Hi I'm Zoey

Hi Dear Diary. I am a girl. I’m 27 years old. And I’ve realized that I’m a girl. After a massive mental breakdown on Friday, where I admitted to myself I was trans, to a weekend feeling broken and hollow, I acted on my feelings and did a trans thing. That made the depression disappear immediately, and all that was left was the dysphoria. On Thursday I could look myself in the mirror and see a good looking guy... ok. I appreciated what I was like. On Friday night I didn’t look right in the mirror anymore, like I wasn’t looking at myself. I knew it was dysphoria right away. I spent Friday and Saturday night crying. A lot. I’ve never felt that empty or broken in my life, like part of me was missing. I spent both of those days, and Sunday, wanting to cry but being too busy in real life. I met with my trans friend in real life but didn’t come out to her as I was too unsure at that time. Monday was spent confused but not unhappy. A lot of emotions. Then came Tuesday. I was happy. I felt like I was starting to figure things out. I met with my trans friend after work and after some time spent finally managed to come out to her. She was the nicest, sweetest, most amazing girl ever about it. It made me feel so happy. But also very confused. The conversation about it was great. It ended up with me being pointed to the hatchery discord server. That’s where I finally figured it out for sure. I talked to the amazing, incredible, and best possible hatchers ever. I told them my situation and they just went like yeah, girl, you’re trans. When they first suggested a female name for me I… I’ve never felt like that before. I thought it would sound corny, or stupid. But the moment they said it my heart melted. I can’t believe just hearing a properly gendered name could ever feel so good. They went on, and every passing second made me feel so much better inside. I answered questions about how I felt about gender and it just cemented it. I am a girl. We got into a private call just the 4 of us and talked more about gender, trans, and all that. And while we talked, every time they talked to me like a girl, calling me girl, calling me girls names, my heart melted a bit more. Until, eventually, I was laying paralyzed in bed from feeling so incredibly good. Then they called me kitty and I died on the spot. I’m dead now.

So I had a big birthday party today. (Ed. note (that's still me, Zoey!) my birthday was 1 and a half months ago I was just too stressed and my apartment wasn't ready back then) Went on for 6 and a half something hours. It was great fun and the first thing that struck me after it was over was that I wasn't tired of human interaction. Every time previously in my life, before I cracked my trans egg, I would be absolutely exhausted mentally after something like this and I would just retreat into video games. It would take me forever to recover. But now? I felt... happy. After a thing that would make most people happy I finally feel what they feel? Maybe? It's such a weird feeling. But it's a very good feeling. I immediately went online and started talking to friends because I just wanted to be more social but also I wanted everyone to use the right pronouns and name.

The one part that did suck about the party is that the Swedish happy birthday song is gendered. I just said “she” in my head every time but it still hurt a little.

For the first time in 2 weeks I ate a lot of food in one day. The food was excellent, as it better be since I picked it, and mostly cold cut meats with potato salad and a stupidly good gorgonzola cheese. It was crazy because they had this big wheel of gorgonzola that they just spooned out of it in the store.

That's all for today. I feel great right now. Bye.

Super tired in the brain this morning. Worried that it's the same tired I used to be but it doesn't feel the same! This is like a forehead only thing. And I can still hear myself clearly. It's like my brain wants to go back to what was once normal but it can't.

Super busy today and tomorrow. This is all I had time to write on the train to work!

Today was very good! I got to help my colleague solve a tough problem and the results were very good. I felt like a real techno sorceress. And it made me so happy. Then, on the train home, I was thinking about it (replaying it in my head, is that an autism thing? I feel like it is) and I just remembered how, if he'll think about it, he'll misgender me. I don't get mad at him, or anyone, that's fine, but it makes me really sad inside. The dysphoria hurts so much more if I forget about it momentarily. The best I can do is keep up my voice training regime and plan out my future, that actually almost makes me feel better.

I felt like I had another topic today but I forgot.

I'm sorry.

I want girl clothes.

The happiness? The gender euphoria? Finally feeling like I can be me? That's all amazing. I love all of it. But, because I also know what happiness feels like, or can feel like, it also makes the unhappiness that much more apparent.

So I deleted my twitter. Twitter makes me unhappy, it really does. I've known this for years now but I was fine with it. And I was fine with it because being angry made me feel. Anger was an emotion and as someone who'd been starving for emotions her whole life that really struck a chord with me. You log on and you really do see the whole world collapse in real time.

But now it burns a hole in me. I care about people, I've always cared, but I've always suppressed that I care. I admitted this to myself many times even and I know I've mentioned it offhandedly to others at some points. But now I accept that I care, it feels right and good, and that makes the pain intensify to a burning degree. I see these shitty things and I finally let it in to my heart how awful it is and that makes me so angry and sad.

So I quit. I quit that and I quit some other places. Sometimes the best way to improve your life is to cut out what's hurting you. Even if cutting it out hurts a lot in the process. and yeah I've had twitter since 2009, active since like 2012 maybe? But I don't have a healthy relationship to it. I'll probably return some day with maybe a better mindset. Maybe some other changes, who knows. I probably won't be able to stay off something that generated such amazing tweets occasionally.... But wait a second, that's exactly how I felt about 4chan, I realize just now as I wrote that, and I managed to stay very far away from that after finally breaking it.

Life is a journey. And while I always feel like I can't wait to see what's next, right now I'll learn how to be a girl myself.

Many mixed feelings today. On the one hand I was tasked with DNS switching a production server today and, as anyone in tech can tell you, that never goes as smoothly as you want it to. And in the process I also had to deadname myself a lot. I'm getting used to that taste of ash in my mouth because I'm going to be hearing this name for a good while longer but it doesn't make it hurt less. However when you're in a phone conversation trying to get a DNS switched over you just don't have time to stop talking just because your assigned gender isn't the right one. I may be imagining things but I feel like my skin care routine is going good things to my face. I stop to look in the mirror and try my best to forget about the face and instead just look at the skin. And the skin looks alright? Could be a lot better but that's why girls use makeup isn't it. Oh I just reminded myself of my beard stubble and now I feel a little nauseous. I almost finished lunch today. Which isn't as good as it sounds because it was a very small lunch box and I skipped eating half the rice. Also speaking of calories I nearly hit my normal weight loss goal yesterday, only off by 150kcal. That's a plus I think? But eating so much now makes me hate eating even more. Maybe I do actually have an eating disorder now. It would make sense seeing as with the deep hatred for my body and my weight I can't think of anything I want more than to lose weight. And this is where my high weight loss knowledge actually works against me because I am really good at controlling my weight and I keep very close track of my caloric intake so I can't even accidentally eat too much. I want to eat around 1800 to lose weight but my brain is telling me that's way too much. And if I eat a normal sized meal I really do start feeling ill. The food starts tasting bad even. At least on the plus side, being this knowledgeable about weight loss, means I know when it becomes enough of a problem to see the doctor about.

Oh wow did I ever get horny today. I saw this hot trans guy on twitter and nearly died right there he was so hot. Which sucked because I was stuck at work and was trying desperately to not fan myself. But this is very unusual to me because I've never felt horny like that before, certainly not over online people like this. And I immediately knew why.

I was never, ever, not once in my whole fucking life, comfortable with my sexuality.

Not once did I feel attraction to someone that wasn't immediately followed by shame. Never did I feel like I could express my sexuality. I blamed it on men being creepy fucks in general, which they are, but that was never true. You can be a sexual human and also not extremely creepy as a male, you just have to try harder than some. And as a girl who's very good at what she does I do know a thing or 2 about how to get good at stuff. But no matter how much I tried to express my sexuality in a healthy way I could never do it. The finish line, feeling like my sexuality was a healthy part of me, always seemed impossibly far away no matter how hard I tried. I got into weirder and weirder fetishes along the way too. Let's not talk about that. Not yet. I know what I did, me. But to be fair to myself I was and will always be a kinky weirdo. Anway, feeling attracted to that person didn't feel wrong. I didn't feel like I was being a sex pervert or creep. And that's a feeling I've never had before. I hope really badly that from now even when I'm expressing my sexuality I won't be a sex pervert but so far it doesn't feel like it. And if nothing else I feel comfortable expressing it now.

Know what's cool? Sitting in a meeting and hearing your boss say how we're “hiring another woman to the crew” and being like “oh my god I can't fucking wait to come out”. As soon as he said it it hit me hard inside. But I'll figure out a way to get there asap. I wanna be another crew woman so I can shed this pretended of masculinity. I wonder if they've noticed a change in behaviour yet. I mean I do just blurt out normal people social things like “so how was your weekend?” Which I probably never did before. And the stickers, which are super good, have gone uncommented on so far today as of 14:02. But to be fair to them they are sitting upside down with how my laptop is so they're not that easy to read and I haven't needed the laptop in a meeting yet. Now I guess I gotta add small subtle feminine things to my life one piece at a time. A more feminine walk, androgynous clothing, maybe makeup. Oh god the thought of wearing makeup to work makes me fucking panic right now. Not because I don't want to, I would love to, but because I know how shit newbies are at makeup and I don't want to look like a clown. But like the trans girl I came out to said, every girl has to look like a clown when starting makeup. It's a rite of passage.

I want to shed this masculine form so damn much. I've never known how to present masculine. I could never figure out how to dress like a male. For my whole life, even as a kid, I recoiled at the idea of putting in a suit. Nevermind a goddamn tie. And the pants? Horrible. I thought because they were uncomfortable. But maybe there were other things at play that I didn't have words or emotional maturity to express. I can't say for sure since I've felt this way for so long that I have no idea what I told myself at like age 5 so that I could have a chance at deconstructing the thoughts. I wish I did though. I wonder what I would have seen myself do and think growing up if I could watch over myself like trans guardian angel. The thought excites me so much as, I've already said, I've always badly wanted a deep dive into other people's minds. Even if it's my own mind. Hell, especially if it's my own mind. I can know what I'm thinking but I can't figure out why and with a therapist there's this wholly inefficient layer of language bridged communication that needs to take place. Computers do that too but we can and do make them faster all the time. And the only limit is how fast we can put things into computers. Like how right now I'm typing this into this box and I have my thoughts but I need to first translate them to language and then translate them to kinetic finger force. Eventually, through a long process that can only be described as magic and TCP/IP, you'll be able to read these words. I'll be able to read these words myself, in the future. Oh yeah, speaking of. Hey Zoey, back these words up you lovely girl. They're as much for you as they are for the others even if this is public.

I want to walk like a girl. I want the face of a girl. I want the skin. And I want the body shape. Not the hourglass shape, just enough that I don't get misgendered anymore. Enough that I can put on cute dresses at girl sizes and walk around in them. That's me. I love cute clothing but I never admitted it to myself. Hell, all I ever wanted to buy for myself clothing wise was colorful clothing that I could excuse with extremely online irony. “Haha I just like memes”. I mean memes are good but more than that I wanted to feel fucking cute. Repressed those feelings hard though and pretended like it was nothing. This one time a girl made a girl avatar of me. Held on to that one, made it my image on a place. Loved it but could never describe why because I had no idea what that feeling was. “I just like fan art of myself” I said. That is also true, of course, I love it when people do sweet things for me. But I could never extend that the other way, it never felt right. Because I got the impression I shouldn't. And it sure doesn't explain why specifically the female me felt so good inside.

Ok so I made the diary public and shared it with… a lot of followers. It seems like kind of a bold move at best even to me when I first wrote that toot sharing it with the world of Mastodon. I'm usually such a private person I like to tell myself yet I'll openly just share my innermost thoughts and insecurities with anyone who stumbles upon my little internet abode consisting of 3 accounts and a couch I haven't cleaned in a while. But the other thing that I need to remember is that I love challenging myself. It's why I cut off some social welfare lines of help before I found a job. I wanted to put a clock on myself since I deep down inside knew I was good enough. And that's what's happening here with the diary, why I just put it out there. Also because I just think it would be a cool thing to see myself if I was another person in the LGBTQ community. Like imagine having a peak into someone else's mind not just after the fact but as they're going through it. I love the idea of that so much and for my whole life I've wanted the ability to view myself entirely from the perspective of someone else's eyes and brain. To really know every little thought they have about me and everything they're thinking about when they look at me. But I can't do that because, well, it's impossible. But what I can do is write down my own thoughts as they appear and share them with the world enabling the closest possible experience to that as possible.

So those 2 things combine to just make me want to throw myself out in the deep end and absolutely say really dumb things I will regret bad at some point in my life. Exposing myself as much as possible because I would want someone else to do it and because it's a really tough thing to do. I've played a lot of games in my life. A lot. And what I loved the most about them was the challenge. The part where when you played them you would find something new and use your own brain to overcome it. Now that I've grown up, I fixed myself enough to have a job, an apartment, a life… Games just don't feel challenging anymore. Yeah they're hard but that's not really the same thing to me. What's challenging is being a devastatingly broken person and still making stuff, to keep going. There's nothing wrong with failing to do this but, and never take my advice on this it only works for me, I do beat myself up for failing. So now that I have a fairly stable life and I see a challenge… I want it. I wanna jump on it. On top of that it's literally a once in a lifetime chance to do it. I can't ever get another shot at this. My diseased brain needs it to keep going, to keep running. It gives me life.

My new avatar! Really love this one. Playlist to set the mood. Spotify Hardstyle playlist

I was so tired and still in subspace for so long yesterday that I really couldn't write more of an update that night. I now have a pic of my back looking scratched up as hell and it's one of the only body pics of myself after cracking that I can look at and not feel bad. Probably because it's me looking broken, frail, and weak, like how I feel inside. Who knew being a masochist could feel so good? Maybe I turned out like this because I hate my body a lot now and the pain causes me to feel right instead of wrong. Maybe once I physically transition and pass I will feel less good about being hurt like this but I hope not. I still want to be really kinky no matter what since I always did identify with being kinky. Although what's funny is that before I cracked I always felt like the person I was dominating was getting the better end of the deal. And now after being the sub I can definitely say that it's true, the sub has a lot more fun.

What little I did write was true though. Coming out in person still makes me feel like shit. And I think it's because of what I touched on some days ago, that I don't like just coming to people with a problem, I like coming to people with a solution. Which means I much prefer having the HRT in hand as I'm telling them. Then I'm much more comfortable saying “Hey I'm trans and it's going to fuck my life up for a while but I already know how to fix it so please don't come with suggestions I don't want.” I guess that touches on some insecurities and problems I deal with internally. Or maybe I just always hated mansplaining, if that's what it is. Is it ok to not be ok with people coming to you with advice that you already tried several times because it's the only advice people ever give? Is it ok to just want to politely yet firmly want to tell someone that yes you already tried that, the same as all the other many times people suggested “maybe try meditation to fix your insomnia?”. I'm so tired of that stuff and I guess that's just going to continue happening. Maybe that's why I've always been uncomfortable sharing stuff with the majority of people.

I'm sorting out my online personas now in the places where I chat the most. Looking up aesthetics and fixing things that need fixing. Still, though while it feels very nice having a colorful profile and referring to myself as girl everywhere, it keeps reminding me how hard it is and how long it's going to be until I can do the same but in real life. Until I finally feel comfortable presenting fem. I'm good at long journeys so I'm not too worried about it and my goals are fairly low which makes me comfortable I'll get to where I want. Funny story about long journeys, my name (Zoey) is inspired by The Longest Journey: Dreamfall. A game I have never played yet watched being played through several times by several different people. I don't know why it always meant so much to me but the game always seemed fantastic. It's just not a game that I, myself, want to play. But the main girl, Zoë Maya Castillo, dresses fantastically and long before I cracked I absolutely loved her looks.

Omg! Look at her! That's a fucking style if you ask me.

After a bit of looking in the mirror just now I believe I can be cute even before HRT. It's going to require a lot of work and makeup, and a much better wardrobe than the slouch t-shirts I'm oh so used to. But I can do it, I can get there. I have great skin and with a skincare routine it'll just be better. Gotta lose all this flab. There's a lot of work to do but I know I can get there because I've done it in the past. At least the weight part, but I never could quite figure out clothing. I mean I know why I couldn't now but back then I just couldn't bring myself to care about clothing and whatnot. It was simply all masculine expectations and I didn't want it. I never looked at guys and thought “Oh, I want to dress like that” and the times I looked at girls and thought they looked fantastic I just repressed hard and didn't think about it further. But today? I spent a good hour or 2 just looking at cool drawings of girls for inspiration on how to proceed my own style and persona. That image at the top is the result of it for now! There as another amazing image I found though and I want to share that one too.

Ugh ugh look at her!!!