Losing The Sparkle

I didn't even write my yearly birthday post last year, so I guess this can kinda sit in it's place.

I haven't written in so long, so here's the recap. 

Heart... Still broken

Energy..... Fractionally better

Work.... I'm trying and probably pushing myself a bit much 

Social life.... Nonexistent outside of work

So my little brother gave me a job that's office admin and some caravan repair stuff, it's pretty far from anything I've done before.  But it gives me a chance to work without all the pressure my health issues cause. 

And those pressures are as much in my head as they are in reality, I don't want to work and let people down in any of the roles I worked before.  I wouldn't keep up these days. 

This is like falling off the horse and getting back on it, only the horse is a cute little pony. 

Having a job again has been at least good for my self esteem and mood, I can buy myself a few more treats than before, things feel slightly less financially dire. 

The downside I guess is that living where I do, and caravan clientele being what they are, it's not exactly an environment where I can feel like myself.  My brother does an amazing job sticking up for me, and I love him for it. 

But I definitely feel like I'm dulling myself down a bit, being palatable for the old misogynistic homophobes. 

In general this year i feel like my sparkle has faded, I've lost so many friends, I've dealt with cliquey bullshit, and had to try and get used to the idea that I'm all on my own. 

It's like I've been putting myself back in a box. 

On the upsides, I'm getting lots more daily exercise at work, I'm eating way more consciously, I'm taking vitamins and meds. 

I physically feel better than I have in a long time, even if my heart rate still floats around 150bpm most days. 

I feel like I'm always complaining about lack of intimacy and closeness in my life, but this year has really hurt. 

So uh my birthday lessons this year? Take care of what you have, whether it's your body, your friends, your identity.... Anything you value.

Love, 

Abby

Emotional Chew Toy

So you think someone loves you, but really you're just their emotional chew toy, lots of fun when they want to play, that is until you fall to pieces.

I feel like shit, and I hate the level of gaslighting involved.  The same girl who tells me all the ways she loves me and wishes we'd worked out just a few weeks ago, and now because I want it to happen, or not, I'm treated like a lunatic and like it's all in my head. 

It's just really disappointing to be treated that way by someone you thought cared. 

But it's done, I made the healthy choice, and here I am just feeling unsure where to from here.  I'm trying really hard to stay the same loving optimist I always am, but it's hard. 

There's a sense of relief too though, it's over finally. 

The Follow On

I guess it does actually all catch up, snippets of human affection from people who you can't be with actually aren't enough.  Sometimes its just safer to stop hoping and hurting yourself waiting for it to last more than a night at a time.

And I know I deserve better than that kind of thing, but its been well over a decade, and nobody has put their hand up for that particular task.  The loneliness is real, the anxiety is also real.

My last real relationship was in 2010, and it was a nice simplistic hetero situation, I have no idea how to find whatever I need to find now.  I am basically looking for that pan/bi/lesbian needle in the haystack that will love me for me, and I am trying to find it in some of the smallest most narrow minded places in New Zealand... it's actually really hard when all my friends are telling me I deserve better, or I will one day find the most amazing person to be with.  I am 43... being real there are not that many awesome years left to enjoy the early parts of dating people, traveling, adventuring.  At what point does it actually get too late to start over.

I cry at night sometimes, for the girl I wish I could be with, for the girl I wish I was, but mostly I cry because I want to matter enough to somebody again that I am where they want to be.

Future Me

 So course is still going well, I am on placement with the Salvation Army in their Reintegration Service which is essentially helping clients who are leaving prison after a sentence of more than two years to find their feet in society again.  This mostly means finding jobs, housing, setting up accounts etc

It is a really interesting placement to get really, and lets me use some of my personal experience, so I am actually quite lucky in that regard.

So assuming I get all of my hours done and pass the last few assessments the game plan is to graduate mid-December, and then I will be moving back to Dunedin to continue my studies, three more years of this stress just so that I can be a registered counsellor.

But it does mean I'll get to see all of my Dunedin people who I absolutely adore, and I will hopefully be moving in to an amazing house with some people I have already lived with before so that will actually be fantastic.

Everything feels like it could actually work out, which is awesome and gives me that bright shiny glow of optimism that I feel like I have been missing a little bit this year.

I'm still more tired than I would like, some days its really hard to get up, or focus on the things I need to.

So I am hoping I can do something about that soon too, because I'd be unstoppable if I could get that under control.

I keep meeting amazing people, and sharing amazing moments, and it actually sucks that I won't be seeing some of these people so much for a few years.

So if you're reading this, I love you, and I won't ever forget you hehe

Love.
Abigail

Halfway

I haven't written anything personal in ages, the pressure of writing so much academically has been so draining.  

My best friend in class left, and that actually messed with me a lot more than I thought it would, she was escaping a potentially unsafe situation so I had to be understanding, but she was a great motivator to study and a kind ear for my day to day chats.

And then on top of that I've had ridiculous fatigue issues again so I probably need to go and get some blood removed.  That usually helps. 

But I have hung in there, I'm half way through, and we start our first placement soon.  I still don't know where mine will be, but it's exciting.

In other news, I asked a girl out, she didn't say yes but she said no in the nicest way possible. And it was actually huge for me to be that vulnerable again, it had been years.

Sometimes we just need to take leaps of faith and forget all the hurt. 

I might submit some writing to a contest. There's a decent prize, and it'd help me so much.

What else, hormones and meds are nice and stable, I have some breast growth again which is nice.

I also spoke with a psychiatrist recently to get approval for surgery, during that interview she told me I could actually get breast augmentation for free through the nearby hospital so I am now on the waiting list for that.  She is also going to give me letters to update my gender marker on my birth certificate and to give to surgeons overseas for my face and genital surgeries. 

Things are moving ahead, and I need to remind myself of all of this on the days where I feel stuck and aimless.

So there you have it, the key things that happened in my life for the past six months really.

Lots of love,

Abigail 

Intangible Thoughts

I don't know if anyone has ever noticed but quite often I'll write a blog post as a way to try and process something, and then a few hours later delete it because frankly a lot of the time I feel stupid as a result.

I have all of these intense feelings that feel like ghosts, they're never quite all the way there, but I feel their presence. 

Most of those posts lately are just me being disappointed about things not working out the way my foolish heart would prefer. 

And it just feels gratuitous, life's not like a movie, you can't expect it to work out just because that's what happens when you love someone.  Reality is messier. 

I have started my course finally, and it's going to occupy rather a lot of my time, so hopefully it will be a much needed distraction from my own thoughts. 

The work is interesting, and I'm really looking forward to it. 

Love,

Abigail 

How To Be Attracted to Everyone

Happy New Year everyone! 

I really hope that you have had a most amazing festive season, and that you haven't found yourself in the numerous highly strange situations that I have.

So lets go back, to just a little before Christmas time, I'm just a feisty lady living the best life I can manage, and have somehow found myself in love with one of my closest friends, the same friend I've loved for years.  

It's just a crazy situation, and realistically can only end a few different ways, most of them not great.

But you know me... I am an optimist, Queen of the Longshot, and I like to believe that love is always worth having.

However, you also know that this is my blog... where things are never quite as simple as they should be.

Much as I really thought it might end up happening someday, and various pieces of evidence had hinted that I wasn't completely insane to think so, I finally had "the talk" about it with her.

And she told me that it couldn't ever happen for various reasons, it really hurt because she had decided all of these things without ever talking to me.  

I am a flexible lady, I adapt to the situation always, if I knew there were requirements I probably could have met them you know? 

But I hate the idea that I would need to convince anyone to date me, or talk them into it.

So as much as the no hurts... she is still one of the most precious people in my life, we talk about everything all the time, and I can't ever lose that.  

So I let myself be sad for a few days, and now I need to start thinking about dating again.

I had basically been emotionally unavailable to anyone else for quite a long time just because I had that tiny shred of hope that someday her and I would find a way to make it work.

And that brings us to New Years, I volunteered at a music festival and set off with a positive attitude about meeting new people.

It was all fantastic bonding time with my good friends, really good discussions with a lot of new people, and of course some peculiar shenanigans along the way that I am not quite ready to write about.

But what honestly surprised me the most, was the tail end... the after party, the bonding over food with the other volunteers, and the fact that I actually found one of those boys...

The ones I have talked about on Facebook whenever people have asked me about my sexual preferences, that only existed theoretically up until this point. 

The 0.0001% of boys I am attracted to.

He's just a gorgeous fun man to be around, and I found myself quite shocked to be so instantly smitten by him.

So we have spent a few days hanging out, and it has been really nice, I am just assuming at this point that we will be best friends forever.  

If you are my friend on Facebook you have probably seen my post about Alterous Attraction, where you could either love someone, date someone, fuck someone, or be their best friend just as easily, and whichever one happens you'll be totally happy.  That's basically where I am at with him.

And as if that wasn't enough, I installed Tinder just to see exactly how bad it would be in my town...

I matched with a girl, and we exchanged a few messages, but I really don't think my lifestyle and attitudes are going to match hers.  

I am quite open about the kinds of silliness I get up to, and I don't think she would approve at all.

But it IS nice to get the validation of someone wanting to talk to you, that you are theoretically considered a viable romantic interest.  And that made me feel pretty happy actually.

Where does that leave me.... honestly I have no clue, and I don't even care.

I'll just keep being me, and hopefully at some point somebody will just see me and think "That peculiar lady is fucking gorgeous and I want her"

If that person is you, be incredibly direct and just tell me, because apparently I can't read intentions.

So for now, that's it... its time to start getting organised for my study this year, to take my life a little more seriously, and basically switch into productive mode for awhile again.

My holidays have been crazy, but my year needs to be much more calm.

Love you all,

Abigail

The Meaning of Life

 Almost every year I end up posting something that is basically like an introspective year in review and state of the universe according to me post.  And this year certainly won't be any different.

This year I turn 42, its the official answer to the question of life the universe and everything year.

So do I have any answers?

Well a lot has certainly happened in my life, I have experienced some of the most extreme situations that a human ever can... I have had substance abuse issues, I've been homeless, I've been to jail, I've been abused both physically and emotionally, and of course I have transitioned.

And I have experienced some really amazing moments on top, I travelled and saw some of the most beautiful places on earth, met some of the most interesting people, and I have seen every single band I have ever truly loved play live, I met some of my childhood heroes, and I have loved and been loved a bunch of times.

So am I anywhere near closer to understanding the meaning of life as a result?

I mean I'd like to think so... I have a tattoo on my arm of a single German word, Lebensfreude, which means joy of living in very loose terms.  We all experience our Lebensfreude from different things, for a lot of people it would be family, or money, or careers, or gigantic boats, or climbing mountains.

For me the greatest joys I ever experience are conversations with people, whether its me and my closest friends on the top of a hill on a crystal clear New Zealand night sitting around a fire, or its a dirty little bar in some foreign city just chatting away to other travellers or curious locals.

I love meeting people, I love reacquainting with people, and I love just sharing the things we are all passionate about.  And in that regard I generally end up feeling quite fulfilled even when I have absolutely nothing.  As Troy in Reality Bites said,  "This is all we need. A couple of smokes, a cup of coffee, and a little bit of conversation. You and me and five bucks."

So where to from here? After spending almost two years of wasted time....

I have been accepted into my course for next year, which is the first step on the road to becoming a registered Counsellor, in total this will be the next four years of my life, and the end goal is to eventually be able to provide counselling for LGBTQI people on Gender and Sexual Identities, Substance Abuse counselling for people with substance issues, and general counselling for other people along the way.

I am really excited about that prospect, even if actually achieving it is going to be really hard given my levels of fatigue, my ADHD etc etc etc etc

Being poor for this long has been so hard, but running back to the IT industry would have been just as soul crushing, this is about doing something I love and will find absolutely fulfilling every day.  And giving something back to the world.

Any other goals Abigail? Other than increasing your levels of Lebensfreude?

Well.... I hope to save enough money to get my facial feminisation surgery within the next two years, which is going to be extremely hard work.

And I really want to find somebody to love me again, I don't like admitting it very often in real life, but I am quite lonely for that particular type of affection and company.  It has been SUCH a long time.
I am honestly not even sure I remember how to be in a relationship, but I'd like to find out.

Anyway, that's it I suppose, this years introspection out of the way.

So go and find your Lebensfreude people, find the thing that makes your little heart happy, and find a lot more ways to have it.

Take care everyone,
Love,

That Wise Old Bitch Abigail.

Cycles

The thing a lot of people don't really get is that hormonal cycles are a real thing even if you don't have ovaries, we all have them, and for me they're sometimes really pronounced.
Right now my boobs are aching, everything just feels harder, I feel like my whole body is made of lead, things are annoying me more and I just feel like nothing good will ever happen again.

I know it's temporary right... I know things will get better because life itself is a cycle, things are always moving and changing, the chances that things stay awful forever are actually pretty low.

I have been trapped without much contact with other humans for quite a bit longer than the rest of my country, and all those people who fell apart after two months of lockdown? That's kinda how I am feeling right now after eight months of it.

And I am deathly scared of what happens once its done...

So here I am watching The Sopranos, its about as bleak and awful as my mood, so its working.

Thankfully this usually only happens for a few days.

But what the hell am I actually going to do from here.

Mourning and Tranquility

One of the hardest things about transition is the mourning, you mourn for the life you wish you had growing up, you wish you'd had those formative years in the gender you know you are.
You mourn for aspects of the life you had as well, I personally feel sick whenever I see my old name on things these days, but thats not to say it was all bad.

Watching old concerts and things tonight, and remembering all the amazing women I was with at the times that I saw them, I miss being loved, I miss being able to share things with somebody else, I guess im mourning the romantic side of myself that I have basically buried for the past decade.

And then on top of all of this I am also mourning the life I could have had if I had been diagnosed with ADHD much sooner, how much easier things could have been, how less frustrated I would have been, and how less likely I would have been to drown everything in drugs for so long.

Much as I am super sorrowful tonight, in general lately I have been feeling the best I have without hard drugs in my life.  Sure my ADHD meds do have a little dopamine impact, but its beyond that, its the clarity I feel, the certainness about things, and combine that with the steady progress hormones have had on just making me feel at home in my own skin and its a really unique feeling.

I guess this is how normal well balanced individuals feel most of the time.

A month and a half to go... and then I can see other human beings again, a friend recommended getting a massage and I think I am going to have to, if only for some human contact in a relaxing context.

For tonight though, I am just going to drink in the nostalgia, I am going to let myself be sad for all of the people I ever loved and who I never knew how to love properly at the time.
As a human being I feel like I have grown enough for ten life times in the past two years.

Anyway, just wanted to note this.

Love,
Abigail

Actual Thoughts on the End of the World

Quite a few of my posts lately have been fairly brief, barely more than status updates, so I figured I would try to write at least one that captures this momentous situation we all find ourselves in.

I'll freely admit that when we first started hearing reports about Covid-19, I basically just assumed it'd be like the bird flu or swine flu, and not much of anything would really happen as long as people were a little more cautious.  

But every week another cruise ship full of cases would dock somewhere and completely fuck any form of contact tracing... people throwing huge social events with guests who recently returned from wherever, just exploding cases in small pockets everywhere.

The response from the various governments of the world has actually been really interesting to watch.

Boris Johnson head muppet in charge of the UK decides screw having a plan let it burn itself out (on his own populace) and as he lay recovering in an ICU from the very thing he wrote off, 900+ more of his people died.

Donald Trump predictably had fired Obama's pandemic response team already, picked a fight with the World Health Organisation blaming them for the slow response, started monopolising medical supplies and pharmaceuticals so that he and his friends could make as much money as possible.

Game plan to prevent contagion? The Governors should handle it as they see fit in their states....which has had wildly differing approaches from next to nothing, to almost a decent form of isolation.  He then proceeded to remove federal funding for testing, limit the number of ventilators based on which states had said negative things about him.  And basically held the American people to ransom.

And in typical Scott Morrison fashion, Australia has been in a completely half-assed lockdown for awhile with no plans to ever enter anything like a full lockdown period.  People are still pretty much doing what they want, under the theory that a full lockdown would impact their economy too much.
The general advice on their response website was practice good hygiene and common-sense.

Meanwhile at home, Jacinda Ardern has been the leader we needed from the beginning, she implemented a full lockdown late March, and has progressively tightened border control to the point that now anyone coming into NZ must be quarantined.  Our numbers are looking great, and we get a daily pep talk Facebook Live update from her to let us know how it is going.
I cannot be more thankful to have a leader like her, she is kind, down to earth, and gets shit done.

So what does it look like? The world right now from my perspective as someone in NZ.

Aside essential workers, the general populace must stay at home and only leave the house for groceries, prescriptions or medical treatment.  So basically everyone is on home detention now.
At the supermarket you have to stand two meters apart, hand sanitise the handles of the shopping trolleys, and avoid contact with others.  I haven't actually seen that since I am still on my ankle monitor but Mum goes once or twice a week and I am super thankful for her doing that.

There are obviously still dickheads in the world, everywhere including New Zealand who flaunt the rules, and think they are being awesome.  They are not.
I mean I get it, be young and enthusiastic, maybe ya didn't stock up enough on yer drugs and alcohol before lockdown started.  But tough shit at this point.
Apparently we have a three strikes rule for this kind of thing, if the police find you breaching lockdown you get a few warnings, but continued stupidity will be punished with fines or jail time.

Mentally it has been super interesting to watch how much people have fallen apart, I don't know if its just because I have been on home detention or because I have essentially always spent huge chunks of my time alone, but it definitely seems like some people are not made for this level of isolation.

We are currently on week three, theoretically there is at least one more week of this, but I actually hope they give us another month for safety.

SO... that's kinda the overall situation in parts of the world and here, so how do I feel right now?

Well, I think a lot of us who have experienced trauma in our lives or who have dealt with anxiety and PTSD are actually somewhat familiar with this constant feeling of paranoia and fear.  So we are actually doing a lot better than people you'd expect to be totally okay.

I can't really do anything but the right thing right now, so I am winning by default.

But living in that crappy apartment in Germany where I felt super isolated, being in prison for a week where I was INCREDIBLY confined, and of course being on home detention right now, was all good training for this exact scenario.  Nothing has really changed for me.

I am spending a lot of my time worrying for my friends in other countries though, they are as close as family to me, and I have a lot of people in Australia, America and England which is why I mentioned those countries first for a little context.  Their responses to this have me genuinely scared for my people.

Still I remain fairly calm really, when you're used to complete turmoil and your world ending on a regular basis this is just the latest in a long string of these types of scenarios.

Now on to my usual updates about things...my estrogen dose just got increased which feels nice, its always amazing when I can actually "feel" it, I have had lots of breast growth recently for some reason which is super painful but also amazing, my ADHD meds have basically resulted in me waking up at 6am every day.  I wish I had something a little more productive to do with that time.

I have rounded up a bunch of resources for voice training, have organised my makeup nook, will be cooking my amazing chicken tortellini thing tonight, so its all productive stuff I hadn't been doing much of.. I just wish I had some work or study to focus on.  Oh and I have almost finished the Final Fantasy 7 Remake which is absolutely breath taking, I fell in love with those characters all over again.

Anyway, I hope you are all staying safe out there, be kind to one another, and look after those who need it.

Intimacy

For the past year or so I have been really struggling with intimacy, there were times a decade or so ago where most people would have said that I was inappropriately affectionate.
But I haven't really dated or had anyone touch me in years now, and the last girlfriend I had to break up with because the pressure to be intimate was a bit much.

But its really starting to bother me because I do miss personal contact, and sharing my life with somebody else, and all of those other things that come with being in a relationship.
I miss emotional intimacy more than physical intimacy I guess you could say, but thats not to say I am completely anti physical, I just need there to be enough emotional first.

I get anxious even thinking about it though, all the things I used to love the most about the start of a relationship scare the shit out of me now, those first awkward conversations and the first few times you touch one another used to be so exciting.

I really hope I can work this stuff out sometime soon.

I just needed to get this out.

Love,
Abigail

UPDATE: fuck okay I would be kinda negligent if I didn't update this a bit after my last weeks owch fest, so basically on my way to go to court I also stopped to visit one of my close friends and stay a few nights with her.  And it was seriously the nicest thing I had felt in literally years, just being that close to another human being, spending time around someone, sharing in life.
But the double edged knife of suck that we all kinda know is coming, is that I have had the biggest crush on her since the day I met her, so for me it actually kinda hurt, because it was like this amazing preview of what that life would be like.  And so here I am again at the end of that, just feeling kinda empty, don't know whether I should talk to her or not, don't even know how to have those kinds of conversations anymore.  I am beyond out of practice at these things, all I know is I really really miss feeling loved.

What Next?

So it has been quite awhile since my last post, and I figured some of you may be curious what is actually happening given the grim tone of the last few.

My next court date is in Auckland on Friday morning, at this court date I expect to be entering a guilty plea to the charges I am facing, and from that point forward we move into the sentencing phase.  This basically means that my current living situation, my remorse, my willingness to be rehabilitated etc will all be taken into account and eventually a final sentence will be issued.

At this stage the indicated sentence is 2.5-3 years, I get some discount for pleading guilty, and for expressing remorse etc.  And the goal right now is to hopefully present enough of a case that I can be given home detention which means an ankle monitor and regular checks from a probation officer.

If for whatever reason that doesn't go my way, I could be sentenced to prison where assuming I behave myself I would serve 1/3rd of the sentence so at the most it would be a year.

Not that I want to focus on the negative, so if that happens, I will basically request to be kept in basically voluntary solitary confinement with access to writing materials and I will spend that year writing my life story.  Since there are very few chances to be completely distraction free and commited to something like that.

Obviously I would much rather have home detention where I can stay at home with my Mum safely able to be a transgender woman and not constantly worrying about all the men around me who are probably a lot more violent than I am.  I have always been a bleeder not a fighter, and its not about to change.

One of the harder things in all of this of course is that I actually have to attend court in Auckland, so I am using the very last of my savings to get myself there this Friday, but I am going to have to perform some miracles to afford the second trip toward the middle of October.

Needless to say this is a period of a lot of crying and panic attacks, so I am going to try and schedule a time with my doctor in the next few weeks to hopefully do something about that.  I know everyone says to practice mindfulness and meditate (usually I'm all for the hippy nonsense) but in some situations its just not enough.  I want to be medicated heavily for this.

I don't know who will even read this, since I probably won't share it directly to Facebook, but if you did please feel free to send me words of encouragement hehe

Lots of love,
Abigail

Dreams and Other Observations

One of the stranger things about being on hormones is the dreaming, if you have ever quit smoking you probably know the type of dream at least, intensely vivid and hyper real.
The past few weeks I have been somewhat depressed due to all of this legal stuff going on, but I find myself really drawn to my dreaming time.  I am staying asleep longer to cram more of them in, because even though some of them are a little scary they feel super real, and in my dreams I am still free to do anything at all.

In fact quite a few of them have involved debauchery at music festivals, or rampant drug use while racing around the Italian countryside in fast cars.... they're exciting, so I tend to want to see how they end.

The other strange development is that more often in my dreams I am so thoroughly feminine, it has been really nice to exist in a perfect scenario where I am just me, and don't have to think about all the icky real world things that need to happen to be myself.

Aside from the dreams, I have been slowly lightening my hair and next week I will be going to hopefully end up fully blonde, I have been lazer zapping myself to slowly remove body hair but god its such a horrible long process.  And I have yet to even start on voice training really, and that sucks because between my voice and my body hair they're the two things giving me the most dysphoria.

My legal woes look to be resolved soon, basically as soon as I get back from the Dunedin Winter Solstice party I will enter my guilty plea, and then we move on to sentencing which I am still quietly praying will be home detention... but I don't know, it could just as easily end up as 3 years in prison.
And because of all of that, and the fact that I won't have an income while I am serving whatever sentence I am given, I will also be starting a No Asset Procedure which is like one step removed from a full bankruptcy.  So just another way my life will be forever a bit harder.

Anyway, I guess thats all the updates I have... much as its mostly pretty grim, I am okay, I am going to be okay.

Notes from Prison

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What Happened?

I haven't written anything here for months, and that isn't because I don't want to, it's because I am honestly not sure where to begin, and exactly how much legal risk I would be taking to do so.

And I am really writing now because I don't want to go into this too many times more for each new person I tell, and I want to get a little more to the heart of things than I have been in person, I have a nasty tendency to make light of serious situations so here is a much better place to get honest.

I went for a visit to Europe earlier this year, and when I returned I made the worst decision of my life and bought with me a schedule B restricted substance, in fact I probably mentioned that substance in my entry about drugs (GHB/GBL)
As a result I was arrested at my border reentry to New Zealand, spent a week in prison, and am now out on bail pending my court case where I will be pleading guilty.
Before you all play Google lawyer, the maximum charge for that is around ten years, with my relatively clean criminal record it might be more like two years, so that has really changed my life in an instant.

So why would somebody risk something like that? As some of you know or probably guessed I suffer fairly extreme anxiety and PTSD at times, and GBL in very low doses does a phenomenal job of alleviating those symptoms.  In the past I was prescribed Valium but in New Zealand that is not prescribed and Quetiapine does nothing for me.
And I remembered what GHB/GBL were like in recreational doses, so tried some in sub-recreational doses just to see how it would go, and it was like a weight was lifted.

And of course that is a really problematic attitude to have, remembering that GBL was legally available in Germany I decided I would get some there and just bring it home.  Of course if you are going to risk something like that it's kind of a case of bring as much as you can.

So anyway, I was caught, with quite a lot of it.... and as a result I am no longer at university, my court case is on May 21st and life is somewhat on hold until the outcome of that.

I am doing everything I can to try and prove to the courts that I am not the evil drug dealer they think I am, that I am usually speaking an incredibly positive person with a lot to offer the world, and that this was an isolated incredibly stupid decision.
I have started seeing a drug counselor, and will likely spend some time in a residential rehab center, and then I just need to hope that its enough to avoid a very serious sentence.

Whats bothering more right now is my future, this is going to impact literally every area of my life, my transition and my ability to travel.  And I have no idea what to do once my sentence is over, I am going to need a lot of help over the next few years.

So that's the short version of events, I may write another post about my time in prison at some point as well because it was fairly traumatic and life changing.

In other news, I have started testosterone blockers which make me really sleepy all of the time, but have noticed a little bit of breast growth which is exciting.
I have an at home laser hair removal device which I am using whenever I remember to, I figure any amount of progress on that front is a good idea.
And I am going to start doing my vocal exercises soon, though I need to find a way to do these alone now since I can no longer afford or reach the vocal coach in Dunedin I had found.

Anyway, if you read all of this thanks, I just needed to put it somewhere I can point people to.

Reflections

Basically every year around my birthday, I pause and think about all of the things I told myself that I would have achieved in that year, if I am being honest most years I am feeling really disappointed that I haven't achieved nearly as much as I had planned.

This year though...

I publicly "came out" as transgender, and my friends and family have all been really fantastic.
I quit the job that was eating away at my soul and returned to University to seek a degree in Psychology with a bunch of gender and philosophy papers along the way, and I passed my first semester of that.
I moved back to Dunedin to be around some of the most fantastic people I know, and away from Wellington and someone who had been my closest friend for years.
I have been working a contract job working on farms, waking up at 5:00am every day and finishing around 7pm, for seven days a week, its bordering on miraculous that I am actually still doing that given my normal work ethic.
And in December I go to the endocrinologist to hopefully get my approval to start hormones finally.

So it has been a gigantic year.

And next year is set to be every bit as big if not bigger, since I will be doing all of these huge things while sitting in the maelstrom of a second round of puberty.

I never seem to let myself have it easy for very long.

The shift to presenting feminine on a daily basis I am aiming for around March, and I am still incredibly nervous about that, I have gone to a few parties and things like that but only in a very cautiously dipping my toe kind of way.  I haven't had to deal with the day to day reality of people looking at me for being "different" and I still don't know how well I am going to take that.

But even though it scares me half to death, I am also super excited about it.

Do several things a day that scare you.

Happy 40th birthday to me for Monday, I will still be wading around in cow shit and not even able to really enjoy it, but the cow shit is helping me get to where i need to be going into next year, so hooray for the cow shit this one time.

Lots of love,
Abigail.