Had a convo with my mother last night. I kicked it off because she had been misgendering and deadnaming me the past couple days. She always caught herself, but I wanted to see why this was happening and make it stop happening.
She insists that she doesnt see me as a man, that she sees me as me (funny, she doesnt use the word woman to describe how she sees me during this conversation 
). Shes says that its all just the automatic processing her brain does, but doesnt think that automatic processing is actually how she sees me. So i guess what she thinks isnt representative of what she thinks??? Like I get it, its hard to recontextualize ones view of another, but the automatic responses are the most telling, they show how you automatically gender me, and those responses are meaningful, not “oh just automatic so we dont need to worry about them and theyre not representative of how I see you”. Guess my mothers an idealist and a 
, but we knew that already.
The conversation took an upsetting detour where I had to hold space for and take care of her emotions. I mean, I asked her multiple times during the whole convo how she was doing, if shes ok, but that same care doesnt get extended to me. Im just sick of saying “hey ive got a problem with how youre treating me” and it getting turned into me taking care of the other persons emotions.
In summation, i desperately need a job so I can move out again.
My wife’s cousin transitioned and she had a much harder time adjusting to it than I did. A big part of that, from her perspective, was that she’d known him since he was a very little kid.
I mean, that’s just moms for you. Not even a Trans issue, strictly speaking. As you get older and more mature, they are getting older and less mature. Its not something that’s easy to grapple with, but your 50-70 year old mom is not the same person she was when she was 20 years younger. My mom can barely drive anymore because she’s got so much accumulated anxiety. She cries at the drop of a hat. She struggles with all sorts of things that she could more easily handle a decade ago.
Definitely easier to deal with parents in smaller doses. But its also frustrating, because I find myself coming home to help with stuff more and more that she struggles with. I wish this country had clear and easy off-ramps for the elderly, so they weren’t trapped in jobs and homes and other bullshit that just wears them down even faster as they get on in years.
losing brain elasticity is for real