Eredien's Journal

Therapy & Mental Health: yesterday, my therapist and I both agreed that I am pretty much done with therapy for right now. I feel happier and way more confident in my life and have mechanisms in place to deal with the bad stuff. It doesn't seem like I was in therapy for more than three years, but it's a different kind of work than I was thinking it was when I went into it, so the time-dilation makes a little bit of sense to me. I am really proud. I still have problems (see below) but I can deal with them in a reasonable manner. I am still taking meds for PCOS and bipolar disorder, which seem to be working really, extraordinarily well.

Home life: my parents are transphobes, my mother explicitly told me that she wants me to settle down with a man or a 'real woman'. Going to have a talk about this with my mother. On other hand, mother does not have cancer again, so that's good.

Creativity: I have gone into my winter creativity phase, which mostly means writing poetry, reading long involved novels, drawing, and sewing (as opposed to my summer phase, which is writing longer works of fiction, reading short stories, gardening, and website design). I am really happy with where I am at in my sewing; it looks more professional every day. Also when I move back to the Boston area I am planning on trying to do my maskmaking/puppeteering internship again.

Fitness/body image: this is slowly progressing. I am going to a weekly meeting that is helping. I have decided that I would rather lose weight and see what that does to my breasts and shape than get top surgery; I don't think I want it anymore and I figure if I do later the procedure will still be there.

Work: I got promoted from intern to part-timer, which means more responsibility and not being paid under the table. Yay for daily structure.

Relationships & Friendships: Long distance relationships with my friends and partners still suck, but I have kind of gotten used to it. I try to see people when I can, which also involves being able to say 'I can't see this person right now' when I can't. My life is much better for the way I now manage relationships that are important to me instead of letting my relationships manage my moods. I had a fantastic minivacation where I got to see A., B., and E. this past weekend and managed to break through some of my remaining psychosexual fears in a big way, which was incredibly rewarding. Things with R and R' are slowly, slowly coming back to a level of friendship I haven't felt from them in years, which is also fantastic. The support of I. through all this has been steadfast not to mention hilarious. I feel really amazed and grateful to have such incredible people in my life.

Food: the biggest change in my life this year has been my deciding two things: I can be veg* at home if I'm not vocal about it--no one will miss me eating cheese or meat if I don't make a big deal out of it--and that I want to start fishing. I went fishing this summer and really found it incredibly relaxing, though I caught close to nothing. I've decided that I will eat what I catch if I can, which is consistent with my overall food philosophy of taking personal responsibility for the things I eat and trying to grow or kill as much of it myself as possible. Next possible food project: keeping rescue chickens?

Moving plans: progressing apace with my bank account (did I mention I'm grateful for my job)? I may move to Boston and commute to Western MA to see B., I may move to Western MA with B. and commute to the semi-Boston area to see A. Still looking for Boston jobs, especially in editing or writing. Really where I live depends on what kind of job I get and what my plans with B. solidify into. We are thinking of getting some kind of cohousing--a shared duplex, or possibly nearby apartments.

Travel: Belgium in 2015 with A. I also actually have a price on my dream trip to Russia/Mongolia/China/Japan and am saving up for that.

Religion/God: I am impressed with the new pope even though I currently consider myself agnostic. I went to Jewish services for the first time last week and really enjoyed all the singing and debate of theology even though I don't believe in the efficacy of prayer as such. Chi work both with and without my partners is going well. Saving up for martial arts again even though my mother considers them unwomanly (another thing to talk with her about).

Hey there, friend who is trying to convince me that soy is bad for you! I appreciate that you have been kind of on a personal health kick lately, but I already know that soy is not a miracle food. I know it has some problematic estrogens, and have been slowly cutting back on it because I don't think that's good for me. I know that it's generally pretty high in fat. I know that you shouldn't base a diet around it.

Guess what: I'm not! But my diet is something I really shouldn't have to defend to anybody. Any food is gonna have its problems, large or small, and its detractors, and its scientists with agendas. I've seen this happen with foods from grapefruit to milk--somebody writes an article based on extensive lab testing and FDA approval saying "x is healthy," and then a year or decade later there's a book on Oprah or a peer-reviewed article saying "x is gonna kill you!" I gave up trying to track it all long ago, because it was impossible.

I decided to take my body's own advice, and go vegan. It's worked great for me. It's the best diet I've ever been on, in terms of my health. If no soy works for you, that's great. You should eat what you like. And I will eat what I like. But I do not appreciate hearing, "you shouldn't eat that thing you like," especially not from a friend.

Reading a book about how soy is horrible is not going to make me change my mind about soy, when my own body was telling me to give up cheese and milk, and I (stubborn) kept at it, and eventually only stopped when I got very sick indeed.

You also probably didn't have much of a way of knowing this, because I don't generally talk about it, but I have had a lot of people criticize my eating habits--both when I was younger, and today. When I went vegan, it took me a year and a half to convince my mother that I was not going to waste away and to demonstrate to my father that what I was eating actually tasted good. When I was younger, I spent an entire year vegetarian. and having my food supply and choices passively-aggressively managed by my mother. My aunt has suggested that I change my grammar structure at family parties so that my extended family will be more comfortable with the fact that I choose to eat how I choose to eat.

Even when my parents are not criticizing my eating habits and choices specifically, or asking me to "just try a little meat," they have spent years generally criticizing my eating habits in terms of everything I ate or didn't eat, every time I ate, on top of the vegetarian and vegan stuff. I have pushed away from the table uncomfortably full, only to have my mother complain that I didn't take seconds, and then an hour later get a lecture on "my health." It feels like they may have spent more total time criticizing me at all points of my life about whatever I was eating than I actually did learning that it was ok to eat what I wanted, finding my own food style as an adult, and learning how to enjoy cooking and (mostly) eating without guilt or stress. That project took me several years.

I really think adults shouldn't criticize each other's food choices. That may sound weird coming from a vegan, since in a lot of ways the way I eat really seems like I'm doing it to stick it to the man. A lot of vegans do that actively and deliberately, and are angry about it.

I will admit that I do stick it to the man a bit, simply by choosing to consume or not consume various products, and talking about why and how sometimes. And I will admit I'm pretty angry about the ill-treatment of workers and animals in factory farms. But if making my own food choices consciously and enjoying what I eat and talking sometimes about why I eat the way I do is sticking it to the man, then everybody who's ever chosen what they will or will not personally consume or talked about why is "sticking it to the man" in the exact same way, if not along the same axis that I am.

There's a lot of people who say, "I hate vegans/vegetarians because I feel like they make me feel bad about the food I eat." I think that's because a lot of veg*ns really do feel strongly about stuff like factory farming, so any discussion of veg*ns it comes off as "you shouldn't eat this thing you like because it's awful!" But please keep in mind that veg*ns have a tiny little corner of the huge socio-political machinery set up in our culture to make other people feel bad or good about their food choices and consumption.

Every day, this machinery tells me and everyone around me that I'm already "supposed" to feel bad about eating the way I do because talking about my food choices around people who have chosen other choices for themselves is rude and it's my own fault if I talk about what I do; I should expect that it will make people angry at me and my food choices. Or, alternately, this machinery tells me and everyone around me that I must be eating really disgusting and unhealthy and nutritionally incomplete foods, so I must be crazy for wanting to set up my food choices the way I have, but no one else should make these food choices because they're just not wholesome in some way.

So if you--any of you, or even all of you--feel like you really want to share some food information with me, I'd prefer that you say something like, "I'm not eating x right now [ENTIRELY optional short explanation: because I hate it/it's bad for me/I'm trying to be healthier, etc.], but here's what I am enjoying and here's what I cooked last week."

That doesn't come off as "I think you shouldn't eat this food because I have been convinced that it's absolutely awful to do so!" It comes off as what is is: "I have made this food choice for these reasons, and here's how it's affected me and what I've enjoyed eating instead." That's *way* more likely to make me interested in and sympathetic to your food choices, even if I choose not to share them myself--because I know I'm not gonna get a lecture about how I am wrong; I just get to find out what you're all excited about and might get excited about it too.

That mutual reciprocal joy in happy sharing and learning more about the awesome person in question is the kernel of all good relationships, whether you're talking about food or friendship or anything else. That's what makes me happy to be friends with you, all of you. That's what makes me happy to share who I am with you, all of you. (It's also awesome when even if you and your friends don't hit perfection and joy all the time, you're honest enough with yourself and each other to admit that you still want to aim for it together, and try again with a different plan, after admitting the first one missed.)

Really, I just want to find out what makes the people I care about happy, and try and make the people I care about happy, because making those people happy makes me happy in a way that's separate from, but related to, their happiness. I bet you do, too, friends. It's harder to do that when the people I care about are telling me how unhappy I should be because the choices that I made to make myself happy--including making the choice to make myself happy by making them happy--shouldn't make me happy as they do, and I'm wrong for finding happiness in the things that I find happiness in, and I need to make different choices, and then I'll be happy. Really, I just want to be happy, and I choose my path so that I will be happy. Making my friends happy is an altruistic way of going about making me happy, which also benefits you, my friend. I really like it, so I do it a lot, partly because I can often combine it with non-altruistic or less altruistic ways of making myself happy, like cooking (sharing cooking with friends), or writing poetry (talking about something I've written), or sex (well, it usually takes at least two people, though not all the time). Don't worry that I'm spending all my happiness on you, and ignoring my own needs, because I find that what I need is that balance in the combination of the less altruistic task and the more altruistic ability to share the task. And I find that balance in different ways, once I finally got the hang of it--performing the task directly with someone is one way; discussing the end-result of it is another; going away to be entirely alone for a while and then listening to someone else talk about their own tasks is another. Most of my choices are a mix of the altruistic and the more selfish.

Like, for example, talking about my personal food choices. :)

And you thought this was gonna be a vegan ranting about how tofu was perfect! ;)

[Edit: Yup, this post was up for like five minutes yesterday night. It wasn't supposed to post until this morning, but LJ's date-setting feature never works right whenever I try to post in the future. I wanted people to see the trans rights stuff first, so I just hid this post until now.]

Safe lives have the same end as extraordinary ones: sport death.

Note to non-MIT people: this isn't a suicide note. Rather, it's a rallying cry. I think I'm finally getting a message.

I figured out this morning, while showering, that what I didn't want to be married. What I wanted was to live together with Rachel for the rest of my life, doing what we wanted, caring for each other, but not feeling responsible for the things she did in her life, and having her not feel responsible for the things I did in mine. I think that the fact that marriage is commonly understood to be the way that people who care about each other live together for a lifetime blinded me to the fact that I didn't actually want the structure of marriage as it was commonly understood, where you also are supposed to take on some large responsibility for the life the other person leads.

I think, in retrospect, that this was utterly obvious. Since I was 14 or so, I've been telling myself metaphorically, and not in a subtle way either, that I didn't want marriage. But I thought that marriage was the only possible way to live with and love the person(s) I cared about, and since I wanted to live with and love the person(s) I cared about, I picked marriage (and the attendant social baggage and responsibilities that came along with it). I confused the socially sanctioned way of living with and loving others for the only possible way of living with and loving others by conflating the two (and I'd been conflating them since I was 14, too, with the same metaphor I used to tell myself that I didn't want marriage).

Wow, no wonder I felt so lonely. I didn't want the socially sanctioned way of having partner(s) for life, but I thought that was the only way to have a partner. I don't necessarily want the socially sanctioned way of having any relationships, but I thought that was the only way to have any relationships.

I am utterly sure I also had this problem with other relationships, too: my friendships, and my family. Why do I have this problem? I think I had it instilled in me by my family that the only permissible relationship to have with them was the socially sanctioned "loving child/parent" relationship, so no wonder I was struggling under a crushing guilt-burden of social sanctions and appearances when the relationship we actually had was not loving at all. Furthermore, once I was finally able to acknowledge that the relationship was actually abusive rather than loving, I still struggled under the guilt-burden of social sanction, unsure what to do with the social-sanction concept now that it was not tethered to the relationship anymore, but social sanction still remained the most important factor in how I understood relationships.

No wonder I worried so much about what everyone else thought of me and my actions--my relationships with myself--if was monitoring that feeling of social sanction, rather than the love present in any actual relationship, all the time. I felt a lot of pressure to take only socially sanctioned actions, be a socially sanctioned person. And I'm just not, most of the time. :D

That was why I was happiest when I was alone--there was no "social" for me to feel was sanctioning me or that I had to monitor for appropriateness. But after I realized I also needed and deserved humane, loving relationships, to get them I kept putting myself into social situations, and during any interaction with any other person I would put all this social sanction pressure on myself, and manufacture it where it didn't exist. Because without social sanction, I couldn't see a relationship as a relationship, since social sanction was what I understood relationships to be.

[Addendum: I think that I started being able to see that relationships were different from social sanctions of relationships when I came out, but since I still had very little idea that what I ought to desire from a relationship was the relationship rather than the relationship+social sanction, wherever any of my relationships were not socially sanctioned I kept trying to make them be, which came at the expense of the relationships and therefore also at my own expense.]

This is really important. I feel really freed and happy.