• ValenThyme@reddthat.comOP
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    3 days ago

    hey sis! If you’re as pretty as me you are gonna have a good time! If you look at my post on the makeup comm you can see my boy face better without the glasses. I’m going to be 50 in a couple years.

    When i first shaved my beard (after not shaving it for over 10 years) it was physically painful to see my face in the mirror. The vagus nerve in my chest would clench with anxiety. I hated my face so much.

    My therapist helped me work out affirmations based on this meme a trans friend sent me that i was in love with:

    So every night i spend an hour walking and I spent a lot of the time repeating out loud to myself over and over ‘ValenThyme is so pretty and she loves herself limitlessly’ and variations of that.

    I wasn’t raised positively and was pushed to reduce my feminine behavior. Nobody ever told me I was a pretty girl. So i told myself, a thousand times. And my dumb crow brain listened. And now it is true, I love myself limitlessly and I can see the pretty girl when I look at myself. Okay we are a woman now, the beginning stages of an old lady probably. Whatever, I love myself limitlessly and I’m going to spend the rest of my days doing the things that make me happy.

    It sounds like you are learning to see the true happy you inside and that is tremendous! Love yourself limitlessly and be free with us the skies are delightful!

    • katja@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 days ago

      Maybe not as pretty as you, but I’ll take it. I will also turn 50 in a couple of years ago.

      I feel you about the beard, I had mine for the better part of 20 years. My face was not pleased with me when I shaved. Shocked, even.

      I’m one of those that managed to hide my inner girl even from myself until pretty recently. Oh, there were clues and signs aplenty but I didn’t see 'em. I’ve never been classically feminine or even had classically feminine interests which is part of why it took me so long to understand. I’m more of a grease monkey biker chick. I know that’s valid of course, but it did hamper my discovery. How much of that is me and much is “the mask”, I don’t know. I do buy and wear a lot of pink stuff too, so who knows? But I try to not worry too much about it, I can’t go around second guessing everything I do.

      But I always disliked what I saw in the mirror and a low self confidence is par for the course with that. I will try your method of convincing myself I’ve been wrong all these years. Can’t hurt. As you say, we’re beautiful. Now I just gotta believe it too. 😅

      • ValenThyme@reddthat.comOP
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        2 days ago

        oh i’m stealing ‘in a couple years ago’ that’s great.

        I think one nice thing about transitioning later is it seems easier for us to not give a fuck. I sort of force-masced myself 30 years ago and now i’m delighting in undoing all of that.

        The affirmations really work, especially if you say them out loud. A lot of advertising and self hypnosis works because the brain puts fewer filters between direct audio and your mind. If you distract the executive network and the salience network is relaxed your brain just kind of accepts things it hears at a low level.

        Good luck darling I believe in you <3

        • katja@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 days ago

          I have already started the affirmations. Feels a little weird, but I think it will work. Thank you so much. <3