Dear Anita
Thank you for your advice. I hope to pass my physics class and although I may not earn a 70, I can try to study well for exam 3 on June 25th. I will work on the bonus questions and also studying so I can get a good score and hopefully pass. The lowest passing grade is a 60 and I currently have a 55, so I need to bring my grade up by five points to pass. I can’t withdraw from the class now because it is almost over (only June 24th and 25th left) and the withdrawal date was June 11th. If I try to withdraw, then I receive no credit for the course and a failing grade. I think my best hope is to study better and pass the class and hopefully not get an F. Since this is my only class that has the lowest grade, I hope it doesn’t affect me much. I like the idea of considering other similar career paths and lab technician sounds good. Lately I’ve been feeling quite anxious about many things and it feels like I’m always jumpy all the time. I think it is stress from physics and the gender dysphoria. I feel like I’m running on adrenaline and that everyone is seeing my mistakes and it makes me jumpy and want to avoid people. After the adrenaline burnout, I feel tired and just feel like sleeping and not waking up. I think my main fear is not being able to support myself and have a good paying career to help me transition because I feel like I wouldn’t want to live if I was stuck in the body I have currently. Since I love science, I know my career path will be in the science field and I am most interested in studying cancer research and DNA. My career path and my goals of transitioning seem to be tied together because I know that I don’t want to live my life feeling anxious all the time about my gender identity. It may be possible to seek a career path that can pay some of the costs for transitioning and when I feel more comfortable with myself, I can have less anxiety and more focus on going for more complex career path of genetic engineering. This is why I like the idea of exploring lab technician career because I think that it would help me establish my research skills and I would enjoy working iin a lab. Thank you for your advice and I hope you have a good week ahead!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by Janus.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by Janus.

Dear Anita

Hope you are doing well, thank you for  your encouragement that helps me through the difficult times. I think that the gender dysphoria was most prominent in high school, but I didn’t have the resources to understand what I was feeling. I managed to understand my feelings better in college after meeting the members of Ocean Pride LGBTQ at my college. I became aware that my feelings of discomfort over my body were symptoms of gender dysphoria in college. When I was in high school, I often felt like I didn’t belong in my body, that I wasn’t really female and I didn’t know how to describe this feeling of detachment from my body. The feelings intensified in junior and senior year of high school because I didn’t have many friends that year and had lots of AP classes and exams to prepare for. I felt really uncomfortable with my body and and I tried ways to make my chest flatter. I didn’t have a chest binder at that time, so I used Ace bandages and they were quite tight and at times I couldn’t breathe but they made me feel better about myself. During high school, I thought that the discomfort with myself was mostly due to stresses in school, so I studied long hours and tried to immerse myself in my school work hoping the discomfort would go away. But it seemed to get worse, I became afraid to go out in public places because I didn’t like my body. I would cross my arms over my chest to cover up and I started to not wear tight shirts. I did not like having a female body, my waist made me feel fat and I wanted muscles and I hated my chest. I also longed to cut my hair short, but my parents wouldn’t let me. I became quite depressed and started to become anorexic because I wanted to make my body look skinnier and reduce the curves. When college came around, I was around my parents a lot less and I cut my hair short and it made me feel happy. I also got a chest binder that didn’t bruise my ribs and that helped. Being part of Ocean Pride LGBTQ club, I learned a lot about myself and how I was feeling. The club members encouraged me to explore ways to express myself that made me feel more comfortable. The first semester of college, I was still finding myself and playing around with gender identity. I knew I didn’t feel feminine at all, so I decided to express masculine for a time and although it was difficult I discovered that I liked it a lot. As I began to explore myself and started to use male pronouns in my second semester, I started to feel like I could live as a male and be comfortable. It was during my third semester at Ocean County College that I started understanding myself and things began to fit together. I started going to Pride events and felt happy because I could just be myself and feel accepted. I met other people who were struggling with their gender identity and didn’t like their bodies and I found some of them that shared similar experiences. When I realized that I would prefer to live as a male and that it made me feel more comfortable, it felt like I had found a way to understand the discomfort that I felt towards my body and it made things seem clearer. I thought that understanding my emotions would help lessen the insecurity, but it has been difficult and there are times that understanding though a good thing makes me feel even more dysphoria because it makes me feel like I don’t belong in my body and it gives me a sense that I want it to change now.

Dear Anita

I have been working on meditations to help relieve anxiety and it is quite helpful. I like your suggestions of seeing the whole personality without having a gender that can be distressing. I am currently studying for my physics final exam which consists of chapters 10-14 which is tomorrow. I am thinking of going to the tutoring center to help prepare for the exam because the tutor explains things well. I dislike missing lecture class, but I think that dedicating my time to study for the exam is more important. The exam is 15% of the grade and I hope that I do well on it. I may have to retake physics in the fall semester and I think that it will be okay. I notified Stockton University that I want to enroll in the Spring semester rather than the fall because I want to dedicate more time to prepare for my science studies and for more tutoring to understand the material. I don’t think I will pass physics this summer and I feel a bit disappointed, but I will try my best. People think that an F in a class is bad and I know it is bad, but this class is the only class that I have struggled with so I hope it doesn’t affect me too much. Looking for advice, thank you for your encouragement!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by Janus.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by Janus.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 5 months ago by Janus.

Dear Anita

I think that getting an F in physics when it is an important class for my major may have a negative impact when other colleges see it. If I retake the class again in the fall and get a better grade, I may be able to appeal to the colleges and say that I had a bad semester where I struggled a lot. I feel worried that the F will ruin chances of getting into higher education because people have said that it can affect a students application into graduate schools. My GPA is a 3.8 and I think that the F will bring it down a lot but I hope that it won’t be too much. I do feel a bit anxious that this physics class is going to create a struggle for me in my scientific pursuits and career path. I feel a bit strained, but I am going to hope for the best. I will meditate and work on calming myself down. Physics is making me doubt myself and wonder about my life’s goals and I think that meditation has helped me bring some clarity. I don’t think things are going well now, but I can take steps to make them turn out okay.