MeghanIsMe

I find it a little hard to keep up here because writing everything up for Facebook, and then copying it here and to Livejournal manually, takes time, and I don't always do it at the same time even though I keep wanting to. At one point, I was thinking about learning enough Javascript to write something that will automate this for me, but I didn't follow through. (Though I did end up sort of pivoting to learning enough C++ to write LED control code for my computer case lights!)

Anyway, some stuff has been happening!

Someone posted a meme that I related very strongly to and I wrote about it. The meme text said:

---
In text attributed to blueberrygoth, it reads "ive known so many "cis" people who've told me they thought they might be trans or nonbinary but they don't really experience dysphoria so they felt like werent allowed to call themselves trans. how many people have had to live their lives in the closet because they were told they werent in enough pain"

Then, follow up text attributed to thatse-corvid-core-babey reads "i've said it once and i'll say it again. EUPHORIA is the greatest identifier of a trans person. not dysphoria. dysphoria is hard to define and thus it's hard to regulate what is and isn't dysphoria. but euphoria? that feeling u get when someone uses the right pronouns? that "i can't contain my smile" sort of joy? THATS what the trans experience is all about. that's what unites us"

---

I wish someone had told me this 25 years ago. I was too disassociated to feel much dysphoria, but the euphoria was *always* there. I just didn't understand.

I do have dysphoria now that I understand who I am and I feel the ways my body doesn't match. But the absolute delirious happiness I've found since consciously living as the correct sex is worth it a thousand times over.

While I was out at Costco yesterday getting my prescriptions, I talked to the pharmacist about getting the two accounts I had there (from two different doctors prescribing with two different names) combined. He confirmed which name I want to use and said "I'll get that taken care of for you Meg." Literally, the whole rest of the day, I was having flashes of joy about him calling me Meg and seeing me as a woman. As I drifted off to sleep that night, I spent a little while saying to myself, out loud, "I'm Meghan. Meghan. Meghan. I'm Meghan," and I simply don't have words for the joy I feel just knowing that and seeing that other people know that.

As the story about people offering free "mom hugs" and "dad hugs" at pride events has circulated, it's reminded me of the way I feel about memes of a similar nature. Memes saying things like "If your parent doesn't accept you, I'm your parent now!" I've never really thought that those gesture have a deep emotional affect on people. My own reaction has been that it's a cute, easy thing to do that will maybe give a few people a smile. Seeing the way that those things can reach deep into hurting people and give them some comfort is both amazing and confusing to me.

What makes it not work for me is that it's just entirely impersonal. It might be nice of someone to say that they want to be a caring family member to me, but...if it's someone I don't know who I just happen to see in person at a major event, they are empty words. This is even more true when it's a meme that gets shared online with people who don't even know the person who's sharing it or who wrote the words. I feel like if I had grown up without a parent who loved me and I saw someone casually offering to take on that role for every passing individual, it would just hurt me. It would remind me of what I didn't have and what could never be replaced by a shallow and impersonal, if well-meaning, expression of care.

I love it when people who I care about and who care about me send me encouraging pictures of potatos or puppies telling me how good a job I'm doing, but that's because it's personal. It's from someone who knows me and believes in me. Without that context, I just don't get anything from it.

----

A friend responded on Facebook with a story about how her mother said that if she'd known that my friend and her brother would turn out queer she wouldn't have had kids. That she was suicidal as a teen and that kind of expression of care would have touched her deeply. In response, I wrote:

"I'm so sorry you experienced that. *hugs*

It clearly means a great deal to some people, and I'm glad it helps them. I suspect it's one of those things that's impossible for me to understand. And I'm realizing, as I think about these things together, that it may actually shape my entire relationship with things like Facebook, where that kind of impersonal sentiment of care is so common. Maybe that's part of what really drives people's engagement with the platform, and I'm over to one side going 'what's with all these silly memes? Why doesn't anyone actually want to talk and connect?'

Maybe we're all looking for the same things (feelings of care and connection), but I don't get those feelings from the same things that most other users of the platform do."

A Facebook Friend shared this:





I reshared it, and noted that: "Perhaps the font should be bigger and friendlier for people who don't read much. And maybe we need to take out the really long words, like "governors." Some of the governors who need to read this might not understand what "governor" actually means."

----

On a lighter note, another Facebook friend shared a recording of the Dr. Who theme played on hurdy gurdy, harpsichord, and recorder. I love it so much! It feels like the Dr. Who Theme remixed by Kenneth W. Arnold in the style of Britannian Gypsy music. (Now there's a potentially obscure reference for you at this point....)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sN6y3hBZFM