Journal of Michael TG AR Pt.4

September 19, 2009

I woke up two hours ago, and I don't really know who I am.  Part of me knows.  I know that I am staying in this lady's house voluntarily.  I know I am supposed to do a weigh-in and height measurement today. I think that there are some days that a doctor comes, but I don't know if that's today.  Do I go to that place with the big scanning machine today? I just know that it's 8:00am and I have about an hour to figure out what's going on before I'm supposed to be somewhere doing something.

I look like... a man girl? I am neither, I am both, and I recognize the face in the mirror, but it's not the way it should be. The colors are wrong.

What I find even more amazing is that I am calm. I have no concerns. I know, somehow, that this is all right, but conventional thinking says it shouldn't be.

So, I know this is all "right".  But I don't know why.  I have moments where I think I know who I am.

I'm afraid to start looking through the closets in this room, because I don't know whose stuff it is- does it belong to the lady or me?

So, I just realized that I sat down to write this journal, knowing that I had a journal, but I didn't think to look at the rest of the journal until just now.  So, I am Michael. Or, I was Michael.  I am becoming Amanda.  I guess I should talk about this with Tricia and see if this is normal.  I should be grateful that this journal is here, or I'd have no idea what was going on.
Maybe this moment when I'm supposed to start thinking like Amanda.  I don't know. I think I'll shower and get ready, because I think Tricia will be here soon to do my weight and measurement.

I don't know who I'm writing this for - for the future me, or... I don't know.  I guess it's therapeutic for me.  I'm going to shower and talk to Tricia.  Maybe I'll write more later.  I feel tired again, and everything's a bit hazy even though I have the journal.  It's like I know I wrote those entries, but I don't 100% believe that I did. It's like I believe it 85% believe it, and the rest of me doesn't know what's going on.

Height: 65.50"
Weight: 151lbs

5:00pm

Okay, I have about half an hour before dinner, not that I feel hungry.  So, today, Tricia sat me down and explained that this part of the process will involve more making more internal changes to my body ("structurual changes" she said") and the mental changes.   I won't lose much height, but I will change shape and lose weight so that I'm more in line with the weight and build for a female of my height.  She said I will probably have some comprehension problems as this process goes forward until my brain settles into its new layout and structure.

This part will last about 3 to 4 weeks, she said, and then the last 2 to 3 weeks will be finalizing my final body size and external changes to my body. Some people, she said, don't take the full 8 weeks, and I could theoretically be done in 4 weeks (which would make it a total of 6 weeks for me).  She said they don't tell people that in the beginning so that they make all their plans for an 8 week stay and don't get too impatient if it takes the full 8 weeks.

I don't know if I'm in a rush or not.  I'm not sure about any of my feelings, or why I even started this.  Tricia filled me on my history, and her talks with me before the process.  I feel better about what she told me, but I wish I could remember everything. She said I would remember, it would just come back in bits and pieces as my brain tries to keep my memories intact while the brain tissue takes on a new and younger structure due to my new DNA.  So, she said no one ever loses much, but some how the body protects the memories during changes and then recopies them into new tissue.  In my sleep, she said, I'm probably forgetting things like how to drive or how to eat, but I don't know it.   She said to be prepared for some weird dreams as well.  

I don't know.  I'm tired.  I think a solid 12 - 14 hours of sleep is what I need.  Tomorrow I get a doctor's visit and then we go to Poughkeepsie for scans.  Off to dinner, ttyl, whomever you are... whomever I am.


September 20, 2009

Today's scans were at 7:30am, and then we had to rush back here to see the doctor by 9:30am.  The whole thing was surreal as I recognized everything and everyone, but I didn't quite understand their context to me.  Had I gotten along with them before?  Did I want to get along with them now?

I think that in the past, Michael wanted to be liked and had a knack for making people like him: Even if just for a 1 minute transaction with a cashier at a store.  I can remember him making cashiers, bank tellers, receptionist and telephone customer service people everywhere smile, laugh and remember him.  Everyone had to like him because he needed them to, and because he made himself so likeable that no one could resist.

I'm not Michael anymore, but I don't feel like I'm Amanda.  I'm in some hinterland, and my emotions are kind of numb.  I don't know how I feel about most things, and I don't know what I want.  I know Michael wanted this, and I have no resistance to becoming Amanda, so I'm okay with going along.  I hope my memory comes back, so I can know all the details of what Michael agreed to and who the people were in his life.  The journal only mentions an old college roommate, an ex-wife and no family, so am I to think he was shunned for this decision?  I asked Tricia, and she said that he hasn't mentioned his family at all.

I think I'm going to use the journal for my own documentation of my research.  I've been doing some reading on the processes I'm undergoing (because I can't remember what Michael read about them when he signed up), and I want to make sure I've got it all straight in my head in case my memory goes funny again.  Tricia said that at some point every memory and impulse in my brain has to be transferred from the old Michael-DNA brain tissue to the new-DNA brain tissue.  She said, that even for just a second, I will forget how to breathe, but the evolutionary processes that this treatment taps into doesn't let that transition take more than a second.  She did say some people have forgotten how to walk, write or speak for a few hours while the brain does its work.  But, it is theorized that most of that loss of critical memory happens to most of transformees in our sleep.  It's those unlucky enough to be awake when it happens that find themselves on the floor, gasping for air or unable to communicate.

For now, I told Tricia to call me Michaela until I'm ready to be Amanda.  Truthfully, I won't be able to go out in public much longer being male anyway.  In this stage, my body shape is going to change enough that I won't look male at all, nor will my skull and/or head, etc. I'll probably start really sounding female as my body structure changes.

I mean, I've just been wearing sweats mostly when we do go out and that hides the training bra.  I have no real breast growth to speak of, and my hair is long enough to be a real pixie cut on a girl, but still could pass for long hair on a guy.  I expect that will all change soon enough.

First off, I had thought my hips had grown wider in the last few weeks.  But Tricia filled me in on the truth and we took some measurements.  The only real skeletal change, other than my overall reduction in size, in these last few weeks, has been the beginning change in my sacrum. The shape changes were caused by the female hormones - my body began to redistribute fat based upon my DNA and hormone regimen.

Back to the changes in the skeletal structure.  Yes, my sacrum has been shortening widening and curving backwards a bit, and that will continue.  I asked Tricia why that starts early before the rest of the major structural changes in the process.  She said it was mainly because it's part of the spinal column and it needs to be relatively "in-place" so that nerves don't end up getting pinched in the transformation process.  Apparently, in the beginning, some transformees had to have spinal surgery, so now IdetitiCorp makes sure they regulate when the spinal changes occur and which spinal changes occur.  I realize now why this process is so expensive.   They have spent probably hundreds of millions of dollars getting this process down to a science, and for that I am grateful.

So, yes, I have a lot of structural changes to my hips and pelvis coming (Tricia said that it would moderately painful, but not horrible), an overall reduction in skeletal mass, major changes to my skull and jawbone (she said that I've got a lot of headaches coming up, that would be the worst part), a narrowing of my frame and shoulders and a general shortening and thinning of my limbs (she said that part just feels weird and somewhat unpleasantly tingly).

I kind of wonder why they don't do all the skeletal changes gradually, but I know there must be a reason.  IdentitiCorp is too smart to just do this randomly.

Maybe it has to do with the evolutionary triggers in our DNA that they activate - maybe it they made all changes gradually, forcing the body to make evolutionary changes in all of its aspects at one, it would "untrigger" the evolutionary trigger that allows this to happen?  Maybe our body's system has a "fail safe" that recognizes when something other than natural evolution occurs and shuts down?  That would be more amazing than anything else, I would think.

My height didn't change today, but my weight did.  This is what is expected in this phase, apparently, so nothing exciting to write about.  Do I look a few pounds lighter than I did a few days ago?  I suppose not.  Tricia letting me take pictures of myself, so I'll compare them in a week.

Height: 65.50"
Weight: 150lbs