One of the things I did at D+X was to re-read some of my steamier posts. The reaction I got from within was... odd. On one hand I was turned on. Not by the thought of being feminized, but just by the pure raw sexuality of the posts. The ones that turned me on the most were actually my later posts. By that time I was playing a fully feminized 'girl'. I had no humiliation play or 'forced' play. I was a woman there enjoying myself with other women, shemales, and yes even guys. Where I remembered writing those scenes as the 'woman' I actually was enjoying them from the male perspective.
Another aspect I was feeling while lurking at D+X was remembering the relationship I made there. I don't think any of them were as close as the relationships I made as a cap artist and blogger, but at the same time they were more intense. Kind of like comparing a large low burning campfire to a firecracker.
Then this whole thing with blogger came up. As I'll probably read this myself years from now, lemme catch myself up. Blogger announced in the last week of February 2015 that they were going to close down all blogs that contained 'porn'. Specifically 'adult content'. While I honestly believe that many of the cap blogs would be just fine, I knew damned well that mine passed the porn test. Caitlyn's Masks would be no more. My first reaction was a frustrated 'Fuck It!'. I'd let the blog sit for the month they were allowing and then delete it. But the comments on other blogs reminded me why I was maintaining it in the first place... to keep an archive of my past work. Not just the caps themselves as they are all available on the Havnen. I also want to maintain the posts about the caps and the posts that aren't about capping at all. Especially the posts about my struggle with Caitlyn (both the 'too much Caitlyn' posts and the 'too little Caitlyn' rants).
So I looked into methods of moving the blog elsewhere. After a quick search, Wordpress seemed to be the best option and I started creating caitlynsmasks.wordpress.com. I got the design and layout down (at least a begining point for them) and then looked at moving... DAMN!!! 600 FREAKING POSTS!!!
Yeah... it would still be a nightmare to move the posts over. I could take the easy way and just upload all my caps but again, I wanted to save the posts and the comments themselves. At that point, Blogger reversed it's decision and I could breath a sigh of relieve. BTW, I'm keeping the wordpress blog. For what? I don't know, but maybe I'll come up with something.
Anywho, to take a break during that frustration I visited DX. This time though, I logged in. I was shocked when I more or less got several 'YAY Caitlyn' shouts. I got to chatting with some people there and of course had to answer the 'Are you coming back to play with us' question quite a few times. The answer was always a quick and easy 'No'. It's been eight months since I stopped searching for Caitlyn and I don't think she'll ever come back. BUT coming back and being part of that community did appeal to me. I finally decided to start a new character. A Male character. I couldn't, and wouldn't, enjoy playing as a feminized guy but playing as one of their patrons should be doable. It lets me log in and say hi, but more importantly lets me just be part of the community. I'll find out if its difficult when I try to join a thread that involves feminizing one of the newer players. That might be hard to play.
Starting that character though has brought up another thought.... could this lead to me capping again? Let's face it, I DO enjoy that creative process. Just thinking about the minutia that goes into a cap... colors, layout, fonts, photo selection, cutting down text, expanding upon text... makes me want to do it again. Maybe... just MAYBE... I could cap even in a feminine voice. I could do so without doing it to search for Caitlyn (which is more or less what I was doing those last few months of capping).
I don't know. I'm not going to try now, but it IS on my mind.
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I can finally leave five block. I'll be back there in a little over a week, but hey leaving is a good thing.
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When I sat down to write this post out, I had a few things on my mind. While writing that last paragraph above though, Mom called me out to have breakfast. It's a normal part of our Sunday routine when I'm not working. She'll make some ciniamon rolls, some sweet rolls, some sausage and eggs, some eggs and bacon.... basic breakfast stuff. This time she made 'Toads in a Log'. It's an egg fried into the middle of a piece of bread. VERY tasty.
Instead of finishing up in 10 minutes, cleaning up for 15 minutes, then returning to finish typing this post out, we talked. We talked for close to two hours. I'm not going to recount all of the conversation but a lot of it had to do with her general health. The last part was about her depression. Soon after my father died, our family doctor prescribed Prozac for mom. She's been on 10mg daily for over 7 years now.
For most of that time, I was also depressed. I didn't know it at the time. You see, I went from 'normal' to grieving for my father. I slowly came out of grieving and I thought I had returned to normal. Well... I didn't. I was less sad after grieving, but I never got back to 'normal'. I'm calling it normal because I want to call it happy, but when I say happy I don't want anyone to think that I'm happy all the time. I still feel sadness and anger and frustration. But like with happiness, I return to a particular baseline. Back then, however, that baseline was well below what I would now consider 'sad'.
And yes, in case you're doing the math in your head... Caitlyn came to me in what I would now call my depressed state. I only came out of the depression when I got this current job. At first I thought I was just 'giddy' or 'over happy' with the results... but that normalized out into an almost constant happiness. Only upon long reflection over many months do I finally get it. This is normal. This is how I should always be. Not manic, not sickly sweet happy all the time. But overall.... happy.
And Mom hasn't been happy for a long LONG time. Sure, she occasionally feels happy about somethjing, but it doesn't last long. Not even for a day. She eventually returns to her 'normal' and I can now see that her 'normal' is quite depressed. I never gave much thought to her being on Prozac and still being depressed. I just figured it was stopping her from being even more depressed. But I recently looked at the dose again... 10mg.
The 'starting' dose for Prozac is 20mg. Many people go up from there, and the dosing stops at 80mg a day. It doesn't start, nor is never reduced to 10mg. 10mg is a sub-therapeutic dose. Maybe it was considered a normal dose back when mom started it, but right now that dose isn't expected to help anybody.
I think I got through to her... I think she's going to talk to her doctor. The problem is that she feels like many people do. That having to ask for help because of depression (or any mental health issue) is looked upon as being weak. And she doesn't want to admit to being weak. We'll see. I think her next appointment is still a few months off. But hopefully she'll talk to the doctor about it and at least get up to the 'starting' dose of 20mg a day.
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And after that more serious discussion, I'm out of things I want to talk about. Maybe I'll add more later.
At this point, you probably have a better idea of what you want out of our little subdivision of the internet. If you've been comfortable not making anything, I wouldn't expect you to start up again. Occasionally I question my passion .. ie. my lack of visiting Fictionmania over the last few month .. but with a few days off, it usually comes back. This February's winter depression really kicked my ass and the blogger "takedown" notice first made me think, "Fuck it!" but literally 5 minutes later, I was like, "fuck them, I'll do it elsewhere if need be!"
ReplyDeleteI think that you were very passionate about what you did for a number of years with the blog, and I'm not sure you can do things half-assed. At least not from what I've heard about you over the years we've known each other. You might want to reconsider making captions, and the RPing could be different because it is you as Calvin. Just don't get too caught up in it.
I think 15-20 years ago, 10mg was a standard starter point since it was recommended for a good friend of mine (I was in the mental health field at the time so they consulted me) but I think it was more of a dose to get them up to the standard and see how they metabolized it. The patient usually has to tell their doctor if the dose is working, and your mom was probably never comfortable talking to her doctor about it. Over time, your body does get used to it anyway, so an increase could be likely just by the amount of time she's been on it.
I would also like to thank you for continuing to be a presence in our lives. There have been quite a few over the years that say they'll keep up with us, but as time marches on, they seem to fade away. I"m sure it is because they are doing very well, but I still miss them.
I hear what you are saying. For the most part I'm an 'all or nothing' type of person. I'm going to hold off on the caps as I've only done them sans Caitlyn when I was expressing personal anger, frustration, or sorrow. What I mean is that I have no history of making them without Caitlyn so I really have no idea what to expect.
DeleteThe RPing on the other hand... well I've done that without Caitlyn. Yes, this IS tg roleplaying but I have a comparison that I can refer to. I'm just about done with my 'intro' thread and it's been a blast so far. I've also had plenty of requests to play from people that knew me as Caitlyn. It's good to be part of that community again.
On the Prozac, you are absolutely right. I talked to one of the Nurse Practicioners at work about doses, and her best guess is that Mom's doctor more than likely wanted to start her on 10mg and then move her u p to 20 (or more). For whatever reason they never got to that second step. I'd guess that it was mom just laying down the law "No, no more meds".
There's no reason to thank me. I'm just happy to be part of the community and it's more reward on my side.