> 8:00AM Wake Up.

Bee groggily pulled off the headset and sat up in bed.

Fuck.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

They...she? They…

A deep breath.

I had a hell of a thing to wrap my head around. Several hells worth of things, even, if this mountain of dissociation was an indication.

I ended up spending hours with Candy, alternating between talking and cuddling, before logging out early because, frankly, I had a lot of shit to work through.

Only that was the middle of the night and apparently I didn’t set the dive system to actually wake me up.

Probably just as well. I felt more...better?

No. Not better. I felt fucking terrible. My skin crawled if I let too much attention drift to it and I had a lump in my throat that would probably choke me before it let me hear the sound of my own voice...not that I could disagree with it on that one.

What was a little more under control was the self hate spiral. I was back to background levels of loathing, rather than the 5 alarm disaster of last night. I might even be able to talk...well, text, with my friends without crying.

Maybe.

Speaking of that...Fuck Me. Again.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

Okay. Cutting out that self pity for a few minutes; before I drop into another spiral. Deep Breaths.

Deep, regular breaths.

I grabbed my phone and wrapped myself in a blanket cocoon, which helped a little with the skin crawls. No matter how my body was shaped, floof was still floof.

> Bee: Hey.
> Bee: Are you up yet?
> Bee: I think we need to talk…

> Danny: Bee!?
> Danny: Fuck thank god you’re okay!
> Danny: I was so worried about you!

Danny’s first message came in before I had even finished my opening salvo. I guess she was pretty worried…

> Bee: I’m sorry
> Bee: I was going through a lot
> Bee: am*

> Danny: Fuck. Bee, you KILLED yourself in game!!
> Danny: What the hell was I supposed to do but worry!?
> Danny: I just so fucking glad that you’re okay…

Oh. OH. That...makes sense, actually. I did kinda do that. I was the fucking worst. Also, stop that, I need to communicate more than I need to beat myself up. There will be plenty of time for that later on…

> Bee: Sorry, I wasn’t thinking T_T
> Bee: But I kinda need to say this now while I still have the courage
> Bee: ...Okay?

Long pause on this one. Please be okay with this?

> Danny: Okay...

Okay. Just remember to breathe. Danny is my friend. She’ll support me and not hate me or never talk to me again or lure me into a dark alley full of scary men to beat and maybe kill-

No. No, stop that. You’re catastrophizing, me. Just…

> Bee: I think I’m trans

Okay. Okay. Okay.

I wrote it.

Now I just need to send it.

I feel like my heartbeat is going miles a minute. I’m breaking into a cold sweat or at least the closest thing to a cold sweat I can break out into when I’m wrapped up in so many blankets. Blanket sweats are a real thing. I just need to hit this little button or I could just not and tell her nevermind it’s nothing. I don’t think she’d totally believe that though it’s like she was right there when I broke down so she knows something is up with me. Maybe she’d believe that it was an anxiety thing? She’s seen me have major attacks and boy did I ever have an attack during that whole thing. Maybe if I just-

I hit the stupid button before I could talk myself out of it.

I let out the breath that I’d been holding. Good job with the regular breathing on that one. And I felt as the tension in my chest dropped off a fucking cliff. It was out there. I was still stressed as all hell but…

I did it.

> Danny: *hugs*
> Danny: Thank you for telling me...
> Danny: I’ll always support you, you know?
> Danny: Laura too. That’s what friends are for, you know?

I smiled. And Cried. My emotions were a war between anxiety and self-hate and dysphoric depression right now. And now, happy-crying. Full Ugly-sobbing in my blanket, trying to wrap it tight enough around myself that it felt like a hug.

> Danny: Right. What pronouns do you want to use?

> Bee: I think I might be a girl...but I’m not sure
> Bee: She or They? IDK
> Bee: Don’t really feel like I have ownership to “she”

> Danny: We can work it out together, okay?

I nodded.

> Bee: *nods*

> Danny: Would you like me or Laura to head over there? We can talk or hang out or just whatever?

> Bee: I *really* don’t think I’m up for people right now
> Bee: How about we all talk in ROL:E tomorrow night?
> Bee: I think I need 24H, but it’s...easier. In there

> Danny: Gotcha. I’ll let Laura know.
> Danny: Anything else?

I thought good and hard on that one. Did I need anything else? Almost certainly. I was a fucking mess and there was no getting out of the hole I was in without help.

Right now though?

> Bee: Thanks...

Kaosubaloo

And that's the end of day 2! One more day to go before the end of this arc and, hopefully it'll be a shorter wait than day 2 was. Right now I'm expecting some time around the end of November, but I guess we'll see when we see...

If nothing else, the biggest blockers for this day were all of the emotionally charged dysphoria chapters. Day 3's going to have a lot less of that, so hopefully I wont have any really bad blocks like I did with this one. And in the meantime, you can reach each chapter I've written, as I write it, on My Patreon

While you're waiting though?  Why not give Thaw a try? It's a story about what is basically a D&D party who are slowly organizing to protect a town and who are mostly made up of queer women. So, you know, exactly my kind of story. It's different from what I'm writing here, but I like it so maybe you will too. XD