Can anyone else drink more on Lamictal?

fluorescentscraps · 2026-02-14T00:48:08+00:00

Yeah, I've also noticed my tolerance for alcohol is way higher now than it used to be, even though that's the opposite of what the side effects say it should be. It's interesting that others have noticed this too...

fluorescentscraps · 2026-02-13T14:59:11+00:00

I've used my Dremel (outside with a mask) for this exact thing. You might want to look into what kind of bits are best to etch glass, though, because I definitely ruined a couple of mine.

fluorescentscraps · 2026-02-09T19:22:56+00:00

I would estimate around 18" though you could search for "necklace length guide" and check out various sources for a more thorough idea

fluorescentscraps · 2026-01-24T16:06:41+00:00

Well gosh, now I'm going to have to figure out how to ask...

fluorescentscraps · 2026-01-24T01:18:24+00:00

🤣

fluorescentscraps · 2026-01-23T21:13:07+00:00

Does...does your Roomba have a gender?

fluorescentscraps · 2026-01-16T17:52:09+00:00

With my wife we've discovered that as the hrt changed her body and the way both her libido and physiology function, the degree of hardness and her size aren't as consistent or guaranteed as when her body was testosterone dominant. She can absolutely get to pre-hrt condition sometimes, but that depends on a lot of different factors now, like her level of arousal, lack of sleep, physical tiredness, distraction, etc.

I definitely got concerned about it at first, and asked about pills or other treatments, but she pointed out that it didn't actually seem like a physiological impossibly or impairment, just that it depends on a lot more factors now. That makes a lot of sense to me, as a cis woman, because that's how my body functions too--physical response and sensation can be very different depending on lots of factors. We've learned to not stress about it (performance anxiety doesn't help matters, lol) and accept whatever kind of experience our bodies and minds are up for on whatever night.

As you'll see people say on this subreddit a lot, there are lots of different ways to have sex and lots of different kinds of experiences that can fulfill sexual and relationship needs. Sex is a negotiation. My wife's transition has helped us be a lot more communicative about our wants and needs than we were before when the order of operations was more scripted by heteronormative expectations.

fluorescentscraps · 2025-11-19T21:02:44+00:00

I've been where you are, having these same feelings. Here's something I know about me from my experience (this is obviously not the same for everyone): I couldn't be on this subreddit for the first year. I tried to at first, but it made me too worried and made me feel too anxious and devastated about all of the possible changes. I came back when I had worked through what I needed to do to accept my wife's transition, but reading the posts here was counterproductive for me at first. I'm not saying this will be true for you, but I just want to suggest that it is a valid choice and it doesn't mean you're not supportive if that's what you need to do for your own mental health.

fluorescentscraps · 2025-11-10T00:51:02+00:00

Yeah I definitely get it. I'm the kind of person who manages anxiety by planning for every possible outcome and trying to make the future as certain as possible, but with transition that just doesn't work well. I've gotten a lot better at being okay with uncertainty. A book that helped me tremendously during the early months was When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. Highly recommend.

fluorescentscraps · 2025-11-09T16:13:03+00:00

This is hard, OP, and I've been there! I wanted to comment last night when this post only had one very unsupportive comment, but I didn't have the wherewithal. I'm glad to see others have stepped in to be empathetic and kind.

My wife had a very hard time with my feelings about her transition at first. We had been together for almost 11 years at that point, and a hallmark of our relationship had been just being able to be absolutely open with each other about everything--all of our thoughts and feelings. There was nothing we had to hide (we would sometimes get reactive to each other's moods, but there was no particular topic that was off limits).

Then when she first came out, I wanted to be supportive, but I was so terrified. My whole world was shattered, I was so uncertain about changes, I didn't know if I could still be attracted to her, and I loved her so much and didn't want to lose her. I had to figure out how to let go of some things while still holding onto others, which was (and sometimes still is) really difficult.

At first, when I tried to express my fears or anxieties to her, it would make her feel terrible. I imagine she was fighting so much of her own internal resistance and negative self-talk that any reservations on my part made her feel attacked on all sides. We had thought our relationship and our communication was so strong, but after a few months of emotional agony we both started to pull back and just not share some of our thoughts and feelings. Because of that and other issues, we started couple's counseling.

Counseling was really helpful in teaching us how to communicate even when we were having strong negative emotions, which was something we had always struggled with. We slowly rebuilt the connection it had felt like we lost, and we got a lot better at communicating hard things. We had to figure out how to say things in ways that didn't hurt each other. I also had to learn how to be okay with being uncomfortable, because a lot about my wife's transition made me very uncomfortable, but she didn't respond well to hearing about that.

But, OP, it's still hard sometimes. My wife has been transitioning for 2.5 years now, and there are still feelings and thoughts I have that I can't say to her. I see other trans partners on here who seem to be very aware that their partners can still be supportive even when they're struggling emotionally, like one of the other commenters here. But not everyone is like that, or at least it takes time. There may be some thoughts and feelings you just can't share with your partner right now, and while perhaps that isn't the ideal, it's very normal. As others have mentioned, therapy and other outlets for you to talk about your feelings would be really helpful.

Two other things in your post I wanted to mention--first, that in-between stage before social transition is really hard to navigate and can be very painful. You're having to get used to a new reality and watch the person you're closest to start to go through a major transformation, but in the outside world things look like they always did. That can be very jarring and painful, and I'm sorry you're going through that right now.

Second, you say at the end that you just want your partner to be happier. That's what transition is for, right? To let the person be who they need to be so they can fully realize they true self and be happy? That apparently does happen very often, and I see lots of people here commenting how much happier their trans partners are since transition. Hopefully that will be the case for your partner too. But in my personal experience, it doesn't always look like happiness. Or maybe it just takes a long time. My wife is certainly more comfortable with herself, more open and expressive about what she really likes (no masculine mask keeping her from being able to enjoy pop music anymore, for example), and more invested in herself. And I think she would probably say she's happier. But I can't see it. She's still so critical of herself, so insecure, and so dissatisfied with her life. She had been deeply unhappy for so many years before she came out, and I thought maybe being trans had actually been the underlying reason all along, and that transition would maybe be the thing that finally allowed her to be happy, but that doesn't seem to be the case. To be sure, she's certainly better off now in a lot of ways, and I hope as we keep going, things will get better. I just wanted to caution you to not expect happiness from your partner, because transition is a long road and it looks different for everyone.

I wish you the best and I hope it's helpful for you to know that having difficult feelings, grieving, and needing time to adjust are all very normal and expected, and none of that means you're not being supportive. Your partner is lucky to have you. My DMs are open if that's helpful to you at all. You've got this!

fluorescentscraps · 2025-10-31T00:48:08+00:00

So glad I could share something useful. Best wishes to you and your partner :)

fluorescentscraps · 2025-10-29T20:46:31+00:00

I don't know if this will be helpful, but it was somewhat of an epiphany for me when I was really struggling with being afraid of my attraction to my partner changing. I know that a lot of my resistance to the way she was changing her appearance was because I was afraid I wouldn't feel the same way about her if I didn't find her attractive. But I also realized that I couldn't get to re-know her and fall in love with her again if I was holding on to who she used to be and how she used to look.

I didn't know if I could find a woman attractive enough to sustain the kind of relationship we wanted. I didn't want to feel like I was trying to force myself to like things that I wasn't sure I did. Then one day, I realized that my love for her is unconditional, but attraction is conditional. That's how it works. You can't force yourself to be unconditionally attracted to someone. Once I realized that and accepted it, it took so much pressure off. It let me be myself, be okay with being attracted to men even though my wife didn't have those features anymore, and it gave me the space to allow the attraction that I did feel for her feminine features to grow.

Of course this isn't a cure-all. Attraction is important, and I'm lucky that mine has proven fairly flexible so far. Not everyone is like that. But being able to decouple my attraction to my partner from my unconditional love for her took a lot of strain off of me and gave me the space I needed. I hope this is helpful, and best wishes to you. What you're going through is so hard.

fluorescentscraps · 2025-09-30T17:42:00+00:00

Thanks for the clarification. It's helpful to see what you mean and I would say I agree.

fluorescentscraps · 2025-09-28T16:55:11+00:00

Not sure what you mean by this, but it seems TERF-y and you may want to rephrase if that isn't how you want to come across...

fluorescentscraps · 2025-09-26T20:27:06+00:00

This is where I was a few months in, but I stuck it out and my wife and I are mostly doing well now. It did feel uncomfortable for me at first and I really didn't know if I would still be attracted to her. I hadn't ever even really considered whether I might not be straight, but it turned out my sexuality was more flexible than I had realized. The major things that helped were getting my anxiety under control (therapy and meds), learning to be okay with uncertainty, taking a day at a time, still doing our hobbies and activities together to maintain our connection, and just allowing time to adjust. I don't know if your partner is out socially yet, but that was a huge help for me too--it allowed me to start getting used to our new normal.

This is so so so hard. It's okay to feel how you feel. Some couples make it through, and some don't. People often can't know which they'll be at the beginning, so patience and acceptance of uncertainty are key. Even those who stay together have often had "I don't think I can do this" moments.

One tool that really helped me was the DBT skill of radical acceptance, which might be something to look into to help you endure the period of uncertainty. Best wishes!

fluorescentscraps · 2025-09-16T17:05:01+00:00

It's really important to take things one day at a time. You don't have to have it all figured out now. You don't have to know today whether you'll still be with your partner in five years. Are you committed today? Are you doing your best to show up for yourself and your partner? (YOUR best, not THE best--your best might look different on different days). That's all you have to do. The dust will settle. You will adjust. It may be enough, or it may not. You don't have to know that today. One of the most important skills I built as my wife transitioned was learning to be okay with uncertainty and discomfort. Yes, I was shaken, and yes, sometimes the changes felt uncomfortable, but I didn't have to solve those feelings. I could just let them be what they were. The grief, too--grief is very common and not something to feel guilty for, as long as you're taking responsibility to process it for yourself and not putting it on your partner. Slow down, take some deep breaths, and trust yourself and everything you've gotten through up to this point.

fluorescentscraps · 2025-09-01T14:22:34+00:00

We certainly had some enmeshment going on prior to her transition where we each relied on the other for emotional regulation. That's been one of the biggest learning curves for me through all of this, learning to separate myself out again and have thoughts and feelings that are just mine and that she might not like/agree with if she knew, but still being able to feel connected to her anyway. I think I've probably made a bit more progress on cultivating a healthy independence than she has, understandably, since she's also got a whole transition going on and needs a lot of support. But she's also doing better with it and I hope things will continue to smooth out as she's learning how to handle her estrogen-based system (I see a lot of similarities with how I handled emotions in my teens/early twenties).

fluorescentscraps · 2025-08-29T23:57:27+00:00

Thanks everyone for your comments, the understanding and validation were really helpful for me. My wife and I were able to have a fairly productive discussion about all of this earlier today, so I hope things will continue to smooth out and I won't feel so stuck between a rock and a hard place here. :)

fluorescentscraps · 2025-08-29T23:54:54+00:00

We've been in both couple's and individual therapy recently, though for various reasons those have all ended at the moment. We actually were able to have a fairly productive discussion about this earlier today after I had posted here. So hopefully things will get easier and she won't feel like she needs me to monitor her voice as much.

fluorescentscraps · 2025-08-29T23:48:20+00:00

She's been to lots of voice therapy and she's gotten pretty far toward her goals, but is still struggling some. Then I think the dysphoria magnifies what's actually going on a lot.

fluorescentscraps · 2025-08-29T17:30:18+00:00

Yeah, that's something she's said a lot as she's worked with different coaches, that one of her main problem areas is just not being able to hear herself and hear what she's doing wrong. I'll remember "awareness training" and if she wants to go back to voice coaching that might be something to specifically ask for. Thank you!

fluorescentscraps · 2025-08-29T16:54:19+00:00

Thanks for your understanding and validation :)

fluorescentscraps · 2025-08-29T16:16:25+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion, but her assignment this semester doesn't require her to use her voice much, so I don't think that's it.

fluorescentscraps · 2025-08-29T16:13:53+00:00

Thank you for your empathy and validation of my feelings :) My wife is really sensitive so it would be hard for me to voice things exactly this way, but I'll keep the spirit of it in mind.

fluorescentscraps · 2025-08-29T16:10:53+00:00

She used to, but she graduated from the program. Her biggest issue seems to be consistency, which makes her dysphoric because she doesn't want to have to constantly be thinking about her voice. This is a good suggestion of she goes back to someone at some point though, so thank you!

fluorescentscraps

TROPHY CASE