Briannah

Love you too Monica! I've enjoyed and leaened from all our convesations and you have definitely touched my life! : ) They are putting the bloomin onion batter on the chicken now. I didn't try it tho. LOL I also love the bloomin onion but hardly ever get to eat it, Nikki hated onion ring type things and that is too much for one and doesn't leftover well.

Thank you to everyone on the forum who helped me sort out my feelings, learn, and work things out. Yesterday we celebrated our 21st anniversary, and I can say we've really rebuilt this marriage and it's going strong. And managed to get home from dinner through Ohio's surprise ice storm. Outback Steakhouse is nice food(lobe their chicken tortilla soup) but not worth dying over!

I think goal posts should always be examined, from the psychiatric to job/life choices to the boring mundane little daily habits and food choices. We learn by quesrioning and the reflections needed to find our answers. It opens the doors to growth and improvement. Things that are true and right for us pesonally will remain, usually with a greater understanding of how we got to them and if one is lucky a host of new options to further our growth and avchieving goals. We are not static, our goals should grow with us! Sorry for bad typing, finger is in a splint from a klutz fall and it'd really hard to type like this.

Yeah, I don't mind reducing our meat consumption, which we have, but I really didn't like the menu options for vegan. But I'm ahppy it worked for you! ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

I recommend the Dash for Dummies book. I love the for Dummies series, they break down all the basics and the book has everthing frmo the medical sceince to shopping strategies as well as starter recipes. however, if it's not the right one for you, there are a LOT of options out there! I just picked mine based on ability to actauly stick with Am nearing the 2 year mark, and I get better at it as we go. But what fits my life may not fit others. I treid the impossible whopper today, speaking of trying new things, and while it sorta tasted like a hamburger, I don't see it replacing my m eat cosnumptin, especialy with the salt content. They put SO much salt in vegetarian and vegan premade foods. ugh. : ( I was sad, I was hoping it as a fast and easy for days I can't even deal with life premade food option, until I read the nutrition sections. Meh.

I also love to eat, which is why we went Dash. You can have anything, you just have to make it yourself and use other flavorings than salt and keep a count. LOL I like the lack of restriction other than figuring how to cook it at an acceptable sodium level. My chicken Parmesan has gotten even better! : ) Having to cook it all from scratch has gotten Nikki's labs from formal pre-diabetic back to normal, and we've both been taken off our blood pressure meds, I'm relatively stable around 118/82 and the doctor is happy with that. I cant' remember nikki's number to save my life. But I don't dump a mass of sugar or corn fructose in anything so it's naturally reducing our sugar levels. I've adapted to eating a lot more plants, but still utterly fail at asparagus. I can't for the life of me understand how anyone finds that flavor appealing. They look so nifty, but taste so bad. So six days out and nothing hurts anymore, and I've regained my mobility, both potential side effects were mild and cared for at home following nurse instruction, and I'm starting to get some energy back. I still wear out easily, but that is normal for me in healing any injury or illness. I think I will take your friends word for it and not test out if those things hurt more persoanaly! Have a lovely afternoon Monica! I'm going to go put some of the luandry Nikki did away now that I'm feeling up to resuming some of my housework role.

I live in a really tiny town with a crappy insurance, I dont' really have any choices available to vet. On the other hand, the hospital was fantastic, the surgeon has been lovely, and there was not a long waiting list in the schedule to get it done. You're right about the pain, it was worse than giving birth to Clover, and I always thought that would the absolute maximum top limit on my pain scale. Oh, how wrong I was. The onset was rather sudden and abrupt. I will save that website though as I'm planning to start looking for work again once I recover and Nikki has been looking to change jobs so we may have more options in the future. So they didn't put me on any diet restrictiosn after the surgery other than avoid really spicy and fatty foods for at least four days, so I cautiously added dairy back in to see what would happen and...nothing! Slowly reverting to my normal eating habits, pleased to report no side effects and I'm digesting. The only issue I seem to be having is I think my mothers weird medical legacy is striking again, I have developed a red itchy rash everywhere that seems to have started at all the adhesive sites (from the iv and the incision bandages) that might indicate I'm developing her allergy to adhesives. Yay. And today I barefuly feel the incisions, and am able to move around mostly normally, just have to watch the big one where they actually pulled it out through, it still doesn't like too much moving or bending. I thought Dash would be hard, but for us it's been easy to stick too. The main hurdles we faced at the start was learning what all the herbs and spices did to replace the cheap easy salt flavor, and giving up the convenience of buying foods mostly cooked and ready to go like sauces and frozen things. Once I got into the rhythm of cooking everything from scratch so I could control the salt content, the combination of newly formed habits and Nikki's overwhelming "I LOVE THIS FOOD" response made it my go to. I'm an attention whore, and I eat up the reaction from him at mealtime. I think every diet is both hard and easy, and the trick is just finding that one that works with each of us personally and medically. I really love not being on the blood pressure medication anymore!

I have a weird phobia about things being removed from my body. I even had panic attacks over them removing my wisdom teeth back in my youth, and I'd been raised with the understanding that would happen, there has been no single member of my family who they fit in the mouths. So last month I started getting severe abdominal issues, and first er said it was food poisoning (cuz you know, has to happen at midnight), but then four days later it happened again, and Nikki had no issues and we eat the same food. (I cook all our meals, we observer dash diet together, I even send his lunches in bentose that I make in advance). So The second attack I waited til mrning and saw my actual doctor, and started in on the oh, you fit 6 of the 7 main criteria so let's look at yoru gal bladder, youp, you broke it it has to go. Yesterday they removed it. I really had to suck it up, but one wrong food choice mouthful and it was worse pain than my previous marker, giving birth. So with a lot of coaxing from Nikki I did and went to have it out. Was terrified all week because of a known complication, but it went well. Had four rods and am suffering no post surgical complications other than the anti-nausea patch they put on everyone to prevent incidents in the surgery had to be removed right after, it made the room MOVE when I woke up, so disorienting, and my throat was feeling really abused from the breathing tube. It was kinda surreal when they kept telling me how great I was doing basically just laying on the or table watching them buzz around prepping. Laying on a table wasn't hard. : ) Although with my native clumsyness it was a minor miracle I got on and stayed on without falling off I suppose. Hope you are all healthy!

That is my new fact for the day, I didn't now Accupuncture had mental health benefits too. : ) My allergies have started to settle down after decades living in this state. One of the things they don't tell you about big moves (I live roughly six hundred miles from where I grew up, and grew up literally across the world from where I was born) is that allergies and immunities can be an issue. Fortunately in my personal case exposure in daily life appears to have had some therapeutic effects and ithe reactions are much duller than it was my first decade here. I wish you the best conquering yours, allergies have such an impact on life quality in my personal opinion (aside form the obvious potential threat to actual life some people struggle with).

Hi Monica! I was researching the apnea thing because I have a certain level of distrust for doctors due to several instances of not being taken seriously over my asthma medications and that emergency surgery issue in the past, and that is when I came upon the depression info. I hadn't known either. But the research was out there, as well as it making a certain logical sense that a brain deprived of oxygen can't function properly. I wasn't sold on whatever was going on in my chest being this, but I am now as it's all pretty much cleared up now that I use the machine nightly. And I've regulated to a normal sleeping pattern again, bonus! In my reading I was astounded at how many people die a year not knowing they are at risk or that it's fixable, it's millions. I honestly don't know how to process that information other than to put it on all my social places, hey peeps, consider looking into this if you have these issues. Because millions every year. Also advocate for yourself and loved ones. Nikki passed the verbal quiz the doctor gave us, but I insisted on the testing. Since my insomnia was still in full swing before I got the machine, I had plenty of time nearly every night to realize there was literally no breath sounds or movement, and just before I was reaching to wake him up in a panic there would be this horrifying, horror movie wet gupling gasping noise I can't describe, he'd roll over and breath again. So the doctor ordered the test, with a clear 'humoring the crazy woman' air at me, but the results were REALLY bad an apparently at an emergency level, where mine was just classed severe. In fact, they got Nikki the cpap within a month, with an automatic response unit to get the machine to him as fast as possible, while I had to undergo sleep titration at a sleep center after my iniitial diagnostic test and it took about four months from initial test to machine arrival. We've talked a lot about it now that he's been using it for months, and swears that is absolutely is helping the depression. It can't magic it away, as the root causes of it aren't purely physical in his case, but he welcome's the relief and did years of therapy for the ptsd from the childhood trauma and takes antidepressents and has a good quality of life again. I'm really happy about that! Another cliche of the day apparently, doctors may want to do well in their jobs, but no one cares about your safety as deeply as you or your loved ones I guess.

If you are suffering from depression, and snore, please ask your doctor for a sleep apnea test. Or if you just snore, as it can have long term effects that build slowly. This is not a cure. Depression can have MANY causes, and I'm not touting any snake oil easy card. But recent experiences for both Nikki and I have given me some new knowledge about the links between depression and the damage sleep apnea can do to you, and the difference for both of our cases has been astronomical since we started using the cpap machines. Yes, it can suck a little with the thing on your face, but the benefits have really been dramatic. And the physical issues I was chasing around with the doctor aren't heart disease at all, it was the damage the lack of oxygen long term at night was doing to my body and we've both gotten varying degrees of physical improvements also. And surprisingly after a few weeks it's broken my insomnia, another thing I learned can be apnea caused. If you're lucky you're not a mouth breaker like me, and can just get this little strap thingy that just covers your nose (like Nikki has), but I have to wear a plastic mask thingy that covers both my nose and mouth. If you do test and get a positive, it's a little wierd with the wall of air hitting you in the face at first and I had this urge to breath hard in response, but I got used to it after a week and started breathing like a normal person instead of a drowning one. I don't know if I'm just weird or there is a biological reaction going on there. Sometimes sleep apnea is misdiagnosed as depression. Sometimes depression is misdiagnosed as sleep apnea. And in a great many cases the two conditions intertwine and make each other worse. SO I wanted to share this with as many people as I can. Again, it's not a magic cure, and not instant, but I think we should always try to improve our quality of life. And I'm absolutely NOT saying do this not therapy/medication/whatever else you use, just get checked to make sure this isn't a side issue that is doing damage to both body and mind also. I'm just sharing for those who might also have been living in my mess and equally not aware of it can maybe get an improvement to help their current care. I think Nikki got more depression help and I got more physical help, but we both got some of each in the end.

I would like to point out there are several online options now with real therapists, so help can be available anywhere in the world with an interenet connection, regardless of location. And if you don't already have them there are really cheap webcams and microphones out there now. Here are a couple resource links for your consideration to help you consider the option to get help in your location. The first link has contacts for 9 different service options, the second on is a basic overview of the option. Also, they're a little hard to find, but there are support resources out there for the spouses, and by all means consider suggesting she try to find and join one to talk to other people in her position, just like this place is to you. it's a great benefit. https://www.verywellmind.com/best-online-therapy-4691206 https://www.talkspace.com/online-therapy/ Preface: take whatever I say as the spouse in this equation, and I speak from that point of view. There is no right or wrong here really. I know it's not a popular viewpoint, but it's not always about love conquers all. Just as transgender identities are fully real and need to be addressed as completely as possible for an authentic life, so too are sexual and romantic identities and some spouses can go along on the journey and are more fluid in their sexuality/romantic attachment needs than others and some can't and those needs for the spouses to live authentic lives matter also. The process of how it all works out with either type is not as clean and simple as we would like(and I really wish sorting it out had been simple, it took years to sort things out for us and in some ways we're still dealing with it all but it lessens every year), it's a process of self-discovery and reflection for her as much as it's been for you. The only advice I can give you is talk openly to her, listen as openly as you can to what she says, and work on your choices for the future together. It's the hardest thing to do, I know. Consider not mentioning the hints of not lasting long without her to her to give her the room to sort out what she wants out of life and ask for the same room to sort out what you want out of life, I've been on the end of that part from first husband, including three actual suicide attempts and it just made things worse trying to work it all out, but DO talk to a therapist or a trusted freind/relative group and believe that no matter how this works out there WILL be life ahead, with joys and struggles, surprises and plans, and all the things that make life awesome whether you stay together or go your own ways. There will always be things for you in this world, and while it's scary facing a potential huge change like that, those things are still in your future so don't give up! My best wishes to you both.

Seeing who you are first and finding yourself is the best thing you can do, relationships just work so much better when we sort that out, and let life happen. You never know who you'll cross paths with, just be open!

It's a good roadmap to start formulating my plan! Thank you so much Monica, I'm really thrown by all this.

So...you're never supposed to say anything negative about former employers in interviews, it doesn't come across well. But what do I do with the question of why I'm going to be taking a major paycut (most of the positions similar to mine pay much less) to work somewhere else? The real reason is they've put me in a position where I have to break a variety of laws to do the job as they require of me, and I deeply don't like this. At first I thought they didn't know and were going to get me the training and such I needed for compliance, but Have since realized nope, they don't want to put a cent into anything and are okay with ordering me to commit fraud on customers now too. For the life of me I can't think of a reason why I applied for a job with a $5/hr paycut to answer this question that doesn't sound like I'm a dumb flake or is the actaul truth, and I don't think telling teh truth in this case is good for me? I don' t know.

I wish you the best of luck wtih all of it, and hope that it all works out! I'm about to go kill as many pixelated creatures as possible for that same destressing reason. IF this house sells soon, we're installing a hot tub for Nikki's back. I think Nikki is harboring some hope a hot soak after all the crazy will chill me out, but until then, I'm going to save Skyrim. Again. LOL

Can't beat gaming time! My nephew is on the spectrum, and I understand what you mean about controlling his environment. Stability means so much! And that is true for all of us, spectrum or no. I'm glad everyone seems comfortable in their situations!

Take this with a grain of salt as you obviously know your family situation better, but as a child of divorced and remarried parents, the thing I most wanted was to be able to feel and express my feelings and conflicts with the stepmom without the pressure to get along. This is completely me projecting my own experience and read this comment with that bias in mind. It just felt a lot of the time like...my feelings about things, especially conflicts, didnt' matter and I was being trained to always view myself as I didn't matter as long as everyone else was happy. Perhaps let him talk about his feelings on the new person in his life, even if they're negative, and perhaps reinforcing the idea of 'you don't have to like him, but you do have to be civil to him as a human being' tone with suggestions on how to behave respectfully in teh contexts of the clashes he spoke of? I know a person know who is divorced and the new person is really problematic, so much so that the children moved in with the non-custodial parent to escape the new live-in so. Sometimes those clashes aren't just resentment of change, but a warning sign. Just my thoughts, feel free to ignore them if they don't apply!

It was not surprisingly a good time, despite a small kitchen disaster in which I had forgotten to actually turn ON the dishwasher the day before and had to quick order baked meatballs delivery instead of my homemade chicken parm cuz my pans were still in there. LOL So now I'm scrolling around the internet looking for trans-friendly hangouts in Dayton, Oh so Nikki can go have fun out. They are astonishingly hard to find. Everything is listed as either a gay or lesbian bar, and Nikki says you can't tell if they are trans friendly or not. *bangs head on desk*

I'm having one of my best friends over to see the my new house, the first person I've had here other than the two coworkers that helped us move. Shes' one of the reasons I wanted to come here, so we'd be close enough to hang out more than twice or three times a year. And I'm realizing my job has had a deeply negative effect on some of my behaviors. I know I will enjoy the visit, it will be fun, and still I'm dreading it like mad. I have this antisocial streak lying underneath a need for company. I don't even understand my own brain sometimes. I had mostly gotten it under control, able to realize rationally that I WANT to spend time with people and will have a blast. And if something happens (the weather is really poor today) I will be slammed with an equally intense feeling of relief and crushing disappointment. How the heck does my brain process like this??? But the last year, between the hours of the job, not being able to have people over because staying with my odd hoarding mother and then having to get things organized here, I think I reinforced my old habits of solo activity and hermitism. I'll just have to do to the work, again. It's a good reminder that disorders and deeply ingrained policy traits can be overcome, but never really 'cured', and you have to nurture the better behaviors. I seem to have forgotten that. Meanwhile, I guess I'll just grit my teeth and get through it until she arrives and the joy mode clicks ins. I really don't know why I do these things to myself, but at least I do better with living with them now than I used to. That's hope. Nikki is really excited to have a guest, that helps. He put a TREMENDOUS effort into the living room, and wants to show off his decorative flair. I pick a few things I like, and then he sorts out the spatial layout and relations to each other to make it look good. He's always been better at traditional 'woman skills' than me. Which reinforced my childhood lived experience opinion that people should be allowed to be who they are, not told what to be based on their bodies. Going through figuring out what it all meant the day we first had the conversation about 'Yes, i'm going to stop lying about it, I'm transgender" changed a lot of things, both in him, our marriage, and in me. I'm finally at ease with my internal lack of the resonence with the stereotypical american female. I hate clothes shopping, I hate makeup, I'm okay with cooking but hate cleaning, and live for video games, table top rpg gaming, and other random things men like. And now I'm finally okay with that, I didn't realize til we started having the discussions of what it all means that I'd always been really uncomfortable with the feeling at odds with the role that had been hardcored forced on me as a child by family and the shcool system because of my sex. I'd internalized it. Rejected it and did what I wanted, but at the same time internalized it and let it negatively impact my self-esteem. Trying to care for Nikki's self-esteem all these years, especially the last few when he was most vulnerable, has repaired some small amount of the boudler sized damage mine has. But it's a start. Hope again I guess. I feel weirdly naked after this post.

Good luck Peanut!

Love that big smile on your face, and Peanut is gorgeous!

Starting over is weirdly freeing and oddly disturbing at the same time, whether the scale is large or small. I really wasnt' sure I would do well when Nikki decided we needed to change EVERYTHING, not just how our marriage worked and my knowing about and understanding his gender fluidity. As much as it can be understood, he's still learning as he goes too. But EVERYTHING was going to change. My home, the jobs, the lifestyle, the diet choices, our clothing, even our hobbies; literally nothing is the same as it was last year. I'm dealing, but I have fits of depression and weird resentments. I hadn't realized there were huge parts of my life I was really attached to in a way that I didn't notice every day, just reveled in subconsciously until they were gone. And finally having to stop lying to myself about the state of my relationship with my maternal family not really being any better than my paternal family, just more discreet about how unhealthy it functions was not surprisingly unpleasant. I think I can safely say I'm adjusting though, and I suspicion by this time next year I will have adapted and re-normalized. I sorta envy people who see starting over as a grand adventure and love it. I just sorta wade through it patiently and pretend I'm having a good time, nothing to see here, move along. It helps that I love my house, and now that my things are here and starting to settle into place I feel lest lost, as long as I stay downstairs. Upstairs is still an alien place. My bed sits in this great big empty room with a bunch of boxes creating a maze I injure myself on nightly trying to get to the bathroom, which is now surprisingly far away. The other two rooms are literally still empty, and it's weird how that empty plays on my subconscious. Nikki's love of his new job is becoming problematic, and I work there with him. But it's company first all the time, and I'm lucky if I get some leftover scraps of attention. And there is the weird side effect of after weathering the sorting out of the gender issues and not ending up divorced, he's completely comfortable in our marriage. Comfortable to the point that he takes out all the frustration other people in the company build up in him on me because I'm 'safe' to let it all out on. Ya'll can imagine how thrilled I am about this new behavior. Especially since I'd crosstrained to work under him in an effort to try to get more home time (I was a carpool captive). We have some more marital work to do, it never really ends does it? As long as you are two people in a relationship, there will ALWAYS be some new problem to work on. But after I got really quiet at home because I'm tired of talking about work and telling him verbally we needed to do more marriage time and less work time and he finally pushed my temper into reminding him I can be volcanic when pushed when after someone was rude to me and didn't give me the information I needed he didn't even ask what happened, just tried to silence my voice by gas-lighting me that I didn't understand the interaction I was in (and he wasn't) and I let him know clearly that was so not happening EVER AGAIN, he's working on it with me. Which makes me realize that old, underlying problem is still there, I can tell him about a problem until I'm blue in the face, but until it affects him by me puling away or losing my temper on him, he doesn't take it seriously. I'm thinking of suggesting marital counseling once he settles back into individual therapy for the dysthymia again. 20 years or marriage doesn't make anyone immune to the need for a little help sometimes. On the plus side he's working on reducing his addiction to constant electronic entertainment and actually exploring our new area with me. There is a REALLY pretty town a bit south of us (stupid expensive to live in, and close enough to drive to form where we live but the commute would have been overmuch) with a lovely bookstore. Since my town has none. So that's a fun place to go. We're going to go to this super bizarre almost tourist attraction grocery store either this weekend or next, adn the space museum (Nikki loves Nasa stuff). I hope they have a planetarium at the space museum, I do love a good planetarium I must admit. I guess all in all I'm fine, life is just continuing to happen both to me and around me. But the scenery outside is better. I have a super awesome hangout porch now to enjoy the last days of summer drifting by. The neighbors have been pleasant to us, and he said hello to me as he got home and I was reading a book on the porch and we had a nice conversation. So much better than the crazy, half dressed, theiving ones from our former town. I"m moving up in the world!

Sadly the anger and bullying are off the charts on everything. It's like there has been some giant license to rage has been issued and everyone lost their minds. I'm afraid for a lot of people I know for a variety of reasons, I don't think anyone is 'safe' anymore. Be careful and be alert!

Thank you! Getting here was the easy part, finding myself living in a cardboard maze and trying to dig a home out of it was crazy. WE're nearly there now though, and Nikki's been happy that he's free to be him or her as the mood strikes again. As for me, I'm pretty happy here. I love all the space in the new place, and the city has been great. I'll be happier when I stop getting lost in the diabolical maze of one way streets. The city planner here was clearly a sadist. LOL