This week on the Ceri's Anxieties Show
Jun. 6th, 2009 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceriSaturday I'm going to a party, assuming no health crisis or anything like that. First one I've been to in, hmm, must be about six years now, since I hadn't been to one for a while before descending into my long slump. I am such a bundle of nerves about it, on two different vectors.
There's my health concerns. For those of you I've only met recently, I've got a trashed immune system, and respond with sort of mega-allergic complications to all kinds of common environmental things—orris root (the base of most perfumes), dry cleaning chemicals, soil molds, you name it. So being out in a crowd means a day or more of prep work with extra immune-boosting supplements and stuff, and planning a day or more recovery time afterward, and also being prepared for an acute episode while out. Fortunately the hostess has known me for a good long while now, and is used to dealing with medical weirdos besides me. So the circumstances are about as good as they reasonably can be, with understanding hostess and people I'll be happy to visit with, many of whom also have experiencing dealing either specifically with my complications or with others like them.
It's still stressful, the waiting and wondering.
And now there's the trans matter on top of that. I'm out to a few folks who'll be there, but not to most, and I feel in such a horribly awkward limbo. Never mind passing, I couldn't even be a competent cross-dresser now. Nothing to wear, no experience wearing it, no clue about doing almost anything in my presentation. Right now trans is in my heart and not much of anywhere else. I feel like a fake going and coming, knowing I'm not what I seem, unable to seem what I am. I'm very grateful for all the friends, new and old, willing to believe me. The day when it won't have to be taken on faith seems so far off.
There's my health concerns. For those of you I've only met recently, I've got a trashed immune system, and respond with sort of mega-allergic complications to all kinds of common environmental things—orris root (the base of most perfumes), dry cleaning chemicals, soil molds, you name it. So being out in a crowd means a day or more of prep work with extra immune-boosting supplements and stuff, and planning a day or more recovery time afterward, and also being prepared for an acute episode while out. Fortunately the hostess has known me for a good long while now, and is used to dealing with medical weirdos besides me. So the circumstances are about as good as they reasonably can be, with understanding hostess and people I'll be happy to visit with, many of whom also have experiencing dealing either specifically with my complications or with others like them.
It's still stressful, the waiting and wondering.
And now there's the trans matter on top of that. I'm out to a few folks who'll be there, but not to most, and I feel in such a horribly awkward limbo. Never mind passing, I couldn't even be a competent cross-dresser now. Nothing to wear, no experience wearing it, no clue about doing almost anything in my presentation. Right now trans is in my heart and not much of anywhere else. I feel like a fake going and coming, knowing I'm not what I seem, unable to seem what I am. I'm very grateful for all the friends, new and old, willing to believe me. The day when it won't have to be taken on faith seems so far off.
Re: This week on the Ceri's Anxieties Show
Date: 2009-06-08 03:12 am (UTC)I know that part of what's weighing me down is uncertainty about steps down the road. Will my body respond catastrophically badly to hormones? Assuming the money settles out, will any sort of surgery be safe for me? Stuff like that. The answers are all of course "no way to tell now, do the stuff you have at hand", because improving my overall health improves the odds on all of them. I know that, I really do. But waiting gets tiresome. I've done waiting, all my life since the systemic failures started in my teens, and darn it, I want some instant gratification.
And a pygmy mammoth, too.