Briannah

We'd finally gotten settled with a good doctor, who knows about Nikki's issues and has been great with both his and mine, and the main office is closing our town's location. ARGH! Finding the right doctor and getting a comfortable relationship going is HARD. *headdesk*

Step two picture is going to have to wait, it's Nikki's first time and he streaked it badly. LOL We're going to have to get more dye nad redo step two.

I had to pick a different picture, for whatever reason it wouldn't attach the one of me and my cat, but I found one where my hair isn't doing a squid impression with Nikki in it as a bonus.

I am trying to send you a natural hair and scary blond with face photo in the private messages, but my photobucket account is being difficult and not attaching the photos properly. X_X I swear computers live to annoy me prior to 2pm. They just never work right becuas ethey KNOW I'm not a morning person and it's a good time to get me. LOL Or it could be that I"m half awake and confused. Okay, I lost count three times but I found it! That's a nice dress! And it looks like a fun party, I wish we had something like that in our area, but the closets there is is 2 to 3 hours away. But it would be fun to have a place like that for date nights with Nikki's girl side!

Right now I'm scary blond. Here's what it looks like all bleached out and waiting to finish drying so that we can put the green on it. I haven't been this color since I got married the first time, when I was 19, and it was an accident. It does NOT do wonder for my skin tone and I"m glad it's not the finished product! I think Nikki did a good job for his first time ever bleaching out hiar. Keep in mind it was REALLY dark black to begin with. I like the accidental ombre shading from the light top to the darker ends too, I think that's going to look wonderful in the finished look. And he managed to control the goopy bleach (It was bright blue, that was so weird, BLUE BLEACH!) and keep it outta my eyes and other places it doesn't belong!

It's not that they don't read the reports, it's that very little with the human psyche is static, or even interpretable the same way by different doctors. So repetition is part of the psychiatric process. It's the same thing no matter what they are treating, I went through it constantly with the same doctor every few months treating my add, she was taking baselines to see how my responses changed with treatment so she could both judge how well the treatments were doing for me and adjust them to do better going forward. I'm glad you're starting to find peace with the process and doing well! *Hugs*

Waiting for my hair to dry out, and then I'm putting the one thing about my physical form I feel good about into...Nikki's hands. He's going to first bleach it, then dye it deep emerald green. I'm finally going to have my dream hair, my favorite color, green. I've been trying to do my part to help find the balance between Nikki's two sides, and have invited him as far into the girl world as I go, which isn't far really, when someone online is judging me purely on behaviors and interests they usually assume I'm male until it comes up and I realize it and say um...nope, sorry. I guess I'm horrible at being girly, so I just go for being me and not giving a crap. But sometimes I wonder if my lack of girlness is not helping right now. But anyway, my hair. So instead of going off on my own or calling one of my girlfriends I put the stuff in Nikki's hands and said let's do this. I think he's kinda excited about that, and mentioned that he'd like me to do his (he's eyeing this lovely black shade with deep shimmery sapphire highlights we saw when I was picking up a processing cap for the bleaching). I'm super excited! I think it'll look great on him. I"m extremely nervous as despite all the color play I've done with my hair, I have never bleached it before. I always just went with the subtler shades if I was lightening it (often used a blond dye in the winter to get my dark hair to something close to its summer red) or hennas. Fairly gentle to the hair itself. If my hair wasn't so dark I wouldn't do it, but it's really dark and gets darker with age and I'd like more than the really really subtle color it would have if i didn't bleach it. So wish me luck! And, hopefully, Nikki will have a blast. Or at least not blind me with bleach in my eyes.

You never know, I think cheese mousse migrates around the world, it could stalk you down! I'm not sure how it qualifies as mousse though. I've had several varieties of mousse, and the defining characteristic was the light fluffy texture(although I also hated the mango mousse, mangos aren't for me). This was neither, it was a dense molded little thing of stinky cheese. I have an issue eating beef, and get really sick from more than small amounts. It's not an allergy, nothing dramatic, but my body can't digest it properly. I mean eating it more than once a week small, sometimes two weeks, or i get really horribly sick, something you do NOT want to do in a tiny cruise cabin bathroom. It took me two trips to come to terms with the fact that the toilets work basically with a giant vacuum cleaner somewhere in the ship and the creepy sound they make when you flush them, I don't want to 'pray' at them! So I spent the whole week on Princess eating a lot of cuban chickan panini's at the panini bar and pizza. It's kinda sad that I didn't like their food (there is some variance from ship to ship, but it's more in the small details than the options) because the ship was amazing and Nikki really loved it. Unfortunately I was really not a good fit with either the menu or the personal relationship with my room steward. Holland America is my favorite cruiseline, and the room stewards are like ninja's, you NEVER see them. It might have been okay if i hadn't had a major female crisis in my sleep on white sheets and had to face her the next day. X_X She was really lovely, and so nice...but nothing saves you from that level of embarrassment. And some of the Holland America ships have a pizza bar right next to the pool, it's awesome to have a swim and hit up the pizza bar in your suit and nosh with the caribbean music playing and the happy swimmers and view of the ocean while you let the winds dry you off. Because nothing says "HELP ME" like walking into an area of full air conditioning in a wet swim suit! They had this awesome hangout in the middle of the ship, a three story piazza filled with little cafes and bars (the panini cafe was here, and right next to a coffee bar with awesome little deserts, so you can guess we spent a lot of time here after dinner so I could eat too!) and live entertainment on the big open floor. It was gorgeous! Thankfully my life experience has taken off the blinders on a lot of things around relationships. The first thing that has helped me massively in all of them was realizing that despite social expectations, relationships are actually all as individual as the people in them. That idea was never really presented in my area, it was 'all people in relationships do this, feel this, go there" sorta things. The second being the various outcomes of people who lived by that and expected everything to magically work out. One set of great grandparents fought extensively, nastily, and publicly. No one was sure why they were married. It was ugly. One set of grandparents seemed to me sort of unaware that they were married and not just roommates, and the only time I ever saw them in the same room or interact was at the table for meals, and had the old tv separate bedrooms things. My parents divorced after my dad cheated taking me with him and the fallout after mom asked the routine what did you do today? when she got home from work, and my dad and later stepmom spent years teaching me it was my moms fault since she didn't go out with him on weekends (cuz, you know, me!), so you deserve to get cheated on if you don't neglect your kid, good life lessons. LOL My own disastrous first marriage that retrospect showed me was an attempt to get away from the family. Escape doesnt' make a good relationship, especially when he had an untreated mental illness in the mix. I only had one reasonable marriage to pattern after, the other set of grandparents. They did a lot of communication and compromise. They also would argue publicly, but they always argued the point and not each other. There was no presentation of marital perfection, but a realistic 'this is what it is like to live with someone full time'. It was the best thing in my life as a teaching role and as a stable place to spend my summers and vacations away from my crazy parents (mom wasn't really better than dad). So...here I am, remarried after Nikki convinced me marriage isn't horrifying. And he worked really hard at it, and just when I'd about overcome most of my trust/relationship isssues (it took me over a decade, it was a lot of damage and I'm slow okay?) this hit. And it's sort it out or it breaks. If you haven't read my other entries, the short form is Nikki always presented this as a we tell each other everything, trust each other, and really know each other sort of deal, and I slowly learned to exist in that kind of set up, and thrive in it, only to find out 17 years in he lied, about something I gave him plenty of room to talk to me about that was obviusly not a dealbreaker. So...to keep this going both of our issues are in play and it's a great big mess but we're slowly putting it back together like a jigsaw puzzle. It's not easy. It's ugly, it's messy, it's joyful, it's fun, it's tedious, it's exasperating, it's just...life. I will never try to gloss over things, becasue I think we have a global culture of expectations that have nothing to do with reality because people are for some reason unwilling to talk about the ugly and the hard and the work required for things. You know, the 'must be nice' mentality that other people who have something good it just fell into their laps instead of them working for it. LOL I"m sorry, I tend to freethink and write novels or at least full Victorian letter length things. I"ll shut up now!

I don't want to find it! I'm okay letting it go! Feet and me don't get along, I can't even stand my own feet which is why they are always in socks. LOL I think finding that dimension would be a nightmare for me. LOL Although I've managed not to lose my turtle socks or my Halloween socks, that is a life achievement for me, I lose everything. LOL I once lost my wedding ring for two weeks before Nikki finally found it somehow wedged under the mattress in a place I'm not sure how I got my hand in my sleep.

Yeah. Have been for 18 years now, 17 of them married. Or do you mean with the shorts, because I am totally in love with their comfortableness too. *Grins*

Since we have decided sharing closets works for us, I have made my self at home in his comfy black knit cargo shorts. I LOVE these shorts. Next spring I am planning to buy several more, as these are fantastic shorts that don't ride up indelicately on me like my shorts. I like the longer length and bigger pockets than on the female version I have. Nikki complains a lot that I absconded with his shorts. But they are COMFY. Oh my god comfy. And he absconded with my sparkly butterfly shirt, so it's all even. And when I took them off because I thought he was serious, he got all upset because apparently it's just fun to tease me about absconding and he thinks I"m cute in them and if I'm not actually wearing them, the game is over. LOL And I got to wear his Daryl Dixon shirt as penance for him teasing me. *bliss* Seriously though I really need to buy more of these, but it seems wasteful to buy a bunch of shorts when it's getting cold outside. But a nice gray pair would be lovely. Anything that isn't white, white clothes and clumsy Bree never work out well. At all. The only thing we ever actually fight over is socks, because you know, the dryer somehow eats them and there aren't ever enough around no matter how many we buy. Speaking of socks, I need to hit up the sports store. They had these amazing "Cabin socks" that are cushy, warm, and amazing. Ours are getting old, and I think a few new pairs are just what an Ohio winter is screaming for. Neither of us are slipper fans.

PS> If you go on a Princess Cruise ever...I hope you like beef and seafood, that seemed to be their goto meals, but do... not... ever... EVER... decide to be adventurous and try to the cheese mousse.

Hi there! It's nice to meet you, and not knowing someone but stopping to chat is how we get to know people, yes? I'm a cisgender partner of a MtF genderfluid still figuring it out. I use the male gender when I talk about him because that is what Nikki told me he feels is appropriate to us, I just wanted to get that out there because I do understand how important pronouns are and I don't want to come across to someone new like I live in a denial world or am rude to my husband! This place has been so helpful and important to me, I had stumbled through a few forums trying to learn about my new normal after the long secret finally came out, and so many of them it kinda felt like wanted to convince me I didn't matter at all in sorting out this new normal. Only here were people willing to help me learn and also care about my feelings and struggles in the process. People were willing to tell me what I was confused and/or unrealistic about, but they also were willing to tell me what Nikki was also, and that some of the things going on weren't okay. And it was always gentle! I loved that, that we were both treated like people. And Nikki has come to the decision inside himself that transition isn't for him, and that he only had told me that was his decision because he had been presented with the ideology that it was the only solution. But finding others here who live the way he has realized he wants to has been tremendous for him. I like that this board is inclusive of the middle pathers, the fluid, the binary, and the transitioners alike, as well as us partners. And I think it's so important to marriages that partners do have a welcoming place to learn how their life will change and get support. This place was a major factor in my road to morph it from a huge, terrifying thing to my new normal. And, weirdly, this place has hugely helped with my body dismorphic disorder (mostly centered around my face, it's crooked, one entire side droops, was born that way not a stroke aftereffect and my brain can't...deal rationally with it) and my emotional damage from growing up under my father. Which sorta proves the people are people, and human experiences are best shared! Definitely way more alike than unlike, and kindness and connection is definitely the key for everyone to learn to live together on this planet. I wish everyone would learn. We're slowly getting closer than ever I think, because we're working for it, and choosing it. Some things you have to earn, right? It also doesn't hurt that we have flaming examples of terrible relationships around us to remind us of things. The kind where neither partner shows any consideration for the other, and the growing rifts between them was a wakeup call that it's easy to do that, and it's not easy to be proactive about it, but I want Nikki around. Even if his hair and face are way better than mine! LOL

So...making Nikki's computer dream a reality, which is the project I've been on since January pretty single-mindedly, has finally come to fruition today. And those parts got here FAST. Like laser fast. So I cleaned out the dining room table so he has a work space (on the weekends that area is set up for gaming as there is a Friday night and a Sunday evening game), and he's like a little kind in a candy store right now. It was worth every moment of locking myself in the bathroom at work to have a cry in private because it had gotten so crazy there. I DID IT! He's currently putting together his new baby, which is just like my baby. Only because the parts aren't NEW NEW like they were last year he got his baby for about a $100 less. Good bargain! And...my silly little virtual reality dream? Well, apparently only $600 stands between me and that. They had a tester program on the website for the top of the line one, the Occulus Rift, and my computer is compatible and meets or exceeds all requirements. So...yeah. It's possible, and my virtual world can be expanded. We each get a small entertainment stipend in the new budget, and I am stuffing mine exclusively into the savings account, because I want to be entertained with sharks in my computer room. Cuz I'm a raging dork. But I really LOVED that feeling of being there with the sharks, which I'll never know because my asthma makes scuba outta reach for me, as I"m not really willing to risk dying for it. Some dreams ARE worth persuing at any cost, but scuba isn't it for me. But the ability to see what I would see like that...and the Egyptian tombs they are filming now...oh total geek. AND they have a really kinda awesome tabletop style dungeons and dragons app for this thing, so that you can play with people all over. How cool is that? On a more personal note, now that he's doing better from the dysthymia, which I am so grateful to his therapist for helping us sort out the complicated tangle of what is the disorder, what is current environmental, and what is childhood issues blocking him from the live he deserves to have, we are sorting out marital issues. I"m pretty sure i kicked strait into "OMG must fix Nikki Mode" and while the issues were too overwhelming not to feel, my response was to bottle a lot and focus on what was needed rather than actually sorting through things inside. But there has been five or six years of gradual disconnects that triggered MY issues, and sometimes I"m just sorta...lost in myself. There are days I don't even know if I"m really me, because of all the adaptation and throwing out the window parts of me that didn't fit with the life i was trying to build. There are days when I'm full steam ahead on something and blinded to everything else. There are days I absolutely panic that the new normal for our marriage is going to fall apart again and I'm going to lose everything. I'm messy. I am really really messy. BUT...now that he's better, he..I don't know how to phrase this exactly other than this...it's like he's remembered I'm there. Like he'd forgotten while he was sick, but now he remembered. And that is the start. But he's still Nikki, and some of the disconnects and life choices are his personality mixing with mine, not all of it is our disorders. So we're organizing. Too many couples I know just let...life happen to them and don't do anything to manage their relationships as they go. I'm going to learn from that. We've set up a weekly 'serious' talk time, where we turn everything off, sit on the couch (preferably with a blanket under me, our couch is leather and it adheres to my skin in horrible ways) and we can both talk about anything, and the agreement is active listening, connection, and no one gets mad or defensive. Or if you do, you squash it and try to think it through. We set up a weekly game time for just doing something fun together, board games, d&d, card games, whatever. And we set up a weekly movie night (on Saturday though, this isn't as inviolate as the other two if we are out doing a thing) to just sit on the couch and watch something together. Reconnecting emotionally and rebuilding a slightly broken marriage. And that's the lesson isn't it? Things break. Everything. But you then make a choice after it breaks, you can throw it away and start over. Or you can repair it. It's always a choice. We forget that. I can't count how many times I've heard "it's broken, time to pitch it" and no question what would be involved in fixing a thing. Anything that can be made can be repaired. But the cost isn't always worth it. Sometimes throwing a thing away is appropriate too, but if you just assume and don't make the choice...it's wasteful. I could sit around, say there is nothing I can do, people just change as they go. Let's be honest, there is even a neat little shield of a 17 year old secret I could hide behind and NO ONE would look at me funny. I could be all the other relationships in my blood family and scream it's not MY fault til the end of time. But I'm not. Because..inside...I want more. And these are the days I"m realizing despite all the poison I drank, all the horribleness I absorbed from them, and all the inner damage I'm still struggling to overcome from them...somehow I made it in some small way. I'm not them, I got out, and I am going to improve things, instead of waving my hand in a 'what can you do' dismissive gesture. Grandpa gave me wisdom, the knowledge, and the understanding that there IS more out there, that not everyone fails, and that the choices I will make every day, big and small, will matter and resonate the rest of my life. My friends gave me the grace, understanding, and exposure to worlds and opinions beyond what I grew up with to navigate the hurdles in my marriage and my husbands struggle with depression and to adapt to who he is as a person, not who he told me he was. I think I managed to be a better mother than my parents were, despite all the screw ups I made, and I let go and realize he's the one who has to live the day to day of his life better. As much as I'm often not okay between the self-esteem issues, the dismorphia, and the struggle to interact gracefully with others thanks to the add, I'm also really okay at the same time because I'm doing it. And when I die, despite the mistakes I made massive and small, I don't think I"ll be able to look back with anything but "I couldn't have done anything else than what I did, because every choice I made at the time I made it was what I thought would make things better!". It cost a lot, but it was worth it. So I don't have parents, okay. I have Nikki. I have my son. I have my friends (including you guys!), and I have my self and my senses of right and wrong. The bargain was made a long time ago, probably the day my son was born, I just managed to delay paying some of the bills, but now that they are paid, I realize trying to hold onto things that weren't really there wasn't helping anyone, and it was a good bargain. That was the day I started turning my back on the narcissism of my father, the dead mushroomness of my mother, and started living. Even though I had no idea where I wanted to go, I started going through any door I saw to get an idea what was out there. And the mistakes were okay. Except, of course, that cheese mousse from the Princess cruise. Trying that was just a horror story. It looked like poop. It smelled like poop. I don't know why I put that in my mouth.

Best of luck to you for a complication free surgery and recovery!

So printer died a horrible death, moment of silence for my little desk friend. Moment over. IT was a fast moment, it wasn't that nice a desk friend. Nikki and I can't be without a printer, we use it constantly. So I ordered a new one, and we went to Best Buy to pick it up. Now, Nikki just got to order the components to put his new computer together, the same one we built for me around Christmas, only he gets it $100 cheaper because prices go down with time. LOL So he was browsing around the store instead of heading strait to the customer pick up (I'm lazy, I like ordering online and making them get it together and picking it up at the desk, it also cuts out any attempts to alter my purchase and lets me read and research off the website about the item). So I'm following him around, and i see a display. There was a pair of vr goggles. These are not the expensive Occulus ones (Thought they are powered by the technology) I'm not sure what brand they are, but they are the ones that work with the Samsun smart phone and you can sorta clip your phone to them. They're white, and sorta ugly. But I was curious and I picked them up, and held them against my face to see. It took a minute to figure out how to get the demo to start. The demo starts. It's a car racing through a tunnel. Okay, whatever. It's sorta neat, I don't see what the big deal is. Probably great for people who like car games. Then it announces something about underwater, and suddenly I'm standing under the ocean, and a NINE FOOT great white shark is gliding across in front of me. Like maybe two feet away! And it didn't look REAL exactly, but it did look almost real. The textures weren't perfect, little details clued you in. You could tell it was a video game sorta thing, but the feeling that you were standing IN THE GAME was so strong, that as I'm turning my head to follow the shark, and the view did follow my head movements really perfecting the illusion, I damn near jumped a mile because inches from my face was another great white facing me directly looking back at me that I didn't know was there because I actually could not see him until I turned my head like in real life. I can only imagine what my face looked like to Nikki, I really had to remind myself the shark wasn't real, but I might have jumped. It was AMAZING. I can't even describe how blown my mind was by those sharks. Then it switched to a space battle, and it really felt like I was one of those forlorn figures in the window watching an epic space battle in front of me, and I was thinking about the lives of the people in those ships, and wondering if they would come for me for a second. Then I was in a bloodstream, as it displayed it's educational opportunities for visual learners. And I love science, so I was completely engrossed in watching the red and white cells drift by. After I put it down, my first thought was to an article I had read where they are three dimensionally filming Egyptian tombs so students, and probably virtual tourists, can be 'in' them and see them 'firsthand', and how very much I would love to do that. My mind was completely blown by how amazing this technology I really hadn't thought much about actually is. So...that is what I'm going to be saving my small entertainment allowance in the new budget for. Because I really, really want a virtual reality headset. For gaming. For exploring. For feeling like I'm out of the house for a little bit in the winter when I can't leave. There was a Japanese animation show about a video game that was played in virtual reality a while back, called .Hack//Sign. The basic story of the game is something sinister is happening and a player gets fully trapped in the game, and the show revolves around the events of trying to save 'him'. (Spoilter - it's a female player, but that isn't revealed right away). But through the show you get glimpses of the players lives, and why they are there, and why they form the friendships they do. And one of them is a girl bound to a wheelchair. She doesn't actually play the game, she just walks around in it. Never levels, just...enjoys the feeling of the freedom she doesn't have in her actual life. It was a really powerful storyline, and I'm reminded of her as I wore those goggles and what this can mean to some people, where it's more than a game or a teaching tool. It's been ages since anything reminded me of the sheer potential we have as a species to create and expand our world, both outside and internally.

We're doing really well, and have developed a test, when we have zero swim days in one week is when it's time to take down the pool. We had three great swim days this week, so it's not coming down tomorrow. I know, I'm delaying the inevitable. LOL We might be looking into the costs involved in getting a heated, in-ground pool in a greenhouse sorta structure to get more, if not year round, use. Right now it's just budgetary, I want to finish paying off the house before we embark on a big financial endeavor like that, so about 10 years, but having an idea of the costs is a good place to start planning. I'm sad Nikki didn't get the job he wanted, they hired their second interview and didn't even give the other applicants a chance. X_X So now I'm mad at that place. LOL The hours would have been much better for him and I think he would have actually liked it. Their loss, but mad turtle Bree. Yesterday I took all the money I saved the last six months and ordered the parts for Nikki's new computer. They'll be here next week as I understand shipping. He's super excited! I'm super excited! And then we had to go out and buy a new printer/scanner unit because ours died, and I spent the next three hours cursing this thing out until I finally got it to talk to my computer and I can print now. Of course it dies when I'm in the middle of copying all the old photos to the cloud in case of fire or something and printing out photos to hang on the walls. (We're sorta weird that way, and never really hung any photos, but I bought a buncha frames and am picking out the pictures now). I'm done working outside the home, and I love it. Other than the endless and snarky must be nice comments. I hate that sort of thing, people act like you didn't bust your ass to make something happen and it just fell into your lap. We spent nearly a year in discussion and life changes, and are making a lot of sacrifices in other things to have this thing. It wasn't free. Is it nice? Sure. But it sure isn't free. Just like when we go on our annual cruises, we save money the year round to afford it, and drive instead of fly because it's much cheaper. So I try to never say that to people, but it's so socially ingrained. ARgh. Society has some screwy mannerisms it teaches, even on the small scale like not being annoying in interpersonal interactions, let alone it's bigger messes.

Sometimes cliches exist for a reason, and as excited as I get when the pool goes up, as happy as I am in it all summer, I never really hit the full depth of how much that pool means to me as when I am facing the oncoming autumn and knowing it's about to go away for a long, cold winter. So I'm frantically swimming as many days at the sky will let me, and trying to store away every moment of pool joy to mull over in my winter blankets. And I'm reminded it's not just a pool. It was a lifelong dream of mine to have my own, and a project that Nikki and I worked on together (and continuously work on making keeping it easier and better) to happen, but most of the work was from Nikki. It was a great, big, huge gift to me because he loves me, and that probably makes giving it up each winter harder in my head than it needs to be for something that is just a cycle of the seasons, but I'm like that. I"m looking at finding a way to haul a stupidly heavy table upstairs to the boy's old bedroom that has sorta been in flux since he moved out while we try to figure out what we want for the house to be the craft table (Nikki does models, we both sew a bit, I do origami, we finally decided we dont' have guests often enough to justify spending the money to create a guest room and we actually do want a craft room) instead of buying a cheap light one because that is the table I ate dinners, played games, made crafts, and just sat at and talked with my grandpa. That and an old bookshelf he'd made in high school woodshop are what I have and remember him by. Nikki never even hints at replacing it in the dining room even when he sees something he likes at the furniture store because he knows that table is NEVER LEAVING. However, I am happy to put it upstairs, and it's even practical, because it's an old table I forget what ti's made of but highly heat resistant, Grandma didn't even have to put down trivets unless there was a table cloth, so it would be good for use with our glue gun and other heat-related projects. I just sometimes need a tangible, real, touchable thing to go with my memories. And sometimes that brain mechanism makes simple things like putting away a pool really, overdramatically sad. At least I have Nikki and Halloween fun to bounce back with. As I'm feeling stupidly resistant to my pool going I'm equally stupidly excited about Halloween. And then there is the practical habit we fell into this year, we talk in the pool. After the swimming and the playing and the splashing comes the floating and talking about our problems, our worldviews, our thoughts, dreams, whatever. And I realize consciously it' snot the pool, it's being in a place without distractions, so we've set up two weekly us times, one for fun and games and one for talking about everything, both of which are inviolate. Because without that communication and connection, this marriage doesn't function well in a vacuum, and we both have a habit of being easily distracted. Relationships are all about recognizing needs and weaknesses, and addressing them as much as they are about feelings. I think we're getting massively better at this. And I"m a huge fan of the antidepressant pills, probably because they got it right. They didn't turn him into a zombie. They didn't change him as a person. They didn't make him magically happy. What they did do, which I believe is the actually intended purpose, is fix the chemical balance in his brain so that he feels his actual emotions appropriately to what is going on around him. He's happy when fun things are going on, he's sad when sad things are happening, he's angry when it's warrented, etc. etc. Before he just didn't really feel...anything. THose attitudes all over the internet STILL make me rage, you know the ones, "It's all in your head, pills are junk you just need to walk daily in the forest!". While exercise is certainly part of it, and nature helps, neither is going to FIX HIS BRAIN. Both of them have been incorporated into the Healthy Nikki Project, however, they couldn't fix what was wrong until the brains needs were addressed. And I've got an endlessly simmering anger inside that he does feel ashamed of having dysthymia (a form of long term depression) and taking the pills. NO ONE EVER should have to feel ashamed of a medical condition or the treatment for it (except maybe the cliche but actually true people who end up in emergency rooms because they lost 'things' in 'private areas', for the sake of all sanity the information how to be safe is all over the net!). Making people ashamed doesn't help, it doesn't remove the problem from society, and it just makes it harder for people to recover or live happily (not everything can be recovered from). Gah. Okay, I'm done free form thinking now, worked myself up into a rage on behalf of defenseless people. LOL WEll, at least it's not sad anymore, adn I think I"ll put on something bouncy like Insane Clown Posse (I know, I"m warped, but Halloween is in my brain) and do some housework or something productive.

Mr. Turtle needs restuffed, he's getting a little pancaky. Poor little dude need some corrective surgery. One of my favorite things to do is to open up my jigsaw puzzle app on my ipad (so the dang felines can't eat my pieces) and workon a puzzle in my comfy pj's with a movie, tv show, or music.

Cheers! I'm so glad you're results were good and you don't have to face anything like chemo! *Hugs*

Just a hug. I have a related, similar issue with my dad and stepmother, and I hope you family regains their sanity soon. The things with family is, it's a lottery of random personalities tied together by shared history. And I have lots of hugs if you need them.

I chose a different route, I would rather deal with the inhaler than live without animals. For me it's a quality of life issue. And the more time I spend around them, the less reactive to them I get. Unfortunately, that exposure benefit hasn't worked with cold temperatures. I live in Ohio, I get exposed. LOL Life is a mixed bag, some things work out and some you have to deal with on it's terms. I'm pretty lucky though, the attacks are mostly mild, only had a few where it was 'you're not even getting triaged you're seeing a doctor in 30 seconds of getting to the er' and I'm not triggered by perfumes, cleaning products, and every pollen known to man like a friend of mine. So I embrace my lucky and just quietly dread winter a bit.

I had my grandfather, and he's the reason I'm a good person. Grandpa taught me all the things I should know. He died too young, only 65, there should have been more time and memories, but take what we can get right? I'm okay without my father, it's just...that lingering desire to have a family and roots that go back, not just forward. I'm only 44, in my head it's not time yet to be the oldest person at the family gatherings when there are still people alive, but it is what it is. Thank you for all the love, I'm adjusting slowly, and Nikki is keeping a ridiculously close eye on me and the boy. The boy isn't too affected, my dad has literally only been in the same room with him for slightly less than 30 days out of his entire lifetime, and has never chosen to speak with him on the phone or e-mail. So to my son he's just a weird bitter old white man who happens to be his mom's genetic father. I'm grateful it doesn't affect him more. We had a long talk about it, but he was happy that mom went from arguing a point to burning the bridges and salting the field nuclear about it. Thou shalt not mess with my kid. And, it's kinda ironically funny. The thing that started it all was a picture I posted an a discussion between me, my son, and a few freinds that we need to do better as a society to make sure everyone has the basics of life. I'm talking food, shelter, clothes, and medical care. Not tvs, flashy cars, just the basics. And this dude who tires to shovel christianity and genetic blood ties are everything down my throat for years decided that is the hill to die on and start calling my son a loser who wants society to provide for him so he can continue to blame his failures on everyone but himself. Because we were discussing making the world better. Way to practice the charity of your religion there. I have to laugh about all of this. We tried to engage him on the discussion, but he wouldn't back up any opinions with information or facts about why he feels that way, just kept talking in memes then decided to attack my kid. Today I feel...lighter. Realizing I don't ever have to deal with him again is freeing. And a huge, stunning relief. I'll be okay, and I didn't realize how much the whole thing was dragging me down until I cut that tie. It's just sad that that is what reality is, but sadness fades and there are camping trips with Nikki in planning and cruises with his parents and weekly games and hangouts with my kid and a pool to swim in and a house that is in the middle of a massive reorganization (I decided to go through everything and sort it all out and get rid of things we don't need to avoid turning into a hoarder like my mom and paternal grandma, it's in my GENES!) to finish, life is busy for everyone. And only six more days of work and then I"ll have all the time in my life to do whatever makes Nikki and I happy! WOOT!

Thank you. It being so public in front of just about everyone I know really didn't help. The flood of horrified friends calling to help did. There is a small petty part of me that is amused knowing he is going to be wading through a brigade of angry emails since my lovely friends are too graceful to do it on Facebook in public. And he posted his. It's moments like these you find out how you touched people's lives so I guess there was a small bit of good. But mostly I'm just feeling miserable, ashamed, and embarrassed right now. It's one thing when the toxicity is secret and private it's another thing when everyone gets front row seats to it.

Just cut ties with my father. I've talked about him and the complicated relationship before, and why I didn't really know what I was holding onto. Well, he finally pushed that last button and I went nuclear. He called me stupid again, which I'm used to really, over my belief that we have to do better as a nation to care for people. There aren't enough jobs. They are getting shipped overseas en masse. The old get a job rhetoric is a joke, and there is no reason anyone should be homeless and starving in this country. We have the ability to fix it, we as a society choose not to. But to go on calling my son a loser over and over when he DOESN"T KNOW HIM pushed me over the edge. He has consistantly refused to talk to the boy on the phone or e-mail his whole life. How on earth can he accurately state anything other than that boy exists and his name? He doens't know it. So I told him off royally, including the phrase "you need to learn when it's time to shut the eff up" I am so done. From now on Nikki has stepped up to create the Great Wall of Nikki around me, and that man has lost access. Because I am done. Toxicity helps no one. I know a lot of people here will understand, because it doesn't matter if the core issues is transgender or racism, the emotional fall out is the same. The same ugly, the same judgement, the same crazy. I need a hug. This summer was going so well too.