I've recently started to shake myself out of a month-long depression, and I feel like I need to warm up my writing muscles. I've written nothing but tweets and diary entries for the past two years; I'm rusty, and I need to start writing every day again if I want to improve. I think it'll help with the depression, too.

In the last daylog I wrote about how much things have improved, and good news: things have continued to improve. I've become much more sociable on HRT and I've made a lot of great, caring new friends. The major problem is that once I became confident enough to start talking about moving out, it was as if my mom felt threatened by the independence -- she started threatening to kick me out every day for a few weeks, culminating with me deciding to live on a friend's couch rather than stay in a home I felt unwelcome in.

And when I got my stuff from my mom's place, she tried to break my laptop. Apparently its life is extremely important to me because I got an adrenaline rush that allowed me to carry seven bags (combination of duffel, purse, grocery) down the street for 15 minutes to the nearest corner, where I could contact a friend to pick me up. That was about a month ago and coincided with a medication change that I think helped nudge it into 'depression' territory.

The month after moving onto my friend's couch, I struggled with daily suicidal thoughts almost as bad as before. It was dreadful and made all the struggles I've had in the last few years seem pointless; like nothing really improved at all. But luckily it's starting to pass now, and I've begun to feel a bit better this week.

Lesson learnt: Don't do major med changes with adjustment periods during tumultuous chapters of your life that require emotional stability

Once my landlord has finished moving some junk out of his house, I'll have my own place. Right now it's being used for storage, but it's being generously rented to me for a very low price. So pretty soon I'll be done living on the couch, and I won't be living in a house full of 14-year-old boys like I am right now (it's as bad as you could imagine). My friends are giving me ample emotional support, which is amazing to me because I rarely felt like I had friends before transition.

Overall, I'd say things are going well. There have been some stumbles lately, but generally my life is getting better. I just need to sit tight and plow through these next few months of instability. And hopefully this time I'll do some writing at the same time.

I made my 143rd short story sale last night. It was to a horror-themed anthology, but I can't yet say who bought it. Someone asked me if I'm going to have a party when I make my 150th sale. If the story I write for #150 is as fraught with complications this one was, I may just need a nap rather than champagne.

Sometimes I sit down to write a story, and the thing I've been mulling over in my head comes out nicely story-shaped in one sitting and with a bit of polishing it's off to the editor. Other times I feel like I'm trying to sprint down a mountain path while wrestling an angry octopus into a burlap sack

I'm still covered in sweat and sucker marks from #143. 

And that's okay; even when the writing process is horrible and has me weeping with frustration at 3am, it's still way better than doing tech support.

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