PDA fae

Category: queer

  • Advice for the teens

    Hi, you teeny terror tots

    • learn to accept deadlines as a way to channel your passions
      • whether that’s uni, starting a business, cleanliness, whatever: deadlines are a part of life. Don’t take them too seriously, because the only ultimate one is actual death, but still
    • learn to tidy AND learn to clean
      • Anyway you can, anyway how
      • These are the skills that truly prevent self-neglect
    • I bet you’re a better cook than I am!
      • If not, start out with baking
    • Embrace your own personal form of brilliance
    • Learn to use some form of AAC
      • A big part of PDA is the language aspect, and AAC helps all humans communicate
      • even if it’s just a ‘I’m ok, I’m NOT ok’ wristband – you’ll help all your interpersonal relationships
    • Learn to be ok with your own company, and learn when you’re getting too intense about one specific person
      • No one loves being the focus of a special interest/a favourite person – not even your partner
    • Forge your own paths, please: we’ve all got ways to shine.
    • Also; let’s teach this world the beauty of stimming, eh?

  • relationship anarchy and being gentle with my selves

    I need alternative relationships – I’m demiromantic, for a start. We’ve been talking about the concept of relationship anarchy and all interpersonal relationships in a persons life being (close to) equal.

    For me, I would prioritise a queerplatonic (QPR) or romantic partner, but all my other relationships are equal. Family is not more important than friends for example. Discussing this helps me learn how to make these kind of approaches work healthily. I want to structure my social network that only those who can cope with being equal to everyone else remain in the network, over time, but first I need to build a stronger network in line with that principle.

    I’d hope to find a QPR or romantic partner, but that can come with time.

    I wanted to share a resource that was shared as part of the discussion: https://robynlposin.com/being-gentle-with-our-selves. It’s important to allow ourselves to be very gentle with ourselves in life, and to avoid what we need to avoid. Particularly for me, being gentle with ‘my selves’ is an important concept. I don’t want to push my inner child too hard, and I want to learn to work with my inner critic for example.

  • Not the way to do it

    Once again, a crafting session at my supported housing involve staff being demanding. I wish they’d understand the more pressure they put me under, the more I’m going to NOT do the thing!

    They don’t seem to understand that PDA applies to any and all demands, and just because something is ‘fun’ doesn’t mean you can’t make it into a demand that will be avoided. In this instance, it turned out I’d made something slightly incorrectly, and I said I couldn’t be bothered to correct it, which lead to,”that’s not the attitude!” and “you should finish what you started!”, followed by a resident chiming in with “don’t be so lazy”.

    Not the way to get any PDAer to do, well, anything. If there’s a correct response it’d be closer to something like “that’s fair, only do what you feel like doing”. I really don’t get why they can’t take that approach, it’s not difficult, and it makes me feel like they think PDA is a load of rubbish that needs a firm hand to enforce taking part.

    I don’t appreciate it. I’m forever reminded that everyone has something they’ll feel absolutely fine forcing other people to do, or attempting to force. As a child, those moments weren’t safe, as an adult… you can’t physically make me, and as I did today, I’m likely to simply leave the situation rather than continue to be in your presence. It’s not something I have to tolerate anymore.

  • GIC referral

    My GP agreed to make a referral to a gender identity clinic today, which is really exciting. A lot of me can’t even believe I’ve really dared ask for this. It’s a two year waitlist to be seen for the first time which isn’t great, but as of today the process is officially started.

    I’m hoping for top surgery, because my boobs bring me a lot of dypshoria. Unfortunately, my GP informed me that in order to be eligible for surgery, I would need to spend the two years of waiting losing weight.

    Which is a huge demand.

    It’s going to be so difficult to sustain keeping active to see sufficient weight loss. I’ve been looking up beginners home workouts, and the more I looked, the more my brain went ‘no no. nope. no way’. It’s not even that I’m not motivated, top surgery is a brilliant motivator. Not having to live with so much dysphoria and misgendering is as big a motivator as it gets.

    But it’s a demand. It’s something I have to do.

    It feels impossible. Insurmountable. Something I’m never going to be able to persuade myself to do frequently enough to make any real difference.

    PDA makes life hard. It especially sucks when it gets in the way of something you’d otherwise really want.

  • Nonbinary

    I’ve recently started transitioning to live as neither male or female. I’m nonbinary. Specifically, bigenderflux. Which is to say, my gender fluctuates in intensity from male to female, e.g. gender neutral, to very female, to slightly male etc.

    I’ve known I’m nonbinary for years. I realised in my late teens, around 17/18. It felt like my group of friends at the time were very much discovering themselves as either men or women, and refining those identities. All I could feel was ‘I don’t want to have to be either Male or Female’. I’m pretty sure I experienced the gender binary as a demand. I very much wanted to encapsulate both experiences, and to have both options open to myself.

    It was from this feeling that I discovered the concept of nonbinary genders, and felt so at home. I explored a range of identities, gender fluid being one of the main ones. None felt right until I took this quiz and discovered the ‘flux’ gender identities, and coupled it with bigender.

    In the last 6 months, I’ve changed my name to a gender neutral name. My parents are largely ignoring this, meaning family friends simply haven’t been informed. At work, and at my supported accommodation though, I’m referred to by my new name and it feels so good.

    Tomorrow I have an appointment with my GP to ask to be referred to a gender identity clinic. I’m hoping to eventually get top surgery as my boobs cause me dysphoria (as does my height, but that’s not really possible to change).

    I also need to widen my wardrobe so I can present more masculine as well as femme. My friend has been helping me with this, and my key worker is planning to give me support with this as well. It’s really good to have people validating me and helping me with this. It’s good to live authentically.