Ummm, hi!

[Blue Thunder]

Gah I know that's a terrible title. I'm just not creative enough to come up with something better at the moment =\

Well how do I introduce myself? My username's Blue Thunder, I don't really care what I'm called because I go by many names anyway, and I'm a 19 year old with some major issues on self-identity currently. I came to this forum in hopes of possibly achieving some sort of assistance in that regard, and also because I'm lacking in the intellectual discussion department of my social life right now.

I found the forums through transsexual.org, which I in turn found by googling gender dysphoria [which I know I have - but that's about the only thing concerning myself I'm aware of anymore it feels like]. For a while now I've been questioning my gender identity though my brother seems to think I could just have an extreme dislike of my biological sex more than anything else as I go out of my way to make myself look masculine to others that it impairs my daily functioning and ability to learn sometimes [IE - refusal to cook because it's stereotypically feminine, recoiling when I'm hugged, etc; I will admit that I was much worse about this when I was a kid]. I don't even know what my sexuality is anymore and for years I thought I had at least that much to lean on through my indecisiveness. I started identifying as bisexual when I was in middle school because I thought I was too masculine to be a straight woman, but am I even interested in women? What does sexual attraction even feel like? I'm really confused in that regard. I don't think I'm asexual because I fantasize, though...

Personality wise you'll find I'm pretty stuck on what I think. I'm not easily adaptable and new things tend to either make me shy and insecure or just plain angry in resentment; change is one thing I've absolutely hated throughout my life though I think that's due to traumatic experiences as a child, though those wounds are finally starting to heal and I'm exploring new things big and small. This also means that I've started to explore who I am as a person, and I realised that I have no idea. I have a very low self-esteem; throughout my entire life I've hated myself either because I thought I could never live up to my own expectations of myself or the things my parents have done - they're benevolent people beyond what I could ever dream to be able to do for others, though I still aspire to achieve that. I have also despised my own physical appearance [with the single exception of my green eyes] beyond comparison to what is considered normal.

I absolutely adore my parents, thankful they're nice and accepting people, and I've idolized them greatly [especially my father who at times I hold in my mind like some sort of deity]. I think my desire to keep them happy and to keep stress out of their lives if I can avoid it is what caused my own identity problems. I acted a certain way to hide and cover up my own struggling so they didn't have to stress over my own problems. I've done a lot to keep my stress hidden from those I care about, and recently it all came tumbling down like crazy for some reason.

For more lighthearted matters on myself, I am pretty sure I want to be a veterinarian. I'm not currently in school though because I feel I need to straighten myself out and figure out who I am and what I want to do in life before I put myself into a place as absolutely utterly stressful as school. Some people think I'm exaggerating when I call it that, but for me, school is the absolute worst place in the world, not to mention at the moment my family couldn't afford to take me out of school 7 times and move me around over and over. I have no job, technically, for the same reasons [though I dogsit locally for some spare money, which always gets borrowed from my family so technically I'm still broke anyway]. I live in the middle of nowhere in Washington state, in a house with 8 people, 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 2 rats. No one is employed. My brother receives disability money, my mother receives food stamps, and my aunt and uncle both have unemployment benefits. My parents have been looking for a job like crazy for a year but no luck.

Alright I guess that wasn't as lighthearted as I thought... well then, right now I've been confiding in my hobbies - mostly sitting around on Skype all day and playing video games. What video games I tend to be playing at the moment can change on a moment's notice but usually everyone around me notices when I'm into something else for the week, though Ace Attorney and Pokémon are pretty consistent regardless. [Haha, ever seen someone save up money a year in advance for a game about lawyers?] I'm not your average gamer since the games I play are very strange - I don't stick to one genre [my repertoire includes the Sims, Dragon Quest, Metal Gear Solid, Spyro the Dragon, and Professor Layton] and there doesn't seem to be any consistent theme with any games I play. I won't play just anything - it has to catch my interest in a special way, and I can't pinpoint it.

I have the feeling I forgot to mention something or 7 about myself. But I ramble sometimes so I'm just going to leave it as is for now, if there are any questions feel free to ask - I'm not the type to keep secrets. I apologize for the monster of a first post.

[strange_person]

You seem to have come to the right place, although we aren't very populous at the moment. Do you mind if I imagine you as a set of disembodied green eyes (with appropriately manly brows hovering above them) ?

Advice!
Anyone who likes to eat can learn cooking without shame, in the same sense that anyone who dislikes being violently victimized can learn the basics of a martial art.

If you can't hear the mouse busy inside your wall, turn off the radio. If you can't see a distant candle on a moonless night, put out the bonfire.

If you can't figure out who you are, settle basic physiological needs (eat, pee, etc.) and then lock yourself in a featureless room for a few hours. Blank paper, a pen, absolutely no other distractions. Write until the pen breaks or you run out of paper or you pass out, then look at what was written as if it was someone else's.

What can be deduced about the person who wrote this? If you were socially obligated to assist or satisfy the author of that rambling manuscript, how would you start?

I hope this advice is useful to you, and that many further positive experiences await in your further participation with the forums.

[Blue Thunder]

I don't mind if you picture me like that, since that's sort of how my brows look anyway. I don't mind posting pictures if anyone's curious, strangely.

I know that there isn't anything wrong or feminine with cooking. My brother is very good at it, as is my uncle. But I still have a hard time with it. It was never an interest or desire of mine, so when I was expected to cook for someone, I was very angry about the idea.

The advice you offered is sound and probably helpful if I could manage to do something like that. Unfortunately, featureless rooms do not exist in this house and even if they did I could not isolate myself as it's too crowded here. I share a living room. Lack of music would drive me insane after half an hour, anyway, I can't stand silence. I don't mean to just push it away like that, since I seem to have a bad habit of doing that, but that in particular just won't work. Unfortunately I don't know what can work, given my situation and its difficulty to work with. That may be part of my problem with being depressed over everything. I do appreciate the gesture of trying to find some advice for me, however.

Thank you for the welcoming words :]

[strange_person]

Ah, but that means we actually have something to work with! What sort of music do you like?

[Mitsukara]

Hello! Welcome to the UJ forums! S_P is correct in assessing our communities current activity levels as reduced, but they aren't nonexistant, certainly. Things just take a bit of time to happen, I think.

You don't need to apologize for making long, information-packed posts. I don't think I do it as much as I used to, but I've certainly written some really long-winded posts myself, and Mrs. Reitz herself writes some very long posts now and then. Long isn't a bad thing- it means you have more to say. Some people may not read through the whole thing, but that's not really your fault or anything. And besides all that, an introduction is a good time to say a lot about yourself!

Like many at the UJ forums, I too have experienced the pangs of gender dysphoria, and found this place by way of transsexual.org. But, many painful years of teenage life have paid off through work and determination, as now, at age 21, I'm undergoing hormone replacement therapy (only about a year in), and I've had a legal name change, am dressing in girl clothes all the times I go out now, and even came out at my job! And thanks to modern improvements in anti-discrimination laws and my living in the liberal pacific northwest, I still have my silly little fast food job, and I've been met with a pretty positive response to boot (save for the owner redacting skirts as being included in the official dress code policy all of a sudden.... grrrrr. Ah well, I still have my headband with a little bow on it, and my girl's pants, and my budding chest- supplemented with falsies- and my girly hairdo with a scrunchie! They didn't write all that out of the dress code!). So yeah, as they say, it gets better. As long as you work for it, of course.

I'm pretty sure low self-esteem and a hatred of one's own appearance are... maybe not universally so, but, definitely hand-in-hand with transsexuality. My voice is too deep, I get dark stubble everywhere and have to shave just about everything every day... I understand. Figuring out how you want to look (I did that by looking at how I actually looked, then looking at fictional examples, and latching onto one that I really, really like that seemed vaguely in range of how I really look, and trying to work towards that) and then working on it in every way you can helps that, I think, as does finding more ways to stylistically or physically express yourself as the gender you are. I don't care if they're not in style and most girls don't wear them, wearing a skirt feels great (and besides, they're actually really comfortable, so much less constrictive than pants).

Sexual attraction... hmm. Growing up, I thought girls were really pretty, but some guys looked kinda cool (when I was a really little kid I always thought Riker on Star Trek looked kinda cool... getting older, I started to like androgynous guys, like the way Daniel Jackson looked in Stargate the movie)... I started to feel excited about looking at girls, but when I started to really understand sex and go through puberty, what I realized was that I really wanted... hope this isn't too blunt, sorry, but... what I really wanted was to have someone inside me, to be penetrated. Ultimately I've come to the conclusion that I'm bisexual with a slight lean towards feminine aesthetics- but guys can look pretty cute too- and a strong lean towards being, um, underneath, as it were.

But how did I figure that out? I just looked over different things, imagined different things, felt of myself in different ways, and thought it through. It took a few years, but I'm pretty comfortable with it nowadays. It's a matter of figuring out what- if anything- is interesting to you, what feels good, or what feels bad. Instead of thinking of it as roles, I just tried to figure out what I liked, what I had feelings about. I don't know if that helps, though.

Now... I don't play video games as much as I'd like, but I'm very, very fond of the Dragon Quest series (the main series, that is; I'm afraid I've barely poked around at the Monsters games, and never played Swords or Rocket Slime yet... I should, but I'm bad at time management and organized, efficient usage of said time). The only main series games I haven't played through yet are VI, due to a lack of complete translations, and IX, which I've been working on slowly since I purchased it (though I've only played through V once, and don't remember it as well as some of the others).

I have a weird, heavily early childhood-nostalgia based fondness for Dragon Quest II in particular- the prince of Midenhall/Laurasia, the prince of Cannock/Sumaltria, and the princess of Moonbrook are all iconic characters in my head. Some of my earliest relevant-to-being-a-girl memories are of pretending to be the Princess of Moonbrook! Getting turned into a dog by the evil Hargon (who, I take particular note as an adult drifting towards darker fantasy, killed my father and everyone else in my kingdom and burned it to the ground...), and rescued, and then casting spells to keep my two companions strong, and to blow up monsters and defeat Hargon and save the world! Okay, that's kinda not terribly girly maybe but ehh, cooking and cleaning are work, they aren't that fun. Well, cooking can be a little fun....

I don't listen to music nonstop, but I think if I went deaf, I'd go insane. Music can do a lot for me emotionally. I tend to favor jpop, catchy videogame music- music from Mario games, or Castlevania games, or Dragon Quest- some Beatles, some odd 80s bits... I had a huge thing for Huey Lewis and the News and Michael Jackson growing up, though that's waned a little, but I listen to them still every now and then.

See? Nothing wrong with long posts, in my opinion.

Anyway, hopefully your stay here will be informative and helpful. It'd be great to see you around!

[Alfador]

(Belated) Welcome! Browse at your leisure. Wall-o-text posts are no detriment; we thrive on them. And you're not alone in the situation of everybody in a household being unemployed, either--both my mate and myself are struggling to find jobs.

[Nick]

You don't need to apologize for making long, information-packed posts.

I'll second that. The forum isn't fast enough for short messages to survive. If you don't make long posts, posts which might be considered obnoxiously long on other forums, then the forums information/time ration goes down drastically.

Plus it helps ensure that someone will find something in your message to talk about.

[Idiot Glee]

You don't need to apologize for making long, information-packed posts.

I'll second that. The forum isn't fast enough for short messages to survive. If you don't make long posts, posts which might be considered obnoxiously long on other forums, then the forums information/time ration goes down drastically.

Plus it helps ensure that someone will find something in your message to talk about.

Brevity : Wit

[Coda]

By C++ syntax it really ought to be Wit : Brevity.

[Sinosaur]

If I was the Lawspite, I'd probably have a rude tag to slap on this discussion.

But I'm not, I'm a Sinosaur, so instead I simply say "Howdy!" So, welcome to the forums and you can post things as long as you want, but there's definitely a sweet spot between "too short" and "too long" that will totally optimize the percentage of population who are interested in reading your posts all the way through and having some manner in which to respond, but we seem to trend notably wordier than some other forums when not being humorous or me.