As a young child, long before I knew what mindfulness was, I created a mind trick for myself when my mind would race at night with thoughts preventing me from sleep.

I would envision a dark room with large toy chest in it.

I would focus my attention on the still silent darkness within that imaginary toy chest instead of on my racing thoughts.

It would disrupt those looping thoughts and calm my mind so I could sleep.

#Mindfulness #Reparenting #Anxiety

Family of Me 38: Sapphic Disaster

Libra (College me): We really are a sapphic disaster, aren't we?

Lark (20s me): Are you still talking about that?

Libra: I just can't get over it! I fell into a deep depressive spiral over not being able to get a girlfriend, remember? I almost failed out of college because of it.

Lark (pensive): Yeah, we did, didn't we.

Libra: To think that entire time I was never going to find a relationship that works. Not the way I was going about it. Not when I thought I had to be the man in a relationship.

Mom (present me): Don't be too hard on yourself, Libra. We were in college in the early 2000s. Even if we'd had any notion of queer culture, no-one else we knew at the time did. Who would we have found?

Libra: Surely there could have been someone, even back then. Besides, that's not my point -- my point is that I spent months and months in a deep depression in service to an idea that was never meant for me. That never even applied to me.

#FamilyOfMe #trans #reparenting 🧵1/

Family of Me 37: Engaging Mess

Libra (College me): Hang on, you didn’t date anyone at all?

Lark (20s me): I don’t think so. Things never really clicked for me romantically.

Mom (present me): Hello girls. Mind if I join you?

Libra: Lark says she didn’t date anyone at all.

Mom: That sounds about right. Her finding a partner was the thing that started the next chapter of our life, so technically her older sister was the next one of us to date.

Libra: So we’ve only dated two women in our entire lives? The woman I dated and the woman you eventually marry?

Mom: Yup, just the two. I’m… Not very experienced romantically.

Lark (deflated): We were such a romantic disaster.

Mom (sad): Yeah… Yeah. I mean, unless…

Libra: What?

Mom: I don’t know if you’d call it dating, but there was the woman we spent time with on FurryMUCK -- that was around when I started college. We never met in person, but we talked on the phone a few times…

#FamilyOfMe #trans #reparenting 🧵1/

Family of Me 36: The Dream Scenario

Lark (20s me): Mom!

Mom (Present me): What's up, Lark? You look upset.

Lark: Yeah I'm upset! You started talking about relationships without me! Investigating the "we're single" angle was my idea, after all.

Mom (laughing): I suppose that's true. Let's make up for lost time then. What’s on your mind?

Lark: Libra told me about how flirting has changed now that you live as a woman. I can only imagine how it would have changed things for me.

Mom: Hmm. I think there are two answers to this question -- the real one and the fun one.

Lark (confused): I mean, it was a real question, so I guess I want the real answer?

Mom: Realistically, the aughts were a horrible time to be trans. Gay rights were still struggling and informed consent treatment didn’t exist, so you likely would have had to fake heterosexuality in order to transition at all. You might have felt pressure to date men and possibly even marry one. Even if you’d managed to find a woman you loved, you wouldn’t be allowed to marry her for years -- at least not without moving to another state.

Lark (crestfallen): Oh.

#FamilyOfMe #trans #reparenting 🧵1/

Family of Me 34: The Magic Butterfly

Mom (Present me): Hello Lark.

Lark (20s me): Hey Mom.

Mom: Is that a butterfly necklace around your neck?

Lark: Yeah! I think it looks cute.

Mom (confused): Sure it’s cute, but I don’t own a butterfly necklace. I own a fairy necklace, but that’s definitely not my fairy necklace.

Lark: Oh yeah, it’s not one of yours. I found this in one of my memories.

Mom (stunned): Wait, one of your memories!? That’s impossible; I don’t remember a necklace like that at all!

Lark: Really? I mean, you know I’m telling the truth; I couldn’t have found it otherwise. Maybe you forgot about it?

Mom: Why would I have a memory of a necklace? I guess a girl I knew wore it or something.

Lark: Two girls you knew wore it.

Mom: Two girls I knew had matching butterfly necklaces?

#FamilyOfMe #trans #reparenting 🧵1/

Family of Me 33: Empathy

Mom (Present me): Okay girls, are we ready to talk about politics a little more?

Libra (College me): As ready as I'll ever be, I guess.

Bloom (High school me): I think we were talking about systemic oppression?

Lark (20s me): Yes, and how we tried to avoid contributing to those systems.

Mom: Yup, that's where we left off.

Lark: So let's pick it back up! We worked hard at being a good ally. We're not part of the problem!

Mom: That's not how it works, Lark.

Lark (angry): Then explain how it works, Mom! Tell us how we failed so spectacularly before we came out!

Libra (tense): Whoa, we're all friends here…

Mom: It's okay, Libra. Lark, the system privileges us whether we want it to or not. It grants us influence whether we use it or not. It makes opportunity easier to come by, it makes mistakes less costly. How much we “buy in” doesn’t affect the system at all, nor does it make life appreciably easier for the people it takes advantage from. It just means we aren’t intentionally adding to their burden.

Bloom: Okay, but that applies to everyone, right? Not just us. You’re saying that even if all the men in my class refused to buy into this oppressive system, it wouldn’t make my life any easier? That doesn’t make any sense.

Mom: Look at the larger picture. Sure, it’d make your day to day life better. But instead of a class, imagine you're part of a team at a company. Your team treating you well doesn’t mean your boss’s boss will. It doesn’t mean the company's executives won’t reject a justified request for a raise or won't promote a man ahead of you. You probably started from a lower salary anyway because structural disadvantage compounds over time. It wouldn't affect any of your interactions outside of work. The effect those few men have on the entire interlocking system of oppression is negligible.

Lark: I remember you explaining that being trans was part of the reason we had trouble capitalizing on opportunities at work, but even if we weren't trying to take advantage of it, we transitioned after decades of enjoying male privilege. We aren’t dealing with a compounded lower salary.

Mom: That’s true, we probably aren’t. But my point is just that systems of oppression aren’t really affected by the efforts of one person or even a small group trying to avoid taking advantage of the system that benefits them. The system still benefits them, despite their best efforts.

Libra: So what, there’s nothing we can do?

Mom: Individually, the best thing you can do is organize and form a group…

Lark (interrupting): But you just said that small groups…

Mom (a little louder): And once you have that group, use your influence to transfer power to marginalized groups or shred the power of white men. Just avoiding privilege isn’t enough to affect change, but using collective action as leverage to destroy the mechanisms of privilege might be. Change the institutions themselves and distribute resources and authority as broadly as possible.

Lark: Well that’s not going to happen anytime soon either. We’ve been talking about this for over a week now, and for what? This all feels pointless.

Mom (patient): Remember, our goal here isn’t change, It’s introspection. I’m not here to rally myself into a one woman movement, I’m here to illustrate how much our political views changed over time, and to remind all of us that changing those views took a lot of time and several adverse events.

Lark: I still don’t see your point.

Mom: Transition changed the privilege equation for us. We’ve gone from zero marks of marginalization to two: being a woman and being trans. We’ve lost access to a lot of institutional power and we're suddenly part of a group that’s become a political target nationwide. So we strap on our social armor to protect us from men, and we turn away from cis people to avoid being betrayed.

Libra (deflated): Because the oppressive system will harm us regardless of any ally's individual intent, and allies can still harm us unknowingly by acting in their own interests.

Mom: Yes. That’s the point. That’s why I'm so cautious.

(Everyone is silent for several seconds as my words hang in the air.)

Bloom (defeated): But that’s so sad. There are so many men in the world, and even more cis people in the world. Many of them would be our friends or allies if they could.

Lark (upset): Isn’t that the other side of your argument here? How can they be expected to understand this like we do? Mom, reaching your mindset took years and years -- another decade after all of my experiences, not to mention the adverse events you mentioned! We used to have those dangerous beliefs too!

Mom: I grew out of them.

Lark (still upset): Fine, but lots of people haven't! Your inner daughters didn’t! Are you going to write us off too!?

Mom (tearful): I… I don’t want to.

#FamilyOfMe #trans #reparenting 🧵1/

• What is "Family Of Me"?

Family of Me is a serial fiction about a middle aged trans woman reparenting her own inner children. Those past versions of her did their best in their own time, but they didn’t realize they were closeted trans girls, which set them back in numerous invisible ways. By bringing them back, she seeks to introduce each of them to girlhood and reconcile with the perceived shortcomings of her past selves.

• How can I read it?

I post new scenes as threads on this account every Monday and Friday, hashtagged with #FamilyOfMe, #trans, and #reparenting. All posts also include "FamilyOfMe" (one word) in the text so they can be filtered out of your timeline if you so choose. I also post them to the Family Of Me website (https://familyofme.com/), where you can also read older scenes and check out the character page. Or follow @daphnestar@familyofme.com if you want to read scenes as single Fediverse posts.

• Can you throw more hashtags into this post?

Strange request, but I guess so:

#fiction #SerialFiction #writing #InnerChild #queer

I’m trying to be the mom I wish I had.

I’m trying to say the things that I never heard.

I’m trying to love without conditions.

#parenting #reparenting #momlife

There are times when I tell my daughter things that I wish my own mother had said to me.

#Life #parenting #reparenting

While I wait for my daughter’s #therapy session to end, I wonder what Life would’ve been like had I had a therapist as a #teenager.

I didn’t have open, available #parents, which seems stereotypical for a #GenX-er to say. I figured a lot of things out on my own during #adolescence, and I struggled with social and emotional things on my own, too.

Not fun.

In the process of #reparenting myself, though, I’ve found that being open and available for my daughter is vital to our relationship…and so is the therapy she receives every 2 weeks.

I’m thinking of dabbling with writing some #poetry. I’ve been keeping a note on my phone, a running list of what I call “poem seeds”.

The topics are varied, but I’m not going to concern myself with organizing them. Getting thoughts fleshed out is more important.

#healing #grieving #parenting #reparenting #writing

Adventures in #reparenting - absentmindedly assembling a hard day #selfcare #lunch and looking down to notice that what you've made is the ultimate "kid comfort plus adult lovingly intervening with nutrition" situation. Thanks mom self. Hope you enjoy the fabulous strawberry butt - the Strawberrière, if you will.

#mentalhealth #reparentingsuccesses #PBJ #pbjnoway #fruitbutts #strawberry #lascivious

Introduction post... nearly at the end of my counselling training (although do we ever really finish training? 🤔) Hoping to go into private practice next year and specialise in working with trauma and loss. Massive believer in #walkandtalk and #reparenting work and, if I was a stick of rock, I'd have the word #Therapy running right through me... I'm also a single parent; I have neuro issues and I'm a big kid. Dark sense of humour but exceptionally compassionate. I'm just me so don't be shy 😀❤️

Who else is still working on this shit? #psychology #reparenting #trauma #abuse