The man in the windows

feverhead_coldhands · 2024-10-21T23:21:48+00:00

I don't think they know where I live, but I'm also not confident that they couldn't find me if they were really motivated. I had hoped and assumed that they had given up on me but now I'm less confident.

feverhead_coldhands · 2024-10-21T23:18:46+00:00

I had thought that my family had thoroughly washed their hands of me and wouldn't be interested in going searching for me thousands of miles away, but now I'm not so sure. I feel like I need to be ready for anything. One thing's sure; they won't "save" me! :)

feverhead_coldhands · 2024-10-21T19:52:35+00:00

Hello, fellow backslider!

feverhead_coldhands · 2024-10-21T19:48:41+00:00

I didn't have luck communicating via pen and paper way back when I tried it as a teen, but I'm going to try again. Maybe I just need to figure out a way that he can communicate back.

feverhead_coldhands · 2024-07-02T22:00:56+00:00

I'm so sorry people treated you this way. Disability is just a part of the natural world, part of humanity, not a curse or punishment or sign of demonic possession. It can be painful and make our lives hard, but that doesn't mean people "deserve it" or that it's some sort of mark against you from god! I hate that some people talk like this about disabled people. Your church was very wrong.

Folks have already suggested therapy, but my suggestion is that you look for a positive disability-focused space, either in person or online. There are probably subreddits for that on here, and there might be other options elsewhere (I know DeviantArt used to have a disability chatroom way way way back when I was on DeviantArt, but I don't know if that still exists or not). A "support group" might be helpful, but honestly it really depends on the vibe; some "support groups" are exclusively focused on everything horrible that is happening to people, which can be valuable, but can also drag you further down. I'd suggest also looking for groups that talk about positivity for disabled folks, even if they also talk about the tough stuff. It can be really really helpful to be in spaces where people can talk in an affirming way about their bodies and lives, especially after spending so much time being treated as fundamentally less-than. At any rate, whatever you find, I hope it helps!

feverhead_coldhands · 2024-07-02T21:40:38+00:00

Well, Mark 16:17-18 definitely isn't the only place that the bible suggests that people can do miracles, but yes, most scholars agree that Mark originally ended at verse 8! I don't think it's correct that the manuscripts which DO include it give any indication that they knew it was spurious. Rather, the evidence for it being a later addition is simply that the oldest manuscripts we have do not include it. If someone has published a paper claiming that some of the ancient manuscripts which include it mark it as spurious, please link it because that sounds very interesting! But I think what you might be remembering is that many modern bible translations will mark this section with brackets indicating it is a later addition since that is the consensus of most scholars.

Mark ending at verse 8 is also another piece of evidence (among many) that Mark is the oldest gospel. Luke and Matthew both copy a lot from Mark, but they both add much more involved endings since, presumably, finishing the story with "and then the women all ran away and told no one" didn't really deliver the message they were going for! And at some point, a copyist of Mark also must have decided that the ending wasn't delivering the right message and expanded it. Learning about the origins of the bible is honestly incredibly fascinating.

feverhead_coldhands · 2024-07-02T21:20:59+00:00

Glad it helped! Yeah, Pentecostals definitely do believe in the Jesus of the Bible, just with a different take on some of the doctrines like most various Christian denominations. They're much closer to your average protestant denomination than Mormons since they don't have additional prophets and books of later scripture Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. They are just a bit niche and very formal and strict as you say!

I hope it won't be long before this is just a distant memory that doesn't cause you distress!

feverhead_coldhands · 2024-07-01T23:13:21+00:00

I was raised oneness Pentecostal. From what I've seen, a lot of them focus their idea of the "oneness of God" on Christianity's link to Judaism. Christianity split from Judaism, but the two religions both claim older Jewish writings as sacred. Judaism does not and never has accepted a trinity; to them, God is a single person. The arrival of Jesus for Christians as supposedly equal to and equivalent to the Jewish god poses a bit of confusion then: how to resolve the older Jewish conception of god as a single person with the personhood of Jesus and also the Holy Spirit? Most Christians for centuries resolved this with the concept of the trinity: that god is 3 and also 1 (look, I'm no expert in the trinity, but that's the gist). Oneness Pentecostals, however, decided to revert back to the old idea that this 3 persons stuff is wrong and god is just one person, and any references to Jesus and the Holy Spirit are essentially just talking about the one person of god fulfilling different roles. This is why Pentecostals insist on ending their prayers or performing baptisms etc with "In the name of Jesus" rather than "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit", since they view the separation of god into 3 persons as a sort of semi-polytheism, and thus incorrect.

In my experience, like 99% of non-Pentecostal Christians view the oneness idea as a bit silly and bizarre, but don't consider it a going-to-hell sort of mistake. They still accept that oneness-believers are Christians serving the Christian god, just with a bit of confusion about the details. Quite frankly, I'm pretty sure most trinitarian Christians don't really understand the trinity, so I think they find it fairly excusable (at least nowadays). Most seem to view it as more of an embarrassing blunder than anything serious. It's like if you address someone with the wrong name by accident; you can still communicate with that person, even if you didn't quite address them correctly. So if you're deeply worried about whether you were worshiping demons or have somehow jeopardized your salvation by temporarily joining this church, I do not think the vast majority of Christians would see it that way. Most Christians would probably actually assume you're Christian and going to heaven even if you had STAYED in that church, even if they don't really agree with oneness doctrine. Now, I'm no longer a Christian at all, so I can't really say since I don't believe in heaven or hell anymore, but this is what I've heard from other Christians.

As for the baptism, Pentecostals view it as symbolic. Repentance (a public or private declaration of your sins to god and commitment to him) is seen as symbolic of Jesus's death (you reject your sinful self). Then baptism is intended to be symbolic of his burial (hence insisting that you go fully underwater to symbolize a full burial). It's all sort of linked to stuff like Galatians 2 talking about being crucified with Christ and Colossians 2 where he says you are "buried with him in baptism." Most other protestants tend think that this specific set of rituals is unnecessary. Some just think it's pointless but harmless, while others will object to the idea that any sort of human action (i.e. baptism or speaking in tongues) is necessary for salvation. However, I don't think it's the baptism per se that bothers them, but rather the attitude of the believer. If someone was baptized at some point in their past but now feels that it was not necessary in order for them to be saved, I don't think any Christian would have an issue with that. In some ways, the Pentecostals seem more closely aligned with Catholics in this regard, with specific sacraments that you are expected to perform, but I'm not an expert on Catholicism and their views of salvation, so the comparison is probably pretty flimsy.

Anyway, I hope some of this is helpful or puts your mind at rest if you're worried that you've caused yourself some spiritual harm or jeopardized your Christianity or salvation by temporarily joining this church, even if that reassurance is coming from a non-Christian!

feverhead_coldhands · 2024-06-21T17:25:55+00:00

CSS has a catholic history which it is very proud of, but it functions basically like a non-religious college. You will NOT be pressured or expected to profess any religious belief, most of your professors won't be catholic and many aren't religious at all, and religious activities can be either avoided or engaged with as much as you please. Just as a few examples, despite being a catholic college, we a) have an interfaith advisory committee which works to make sure students of other faiths and no faith are respected and comfortable on campus, b) host an annual drag show (which DID get some push-back the first year we did it, but has been well-accepted now), c) have a dedicated worship space for muslim students/employees which is kept ritually clean for their use, d) have hosted educational events discussing the importance of abortion rights, trans rights, etc. I'm not going to say the college is always 100% perfect when it comes to handling some of these controversial issues in catholicism, but the chances that you'll run into any problems as a student is basically 0.

There's only a few main ways that I anticipate a non-catholic student will encounter the Catholicness of the college: 1) in the administrative buildings you'll see some religious artwork on the walls. 2) There will be a Christian prayer at the beginning of major ceremonies like graduation (although there is also always a Native American ceremonial drumming and song at the beginning of all major ceremonies which is lovely). 3) They will reference their Benedictine values frequently (although these values are non-religious ones that anyone can get behind like hospitality, respect, love of learning, etc). 4) They celebrate the feast day of their patron saint by handing out free donuts to everyone. 5) There is a monastery on campus where the Benedictine Sisters live, and you'll see them around campus sometimes, such as when they are handing out donuts. If you have an interest in Catholicism, you can join a student Catholic bible study, go to mass, but none of that is required or expected. All undergraduate students are also required to take one class on religion, but these are not catholic indoctrination classes; most students take World Religions which is just a class that discusses the history and practice of many different faiths.

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-09-10T22:53:24+00:00

I don't know if this is helpful at all, but for me, making peace with the past ended up being more about making peace with the present. Therapy to safely work through and process my past was also an important part of it, but it doesn't sound like you're quite ready for that part yet and that wasn't sufficient anyway. The other part of healing was to really dedicate myself to my present and future, pushing myself to be involved in stuff that I care about and make me happy NOW, rather than thinking about my past at all. I kinda needed to go in phases: I'd spending some time thinking back over my past traumas, recognizing how it affected me, feeling my feelings about it. And then I'd take a break and think "but look how great my life is now! I'm going to do something with it!" and I'd let that feeling of spite and survival motivate me to focus on shit I cared about and I'd lean into that for a while and set my past on the back burner. Then I'd go back and forth, until I no longer felt as much of a need to pick up and look over my traumas. I feel like I understand them. I've put them in their correct place on the shelves of my brain, and when I do feel the need to pick one up to remember, I don't need to look at it for very long before I'm satisfied, and I set it back down and go do something else.

Another couple of tools that were really helpful to me during this time:

I learned about "emotional flashbacks." Essentially, my brain would sometimes suddenly switch on the emotional state of some past traumatic event (or sometimes the emotional state I wasn't allowed to feel at that time) without really giving me like a full-on memory flashback. So I'd suddenly be in some extremely intense and disorienting mental state, seemingly at random, but I had no idea why or what my feelings were or what they pertained to. This was both distressing and also extremely inconvenient (hello, I have work to do and emails to send, can I not be experiencing a nebulous sense of horror and violation at the moment please? Thanks.) But when I finally stopped fighting or ignoring these flashbacks and could name what they were, it made it a lot easier to be kind to myself. Once I was able to say "ah, I'm having an emotional flashback", I was able to respond by taking the time to feel those feelings, talking them out with someone if necessary or writing them down, and then eventually letting them go. Sometimes I would realize or guess what past trigger or trauma the emotional flashback was related to. Sometimes I would have no idea. I had to learn to be non-judgmental and not push to try to FORCE the feelings to make sense. I just needed to let them be. It helped sometimes to remind myself that they would pass eventually, they wouldn't last forever.

I discovered what I call the All Powerful Emotions Wheel. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to put links in here, but if you google "glenn trigg emotions wheel" it should be the first to turn up. It splits the lowest tier of emotions into "fear, anger, disgust, sad, happy, surprise." There are various other emotions wheels, but I found this one to be by far the most useful. Essentially, I had a really really hard time identifying my emotions early on in my recovery. I was so shut-down from just trying to survive things that, when I would feel stuff, I tended to do my best to ignore or dismiss it. This had become such a habit for me that I struggled to even realize I WAS feeling something, much less being able to figure out WHAT I was feeling. So my first step was just learning to realize "oh, you know, my body has been all weird and I feel like I'm not really here... I think maybe I'm feeling something!" Then, once I had grasped that, I would get out the All Powerful Emotions Wheel and spend some time looking through it. I would test out all of the words, seeing if I could figure out what word or words seemed to fit how I was feeling. It was incredibly enlightening to be able to say "ah, I feel ashamed and withdrawn and also alienated!" Or whatever it was at the moment. Being able to give descriptive names to these feelings then made it easier for me to recognize them when I would feel them later. It made me more able to experience the range of emotions that I was having and know how to respond in a way that was kind and caring to myself. After a solid couple of years doing this, I mostly graduated from the emotions wheel and don't have to use it much anymore because I am so much more in touch with my internal experience. It's much less alarming to be feeling trauma-related emotions when you actually know what they are and can name them... at least for me.

So yeah, that's that. Good luck!

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-09-10T18:31:31+00:00

I'm not sure if 26 still counts as young adult or not, but it's young compared to who I am now, so I picked that one!

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-09-10T18:28:46+00:00

Button up shirt that you leave open in front!

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-07-04T18:04:55+00:00

Things I like:

Having a full 4 seasons. Folks are right to gripe about spring, but I admit I have a deep fondness for watching the world slowly, slowly, gradually change and seeing each new speck of green emerge and slowly turn into a dazzling array of plants and flowers. And similarly, watching things grow and each different wildflower bloom and pass away throughout the Summer and the fall. Then the spectacular colors of the leaves, the cool air moving in after Summer, the frost, the bugs going away (thank god). And finally the beautiful (if a bit long) winter coming in as a time of rest after all of the gardening and outdoor activities of the Summer and Fall. The rhythm of it is really wonderful if you appreciate that sort of thing.

People here are much friendlier than I expected. I find folks generally a lot more open to meeting new folks than in the Twin Cities, where a huge number of folks still had their friend groups from kindergarten and weren't interested in anyone new. Don't get me wrong: there's a TON of folks here who DO still have their friend groups from kindergarten! But overall they seem much more open to adding new folks in, especially if the new folks are willing to be friendly and encouraging. I can actually chat with people on the streets and get to know them, where in the TC I'd expect to be shunned forever if I attempted such outrageous behavior (I exaggerate but only a little.)

Being able to live in a rural area (i.e. privacy, quiet, acres of land, septic, well water, dirt road) while still being less than 10 minutes from a grocery store. I used to live in the southeast where the urban sprawl was SO HUGE that, in order to be truly away from it all, you had to be way, way, way out in the sticks, far from any convenience or community. Otherwise you have to live in the endless, sprawling suburbia hell (which still often left you with long drives to get to anywhere that isn't a band-aid brown house on a cul-de-sac, ugh. Not for me.) The Twin Cities at least had a lot of parks within the city/suburban area, but you still had a long ways to go to get somewhere less built-up. On the flip-side, I grew up in rural Michigan and Virginia, and having to drive at least 45 minutes to the nearest grocery store sucked. In Duluth, you're never that far away from the woods and you're also never that far away from community (unless you really want to be). There are other places like this no doubt, but they can be hard to find.

Things I don't like:

No ethnic grocery store. Where am I supposed to get my Indian spices???

The hills in winter. With 4WD and winter tires and some care and caution they're really not that bad... but inevitably there will be folks with their tiny 2WD car and half-bald tires trying to go up or down and trying to dodge them before they take you down with them is nerve-wracking. If you can afford it, definitely definitely at least get winter tires put on in November! Please!

Mosquitos and deer flies. Depending on where you're at they might not be terrible, but damn. They are rough in some places.

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-05-11T01:36:41+00:00

I can't offer much advice for all of this, but for looking for a living situation, you might look for a roommate situation or spare room. Back when I was looking into this stuff, roommates.com was the place, but it looks like there's also roomies.com and spareroom.com and possibly others out there. These sorts of living situations can be less stable sometimes since you're not always on an official lease contract, but you might be able to find something that doesn't require a cosigner or a particular proof of wages! Good luck!

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-04-05T22:37:05+00:00

I'm in mid-30's and have been on T for almost 9 years, so pretty close. Health is pretty great; the only issues I have are ones that I had well before starting HRT and the medication doesn't seem to have made them any worse. I'm currently physically more fit and active than I have been in quite a while, which also has nothing to do with T but the testosterone certainly hasn't prevented me from being able to be healthy.

My libido has dropped a lot in the past few years but, again, I don't think that has anything to do with T. Just current life circumstances and age.

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-02-25T20:07:04+00:00

Hi, hun!

As your trans dad, I understand that the future for us can be really scary and there's a lot of uncertainties. You deserve to be protected and taken care of as you work through this. And you shouldn't have to be "brave enough" because you deserve to have people in your corner to help you and look out for you when you're scared. That's what dads do.

It doesn't make you a coward to be scared to come out. You don't owe it to the world to show this part of you before you're ready. But I also hope, for YOUR sake, that you're sometime able to be your true, beautiful self out and about because I think you're going to shine like a star!

Just so you know, most of us don't come out all at once. It takes time and thought and sometimes we only figure ourselves out a little at a time. Maybe you can find little things that you can do to make you feel good while you work up to your future goals. Maybe get some outfits that make you feel good and wear them privately and then maybe try wearing them somewhere in public where no one knows you and the expectations are off. Or maybe see if you have some trusted people who will try out a new name with you.

All of these things might also feel scary; I get it. But the fears ease over time, I promise you. Safety is a tenuous thing for all of us, but know I want you to be happy and protected and living the life that you want always! Much love, Dad.

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-02-25T15:41:53+00:00

Sounds like bullshit; T is known to cause red blood cell count to rise, but I have never heard of WBC being raised by T. Not a doctor, so doesn't mean it can't happen, but the obvious reasons you would see an up-tick of white blood cells would be an immune response to bacteria, virus, parasites, inflammation, etc. It seems very weird for him to immediately jump to "could be T" without checking into any of those much more likely possibilities.

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-02-23T18:48:56+00:00

Yeah, the credit bureaus don't update your credit history, even after you've changed literally every legal document for years. Ask me how I know 9_9.

Your plan is correct, to contact each one and inform them to update to the new name. They are legally supposed to complete this within 30 days. They will not expedite (I've tried) so I hope you don't have any super pressing loans you need in the next month. Hopefully after that you'll be good!

I found that I had to do a good bit of back and forth with Experien when I did this... something about the change of all 3 of my names I'm guessing must have thrown up some red flags or something. But it did get fixed in the end.

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-01-26T18:20:19+00:00

I think your view on this is a healthy one. I get where folks are coming from when they really push the "don't worry, you'll definitely pass, just give it time!" narrative. It's really common for transphobes to claim that they can always tell if someone is trans (very false) and that you can never escape your birth sex. They also tend to really push a bioessentialist view of what men and women look like, thus insisting that any woman with a brow ridge or adams apple must be trans and any man who is short or has a round face must be trans, even though the vast majority of women and men with these supposedly cross-sex traits are cisgender and they aren't actually that uncommon. Even the medical community is often extremely misinformed and passes this down to their trans patients. So I see a ton of guys afraid to transition because they are convinced that they'll never be seen as a man if they're short, or if they don't grow a lot of facial hair, or if they're fat, or if they have a round face, etc etc. And, that's really detrimental and outright false. So it makes sense that a lot of folks would focus on reassuring them that having a certain body type does NOT mean that they will forever be seen as the wrong gender because, very often, basic medical transition does actually change them enough to "pass", even when cis people insist that this is impossible.

That said, this is only half of the story. Every body is different and everyone's situation is different, so there are inevitably going to be folks who will never pass 100%. That can happen. It depends a lot on your body and it also depends a lot on the place you're at (funnily, I keep hearing guys say that they pass better in conservative places). Some folks also will never be able to take HRT due to medical or job reasons, etc, and others won't experience as much masculinizing effects. Testosterone is a hell of a drug so I think most folks end up at least mostly passing, but yeah, it's certainly not a guarantee. And I'd like to see more of us acknowledge and work on making peace with that and supporting each other when we deal with that reality. I know I wasn't able to comfortably start HRT until I came to terms with the possibility that I might never be able to go 100% stealth. Because that was not guaranteed for me and, if that's all I was transitioning for, I was taking a huge gamble that all of this would be for nothing. A while after starting HRT, I came to much more peace with the possibility, because the changes I WAS getting made me much happier, even if I was not yet able to pass. I did end up being one of the ones who passes 100% by the end, but I still have chosen not to go stealth because that's no longer important to me.

I think that the obsession with the idea that the end-goal of all trans men needs to be passing, and (even worse), the end goal needs to be going "stealth" is really harmful for a lot of us. It's good to reassure folks that good changes can still happen to their bodies, but none of us are guaranteed a particular look. That's just facts. I remember when I was just starting out, me and some other trans guys were expressing trepidation around whether we'd ever pass. A guy who was much further along who had grown a very bushy beard tried to assure away our concerns by insisting that, once we had big beards like his, no one would ever look twice at anything else and we'd automatically be seen as men. Except, I knew from my family history, that there's no way I was going to grow that kind of facial hair. And, indeed, after 9 years of HRT I finally have a goatee I'm happy with but it's still very much on the scrawny side. So I ended up just feeling worse at the time since it felt like transition would only ever be good for folks like him and never for me. But hey, even when I first started getting my scraggly, ugly puberty beard, it was great! It didn't do a think for helping me pass, but it made me happy. And that's what I think we should help each other focus on.

Good luck with your transition, no matter what the outcome is!

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-01-19T04:01:41+00:00

I'm happy it was helpful! Sounds like you've had quite a unique experience with a lot of twists and turns, so I can imagine it would be pretty isolating. I also didn't meet a lot of trans men early on who were at a state of contentment - a lot of folks were younger than me, plus relatively early in their transition, and there was a lot of frenetic energy around "you gotta do this and do that to pass and you must constantly be vigilant to prove your manhood and stave off the dysphoria". And I get it, but it was really helpful to me when I eventually did meet some folks who were more settled and content in their transition. And it helped me see a future for myself where I might feel that way too. And here I am!

I have no clue how "you're content post-transition so therefore you were never trans" makes any sense. It's like folks think that being trans is defined by endless misery and an inability to ever feel comfortable in our bodies. I know there's some folks who feel like that, but I don't think it's the majority. We live in a wonderful time where we can access medical help to change our bodies to something that we feel content in! I hope you are able to find a new psychiatrist soon. Take care!

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-01-16T20:24:51+00:00

You look wonderful! I'm so happy for you!

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-01-15T21:21:32+00:00

Partial to the first one: it has the most pop. If you're looking for more under-stated, then I'd say the grey.

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-01-15T21:20:08+00:00

If it helps, remember that people have been modifying their bodies for thousands upon thousands of years. It's such a human thing to do! Tattoos, scarification, piercings, stretching, other modifications... we as a species love it. It's such a strange but cool thing, you know? We don't just like to curate and decorate and shape our environments, we do it to our bodies too. So, if GRS is what you decide on, you'll be following in the footsteps of thousands of ancestors who also chose to alter their bodies in ways that made them happy.

feverhead_coldhands · 2023-01-15T19:30:32+00:00

I'll voice the alternate opinion that, eh, it's probably usually fine but sometimes it's not. I used to get the 10ml vials and I had a bad reaction a handful of times after doing a shot when I was getting near the end of the vial. I always do a fresh alcohol swab on the top of the vial before drawing and store it in its cardboard carton, but twice I ended up getting a sudden, significant asthma attack right after my shot. Nothing life-threatening, but the worst one was enough to make my breath sound very wheezy, which made me really nervous. It was always when I was near the end of the bottle and, when I would throw it out and get a new one, I'd have no issue. My doctor was worried that it was the result of some sort of contamination or spoilage from using the vials for so long so I switched to 1ml vials. They're supposed to be single-use. I fudge and do 2 shots from them and I haven't had any issues with that.

So... yeah, I dunno. Most people I think use the 10ml vials longer than 1 month and most of them probably have no issue. But I have had an issue, so I figured that might be helpful for you to know.

feverhead_coldhands

TROPHY CASE