previous: issue 1.

hysterectomy

as previoulsy mentioned, i'm trans*. i don't quite understand gender, but for simplicity's sake, i'm a trans* guy. i've been on testosterone for over three years, had top surgery in 2023 and the "decision process" behind those "transition steps" was pretty easy. the circumstances weren't, but i was always sure i wanted and needed them. hysterectomy wasn't that clear-cut. quite spontanously i'll have the surgery in a few days and i am excited about that, but still wanted to share my thoughts, without going into personal details.

there are different kinds/versions of a hysterectomy but to make it simple, i'll concentrate on whether or not the ovaries are being removed as well. there are a lot of factors when it comes to this and a lot of them are very personal and different for every individual, like what they want and/or need, what their anatomy is, what is accessible and affordable in their area, what is possible and safe and many more. i can only talk about myself and it's not representative for anyone else.

for me it was mostly about safety - personal security vs possible health issues. the thing is, if the ovaries are removed, i would be dependant on external sources of hormones forever (having no testosterone or estrogene in the body is not good and can lead to serious health issues). which is scary, because my hormone-supply is reliant on a medical system, the goodwill of doctors and (to a not insignificant part) an at least somewhat progressive government (since i do not have the money to get my testo elsewhere). so when the second strongest political party is full of nazis and fascists, it's hard to trust in the future.

if i keep them in however, there is the chance for them to go wrong in some way. could be cancer, could be something else, but i would have to keep that in mind and maybe get them checked out from time to time. i don't want to do that and knowing myself i could literally rot from the inside out and still wouldn't go to the doctor, so it's a considerable risk. and even if i would, the process would out me as trans*, which can also be unsafe, depending on the circumstances.

i really hate having to consider this.

maybe it's naive, but i really wish people wouldn't have to fear for their health and well-being every election. my worry is still abstract and minor in comparison to so many others and it already feels existential(ly threatening).

lists

i've added a place for lists! it's linked in the middle part and [here]. so far it's only some books, series and podcasts with little additional information, mostly because the thought of writing something to every item is overwhelming and makes me want to delete everything immediately, just to avoid it. so i guess it's kinda bare for now.

i am really conflicted about this tho. i do like the minimalism and functionality of a simple list, so i could just keep it that way, but i also want to provide enough information to make them interesting/helpful/etc.

surgery update

the surgery (hysterectomy) went well and i'm recovering in the hospital. i'm happy it's done and gone and all, but damn, general anesthesia always fucks me up. but at least i'm halfway done with the gender affirming surgeries i want to have! this one honestly feels kinda like a "check list item that i can cross off" because the result is invisbile and before it was a more passive/indirect source of dysphoria. so i'm happy and relieved, in an abstract way. but mostly i'm tired. i'll probably get to go home tomorrow.

-----

few days later and so far everything is going well. i'm home and have been feeling pretty good, i think. pain medication and my difficulty to "listen to my body" makes it a bit harder to say, but nothing's raptured or bleeding and i can go for walks to feed the crows, so i interpret that as "good".

a thing i didn't quite think about before the surgery is the bloating that is common directly after laparoscopic hysterectomy (the doctors often inflate the stomach with gas to have better visibility of and accessibility to the organs) and how that might affect one's body perception. because it sure screws with me and my dysmorphia. it's fine, it's ok, but it would've been useful to know beforehand. it wouldn't have changed my decision or anything like that, but mental preparation can be helpful.

video essay list and perfectionsism

i wanted to add a new list which links to a couple of video essays i like but it's surprisingly hard? it makes me very worried about being/appearing "unbalanced" or "uneducated" or that something i like is in some way "bad" and "people" will judge me for it. (i'm putting "people" in quotation marks because it's a very abstract worry about some invisible mass of people that probably doesn't exist and even if, i have no way of knowing their opinion, nor is it something that should/would affect me.) i'm scared to be wrong and irresponsible and that somehow me putting links to publicly (and mostly popular) videos on my own teeny-tiny website will hurt and anger people (don't ask me how! i don't know!).

it's frustrating and exhausting. i just wanted to make a list, not have a mild identity-crisis.

i am recovering from surgery and very bored. so i'm

• making way more necklaces and jewelry than i can / want to wear
• surpressing the impulse to completely uproot and restructure my notebook, note-taking and calendar system
• trying to read a book but ending up overwhelmed by the decision on which book, so i just watch youtube videos (having them play in the background while i do something else)
• reading about ADHD because this feels like evil boredom and like i'm going to im- and explode at the same time
• shaky, but unsure if it's the caffeine, restlessness or something else
• writing lists
• trying to work on some creative writing stuff but the screen stays as functionally empty as my head
• complaining to friends about how much having restless energy sucks, especially if it's only cognitive (?) energy but without the attention span to concentrate on anything that would help relief or channel said energy

text with a bit of context

i am still working through my back-log of texts i've written, so here is another one: SHAPED. to be honest, i wasn't sure if i wanted to put this one up because it gets pretty explicit and uncomfortable. it's probably one of the darkest things i've written and portrays a "realistic" kind of horror, which feels closer and heavier than e.g. body horror.

mainly, it's about an abusive relationship set within the background of a very discriminatory society. the (fictional) main character is autistic and trans*, two factors which make (real) people significantly more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence, sexual abuse and/or controlling partner dynamics. don't take my word for it, here are some scientific publications:

• Murchison, G. R., Eiduson, R., Austin, S. B., Reisner, S. L., Agénor, M., Chen, J. T., & Gordon, A. R. (2024). Controlling partner dynamics in transgender/nonbinary young adults’ romantic relationships: Exploring the roles of cissexism-related beliefs and material-need insecurity. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. Advance online publication. [link here]
• Elliot Marrow, Mannat Malik, David W. Pantalone, Sarah Peitzmeier (2024). Power and control, resistance and survival: A systematic review and meta-synthesis of the qualitative literature on intimate partner violence against transgender individuals. Social Science & Medicine, Volume 342, 2024, 116498, ISSN 0277-9536, [link here].
• Yerke, A.F., DeFeo, J. Redefining Intimate Partner Violence Beyond the Binary to Include Transgender People. J Fam Viol 31, 975–979 (2016). [link here]
• Douglas, S., & Sedgewick, F. (2023). Experiences of interpersonal victimization and abuse among autistic people. Autism, 28(7), 1732-1745. [link here] (Original work published 2024)

it's bleak. no fiction can compare to actual horrors and tragedies.

anyway, back to the text. it was my first try at non-linear and more fragmanted writing, which i've come to like a lot, but it became (in parts) more vent-y than i anticipated. like a lot of stuff i write, it draws on some of my experiences, feelings and fears but it's never just that, never 100% true. still, this one has a higher percentage than most. oops. but since it's fiction and i'm quite proud of some of the formulations, i wanted to share.

mind-structure and brain-parts

[as a big disclaimer in the beginning: i don't want to use, claim or appropriate spaces, terms and labels that aren't mine. so i will be using vague language on purpose, staying away from medical or community terms, and just describing how things feel for me. it could very well "just" be autism, alexithymia and dissociative tendencies that are easier for me to understand/interpret through this particular lens. maybe i'm just really good at compartmentalizing. i don't know and i heavily dislike not knowing, but if this is what helps me understand and process how i work, so be it. again, i don't think it's anything "medical" or "serious" (whatever that means) - it's more of an illustration and comparison i guess. plus, i'm a sucker for sorting mechanisms.]

ok, so, for the last year i've been looking into plurality, after stumbling upon the term "median" which was way too relatable. especially [this] description of someone's experience was very very close to how i perceive my mind. well, minus the visual aspects because i have aphantasia or am at least pretty close to it. for me it’s more like a shared document where several people are working / commenting on or a group chat.

regardless, reading something that resonated so much with me was wild. i’ve always just thought of myself as “a bit insane” and like it was a weird coping mechanism that was specific to me, emblematic of my binary-thinking and problems with conflict(ing view)s. finding out that isn’t the case, was a bit unsettling but also fascinating.

i often compare it to a small radio station. there is one person in the booth, broadcasting. they are the voice and (public) persona of the station. their main jobs are presenting the content, interacting with the public, managing the station and reviewing what comes on their desk. for the most part they don't write and research themself, but they have a say in the overall values and may filter or adapt the script. behind them, invisible, is a group of people that fills out the program with information and opinions, for example interns. without them the station is empty. they provide the topics that interest them and each have a unique style and opinion that influence the overall program. they don't necessarily all work at the same time and not every intern writes on every script, but overall it’s a group effort that is being “smoothed over” / “unified” by the radio host.

another comparison could be a computer (i do tend to describe my mind as something technical even though i have very little to no knowledge about computer science, so take everything with a pile of salt) where different programs are running in the fore- and background, add-ons are being applied, everything works and comes together and the “output” is on one screen.

a last comparison / image: the “magic milk experiment” a teacher showed us in elementary school. i don’t feel like explaining and describing it, so [here is a link]. the swirling colors in the milk, moving and mixing, creating shapes and patterns - pretty cool stuff. so imagine that, but the colors mix and part again and it’s mostly under the surface, with only traces of colors and swirls showing through the white.

in a less abstract and more general way it mostly means that 1) i am inconsistent in consistent ways and 2) have a lot of internal conflicts. i don’t think it “changes” much or anything really. it’s mainly a way for me to understand and explain my mind to myself and select others, and so far it has been use- and helpful. maybe that’ll change, a lot of things do after all and i try to be more “at peace” with that. still, this is more of a “rediscovery” for me and nothing new - i’m just putting it into words.

so, why am i writing this? partly for transparency, but mostly because the “smoothing over” can be exhausting. projecting outwardly that everything is consistent and uniform, presenting “one voice” that is supposed to be representative, can be a lot of work. or at the minimum it’s something i’m aware of, another filter i have to apply and run everything through. i don’t always want to do that, or want to feel the need to do that, so my hope is that by explaining this, i’ll give myself some leeway.

i thought a lot about if and how many details i wanted to share about the exact make-up of my little radio station. for now i’ve decided against it. this already feels like too much. well, i can always delete this later. i give myself explicit permission to do so in this case.

new project idea

i have the tendency to get really invested in the idea of a new hobby or project. ignore that i have so many things that i started and was super obsessed with for a few weeks, just for my enthusiasm to die down short after. maybe 1 out of 10 projects develop into a long-term constant hobby and 2 out of 10 come back in phases. currently i'm

• making a lot of sparkly jewelry (this one comes in phases but i got a bunch of new beads in anticipation of recovery-boredom)
• taking polaroid pictures (since january i think? limited by the cost of the film tho...)
• working on this website (since last month, so pretty new)
• writing letters to friends (also since january)

anyway! i had a new idea! i could start collecting cassette tapes and record stuff on them. (it's not just because i love the magnus archives, i swear.) i remember having them as a kid and i would just listen to the same tape and turning it over and over and over again. it was so cool! i miss how physical they were. of course it's super convenient to have music and audiobooks digitally and constantly available, but it's not the same. a bit like with books - i will always prefer a physical book over an e-book. holding them in my hands, the sound of flipping pages or spooling tape, having them in my shelf - it just feels more real. plus i have a bad memory and my object permanence is not great. like, i keep forgetting that digital stuff exists? which can cause trouble when it comes to important e-mails or finances... sometimes i feel like my mind wasn't made for digital stuff. i should be an astronomer, sitting in a tower surrounded by books, watching the stars through a telescope and noting down my observations with a quill. all this *gestures vagely* is confusing and overwhelming. do i sound old?

back to cassette tapes. i think it could be fun: making playlists, recording stuff, designing the covers. i'm listening to the same things on loop anyway, so why not put them on tape, and that way i could listen to something without having to have my phone on me. i'm slowly working towards a dumb phone and having something else to play music or podcasts would be a huge step, because i can't go outside without something to listen to.

well, we'll see. it's too much financial and material cost to jump into this without planning and thinking it through properly.

channeling my "old people feelings" into a character for a magnus archives rpg. mix of five from the umbrella academy, irving from severance and gideon from criminal minds. i think this could be fun!

fractured fears

"a collection of short dystopian fiction about queer fear, rage and survival in the face of fascism"

that is the title and subtitle of the zine a friend and i wrote! because we are currently in the process of selling and distributing it, i wanted to put my texts here as well, or at least my main contributions. but first i wanted to add an intro that we also included in the zine. because it deals with some heavy and/or sensitive topics, it was important to us to provide a thorough-ish disclaimer (additionally to the content notes in front of every text) and share some thoughts [here]

now, onto the texts:

• FRACTURED, a short story about a sewn-together undead soldier and the people they are made out of. it has a lot of medical and body horror and is told from first, second and third person. [here]
• GHOST, a short story with loose narrative and unreliable-ish narration in second person. isolation, insomnia and dissociation play a big part and the tone is more dream-like. [here]
• CONVICTION follows a trans* narrator as they (and their community) are framed and persecuted. [here]

i'm honestly pretty proud of these texts and of the zine in general. my friend and i worked on it for so long and it's been an exhausting but rewarding process. now it's more or less over and i don't know when (or if) i'll be that "creatively productive" again. we'll see.

trying out adhd meds

ok, so, i had the chance to try out adhd medication this weekend and it was quite interesting, so i wanna talk about that a bit!

for context: i've been considering that i might have (inattentive) adhd for a while, especially since it's quite common in my family, but figuring that out or persuing a diagnosis was never my top priority. my autism causes me way more difficulties in every-day life, or at least i perceive it that way, so that was my main focus. it's probably more complicated, because everything always is.

the medication i was able to try is vyvanse and while the effects weren't as night-and-day as i've heard people describe them, i do think there was a difference that is (probably) not due to the placebo effect. some things i noticed (on my very limited trial period, so it's not particularly significant or "strong evidance", but fuck it):

• being able to just sit down and read a book! i didn't even need background-music or have to wait for "special circumstancances"/"the perfect situation", i could just pick up the book and read for a longer period of time. i finished two books that i started reading a while ago - absolutely wild.
• i got distracted by things that normally help me focus. like, i almost always wear headphones, partly to block out noise, but also because i need constant input to function (i listen to a lot of podcasts...). if my brain isn't 100% engaged in something, it immediatly falls to 0%, so i always have to add different stimuli to somehow get to "full capacity". that did not work while on vyvanse. i was writing an email and as always, i put on a podcast, but i ended up being so distracted by it, that i was unable to concentrate on the mail. so i turned it off, and then i was fine.
• i'm not super sure, but i think it helped a bit with sensory issues. i had a visitor and we spent the day in the city (walking, looking at exhibitions, taking busses and trains, etc.) and i think it was less exhaustig than it normally is. like, still exhausting and stressful, but not as debilitating. it's a bit hard to quantify, because i struggle remembering emotions, feelings and sensations, so that makes it hard to compare. but still, it was interesting.

overall i felt quite good. not euphoric, or life-changingly different, but good and i got some stuff done and i can't overstate how amazing it is to be able to read more. i love books and i've always read a lot, but i've struggled with it for a while now, so it was nice. i really missed that.

i think i'm a bit glad that it wasn't anything extreme, because i don't like the idea of dramatic changes in/on myself, without having control over it. idk, i was always a bit scared of medication because "what if it makes me a different person" - which is a bit ironic considering that i'm on three different medications, hrt and not particularly invested in being myself (or a person).

anyway, i think i'll try to get a permanent prescription and a diagnosis.

next: issue 3.