Today 7 years ago I put on the first estradiol patch and took a spiro tablet after I picked them up at the pharmacy. I don't take spiro anymore but I've always had at least one estradiol patch on my body since then.
Transition has been both easier and harder than I imagined since then. Easier in the sense of how it's always felt proper for me, I feel better with estrogen than I did with testosterone. I feel more me.
The harder part is the unfortunate ways a cishetero dominated
But anyhow, I'm awake. Don't really know why I ended up dragging ass so much yesterday, except maybe it was simply the uncomfortable chill and damp. The temp hovered around 50F all day long and even when I'm inside, I always have a sensation like I can feel that damp chill outside reaching into my bones.
All my life I have never liked damp chilly weather.
Soon I will make me breakfast and feed Ginza hers. She and I did a lot of snuggling together yesterday. I love her so much.
It's raining misery outside, though the forecast says it'll end and dwindle to scattered showers by the afternoon, so I hope to do a bike ride and a walk later today. I only did the bike ride yesterday, that too may have played a part in how much the damp chill affected me.
Tomorrow is supposed to be the delightful weather day of this 3 day weekend. Just clouds and the temp might touch 60F. That's what passes for delightful weather here in the PNW.
Also today I need to do a batch cook of veggie mash that is my current routine and samefood dish to help provide me calories and nutrients. I should have done it yesterday, but I got shut down by how uncomfortable the damp and chill made me feel.
Maybe today I'll heat up the frozen pizza I bought for a reward meal or two, but maybe I'll do that tomorrow.
I defied the gods yesterday and bought more ice cream bars. C'mon summer weather, I could use you now.
After I finish this cup of tea, I'll get the veggies cooking for the mash. I'll probably use a serving of it as part of a second breakfast. Need to eat more today than I did yesterday, where I only ate 2.5 meals really. It was probably still a positive nutrition intake day, but on the marginal side and I want more than marginal. I want to feel a solid sense that my body has more each day.
Veggie mash has been mashed and made. So now I've had a second breakfast and have put the rest of the mash into the glass containers I use for storing it in the fridge.
Then I washed dishes after that. Taking a break now to drink tea, then after that get myself washed up and ready for the day.
I was sitting at the computer and started hearing Ginza purring loudly. I turned to look and she's up on the bed, happily self-stimming by kneading the blankets with big sweeping paw movements up and down, side to side. She really loves a good soft blanket to knead upon, she tends to avoid fabrics that have a slick feel to them.
I'm very much the same, I'll keep flannel bedding and sheets on as long as possible, only going to cotton linens when it gets super hot and humid.
Looks like the rain might stop pretty soon, but there's also another big blob of green that'll cross the Olympic Peninsula and if it does cross over, it'll make for a rainy afternoon.
I'm still trying to figure out a sense of the weather patterns for this area. It's so different from what I understood when I lived on the east coast.
Just did a small rearrangement of furniture in the bedroom and Ginza has gone hiding under the bed. She really doesn't like change, plus she likely remembers how a couple of months ago I began moving stuff around to start packing to move.
She's done really well getting through that, but she might still worry about going through something like that again.
I hope Ginza forgives me quickly enough but it was necessary to rearrange things and clean out clutter. It had gotten difficult to maneuver around in the bedroom but now it feels more open again.
She's not under the bed anymore but tucked away in a cat bed by the base of her cat tree which sits between my bed and the wall. She's taking a good and completely zonked out snooze.
I'd like to (completely unsarcastically, genuinely) thank all three of our iPhones for screaming me awake at 3:15 am to let us know the tornadoes are happening. And to my daughter for being a teenager who can sleep through it. Until we gotta take cover, only your mom and I need to lose sleep over this.
“Having All of Your Internal Resources Exhausted Beyond Measure and Being Left with No Clean-Up Crew”: Defining Autistic Burnout
First academic/clinical article I've ever seen specifically on autistic burnout, and it rings true. It's particularly validating to see initial confirmation that autistic burnout is its own distinct phenomena, which likely requires its own specific interventions.
I've been through it and it's a much different beast from what neurotypicals think of as burnout. I also know it has left marks on me that I'll probably never get rid of completely, though it has also made me more aware of how it can happen and how dangerous it can become for an autist.
Nowadays I try to be more diligent about self-care and getting rest and trying to head off demands that could get me into a state of overwhelm where the burnout can ignite.
In the series "so that's an autism thing too": difficulties in cooking. I have hard time coming up with the shopping list outside of the routine things which I always check against a list on my phone. It's especially difficult to plan what particular dishes should be cooked in the following days.
Once I got hang of cooking -- which happened after I had turned 30, almost 35 -- I learned to like cooking when there's no rush and the recipe is clear. I even can improvise, albeit on quite restricted range. However, when my spouse isn't around, I default to microwaving things or eating frozen pizzas.
The cooking method I've come up with over the years so as to provide reasonably good nutrition and save money is to learn to cook meals that can be done in batches. Sometimes one batch is a meal in itself, sometimes there might be two or three different batches that get heated up in a microwave to provide a meal.
Sometimes I enjoy cooking and trying out ideas to combine flavors. Sometimes when low spoons it's more that I just want do things I feel I know