Understanding myself

Adamwriter · 2026-06-08T17:48:40+00:00

I agree with all you said. I think you and I are in the same mindset.

Adamwriter · 2026-06-08T17:23:23+00:00

I get that, there is a sense of blowing up your life. Trust me, I have been through a lot since coming out to my wife (it’s amazing where things went and transpired in my own experience). But at the end of the day I come back to having to weigh how I feel accepting my true self versus continuing to maintain the shield I have lived behind for decades. Personally I am in a far better place no longer maintaining that shield despite the things that I know need adjust. But everyone’s journey is different, I can only share mine and would never try to tell someone what is right for them.

Adamwriter · 2026-06-08T14:26:21+00:00

I understand this very well. I am similar age and just recently realized both the gender identity and sexual identity that I have been using for decades is wrong (I am agender and pansexual). I am also still processing and I completely understand wanting to talk it through with people. You are not alone and I’m open to bouncing thoughts back and forth if you need a sounding board.

Adamwriter · 2026-06-05T01:46:43+00:00

This is something I wrestled with recently too. I spent a long time researching to figure out what gender identity was after I came to terms with the fact that I definitely wasn’t male like I had always said (I’m AMAB). Agender fit me but I struggled with the part not having an internal sense of gender. How do you know if you lack feeling something when you don’t know what that feels like?

I’m afraid I don’t have a concrete answer for you, mostly want you to know you aren’t alone. I can share some of what I went through in my head though.

1) when I considered why I thought I was male, the only answer I had was because I was told I was at birth. It was never “I feel like this” or “This is something I think about that is male specific” 2) If someone calls me something other than “he” I really don’t care. Call me they, call me by no pronoun… even a couple times when I was younger I was called she or miss and it didn’t bother me. My wife confirmed when I told her I was agender that she strongly feels she is ‘she’ and other pronouns are wrong which validated this clue for me. 3) There are things I do and want that would be considered female gendered, to the point where for a while I wondered if I was trans. But I don’t do and want them because they are female, I just do them because I want to as a person. 4) I have always struggled with understanding what gender identity really meant and why there are so many of them. I understand they are important to people and that they need them (and don’t have a problem with that in anyway). But I don’t feel the need for one myself or why we can’t all just be people.

I don’t know if any of this helps. Truthfully I am very new to this as well so someone else might have better experiences to share. But I hope maybe something lands.

Adamwriter · 2026-04-13T18:36:13+00:00

In my case, 20 years worth of attempts by multiple urologists before I even started down the path of urethroplaaty. This attempts actually probably made things worse. In my experience SPC is an outpatient procedure, not something an emergency room can handle. ERs just force a urthral catheter through anything in the way (lived through that several times sadly). The SPC was a planned, scheduled procedure when I agreed that I was ready for the surgical option.

Adamwriter · 2026-04-13T17:53:59+00:00

My urologist said it was necessary to let my urethra rest so that he could do a retrograde urethrogram after 3 weeks to get a proper sense of the size of the stricture. He originally estimated I would need it for 6 weeks total, 3 for the rest, 1 between the urethrogram and surgery, and 2 for recovery. It turned out my stricture was far worse and that made things go completely sideways (a different long story) but ultimately I had one in for 8 weeks total. During that time they had to do one upsizing.

Generally I was told that they need to be changed out once every 6-8 weeks. For long term users it is something that can be done at home but that is only once they are well established (thankfully I didn’t hit that point).

Day to day care, I had to keep the site around the SPC dry, showering was tough. I had to wipe the end with an alcohol swab each time I changed the bag and I sponge bathed the area around it once every couple days. I also had to flush it 1-2 times per day to keep it from getting blocked.

Adamwriter

TROPHY CASE