Phalloplasty, in being such a complicated procedure, comes with a lot of possible complications. A major concern for a lot of transgender people considering this surgery is the risk of loss of sensation. Losing sensation was certainly something I feared. However, thankfully, my fears have not been realised. In the following blog, I map out my phalloplasty sensation progress over the four years since I had my first stage phalloplasty.
Distraction techniques are an incredibly valuable tool in our mental health wellness kit, to help us to deal with overwhelming emotions and situations. For example, anxiety can feel impossible to sit with. Urges to harm ourselves can feel overwhelming. A low mood can mean our head is full of negative thoughts. Heightened emotions can feel so distressing that it becomes tempting to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. I have had to manage all of these challenges in my own mental health journey and I understand how exhausting and difficult it can be. However, I have found that by learning to use distraction techniques, I have been able to find healthy ways to manage the most overwhelming of feelings.
The first stage of radial forearm free flap phalloplasty is the most recovery intensive. Not only does it take many weeks to heal, but there are also multiple affected areas. Therefore, recovery can feel like very hard work. However, with the right preparation beforehand, you can adapt your home and make things a lot easier for yourself. In the following blog, I share the things that I found helpful in my own recovery after first stage phalloplasty.
You can experience Glastonbury Festival in many different ways because it is so vast in size and varied in entertainment. For some, it might be a drunken five days and hazy memories. For me, it is the most awake five days I spend in a year because all my senses are on fire.
Glastonbury Festival you see is much more to me than just a music festival. It is a place in which I have gone through profound changes. I have attended the festival ten times, four of those times I was drunk, stoned and living a life that wasn’t mine. The last six times I have attended sober and as a completely new person, as a transgender man.
Glastonbury Festival is approaching fast and if you are lucky enough to have a ticket, its time to start packing! After many years of attending this iconic festival, I have my packing abilities very finely tuned! In this blog I share my festival essentials, listing the kit I take with me and my top tips as to what is and isn’t helpful to take.
Typically, my annual holiday choice would always be a music festival. Therefore, choosing a package holiday to Fuerteventura was quite a change for me! The credit goes to my partner Chris, who thinks my idea of heaven (AKA a week in the mud at Glastonbury Festival) is his idea of hell! I will never give up my music festivals, but I now will also never go a year without a week in the sun. We hired a car (which I highly recommend as public transport is scarce in the more remote locations), and we managed to cover much of this beautiful island. In this blog, I will share some of our favourite spots.
The 8th of May 2019, marks nine months since I had the final stage of my phalloplasty surgery and completed my gender transition. Here in the UK, the final stage of Phalloplasty is the insertion of the penile prosthesis. In this blog, I will talk about the healing process, addressing some initial concerns I had and giving an overview of how I am finding the prosthesis. Before we begin, I want to stress that this is a frank and honest discussion of an intimate nature, so please bear that in mind before continuing to read!
There is a great deal of stigma and misinformation around the topic of self-harm. Commonly, self-harm is associated with young female teens and often seen as a trend or as a way to get attention. Nobody hurts themselves without reason. That person with the cuts along their forearm? They are in enormous amounts of pain, and I do not mean from the wounds. I know this because I have been personally affected by self-harm. I want to share my story, to highlight that this is an issue that can affect anyone, of any gender, at any time.
I made the decision recently, to stop taking my Sertraline antidepressant. In hindsight, I could have approached this in a much less aggressive manner, but I stand by my decision to stop. Sertraline was causing me to have emotional numbness. I was unable to cry, which I was finding incredibly frustrating.
Stress is an unavoidable part of life however too much stress can negatively effect our mental health. Therefore, if you have mental health challenges, as I do, stress can quickly make things much worse. It is important then, to make sure that you use stress management techniques to lessen its impact.
The 31st of March is a significant day in the transgender community. On this day we celebrate International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDoV).
Until recently, there was a lack
We have all had those days, haven’t we? Where on waking up with good intentions, something then upsets us or makes things difficult, and our mood and motivation plummets. When this happens, we can feel tempted to throw in the towel and resign ourselves to a bad day. However, you don’t need to write the day off, you can simply choose to restart a bad day. In this blog, I will share the four simple steps, to restart a bad say, at any time, and as many times as you need.
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