Sublingual Stimulation

We are 4 pills in, in a few hours we will be at 5.  Casey says they feel giddy.  I asked him if he thought there was a bit of placebo effect like "Whoo hoo! I've started estrogen!"  They say that they feel different.  They say that their skin feels different and that a tension that has been around their eyes for quite some time is not currently there.  Casey wonders how long that's been there. 

The difference that I see is that Casey definitely seems lighter.  I don't think that was the estrogen, though.  I honestly think it was the fact that they finally came out to their parents.  That's another entry entirely though.  I'm still extremely upset with their family and have yet to be able to write something nice about that...  I just keep thinking that Casey was so pent up before they came out to the parents.  Almost as agitated as they were when they came out to me.  

FYI - I keep writing "he" and then going back and deleting and changing the pronouns to "they/them".  It's really really really hard to do that.  When you've known someone as a he for 27 years and then they flip the script on you. There are likely to be hiccups along the way.  I'm trying my best here.    Casey is constantly telling me "It's okay to say he."  I keep telling him that I'm trying to change the way I think.  I'm trying to rewrite that brain command.  

And that makes me want to cry. 

I have definitely been having a hard time the past few days.  The estrogen has made this very very very very (have I said that enough?) real.  I feel like a piece of my life is dead.  Even though they're standing right there in the kitchen, making dinner.  

Casey says he feels lighter.  Me? I feel this weight pushing down on me, like I almost can't breathe.  There is definitely some depression at play.  I've lost weight in the past month, my eyes hurt from crying and they're so tired that I have to wear my glasses on the regular.  In the back of my mind I keep thinking about how I have no idea how the future will go.  It's causing me a massive amount of stress.  It could also be that my period is going to start any second now.  

I joked with Casey that they've just started hormones and knocked me up.  I think it's more of a case that I've been so stressed out the past few months my own hormones have been out of whack, thus causing my period to be kind of all over the place.  That, and the fact that he had a vasectomy after the birth of our third little munchkin makes me being pregnant pretty much impossible at this point.  

Gender dysphoria is something I really don't understand.  I am the type of person that just doesn't give a shit.  I don't care what people think about me, I don't care if people don't like what I do, how I behave, whatever.  I will be the first person to go out on a dance floor acting like a fool with my arms over my head, dancing very much like I'm the only person in the world.  I don't care who sees me, if they think I'm an idiot, I don't care.   When Casey explains what gender dysphoria does to them, how it makes them hate the way they smell, the way their skin feels, etc.   That makes no sense in my brain.  How can someone hate themselves that much?  

I'm chalking my lack of understanding to a combination of a happy childhood and being more than a little self-centered (I'm an only child, all the attention was always on me. If it wasn't, you can be sure that I was making it about me.).   I'm trying to learn.  This is going to be a long process. 

So yeah, Casey has been happy.  They said they were even borderline blissful.  I'm happy for them.  But honestly? I'd love a little bit of that...  Can't wait for therapy on Thursday.