Emrie

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Posts posted by Emrie

  1. Posted

    1 hour ago, Salvijus said:

    Also, are u going to talk to a therapist before commiting to it?

    I literally cannot transition without talking to a gender therapist. The gender therapist MUST officially diagnose me with gender dysphoria in order for me to transition. So yes I'm going to talk to a therapist.

    39 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    A year or more of therapy and inner work at the least for starters. Then see how you feel.

    Which is what happens. Not necessarily a whole year, and it depends on the country you live in. I know the US has "Informed Consent" clinics where they let you take HRT without therapy but you'll need a therapist anyways for surgeries, and only if you're an adult. Countries with universal healthcare require the diagnosis to cover the HRT, so if you wanted to do it without it, you're now paying out of pocket.

    And you can always stop HRT if it doesn't feel right. You feel the effects of it very quickly so you can quickly tell if it's not right. If you've only been on HRT for a few months, you won't really even have any (or maybe just a few) consequences on your long-term health. I think the biggest one is you can become sterile after like a year. Beyond that, your body will just go right back to producing your hormones normally like before.

    I think a lot of conservatives really don't understand the actual reality of transgenderism and transitioning. People don't just wake up one day and decide they want to change their gender. It's a lot harder and there's much more due process than they think. Not saying you're a conservative, Leo, but it's just a feeling I've got from the arguments I hear conservatives talk about.

    As to your point on whether I'm kidding myself, we'll see what the therapist says, but, I don't think so. I've been improving my life for more than 8 years now and there's always been something missing. At the very least you can be happy I'm actually getting myself exposed to this new experience and seeing how I feel. Which was exactly what you said to do to build a happy life.

  2. Posted

    3 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

    I reccomend everyone to look within and figure out what they truly want. It's a very healthy thing to do.

    And that's what I did, actually. That's what I've been doing, for years. That's what I'll continue to keep doing forever.

    I can absolutely tell you that transitioning is the deepest thing I want right now. I want to have a woman's body, to have a woman's name, to dress in women's clothes, to be seen and treated as a woman by everyone. More than anything else in the world.

    Maybe it's not *the* deepest thing I'll ever want in my life, but I don't care. It's the deepest so far, and by miles. Like MILES.

    --

    Also just to clarify, someone trans doesn't just wake up one day and makes the decision to transition, it's a lifelong thing. I have always been a girl, since birth. There's a distinction between being trans and transitioning. Being trans isn't a decision, you just are, from birth. Transitioning, changing your body to match your gender, that's a decision.

    And transitioning is done with the assistance of many different medical professionals from many different fields.

    To your point, we have gender therapists. The therapists are essentially gatekeepers, preventing people from hormone treatments and surgeries unless it's right. But they're helpful, and they're here to help those who seek to transition. Maybe indeed I want something else, or my lifelong poor mental health comes from other trauma or something else, and that's what I'll be clarifying with my gender therapist.

    I have ... strong doubts it's anything else, but maybe it is, and I'm not closed off from it. Or maybe I am trans but maybe I need to heal from some other stuff before really being able to transition safely.

  3. Posted

    3 hours ago, Salvijus said:

    Maybe u just crave to be loved and accepted in a company of close friends and have a good time?

    I already have that. I mean you really just said "maybe you just want friends" to someone who's telling you they've been living as the wrong gender their whole life? Really?

    2 hours ago, Highlander said:

    Hey since your trans now are you gonna let the homies smash?

    Hell yeah. I mean I would've let them smash before, but they're not into guys.

  4. Posted

    5 hours ago, Alta said:

    Gender is just a concept made up by humans and doesn't really exist in reality.

    Oh no, anyway.

    5 hours ago, LSD-Rumi said:

    @Emrie I don't know honestly. If was born with gender dysphoria, I would just accpet it and learn to live in the gender that was assigned to me, I don't think it is worth the hassle.

    But hey that's just the personal opinion of a person who didn't experience gender dysphoria.

    Clearly you've never experienced gender dysphoria, yeah. Clearly. You have no idea how bad it gets. I mean, okay, your profile says you're a man. Try and imagine what it'd be like to live your entire life in the body of a woman. To look in the mirror and see a woman's body ALL THE TIME, to have every single person on the planet always think you're a woman, to treat you like a woman, to sound like a woman, to literally just be a woman at all times for the rest of your life. You really think you could just "accept" it? I don't believe that for one second. For me, I can't wait to be a woman for the rest of my life, literally the dream, and I wish I had known sooner, in fact I just wish I was born in a female body in the first place. My life would have been a lot better.

    I mean you might as well ask me "Have you tried not being trans?" And to that I would say "I don't know, HAVE I? What have I been doing for 27 years!"

    2 hours ago, Understander said:

    Are you independent at least financially from your parents?

    Yeah, for like 3.5 years now I've lived away from my parents, with my own job. I'd even argue it's finally the independence from my parents that allowed me to explore myself more deeply, realizing I'm bisexual first, transgender now.

    32 minutes ago, DrugsBunny said:

    @Emrie I hope you can resist the urge to allow these soulless ideologues to influence your inclinations towards what you know is true. 

    Thanks for your whole message, I didn't quote it here but the whole message was awesome. To answer this specific phrase, yeah no lol I could not care less for them. If my identity was so fragile that a couple random messages on a forum could threaten, then yeah maybe I wouldn't be trans. But that's certainly not the case here.

  5. Posted

    @Jannes I want to thank you, deeply, for this, actually. The decision to go through a full medical transition is not a small one. And, if I'm honest, I haven't made it yet. It's a very long process that involves many medical professionals, a gender therapist, a separate psychiatrist, an endocrinologist, of course also the surgeons who will perform the operations, if it even comes to that. All of these people have to agree that, yes, I have gender dysphoria, and yes hormonal therapy and potentially surgeries are needed to heal it. And we're looking at years here, like at least five.

    I can see that like I've made a single forum post and it can seem that I almost just woke up one day and decided I'm a girl now, time to make radical life changes to my body. But that's not at all what's happening here. I've been questioning my gender ever since I learned I could have a gender different than the one I was assigned at birth. Even before that, when I was a kid, I fantasized about having been born a girl. Those feelings got repressed, of course, but they were there.

    I've actually somewhat tried what you mentioned up there, I identified as non-binary, presented masc, but still allowed myself to act as feminine as I wanted, and do all the girly stuff I wanted. But, ehh, didn't really work, still felt like something was missing, or I was just felt too masc still.

    Maybe my therapist will tell me to go do that some more, and better, and maybe it'll be enough, or maybe it won't, we'll see.

    Regardless, I'm going through a really powerful experience, and I'm solidifying my gender identity and expression, and I can only come out better from this.

  6. Posted

    When the Happiness video came out, I started visioning a happy life for myself.

    And one evening coming home, I saw a group of girls having a blast on a girls' night out. And it kinda looked like one of them was a trans woman (I'm making an assumption here of course, but it was harmless as I didn't interact with them, would have changed instantly if they corrected me, and also it was really helpful to me). I ... literally cried, on the street.

    It was an incredibly powerful and meaningful moment because it made me realize that I wanted to be that trans woman in that group, to have a group of girl friends, and that this was an absolutely critical, probably the most important, component of my happy life.

    I had to change my body to be that of a woman's body, I had to make relationships and be treated as a woman by other people, I just had to accept and actualize who I deeply am on the inside.

    And I knew it's right because I knew I would face discrimination, I knew I could potentially be disowned by my parents, I knew it would be a long and difficult process, and maybe, after a few or a lot of sessions of therapy, I would realize I'm not trans. But regardless, it was all worth it, it was just an absolutely critical important step for me to go through. So I could finally have a definitive answer on what my gender actually is and start to integrate it and let it shine fully in the world.

    Since that night, I've been extremely emotional, sometimes even crying at work (like in the building, I would be on my break, reading a trans story or even just listening to a song). It's been absolutely amazing and powerful and just incredibly meaningful to me, to be able to fully explore my gender and who I deeply am on the inside.

    And difficult, too. Doubting my transness, being fearful of fully labeling myself as a woman, because ... would other women really accept me as one of their own? (caring about other people's feelings - very manly).

    And tonight I watched the "Masculinity vs Femininity" video, from 7 years ago. It helped solidify even more that I'm a woman, who was born in the wrong body. I am all about soaking in life, surrendering, going with the flow, feeling emotions, and breaking logic to save feelings - I mean, not completely, it's a spectrum, but I lean way more for feelings than for logic.

    So thank you Leo, I want you to know you've been a guiding light in my life, you've brought me from a completely hellish life deep inside of a hole at the bottom of a dark cave, and I think I'm starting to see the outside world. It's beautiful, scary, and just absolutely amazing in every way.

  7. Posted

    That was an amazing video, thank you Emerald for sharing it. Instantly subscribed to the guy, looks like he makes a lot of great content.

    I am really glad to hear him talk about this stuff and I agree on all fronts. Once again, the patriarchy harms us all, and I really loved that he talked about the societal changes that do affect even what makes someone attractive to others.

    And I think it ties back to what Leo said in his How to Get Laid series, ultimately it's about being yourself, but you have to learn to be yourself, and that can be hard especially since we're groomed to be lonely and emotionally maladjusted men.

  8. Posted

    21 minutes ago, Jannes said:

    You only have really tough exercises. If you switched to leg press at one of your squat days and to lat pulldowns on one of your rowing days you would free up some time. 
    Biceps curls, hamstring curls, lateral raises.. are all exercises that can be done with little pause in between sets. 

    Sounds good, I'll try these. And on these days I can do supersets where I'm doing two exercises at once back to back. What do you think of this?

    Monday:
    Ab Machine 4x12
    Squats 5x5
    Deadilft 1x5

    Tuesday:
    Bench Press 5x5
    Barbell Row 5x5

    Wednesday:
    Leg Press & Calves Superset, 4x12 for each exercise
    Hamstring Curl 4x12
    Deadlift 1x12

    Thursday:
    Bench Press 3x12
    Lat Pulldown & Bicep Curl Superset, 4x12
    Triceps Machine & Lateral Raises Superset, 4x12

  9. Posted

    7 minutes ago, Jannes said:

    You are missing side delta, biceps, hamstrings maybe (depends how much you hit it with one deadlift set), calves to little. 

    Why do you have such small exercise selection, you would get more out of it if you changed things up. 

    Have you mad good progress over the 2 years you have been training? Because the volume seems a little low for someone who trained (with good gains) for 2 years. 

    Actually this has been my main concern for the past few months, I'm definitely thinking I'm not hitting enough muscles.

    I've had very good progress in the beginning but not as much any more. It'll definitely take me two or three times at a given weight before I can increase it.

    I would argue that biceps are hit pretty well with the bench press and the barbell row, and hamstrings by the squats and deadlifts (I do two sets btw). But it might be worth adding some exercises specialized in them.

    Thing is I can really only do ten total sets per workout otherwise it starts to get too long.

    13 minutes ago, Jannes said:

    Is this your approach with your training?

    Do you have a source for it?

    Doenst that mostly apply to newbies?

    This is the video I saw regarding minimalistic training 

     

    I guess that's been my approach yeah, even if unintentional. And yeah I'd say it doesn't work well for advanced trainees. But it's decent for newbies and intermediates.

    I'd say I'm still a newbie.

  10. Posted

    3 minutes ago, Jannes said:

    From what I heard is that Mike Mentzer isn’t a representation of science as a whole when it comes to training. His minimalistic trainings philosophy is pretty unique. 

    Oh btw yeah I didn't mention at all. There's a lot of really interesting science on minimalistic training. You can get a lot out of very little and it's a super valid way of exercising for people who only want or can work out once every four or five days.

  11. Posted

    Found this video on overtraining.

    Very informative.

    I've never heard anyone recommend more than 48h of recovery. Do you have any studies that could prove me wrong?

    It's worth pointing I started with twice a week, then increased to three times a week, now four. Then I added the cardio. Over a course of two years. It felt right every step of the way. I give myself three minutes of break between sets if I complete them, five if not, and I get pretty close to failure, I'd say typically 1-3 reps left in the tank.

    But thanks for your input, if I feel unhappy with my gains in the future, I'll look into potentially lowering how much I work out.

  13. Posted

    Here's mine:

    Monday:
    Ab Machine 3x12
    Squats 5x5
    Deadilft 1x5

    Tuesday:
    Bench Press 5x5
    Barbell Row 5x5

    Wednesday:
    Squats 3x12
    Deadlift 1x12
    Calves Machine 3x12

    Thursday:
    Bench Press 3x12
    Barbell Row 3x12
    Triceps Machine 3x12

    Friday:
    Sprinting

    Saturdays and Sundays are rest days but I'm still typically very active. I go hiking, skiing, swimming, or any other activity, it's typically very low effort though.

    I like this workout routine because I have big compound movements as well as isolated exercises and I think as a whole I train the entire body that way. Also switching between 5x5 and 3x12 allows me to work both for raw strength in the 5x5 as well as more volume in 3x12. And I also still have a sprint workout so it's not all about just big muscles, I do cardio to keep myself healthy.

    What are y'all's workouts?

  15. Posted

    Yeah I did.

    For, I would say almost a year, I would tell myself to stop drinking, every single day, while I was still drinking.

    Then one day, Leo made his series of videos on how to get laid, I loved it and was like "it's time to make some changes". I decided to move to a different city and stop alcohol.

    And I did both of these things. Was kinda easy I just said "no" every time I wanted to drink alcohol. What was worse was dealing with everyone asking me why I don't drink.

    This is always how things happen in my life, something external happens, and I make sweeping changes. Up until a few months ago, I was eating a lot of unhealthy food and never cleaning my home. Then I sprained my ankle, my grandmother came over, cleaned the apartment and cooked me healthy food, and ever since, both my diet and my home are very clean. This was, again, after like a year of telling myself I shouldn't eat so much unhealthy food and I should clean my apartment.

  16. Posted

    This is where Life Purpose comes in. Give your life meaning.

    Decide, for yourself, that everything you do in your life serves one purpose, and accomplishing that purpose will be your reward.

    Literally life purpose is the answer to the question "Why are you alive? What is the point? What are you doing here, now? What is the reward for my life?"

    It's made up, of course. You make it up, you decide. And the worst part is, you have to get deep into it before really being able to feel like you've found it. And it takes years. But it's worth. Ask Leo.

  17. Posted

    Lot to unpack here.

    Let me just start by saying I blame capitalism. But anyways.

    42 minutes ago, Someone here said:

    I accept myself as a smoker and that I have no problem smoking for the rest of my life.

    That's a great start actually! I accepted myself as an alcoholic first, before quitting alcohol for the rest of my life. Literally the reason why I can't drink is because I'm an alcoholic. Same for you, you are a smoker, therefore you can't touch tobacco for the rest of your life.

    45 minutes ago, Someone here said:

    I may have learned to use cigarettes as a coping mechanism for everything from excitement and happiness to boredom or even anger. How i quit for good when I've become emotionally attached to cigarettes?

    You should see an addiction therapist. Turning to substances to make yourself feel different is not a coping mechanism, it's an addiction. And it speaks to poor mental health. See a therapist that specifically specialized in addiction to help you.

    47 minutes ago, Someone here said:

    What's the worst case scenario?  Dying from a heart attack or a stroke ? Imma fucking die anyways . And honestly, I'm not so satisfied with the quality of this existence..so dying prematurely would be great !

    Actually, no, not just dying. And don't forget lung cancer. But an addiction ruins your life every day. Any addiction will only hamper any effort you make to make your life better and yourself better, it'll be a thorn in your side. This one in particular has the added affect of worsening your breathing, your cardiovascular health, and I'm sure many others I don't know about (I guess maybe sleep too?`And therefore your daily energy levels due to the poor sleep?).

    Wanting your life to end prematurely because you don't like your life is a huge red flag. You are most likely depressed. At the very least, see a therapist, so they can assess your situation.

  19. Posted · Edited by Emrie
    changed incendiary language

    Found a new use case for ChatGPT, changing Leo's teaching style to make his words sound better to me.

    That does not mean twisting his words to fit my worldview, it just means the tone, changing his tone.

    For example, I really didn't like the latest blog post, not because I disagree with the underlying core message, but I just really didn't like the delivery of it.

    The man literally calls us an embarrassment to the human race, which, thanks for the personal attack, Master Leo, I shall bow down to your will. You're asking us to be nicer to conservatives while not being very nice to us yourself.

    So I pulled up ChatGPT and asked it to rewrite the blog post in a more compassionate tone, this is what came out, after some adjustments:

    Quote

    I want to share a video with you that presents a conservative worldview in a way that's thoughtful and nuanced. While I don't necessarily agree with everything in it, I believe it's important to seek out diverse perspectives and engage with viewpoints that may be different from our own.

    As someone who identifies as progressive or leftist, I think it's easy to fall into the trap of misunderstanding conservatives. It's crucial that we make an effort to understand them on a deeper level, beyond what we see in our own political bubbles. This is not a matter of political battle, this is a matter of pure understanding.

    I believe that true understanding and empathy are essential for creating a better world. It's important to acknowledge that no political worldview is perfect, and we must remain open to new ideas and ways of thinking. While we may have strong beliefs and convictions, it's important to approach politics with humility and an awareness of our own limitations.

    While the video I'm sharing is biased and incomplete, it's an excellent example of how important it is to understand the conservative perspective. I'm not saying that you should vote for conservatives, but I am saying that you should strive to understand them accurately. And you will never understand conservatives by only listening to progressive analysis. Progressives are incapable of truly understanding conservatives. It requires a whole quantum leap in consciousness and cognitive development.

    It's important to recognize that no one person or group has all the answers when it comes to governing society. The more we study politics, the more we realize how intelligent and complex society really is. We must approach political discourse with humility, and remain open to new ideas and perspectives.

    Ultimately, my hope is that we can engage in respectful and compassionate dialogue, even when we disagree. It's only through mutual understanding and cooperation that we can move towards a more just and equitable society.

    This, I can read and agree with. Again, I agreed with the message since the beginning but the delivery put a sour taste in my mouth.

    Ultimately, I think everybody has a certain style of teaching that they prefer, some people prefer Leo's more "tough love" approach, I clearly do not. So I'm happy to use this AI tool to change the form without changing the core message.

  20. Posted

    On 2/18/2023 at 7:23 AM, Ulax said:

    My general understanding is it is very effective at dealing with a single or a few big traumas. For example, trauma from a car crash.  However, can be a cumbersome tool to use with someone who is dealing with trying to overcome lots of different traumas. For example, trauma for a childhood spent with abusive parents.

    Thanks yeah that's what I was starting to conclude. So it's not really going to be super useful for me.

  21. Posted

    Had a dream I was a girl last night.

    Like the dream wasn't even about being a girl at all. At the start of the dream I was thrown into the action and there were a bunch of crazy things happening. Then, once the action settled, I dreamed what lead to the start of the dream, and that was a bit more lowkey.

    After that I woke up and I thought "wow that was a crazy dream" and I recounted it to myself. And after I was done recounting it, I realized "hey I was a girl in this dream".

    Kinda crazy.

  22. Posted

    Hi SWE friends,

    I'm going to start my first job as SWE later this year, I'll be focused more on backend stuff, and I was wondering about something.

    The company uses Java exclusively for its backend. I was wondering if this is widely used within the industry or if I should still learn and keep up-to-date with other languages as well if I ever want or need to change jobs.

    So what do you folks think?

  24. Posted

    @flowboy Actually there are pre-planned scavenger hunts in my city that are more for like tourists to like explore the city in a fun interesting way, that's what I was thinking.

    I know and I totally agree that you should match your partner's investment in you. For me, doing some climbing or pottery for like an hour or 90 minutes doesn't really feel like a huge investment, more just like a fun afternoon activity, and then can lead into something else afterwards naturally. It's definitely more than just grocery shopping leading into a dinner or picnic, but it's not like a big heavy thing where you go to an expensive fancy dinner. The escape room, I'd agree that it's maybe a bit much in terms of money investment.

    Of course your date has to agree and it has to feel right with both you and your date that you're not putting too much pressure on each other and I would never do all that stuff on the first date but rather stuff I would talk about on the first date, like casually asking "so do you like climbing?" and then setting something up to go climbing together.

    Also idk if it's like us queers having a tendency to get more invested in our dates than straight people but I've heard so many stories of queer people having such investment in each other so early it's crazy. Like first dates lasting two whole days, queer couples moving in with each other after only a few weeks of dating. Just crazy stuff.

  25. Posted

    The internet has become such a toxic cesspool of negativity in my life it's really bad.

    I'm at a point in my life where going on the internet is a painful experience that just makes me feel bad. Especially social media. Like as soon as I start interacting with other people, it just creates a lot of negative feelings to me, and I rarely get anything positive or healthy about it.

    And I'm honestly glad I'm actually becoming conscious of how it negatively affects my life rather than just trying to force myself to quit it. It's gonna come natural and obvious for me to get rid of these bad habits because they're just bad activities that not only don't make me happy but actively make me unhappy.

    Candidates of things to get rid of: TikTok, Reddit, Twitter, this forum, and maybe even YouTube.

    I think I'm going to move this journal to just handwriting, and stop posting it here.

    I mean I just talked about my life up there, do you see any space for unhealthy social media in it? Absolutely fucking not.

    Even this forum, I'd consider somewhat negative tbh. Like I posted that "Date Ideas" thread and I just have people shitting all over me and saying they're dumb dates. And it all came from TikTok originally of someone posting these ideas themselves and I thought it'd make for a nice positive conversation but it ends in people shitting on me and making me feel bad.

    And like I could continue the conversation like this and build a balanced, nuanced, well thought-out date, but that's like a lot of mental and emotional effort and it still made me feel bad, like why would I invest in something that just makes me feel bad.

    So I'm just gonna have to stop all that shit and move on.