transretrogurl

Holy crap on the proverbial cracker, this isolation stuff is getting ridiculously hard. Partly because we have key members of the government, or at least their ‘aides’ (for aide see ‘Grima Wormtongue for details), flagrantly ignoring the restrictions because obviously they know better/are better/delete as appropriate. But mostly because it just seems to be stress on top of stress on top of stress.

And the problem is we all brush it off, talk about ‘doing it for the NHS’ and other pithy, and quite incorrect, statements, while ignoring the damage that is being done to our psyches.

For the normal people (and let’s call them muggles….. actually, let’s not, because f*ck the woman who wrote Harry Potter and her anti-trans stance) this is terribly hard, For us people who have whatever degree of gender confusion and issues it’s bloody hard.

[Pictured] Yeah, I’m on a rant about losing what little pink marbles I had before during his lockdown, so the pictures are just going to be my fave looks and pithy comments. As per usual. I love this frock BTW, coolest maternity dress ever…..

From a personal perspective you can chuck in a cracked filling that hurts all the time, a torn back that is tottering on giving me the same screaming-night-o-fun that I had at the end of the last year (the doctor and physio did warn me that this damage wouldn’t go away and would flare up from time to time – I was hoping it would flare up in the winter when I could just wrap up warm and be comfortably miserable in front of a roaring fire, rather than in 25C+ temperatures under effective house arrest) and a deep sadness and longing for some (damn) Sarah time.

The thing is this – I know how bad Covid-19 can be. Believe me, I spend a lot of time poring over statistics and proper medical papers on the subject, and the damn infection is far closer to Ebola in behaviour than the normal flu. Guess if they’d said that at the start people wouldn’t have been so cavalier about flaunting the lockdown (which is possibly/probably why the UK has the second highest death rate. Oh wait, *third* highest death rate because China is lying about their deaths – 4986 given Wuhan was the hotspot? Really?). Feel free to flick over the next paragraph if you’re not into the science of it all…..

[Pictured] 1940s Kindergarten teacher look. This dress is such a lot of fun to wear and you can’t but help but play the role when wrapped in a silky underdress and floral wonderfulness

How Covid-19 effects the body is after the initial viral load which causes some of the standard viral symptoms, such as the cough, conjunctivitis (WHO is now saying that’s one of the signs, pretty happy I didn’t rack up to Cindy’s place with my blood-red eyes on Feb 26th…), fever and the like, the body goes into an accelerated response to the viral load. This leads to a massive over-reaction in terms of T-cells and the blood becomes extremely thick and ‘sticky’. This coagulation of the blood due to an over-production of white blood cells is the killer – it massively reduces the uptake of Oxygen in the lungs (because the blood is saturated with white cells at the expense of haemoglobin), and the clotting causes serious Oedema, strokes, organ failure. It is literally more of a sticky blood virus that a flu virus. 

Anyway, what has all this to do with my constant internal battle between him and her? This takes me back to why I think the T community, as a group, is suffering a lot under this lockdown. Not the ones who can dress at will or are post-transition, but the others who require medical procedures, most of which have been put on hold, or the ones who need that little me/girl time.

[Pictured] The one and only time I’ve worn a full rubber catsuit. It was fun but holy hellfire it took a lot of engineering just to get the thing on. And I swear I ingested so much talcum powder through my pores that I was sweating florally flavours for months.

Some things that should have been apparent to me before have become glaringly obvious now. I work to get money and I want to spend that money on being Sarah. Period. Without the little bit of spice I’m rapidly losing the urge to work. I always thought it was about career but my perspective and needs have changed – I put up with the insane hours, hard work stress and constant unhappiness with the male persona because I can have time as the person that makes me happy.

[Pictured] Ah, a little gothic black velvet number. And a pose that I’m not sure I can do now due to my back. Worth it though….

And right now I can’t. And I haven’t been able since December 8th, a day that will live in infamy for so many reasons. Happily Cindy is planning to re-open but the first time I will, possibly, get a chance to be Sarah again will be July 26th.

That’s seven whole months between sessions.

And what’s also adding stress, because the brain is an evil bastard at times, is the thought that I’ve gone past the peek, that having this long away from Sarah will have destroyed my ability to slip into her, if you’ll pardon the expression. Or that this number of months of total, constant stress, of over-eating and (very much) over drinking will lead me to be a bloated, wrinkled sack of sadness by the time I get to shave and slip into the makeup and frocks again.

[Pictured] Shock horror, I may have to start dressing age aware, if not gender aware. Plus side is there’s a kinky side of me that likes seeing Sarah as an ‘Auntie’.

Of course it isn’t true, but the nature of the times and the way in which the media has flooded our waking senses with negativity means that a lot of these quiet inner worries are now at the forefront of the brain all the damn time. And it’s wearing.

On top of that chuck in the cabin fever of being in the same set of rooms with no break for three months, and now the inability to sleep at night and et voila, that’s where I am right now.

Of course, writing the blog is cathartic in so many ways; I’ve made an effort to still post interesting pictures and naughty captions to all my social media outlets as often as I can. But it’s been *months* since I wrote a blogpost simply because on top of all the stress the urge to be creative has been stifled as well.

[Pictured] Or sod the age appropriate and just go for the MILF/Cougar look. 

So how to deal with it? Alcohol, while fun, is not the answer (awww). The answer is simple – change. No, not the radical stuff, not the purge, nothing to do with the he/she dilemma. For me what I am in the process of doing is radically changing the space I’m stuck in. A change *is* as good as a rest, and now I have a target date (assuming we don’t second spike the damn virus because everyone is now ignoring the lockdown courtesy of Cummings, at least over here).

So, I’ve built myself a new office – I have been (luckily) working from home but working in my bedroom, literally a foot from where I sleep. I got a new adjustable standing/sitting desk and moved all my work kit there so my rest space has no sign of anything work in it.

I’m trying something fun in terms of dieting, something I heard on, of all things, the Last Podcast On The Left (if you’ve not heard it, it’s a Godsend and the humour has kept me just this side of sane for the last couple of months). It’s called the glass of water diet.

[Pictured] Water dear, not beer. But while you’re here….

I know, sounds faddy, but stick with me on this. Every time I get hungry or prepare a meal, I drink a pint of water before I start to cook or eat. If I do it before I start to cook, I feel less hunger and less need to prepare a big meal. If I drink it before I start to eat I lose the urge to top up after with something sweet, or go back for seconds. It is surprisingly effective. Plus we hardly drink enough water anyway and this helps.

It is too easy, especially in these times which there haven’t been before, to fall into cycles of repetition. Another thing I’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks is my short-term memory has literally gone to pot. Because we are doing the same things every day the brain will start to short-cut the similar stuff – good example of this, before I tore my back, was that I did a stupid amount of cycling in April – 302 miles to be precise, and where I live, Herefordshire, isn’t known for being flat. One day last week I went out and did my standard 15.6 mile route (I’ve done it so much I know the .6 bit now). When I got home I showered, and started work. After thirty minutes of work I realised I couldn’t remember where I had cycled. I literally couldn’t have told you if I had cycled or not.

That’s not a good sign.

[Pictured] Short term memory issues? Well, I guess I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about that. About what? Damn.

So, in order to re-energise and start to get the old Sarah juices flowing in advance of the 26th July I’ve done a complete reformat of my internal brain hard disk and reinstalled the OS at factoryish defaults. New office, new approach to food, just trying to break the cycle of nothingness that isolation has introduced.

And the point of this post? Well, just to show I’m still alive for a start, and being able to get up the urge to write something, anything, is a nice change. Which is part of my internal way of breaking out of this isolation depression.

[Pictured] That and hoping that I don’t have to buy yet another Xmas themed frock for my next session. December would be a long time to wait….

So, if you feel that this is the hardest time, and a lot of us are, just try and change something, be it as little or as large as you can. We are hopefully in the last stage of this and it will get better soon, and we need to start thinking about how to make ourselves happier and not let us succumb to the long term effects of this stress.

So stay beautiful, but try and do it in new and interesting ways……

[Pictured] Like dressing as a witch in a novelty Halloween costume. Just for example, of course.