NON-BINARY TOP SURGERY: Fears, concerns, and complex feelings

[Music] hey y'all welcome to my channel this is math magic place where i'm trying to help folks find their truth and find their magic and today i'm going to talk about some complicated feelings i have about top surgery um i am from today when i'm filming it's a i'm a week out from top surgery and i am i am filled with emotion and i'm going to talk about some of the complexities of that um before i dive in um i just want to invite you to subscribe to my channel i have a fun hair that is sticking out here so my baby dreads are escaping um if you could just subscribe to my channel and leave a comment i love to get some feedback from all of you and give me a like too if you enjoy the content um so we'll dive in so there are so there are so many layers to how i feel about top surgery and i think that this is a really important topic to discuss because most people have the narrative of being thrilled and elated about top surgery and that is really only the one thing that they have on their mind it's like they can only hold sold space for that one emotion but i'm in a space where i'm feeling anxious and pretty nervous about the surgery um i contend to be a little bit of an anxious person and i can overthink the hell out of things and um i can sometimes just be a pro at overthinking and so i'm working as hard as i can to over prepare for this massive life-changing surgery um i had my pre-op appointment last thursday and it was really helpful really informative i got to know all the things that i could look forward to with my recovery period um i'm going to allow myself to be home for about a month and i'll be able to spend time recovering and my wife works from home thankfully so she'll be able to be there to support me it's gonna be a good time for me to heal and recover i'm actually really big into energy healing and i cannot wait to practice energy healing techniques on myself and to help promote a speedy recovery and those are just a couple things i'm doing to prepare in addition i've also purchased a couple of items like a wedge pillow for my bed um a mastectomy pillow that i can wear around my chest for comfort or if i need to drive i've also purchased a lab desk and like a grabber tool i'm pretty excited to get to use those things while in recovery and to use this time for relaxation and healing when it comes to top surgery there are so many exciting things that can happen with the surgery and i can really only fantasize about how amazing it's going to be to live in a body that i feel more comfortable in and more confident in and to really be able to wear the clothes that i feel like really align with my body and with my gender and i get to do this amazing thing and honestly i'm super excited but like i said there are layers to what i'm experiencing and i am a multifaceted person there are many layers to math and i need to give myself time to explore all of those layers this is not an easy process it's messy but i'm working my butt off to process all these emotions because this is important stuff that needs to be worked through so i'm going to talk about like two major things that have been on my mind and on my heart around this topic so one of the things was actually triggered by a couple of comments that i had received on my youtube channel just some people who i i think were trying to be helpful but were coming from a place of like not really knowing what this experience is like um so kind of saying things like you know you don't need to get this surgery or you're gonna have complications if you get this surgery or you're just running away from your femininity or you know think about the possibility of parenthood and all that stuff while that makes a whole bunch of sense to me i was like pretty annoyed that i got these comments and i'm trying to be this person where i'm like you know like that does not bother me and i'm going to rise above transcend but it really kept nagging me and bothering me and i was like okay i have to stop what i'm doing and give myself time to experience what i'm feeling so i took a moment and i got into a meditative space and i allowed those thoughts to kind of rise up in my mind and i took the perspective of the observer and just kind of watched my thoughts around that topic and as i'm sitting with myself really emotional i started thinking about all the things that could go wrong with the surgery and it was really scary at the same time i'm considering like all these complications that can arise as a result of this surgery like scarring could go wrong um like it could just turn out to be a mess uh you know the thing is is i i don't know how things are gonna be and what i have to do right now is kind of wait to see how i'm going to react and that in and of itself is pretty nerve-wracking because i don't know how to react to this because i've never had an experience like this before so i'm thinking about all this and another thought arises about like the possibility of me becoming a parent and so even though i have like i don't want to have this chest anymore i do hope to carry children and birth a child my wife and i are hopeful to become parents one day and so i'm kind of anticipating non-binary parenthood and exploring what that might be like for me and this thought arose within me like what would it mean for me to be to birth a child and not be able to feed that child from my body what would it mean for me like would that bring stigma against me like would people say things about my child like would this be bad um like a bad decision like health-wise for my child and while all these thoughts are coming up i'm getting really emotional during these thoughts and i sat with myself in this emotional space and i observed as these emotions just flowed inside of my body and changed and moved around and i'm sitting there experiencing this intensity of emotion and then another image kind of arose my brain i saw myself as a parent with little children like small toddler aged children and i'm just hanging out with my kids and playing with them and stuff and in that scene i have a flat chest and this image tells me two major things one thing is that i am confident that i see myself with a flat chest in the future and this is the body that most resonates with me and that i can trust myself to do what i believe is right for my body the second thing i realized or noticed from this was that no matter how i choose to raise my children no matter how i choose to feed my children they are still going to be my children and they're going to be okay there are plenty of babies that are nursed from a bottle and who are you know nourished with breast milk or who are chest fed and supplemented with a bottle so there are like so many options my wife is um a cis woman and so she also has some hopes to like induce lactation which is such an incredible thing that science can do so my worries about you know how we're going to feed our child are valid but you know my my wife and i are a team and we're in this together and i'm super excited for the possibility of having a queer family and lazy raising her child in a queer way and doing things a little bit unconventionally i just think it's super exciting so all of that to say is that like going through the process of really feeling my emotions in the situation really allowed me to be real with myself about what i've been feeling and that i can't really deny that or kind of criticize my own process and you know what like i'm thankful for those messages i got because it has caused me to really kind of think about these really important things and have these realizations that i needed to make the other thing that i wanted to talk about is the fact that i think that i'm dealing with some internalized transphobia that's coming up for me as i'm like getting closer to my surgery date i'm feeling really worried about how the world is going to respond to my body and how people might respond to me like if i'm shirtless in public or at the beach and i'm i'm like a really feminine person and i just kind of carry myself in this kind of way and i worry about some looks and stares that i might get for a person like me to be shirtless because it might be easy for someone to assume that i'm a woman or something like that i'm not but culture doesn't always see non-binary people so like that's a whole thing so i'm concerned about how people are going to react and i think that's a natural thing to feel um i'm not really going to demonize myself for this because it is an honest part of what i'm experiencing another thing kind of on along the same lines is that i've kept a lot of my transition private i mean i have a youtube channel about it and i'm making content but i've kept a lot of this stuff private in terms of like talking my birth family about things like this um i don't really talk about them about my transition i think like two of my brothers know that i'm taking testosterone and they were kind of like not sure about it and kind of weirded out i think but um when it comes to my parents like we don't have a relationship which is a really sad thing um i'm hoping to make a whole video about this in the future but long story short is that i sent them a letter coming out to them and the letter was like that they sent me back was like yeah we're not going to respect your pronouns or your identity and in the letter i sent to them i said if we're going to have a relationship like you're going to have to treat me like i need to be treated and you are going to have to respect me and they pretty much told me that they can't do that so that is where i'm at with the relationship with my parents and that's where it stands and i am in this space where i feel really devastated that i can't share this part of my life with my family and with my parents i'm going to be in the hospital for a major surgery and i'm going to have myself cut open and my family won't know about it and this is a personal choice that i'm making you know i don't want to talk to them about it um because i honestly don't want have to stand up for myself in this really vulnerable time i'm kind of already going through a lot of emotions when it comes to the surgery and i really don't need my family telling me that i'm ruining my life and then i'm going to chop up my body and you know i'm going to detransition or whatever i i do also have this feeling that my parents hope and pray literally that i will one day just come back home to them as their little daughter um but like yeah that's not gonna happen and the surgery it kind of feels like it's solidifying my decision to just like be who i am and not apologize for who i am and that is really terrifying but like it's so exciting and liberating at the same time i'm happy that i get to do this but at the same time i wish so desperately that i could share this happiness with my family i wish that they could understand what it's like to be in my shoes and would want to share space with me and be able to respect these choices that i'm making and be happy for me like honestly like is that too much to ask for and so i'm kind of left with this sadness and some loneliness around these feelings because sometimes i look around at other people's experiences and i honestly get jealous of them i'm like dude you have a family that supports you and like cares for you like that is so crazy and i get a little bit but hurt and once again i don't judge myself for this experience it's just me being up open and honest about what i'm experiencing and i think that it's so important for people to just to be open about their experiences because there are there's so many layers to having a surgery that's life-changing and it might not always be sunshine and roses maybe some of you are completely stealth and you don't talk to anybody about your transition and you're on testosterone or you're going through changes or maybe you're taking some other type of hormones and your your body is starting to experience some changes but you have to hide them and you can't just show off these changes proudly and that's heartbreaking and it's devastating and it breaks my heart that people have to go through this and it breaks my own heart that i'm going through it right now so if you find yourself in that kind of situation if you have layers to going through any type of gender from affirming surgery i understand at least from my perspective i know what it's like and i know that it's difficult and i just want to send you a little bit of hope and love today and if you're watching this up to this point thank you so much hang in there don't be afraid to tell your story to people who are willing to listen and maybe you can tell your story to everyone right now but find someone who you can share your truth with maybe make like a throwaway account on reddit and go on some of those trans subreddits or uh find some type of supportive community that can get you some support you don't have to go through this stuff alone you can keep your identity you know like as private as possible but still find some connection around this topic so that's it for today i i feel honestly so good after sharing this stuff um thank you so much i'll see you next time

Channel: MAVMAGICK

Views: 985

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Id: vU5jkpOCwFs

Length: 16min 31sec (991 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 25 2021