Limit Switches

My guiding light in these explorations thus far have been rooted in euphoria. Pruly the things that when I do them ignite some kind of inner light that has seldom, if ever, been allowed to luminate.

I shave and cover my facial hair stubble with makeup (fucking amazing);

I put on a dress that pushes my larger then average (for an AMAB) breasts up and shows off some of my more womanly curves (holy fucking shit how do I get to look like this);

I put my hair up and make Katara esq hair loopy things (my god in heaven I am actually like super cute ahhhhhhhhhhh);

This incredible and awesome sense of euphoria has really been the only reason I have been able to keep coming back to these actions. I have a few good 'ol copping mechanisms that make me constantly ruminate on my own actions: thinking, analyzing, drafting long lists of conclusions on what I am doing, who and how I am in every single moment of my life. They are meant to keep me safe and to raise warning when I am doing anything that might jeopardize my ability to provide for myself. My prime directive. Due to some more colorful—shall we saw green—events from childhood, it was made abundantly clear that I can only every really rely on myself, and that no one and nothing would help me unless I prepreade and advocated.

This is a much longer conversation about my personal psychology but here just understand that this often acts as a kind of limit switch, where if I start to go outta the blue and into the black, or in other words out of comfortable and safe psychological bounds (weather due to external pressures or self explorations) a trigger will stop me and reverse corse. Repressing the potential dangerous thoughts and pushing me back into my chipper and excitable self. This has been a real boon for me personally as I have watched friends stop eating due to depression, siblings deal with suicidal ideations, colleagues get so in ADHD induced holes that they feel hopeless, and old classmates kill themselves. I went through all of the same things they did, in some cases I shared a womb with them, and as far as I can tell this set copping mechanisms is the only thing I have keeping the scales in balance.

However this thumb can make any and all explorations of the foundational components of my soul and my trauma difficult, as those limit switches prevent further exploration; just encase...

I also have always "been ok with being the one who has to suffer." I was raised mormon and am of that ilk in many many ways. Chief among them is that my family where the idiots who sailed across a god damn ocean then WALKED across three quarters of a continent to get to the HOLE that is Utah and SE Idaho to steal land from the natives. There they suffered and died to scratch out an existence on inhospitable, cold, windy, dry and dusty lands. They suffered for generations. Yet they where happy by all accounts. They did not know themselves as they did not need to. They ate, shit, and died on those planes more-or-less happy, and I can too....or at least I told myself. Dangerous explorations that could get in the way of the eating and the shitting and the dying should not be embarked on! Or at least that's the family lore is.

All this is to say:

If I think about what I am actually doing when embarking on casual and fun gender exploration, I will under no circumstances allow myself to do it. It'll induce anxiety bordering on panic, make me feel sick burgeoning on throwing up, and piss me off to no end that I would even consider doing something so "dangerous and reckless". If it is so dangerous and reckless I am probably hitting a nail on the head. So to enable myself to do some of these explorations I either:

Get drunk: Fuck you coping mechanism, meet my friend spicy brown. Obviously this isn't very healthy either physically or mentally, and I don't want my ability to express myself to be reliant on it. However I did find it very useful to get over the initial few humps so that I can move onto something more healthy.

Don't Think Do: Put on a podcast and quickly do the required grooming and facial hair obfuscation to transform into a presentation that I love but to be honest isnt even fooling anyone. From there the effervescence of existence in that state takes over.

Things are not quite (I am almost certainly giggling and making weird excited screaming sounds) as I look at myself, but there is silence. Everything makes sense, I don't need to struggle to conquer my anxieties, the gears of the omnipresent safety computations continue to turn but more gently and in a well lubricated fashion. I can walk as if skating and laugh as if breathing.

I am free

aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (excited screaming)