u/pudding-0w

is this a common trans experience, or is it not worth giving much thought to?
i don’t feel particularly connected to being a girl, but that may just be because i don’t look very feminine. that said, if i were to think of my ‘ideal self’, which could be a very feminine girl… it still usually ends up being a male version of myself.
i’m worried it’s just like internalised misogyny or something, since i don’t feel like i want or need to transition.

i’m thinking of applying to places like york, leeds, bristol, and exeter, because they offer the course i’m interested in (philosophy + modern language).
even if i meet the entry requirement when it comes to A level grades (BBB with contextual requirements), i’m worried that my gcse grades will make me a weaker applicant and less likely to be accepted.

history, computer science, biology, physics - 6
maths, chem - 5

and i’m resitting english language this year (was two marks off a 5).

my attendance during year 11 was really poor and i didn’t go to any of my classes, and this was largely due to my very poor mental health. like, ideation and depression etc. i did see a GP and was referred to camhs but still never properly attended school.

idk if that would count as an extenuating circumstance??? it was basically self-inflicted, so i feel like it shouldn’t count. but if it did, would that sort of mitigate my terrible GCSE grades? and if it doesn’t count, am i doomed??

i (year 12) really messed up my mock exams. it was a combination of things that made them go so terribly, but the main thing was my own (lack of) effort.
i went from A/A* in psychology, B in religious studies, C in history... to D, E, E.

my school sends out predicted grades in june i'm pretty sure, and i've already been told that i'm getting a C for RS, not sure about the other two. but we also get a chance to improve them at the beginning of year 13.

i had sort of given up on uni/everything, but now i've realised that was really stupid, and i'd rather stay in sixth form than switch to an alternative like an apprenticeship or college, so i want to try and improve things. for the courses and unis i'm interested in, it seems like i generally need AAB or ABB.
however, with contextual entry requirements (which i'm 99% sure i'm eligible for due to financial reasons), i'd need a BBB/BBC.

does that seem like a realistic goal, given where i'm currently at? i'm not really sure what i could do to improve my predicted grades though, other than just waiting for in-class assessments.

i'm mainly concerned with the ones on my inner wrist. all of them are healed. some of them have done that thing where they go light and raised, but others are still flat and dark, and some look in between.

i have no idea why i do this to myself. it doesn't really make me feel better. i think i'm just doing it for the sake of it. and i really don't like having scars... i don't necessarily mind how they look, but i'm still very insecure mainly because if anyone else saw them, it'd change how they perceived me or whatever. i remember when i started secondary school and within the first term, one of the friends i had made saw some old scars on my arm, and i didn't let myself wear short sleeves for the entire duration of my time at that school. i don't even feel comfortable having my arms out at home!!

anyway. i bought a glycolic acid toner a while ago to fade some dark spots on my face, so i'm now wondering if i'd be able to use it on the healed scars on my wrist to see if they'd fade too? i've tried using that scar tape stuff and it did nothing, maybe because i waited too long to buy it.
has anyone tried using toner like that to fade scars?? did it make any difference??

i’m not saying that no human behaviour can be explained with evolution. i just don’t like when people either make it really convoluted (e.g. women are typically attracted to taller men due to it being a secondary sex characteristic, turns into some weird hunter-gatherer fanfic) or they clearly don’t know what they’re talking about and just make it all up.
i remember seeing some bs about why women are more talkative and emotional than men, being explained with: “when women were foraging, they had the leisure to talk and had to be emotional to alert the men of any danger. but the men were busy hunting!! so they had to be quiet!!”

a day off of school consists of thinking about eating and thinking about not eating and then eating and then walking and procrastinating on walking and then walking again.
i mean, i barely took school seriously before anyways. but it feels now like even if i wanted to study for an exam or do homework, it would never be a priority. if i eat, i can’t sit still. if i don’t, i just think about how much i want to.
i even held off on getting a part-time job so i wouldn’t be sacrificing my free time and study time. turns out, both of those things have been sacrificed anyway.

for pretty much all of last year, and much of this year, i was sedentary. i used to be really quite active, but i had stopped properly going to school, stopped doing PE, and i spent my weekends in my house. so i was getting like... less than 2k steps a day, usually.

i don't think i had anorexia before, just some form of disordered/restrictive eating. i lost weight, then lost my period for a bit, but i was able to get it back within a month after increasing my intake by a lot. since then, i've been in a bit of a binge/restrict cycle. but i haven't really been tracking calories... if i try, i can do it for a week at most, but then i give up.

anyways, i started thinking that if i'm not going to track calories, i should at least try to be more active, because i could maintain on around >!2000!< if i was lightly active, compared to >!1650 !<if i stayed sedentary. so it would be like a "buffer."
my original goal was >!8k steps a day!<. then it turned into >!10k steps a day!<. unless i've eaten very little (like >!omad!<), i now feel uneasy getting fewer than >!20k steps!<. whenever i eat, the main thing on my mind is just that i need to compensate for it at some point during the day. if i fail to do this, then i think that i need to eat less the next day.

i know that vomit purging is very dangerous and can kill you immediately. i don't know if there are really any drawbacks to exercise purging??? not drawbacks sorry, but like, health effects or something. sorry if these terms are incorrect, and also sorry for spoilering everything but i wasn't sure what did or did not need to be covered!!

i don't want to be totally sedentary, but i don't find it easy to just leave the house and go on a walk. so i've gotten into the habit of getting at least 8k steps (usually around 10-12k, today it was 20k) at home, by walking/marching in my room as i watch something.

obviously this isn't the same as actually walking outside. i'm not covering any distance for example, i'm just in the same sort of spot going back and forth, sometimes side to side.
this probably affects calories burned by quite a bit, but i don't take those into account anyway as step tracking apps would be inaccurate regardless.

i'm more concerned with how dampened the health benefits are, by doing it this way. like cardiovascular stuff, muscle strength, stamina, etc.

also, i do this barefooted because shoes would be too heavy/noisy.

i’m 5’8.

using the first one that comes up, my sedentary TDEE is around 1650.
for ‘light activity’, it jumps up to 1900.

i try to get 8k steps minimum everyday, ideally 10k, but that doesn’t seem like nearly enough to add a whole 250 calories to my TDEE. especially because i tend to get most, or all, of these steps indoors, by walking in my bedroom.

i'm 17 and i'm pretty sure my hair has been the same length since i was maybe 9-10 years old. doesn't quite reach my shoulders. very annoying. i think it's normal porosity (gets wet fairly quickly, takes maybe 4-ish hours to air dry).

i know that yes technically my hair does grow but it doesn't retain the growth, but why is that? i don't think i'm doing anything wrong. i wash my hair once a week, shampoo, rinse, condition, detangle, rinse, and then i use a leave-in and a light layer of oil.
throughout the week, as needed (that is, if it's feeling dry/stiff), i spray my hair to dampen it, and then add a little more leave-in and oil.

for a while, i thought it was because i hadn't had my hair trimmed in a long long time. so i bought hair scissors last year, and trimmed off the ends that always felt dry no matter how much product was applied.
i trimmed my hair again recently. i don't do it too often.

for hairstyle, i usually just wear my hair in a low, loose ponytail, whenever i go out. at home, it's usually down. and i sleep with it in a loose bun + bonnet.

(f17)

last year, when i was 16, i lost my period for around 5 months. idk why because i hadn't really lost that much weight, and it was at a healthy rate (0.5kg a week), and i wasn't very active.
anyway, i decided to do the "all in" approach to get my period back, so although i didn't track calories, i ate 3 meals and 3 snacks everyday. it took around a month for me to get my period back, which happened at my pre-dieting(?) weight.

i've had like 6 consistent cycles since then? 8? idk. and now i want to lose weight again, because i'm not happy with how my body looks.

but i'm worried that even if i lose weight at a healthy rate like i did last time, i risk losing my period again. especially as i'm not sedentary anymore.
if this were to happen, would it then take longer than 1 month to recover?

back in March, i started CBT at school. i had been dealing with suicidal thoughts and self-harm for a while by that point, but it was really affecting my attendance and grades etc.
last week, i decided i wanted to stop the CBT sessions. they were for general low mood and self-esteem stuff (which i guess is probably bdd) and hadn't been of much help, and i also felt like i wasn't really engaging with what the guy wanted me to be doing.
i don't think i'm actually very interested in getting better or having anything change.

he emailed me the other day to say that we could have another meeting, at school, or at an external clinic, to discuss "next steps" and determine which services could be right for me.

i'm not sure yet if i should agree to go to the meeting or not. i'm not sure what it'd be like. i've seen a GP multiple times regarding all this and they basically always just tell me to try using Kooth and then send me some numbers (like Samaritans). if that's what this meeting will be about, then i'm not interested. if it's gonna be about doing CBT somewhere else, i'm again not interested. i'm just too lazy and, as i said, not interested in doing anything to change, when the outcome will be the same no matter what. and i don't want to waste anyone's time.

ages:
dad - 79
mum - 51
me - 17.

firstly, yes, very big age gap between my parents. i already know that the main reason she married him was so that she could move from her home country, to the UK. she's stated outright that she regrets marrying him, mainly because he's old but not rich.

the idea of her cheating on my dad isn't new, i think it first came up when i was around 9-10 years old. it was something both of my older siblings knew about as well. i think it was because of some messages i/we had seen on her phone? and, although it's bad to invade a person's privacy like this, i do remember going through her ipad and seeing a dick pic from some old man. there was also a time that me, my mum, and one of my siblings, were staying in a hotel after what i think was a wedding? and i saw messages on her phone some time after, that at the time i didn't understand, but from what i remember were almost definitely alluding to sex.

i think we confronted her about this, but it was shut down pretty quickly. it's never been brought up since then. idk if my siblings even remember. even i sometimes forget about it.

i remembered all this today because, as i was standing near her, i saw her phone screen, and a notification from some guy (with the same name of the one we believed her to be having an affair with previously, i think), and it was like, "___ sweetheart, x". she's tried to say before that it's just how she and her friends text, and yeah it's definitely not uncommon for people to use Xs with friends, but the sweetheart is weird.

anyway it makes me very uncomfortable, and i'm not sure what to do about it. i'm scared to bring it up again, i don't want to cause trouble, and we already don't get along too well, but i try to keep things civil because it's more convenient for me.
but i also feel bad to act like nothing is going on, i feel bad when i hug her and say i love her.

this has always been an issue for me, but it's started getting worse since A level exams are longer.
i really cannot stay focused, and this is severely impacting my grades as it means i can't finish exam papers in the given time. even if i've prepared for it, and i'm not struggling with the content, it's still difficult.

- i begin picking at the skin around my nails. i find it very hard to stop once i've started, so i waste a lot of time on this.
- i get tempted to start doodling. but i can't doodle, so then i'm just thinking about doodling.
- i completely zone out. idk what i'm even thinking about when this happens.
- i think about how i want the exam to be over already so i can go home.
- i get distracted by seeing the invigilator move around, hearing other people type, cough, sniff, etc. and then i get really annoyed by this, so i think about how annoying it is.

psychology exams aren't as bad because of the shorter answers, but history and RS are terrible.

i've sort of discussed this with the send lead at school already but she's just so far said that i could have supervised rest breaks. i wasn't sure if these were actually given to me by the time we did mock exams, so i didn't use them, and i don't think i'd be able to anyway because i'd get too embarrassed/nervous.

extra time would definitely make this even worse and i wouldn't be eligible for it anyway.

i have no idea what to do. our predicted grades are based on these mock exams and even though i may not end up going to uni (if i can even make it through year 13), i still don't like the fact that i've completely messed up because i get distracted so easily.