as trans to everyone but OKAY who cares everything's good now right?? she said she didn't mean it, even if it is a bit strange.

cut to present day and she's yet to call Me by anything right except My name. whenever she calls Me a she, she corrects it to just My name, never he or they. she still calls Me her daughter. she alters masculine terms to make them more feminine for Me (E.G. jokingly calling Me a "peeping tomette"). she constantly puts off buying Me new binders and got rid of one of the only two I had without telling Me.

I just don't believe she really respects My gender. I saw a TERF the other day say that cis people "humor good trans people like gentle parents humor their autistic child who identifies as a dog," and while this is obviously a horrible way to think (about trans people, about autistic people, about therianthropy), seeing a bigot put this into words made it pretty clear why I get pride cakes and trans flag merch but never binders or anything else I actually NEED to transition: I'm almost certain that she sees it as a weird but moderately harmless quirk I have, not something that I'd actually benefit from pursuing further.

with this in mind, what reason do I have to believe that she'd take any request for gender-affirming care seriously? if even something I can literally take on and off like binders are too much to ask, imagine how she'd feel at the sight of her "daughter" speaking in a deep voice, growing facial hair, and getting his uterus removed.

she's not anti-transition in general, but I have to question if the same would apply to Me, even if she doesn't overtly tell Me she doesn't want Me to transition.

is it possible she'd actually be completely fine with it and I'm just being too risk-averse? yeah, totally. but at the same time, I don't know if I have it in Me to try to advocate for this, just to either be met with more "yeah sure i support you silly girl i mean Ian i'll help you eventually" or get shut down outright.

it'd be better to try and be neglected than to never try at all, so I should say something someday but. not now. I need to get mentally stronger first.

I don't even remember what caused it but I've had the realization recently that I don't even actually "like" she/her pronouns, I just don't react to them most of the time.

granted, I don't really react to most gendered terms on any notable level, but I can recall instances of actual gender euphoria(? "euphoria" is a strong word, but it's something good) over he/him, but not she.

the strongest emotional reaction I can recall to being called a she is when a group of friends (who generally called Me a he) realized that they should call Me by all three of My pronoun sets interchangeably and switched to she for a bit. I felt sooo disgusted but I didn't say anything because it was technically "right" and I didn't want to bring the mood down.

I'm also thinking about My relationship with they and it's so unclear because nobody ever really calls Me that? everyone either perceives Me as a woman and she/hers Me or knows I'm transmasc and uses he/him.

and I know there's the pronoun dressing room and similar sites for testing pronouns, but those never work for Me because I know it's not a real reflection of how anyone naturally perceives Me; it's just what I asked to be called being echoed back to Me, so I'm completely indifferent.

part of Me is thinking to just use he/him, but I also feel weird about only using one pronoun set. which makes Me wonder if I'm simply trying to compensate for My inability to medically transition into something more androgynous by experimenting with as much verbal androgyny as possible.

I sorta envy people with stereotypically nonbinary names and pronouns, even if they don't resonate with Me. like, I used to go by the name "ironfist" and he/they/xe pronouns, but I never properly perceived Myself as those things, I just liked the vibe of them.

I'm gonna keep using he/they because it doesn't hurt to keep experimenting but part of Me wonders if I'd even still care if people called Me by they/them pronouns if I actually got to genderfuck in real life, rather than being stuck either looking like a tomboy or a girly girl until I'm financially independent enough to transition without familial support.

"mental illness has been destigmatized!" as if you don't still see mental health-aware leftists say that people with psychiatric diagnoses (even the oft-discussed ones, like anxiety and depression) need to go to therapy to be "good people."

it's almost like mainstream mental health awareness has only served the purpose of destigmatizing the psychiatric system without doing anything for the people in it 🤔

everyday I thank god that I'm A-spec because imagine how horrible it'd be to have a personality disorder AND be trying to date people at the same time

got sent the sketch for an awesome fucking commission and AT THE EXACT SAME TIME got a rejection text for a job I was interviewed for yesterday. the commission is awesome and all but I can't really enjoy it right now so I have to work through how pissed I am first.

I don't knowww I've been rejected for every job I've ever applied to but I thought this one was gonna be different. I always think it's gonna be different once I get to the interview stage, which has only happened four times.

one of which was cancelled because My mom didn't want to "risk" the 15-minute drive (and now she's telling Me I can apply anywhere and she'll get Me there?? should've brought that energy when the office depot manager was talking about how much he wanted Me!!), the other was cancelled by an interviewer who refused to talk to Me afterwards.

but it's like I never think anything is gonna happen when I actually apply, then I get an interview offer and everything changes. I start imagining how good My life will be once I have a job.

I could have physical hobbies without either having to ask My family to pay for materials or suck it up and not do anything at all, I could move out, I could finally medically transition (or at least afford to stop wearing the same binders I've had since I was 13). I just know a new chapter of My life is about to begin and I'll finally have real autonomy, and then I get rejected/the interview gets cancelled/whatever the fuck.

and it pisses Me off SO MUCH because I always feel like I did all the right things?? I told you I was open to any pay, any hours, anything you wanted Me to do. I told you how ~dedicated~ I am while sprinkling in honest answers to not make Me look like a total liar. I arrived early. I wore nice clothes. I lied about being cisgender and let you deadname Me. I never interrupted you or looked at My phone or made the annoying jokes everyone else in the group interview did. I didn't even bring My phone because I was gonna give My full attention to you in particular. I did everything you'd possibly want Me to.

but like I said, nothing has ever come out of it. and the biggest problems I can think about are completely out of My control. what am I supposed to do about not having experience or having been allowed to stay in school beyond first grade?? I'm only applying to no-experience-required positions, but I know they judge that stuff anyway.

I hate every single person who has ever rejected Me. they're keeping Me stuck in squalor, as if they're so fucking important that they should be able to make life-or-death decisions for Me. and I know some of these places need Me; I literally had to wait over 15 minutes for My interview because they were so short-staffed the manager had to work in the kitchen. I WAS GONNA WORK IN THE KITCHEN! YOU NEED ME!

I hate having to be pleasant for them. I wish I could just come in there with a gun, tell them I'd kill them if they didn't hire Me, and get the job. but that'd get Me arrested and even more unemployed, so I obviously can't do that. the other extreme is literally getting on My knees and begging, but I fear that would either weird them into not hiring Me or get Me exploited by bad actors who'd think they could do whatever they wanted to Me.

so I just have to sit here and keep applying indefinitely. and people act like it's so fucking weird when people "give up" on getting jobs (be it for real or just in the way people assume every unemployed person isn't trying), as if it isn't a constant cycle of misery and false promises of escaping it. your life is literally in the hands of strangers and there's nothing you can ever do about it.

but I need to chill out because I have things to do and things to appreciate in life. mantras of the day:

IDK if I've mentioned this before but I've found that THC has some pretty significant benefits for My emotional issues.

ironically, I don't find it very helpful for the in-the-moment social anxiety relief My mom suggested it for (in social situations, it either makes Me relatively paranoid or disinhibited to the point of bizarre behavior), but it's really good for both My mood swings and My emptiness.

when I'm using it regularly (think: 1-3 times a week), I find that I don't really have mood swings. I still get very angry and very anxious at times, but it dissipates once the trigger is gone rather than lingering for hours or ruining My entire day.

I'm also actually capable of gratitude, which I wasn't really before. like, I'd try My damnedest to use those gratitude journal apps, but I was never able to think of anything other than Myself and My cats. but now I'll look at the sky and understand how beautiful and important it is, rather than just seeing some random backdrop that's so omnipresent that--despite not seeing it often Myself--I couldn't even care about if I tried.

but then I went most of july without using (not for any particular reason, just by coincidence) and it sorta sucked; I had severe mood swings in the first half and then numbed out a bit later on. and it isn't withdrawals or anything, both because I've never been dependent on THC and because this was all at the same intensity it was at before I used at all, not any worse (although My baseline is very bad so).

I've started using again in the last few days, but I still don't really feel as impassioned as I did before. like, the sky is currently back to being some useless blue mass that I don't feel anything towards LMAO.

I've still been pretty happy, but that mostly has to do with having a very high-intensity hyperfixation at the moment. that aside, I don't feel much. and even in regards to that, I feel a bit more admiration-seeking about it than I was, say, a month ago, even though the intrinsic motivation is still there on some level.

but I really believe I just need to get back into the habit of regular use to trigger whatever mechanisms were going on before. which I'm not really clear on (since it lasted too long to be afterglow TMK), but I hypothesize it works for Me due to:

following this logic, I speculate that prolonged sobriety can trigger regression through a combination of the aforementioned effects becoming more distant (thus less readily accessible) and suffering enough trauma that I'm reminded why I was so miserable in the first place. but OFC that's a theory that stands to be proven or disproven depending on how THC affects My mood as time goes on.