had a cardiologist appointment yesterday, he told me that on the old diagnostic criteria i wouldn't have been diagnosed with ADHD because i made it through school and university. he also kinda implied that it's childhood trauma instead which i think was his attempt to get me to stop taking stimulants. strange thing for a cardiologist to focus on. even considering stimulants' effect on increased HR, i still had tachycardia symptoms before taking them
and like, gender dysphoria wasn't a thing on the DSM-IV. neither was a cormordid autism/ADHD diagnosis. why tf would you bring up outdated criteria in the first place, is it not outdated for a reason?
also to add, the last cardiologist i saw didn't do any of that shit. he just asked "are the meds helping? cool, i won't try to take them from you then." ts is so frustrating
yeah i think i've run through all of those before, just never packaged it into a routine for daily practice (except SOVT but that's simple). do you do 30 minutes in one go or like 3x 10 minute sessions spread throughout the day?
definitely encountered the night out voice, i only really go out with close friends so it's not as bad though. god i dream of being able to wake up with my fem voice, hopefully one day. does consistent practice = consistent use or more so practicing specific sounds/patterns outside of regular use? it's been a while since i've run through exercises but i do have to use my voice daily for work
the internal monologue thing is strange! i know everyone's works differently but mine definitely has sound to it and kinda matches up to where my automatic voice currently sits. i can actively read a sentence in a different voice but it takes effort
i've been doing voice training for about a year and a half. our public system pays for 5 trans-related specialist sessions per calendar year so i've had 9 sessions with a speech pathologist over that time. even since my last session (9 months ago?) i've improved my target voice quite a bit and i do really like where it sits now. but i still have a rough time with two main things - endurance (keeping the voice up for a whole day or for consecutive days) and normalisation (making it my automatic/default voice to use).
my speech path gave me some advice and i've tried to look online for tips as well (please provide any if you have more
) and i think the former just comes down to doing lots of practice. which sucks absolute ass. the latter requires me to change my internal monologue voice – i've been trying to do this for months and had no success.
soooo i'm thinking maybe i can record a little self-coach audio playlist for myself and listen/respond back to. it should make sure i'm doing my vocal warmups and that i can do the rest of my morning crap without reading off a resource booklet. my other hope is that listening to my fem voice over and over again drills it into my brain enough that it can be my internal monologue voice as well. it's obviously gonna be a bitch to hear myself talk everyday but idk exposure therapy or something?
i just finished reading To Own The Libs today, it's so cute! i also love Dorley so adding some other fantastic works (both fiction) by Alyson Greaves:
When You Fell From Heaven (romance) - cheerleading trans/cis lesbian romance set in 2003. picked it up after it was mentioned in the last few megas, highly recommend both books
Kimmy (horror) - dude in the near future wears a hollowed-out android as a Halloween costume which starts to change him into someone/something else. it's really good but be sure to check the cws, it gets dark
because i just had my first post-op appointment and the bandage is finally off
so the surgery went fine, no issues there. only weird part was that my anaesthetist was playing AI music when i got into the operating room? the first couple of days were more painful than i thought but it wasn't as bad as say, getting my tonsils taken out was. i could still eat and talk, there was just an annoying level of discomfort. oh and there's a section from under my chin that's gone numb too
now that the area is mostly uncovered, i can see there's a shitload of bruising. i didn't know bruises could look like dried blood? i can also see how much prominence has been taken from my neck now, there's barely anything left! while i'm dreading going back into the office with the bruising / medical tape / eventually unhealed scar - my surgeon told me to claim that it's a result of a removed lesion - i'm really looking forward to showing it off to my electro person in a couple weeks. they're one of the few people i talked about it with and are thinking about getting the same surgery in the future. it's really nice having someone to talk about trans things with, even if they're zapping my balls while i do so
anyways, next steps are tape for 6 weeks to flatten the area a bit and silicone gel for 6 months after that (which thankfully can have foundation put on top of). yay!
really glad to hear! we've had someone new join our team at work recently and it's been really nice not having to come out to him in any way. despite definitely knowing that i'm trans, he hasn't slipped on my pronouns or done anything else to gender me as a guy. yet i still have coworkers misgendering me over a year after coming out. down with cis
I was helping a student with SAT stuff today and I heard her mom ask in the background "did you show her your PSAT scores?"
had a cardiologist appointment yesterday, he told me that on the old diagnostic criteria i wouldn't have been diagnosed with ADHD because i made it through school and university. he also kinda implied that it's childhood trauma instead which i think was his attempt to get me to stop taking stimulants. strange thing for a cardiologist to focus on. even considering stimulants' effect on increased HR, i still had tachycardia symptoms before taking them
and like, gender dysphoria wasn't a thing on the DSM-IV. neither was a cormordid autism/ADHD diagnosis. why tf would you bring up outdated criteria in the first place, is it not outdated for a reason?
also to add, the last cardiologist i saw didn't do any of that shit. he just asked "are the meds helping? cool, i won't try to take them from you then." ts is so frustrating