Every millennial ever making their first email:

(mine is a fandom RP name from when I was 13)

right like the actual reason is obvious but what's the "official" / stated reason?

It was a fucking banger and a true classic of this millennium's tween years you tasteless, joyless, spork sharpener.

addendum: the lil "discourse" below this comment is 🍫🍿🥤

yeah my mastectomy is on the books as alleviating back pain. and like. it did do that!

a lot of people don't wanna have this discussion because at face value it reads too much like saying being trans is a mental illness but

the #1 predictor of the development of a cluster b personality disorder (such as borderline, which is famous for this kind of behavior) is a consistently inconsistent pattern of emotional invalidation throughout early and middle childhood. So there are times where mom / dad / primary caregiver said "oh no! that's terrible. Here's how I deal with being upset by that" but there were other times they were like "no that's dumb and weird nobody normal feels like that you should just stop feeling that way." and that pattern continues on-and-off some things being validated some things not being validated over that extended period.

...and that basically just describes the experience of being being raised in a social environment that's hostile to their lived experiences as a trans child. That plus all the community elders getting picked off by AIDS means there's limited healthy emotional adjustment within the lgbt subculture as well.

TLDR - no shit they all act fucking feral there's a massive shortage of healthy and supportive social structures.

a few weeks ago the cat jumped up on the couch behind me to start gagging right over my head. it was a whole new level of Audacity that I never even knew existed.

I remember watching a short film as a teenager where homosexuality was the norm and being straight / having reproductive sex outside of deliberate family planning was seen as sinful / socially irresponsible. A young hetero girl makes an attempt by exsanguiation. I don't remember the name of it though.

here's a markdown formatted quit plan for your notes app (based on this) with bullets for common answers to the questions that you can delete if they don't apply / keep or add ones that do.

# Quit Plan

---

## Quit Date
_Choose a date within the next two weeks._

**Quit Date:** [YYYY-MM-DD]

**What to expect**
- **1 week:** Nicotine is out of your system  
- **2 weeks:** Physical withdrawal symptoms fade  
- **1 month:** Habit- and emotion-driven cravings may continue  

---

## Reasons for Quitting

- Feel healthier / Live longer
- Save Money
- See my kids grow up / set a better example
- Look healthier / smell better
- Reduce stress between uses


---

## Triggers
_Knowing your triggers helps you plan around them._

### Emotional
- Feeling stressed
- Feeling anxious
- Feeling down
- Feeling lonely
- Feeling bored
- After conflict

### Situational
- Talking on the phone
- Drinking alcohol
- Watching TV
- Driving
- Finishing a meal
- Drinking coffee
- Work breaks
- After sex

### Social / Environmental
- Bars or parties
- Social events
- Seeing someone else smoke

---

## Coping Strategies

### If your hands or mouth need something to do
- Hold a straw or pen and focus on breathing
- Fidget with a coin or paperclip

### If you use tobacco to manage stress or mood
- Slow breathing or short bursts of exercise
- Talk it out with someone you trust

### If boredom or restlessness is the problem
_Keep a short “craving list”:_
  - [TASK]
  - [TASK]
  - [TASK]

### If you feel irritable or anxious without nicotine
- Consider nicotine replacement (patch, gum, lozenge)

### If you used tobacco for energy
- Light exercise
- Regular meals and healthy snacks
- Adequate sleep

### If you used tobacco for pleasure or relaxation
_Substitute another reward:_
  - Music
  - Movies
  - Saving money for something specific

---

## Remove Reminders
_(Before Quit Day)_
- Wash clothes that smell like smoke
- Clean your car
- Discard tobacco, lighters, ashtrays
- Place coping tools where tobacco used to be

---

## Support (Optional)
_Quitting is easier with backup._
- [NAME / ROLE]
- [NAME / ROLE]

---

## Personal Notes

...and if you're a transgirl I'd like to add to your reasons list that estrogen + smoking significantly increases the coagulability of your blood. I've had several transgirl patients with DVTs / PEs / strokes even who did not know that can happen!

When we got the puppy I had intentionally left the cat's claws untrimmed for a little over a month leading up and a few after. it certainly wasn't the only way we trained the dog to be respectful of the cat, but it definitely helped! These days we've progressed to more advanced socialization; cuddling on either side of me in exchange for treats. sometimes on a pretty good day I can get them to sit on the same side with a few inches in between, and on a very good day the cat accidentally rubs her face on the dog's paw while aiming for my hand (the look of surprised disgust is hilarious). The biggest rule that really helped was teaching the dog that if the cat is close by the dog should be belly up. Helps the cat feel safer and makes it less likely the dog will chase.

wound up having one of those "longer than it should have been" conversations with an outgoing nurse during shift handoff because she was very confused as to why the patient would change their gender but also pursue relationships with the sex opposite to that which they were assigned at birth. I finally just said "she 👏 wants 👏 to 👏 be 👏 a 👏 lesbian 👏" and I hate to admit that it still absolutely sent me when she said "oh. well did anybody tell her she didn't have to be?"

@ 30 22 feels waaay too damn young. tf am I even gonna talk to this person about? I'm a decade in to a high stress high reliability industry. I'm starting to get Greg grey hairs! I make jokes about all the child rapists I met while working for the state! Too much happened in that 8 years between us. Too damn much.

The fucking nursing assistants at work were showing each other pics instead of listening to shift report. Watching the public reaction to this event has been wild. I like the Gianmarco Soresi bit: "a lot of my conservative friends are starting to like the idea of free healthcare, and a lot of my liberal friends just got reeeal OK with guns!" It was also wild watching the press try to make him a bad guy then suddenly turn and try to bury any news when that didn't go how they hoped. Very uniquely unifying event.

Because it turns out I don't actually want facial hair and I can't undo that easily / cheaply so now I'm stuck with weird little patches on the side of my chin that I'm constantly scratching open when I forget to keep them plucked. Now, I'm still considering doing the rest of the hormone course, I just also keep in mind that I might have to plan for electrolysis concurrently. It turns out making permanent changes to your body is actually something to ponder for a second.

there have been several cases over the years of people plowing their car into the ER waiting room when the heat attack / stroke finally gets too severe.

ok but why is my husband this fucking funny:

no but the above is what I tell my coworkers when they ask why so many of our trans patients act cluster b AF. It's partly because our sample, being inpatient, is gonna have a higher incidence overall, but it's also because that constellation of behaviors is caused by a very specific type of relatively lowkey but super chronic trauma that's unfortunately common for that population to be exposed to.

interestingly there is a (rare) phenomenon where the male partner gets some or all of the menstrual or pregnancy symptoms. Apparently my grandmother could tell she was pregnant (she had 10 total not including miscarriages) because my grandfather would get morning sickness! Partially explains how she managed to have 10 if she wasn't having to deal with all the symptoms herself.

It's called "Couvade Syndrome." Obviously a lot of it is likely somatic but apparently there are measurable changes in hormone levels in the partner. Humans did evolve to co-parent offspring so it makes sense that there would be physiological changes to support that.

As an aside, apparently the local doctor told her it was a shame she'd already had her appendix out because otherwise he could do a prophylactic appendectomy and "accidentally" cut her tubes while he was in there.

idk I think people shouldn't be able to sell their children into marriages at 14 years old just because they don't share my beliefs that that's horrible. Meanwhile they think that an abortion harms a child in a way that outweighs b the mother's right to decide whether or not her body gets used as life support and I don't. I think whether or not it's important to meddle in other's private and family lives is actually a fairly complicated question.

the only news I subscribe to are Reuters, WikiNews, and the pew research panel. it's really done my mental health a lot of good.

LOL I had a coworker who used to pretend his hearing aids died when he was done with your shit. everybody hated how lazy he was at overnight cleaning and whatnot but he was god-tier as a 1:1 sitter for maladaptively attention-seeking patients. They'd be saying all kinda outta pocket shit to him and he was just so used to faking deaf at that point that they had nothing on him. And I loved having him on our unit when we had sexually inappropriate guys. they'd fake suicidality to try and get one of the 18y/o nursing assistants to masturbate at but NOPE. You, creepiest of creepy sirs, get deaf gassy off-season mall Santa.