You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

Swell AI Transcript: 98. Nicolas Blooms FINAL.mp4
Nicolas Blooms: Part of detransition is what taught me through my spiritual experiences is that when you're so ungrounded, you lose your sense of self. But when you come back to your body to realize the importance of your body and honor your body, I feel like then that's when you start to bring all this mental activity back into yourself. That's what's missing in the conversation.
Stephanie Winn: You must be some kind of therapist. Today I am speaking with Nicholas Blooms. He is a detransitioner, an artist, a creator of a graphic novel, and a delightful human being. And for those who are just listening on audio platforms, we're going to try to make this episode audio-friendly. However, I would strongly encourage you, if at all possible, to check out the YouTube version, or for that matter, the full video version that I upload to Twitter slash X, because we're actually going to be sharing some of Nicholas's graphic novel imagery today, and I would love for people to be able to see the visuals. So Nicholas, welcome. It's great to have you here.

Nicolas Blooms: I'm so excited to chat with you.

Stephanie Winn: So we met through Kim Oh, who was on episode 80. That episode is called From Shame to Resilience, Healing the Inner Child with Kim Oh. And you two have a very special relationship. I believe she talked about it on that episode. I know she's also spoken with me privately about this sort of really close mentorship relationship that the two of you have. And you worked together on the Saguaro Soul children's book series, which Kim talked about in that episode. And so you and I have been meeting to touch base ever since then, and you shared your graphic novel with me, which is about your experiences of detransition. As far as I'm aware, it's maybe the first or only thing of its kind. Do you know of anyone else doing this?

Nicolas Blooms: I don't think I've ever heard of a detransition graphic novel. So I feel like it might be the first, like him and I, we talk about, we're like, Oh my God, I feel like this is like one of a kind, unique, never done thing before. And especially, it's not like your typical graphic novel, because every single page is a image spread. Whereas like a graphic novel is like quadrants of images laid out to tell a story per page. But like, this book is more of like a novel where there's art on every single page related to the text. So I think it is one of a kind. Yeah, Kim was the one who really inspired me to create this book. She found me miraculously through YouTube. I created a detransition. I am detransitioning YouTube video. inspired by a lot of other detransitioners at the time, so I created that. From there, after a few months, Shapeshifter, who also is a detransitioner, linked my YouTube video on Twitter, and then through that, my video blew up to like 30k within one month, so I was like, okay, this is interesting, I don't know what to do with this. And then from there, she, Kim, reached out to me on email being like hi i'm a spiritual relational relational soul coach would you like to chat with me so that we can maybe come up with a book idea together because your message about detransition and coming back to the heart and connecting with your soul is such a powerful message to give to these transitioners so what if we met so from there i was like okay that sounds really cool i always wanted to have like a connection with you know like a so like a coach then plus she was spiritual too on top of that so i was like i want to do it so we met and the first meeting we had it was really awesome We hit it off within like the first five minutes. We were starting to talk about the Myers-Briggs, our astrology, and all of our personality stuff was so interconnected. We were basically the same thing. We're both INFPs, we're both Virgos, and we're both our rising sites in Leo, and our moon signs are also in a water sign. So all these things were like, oh my God, this is so cool. And I'm Okinawan and her, partner or her fiance is also Okinawan so we're like oh my god what in the world like the weird coincidences or i like to call them synchronicities just seem like too good to be true like this was like divinely planned or something like that So it was very cool to have that immediate connection to draw me in to be like, OK, I'm going to get I'm going to get some clarity and direction with this beautiful, amazing woman, and she is going to help me. And from there, it took about a year to finally make me decide to like fully write a book because I still was dealing with detransition and really heavy emotions. So from there she helped me decode and unleash, unpack everything that was stuck from childhood wounds and everything like that. to the point where I was like okay I'm ready to finally write a book to help people like me that are gender confused and de-transitioning and she really sparked the magic within me to really come up with a book because my soul was yearning to draw and write at the same time.

Stephanie Winn: A couple elements there. One is this theme of spirituality that I just hear in almost every single detransitioner story that I've ever heard. There's always an element of spirituality, and it can come from all directions. I've met detransitioners for whom they found a more traditional faith like Christianity or Catholicism, met detransitioners who've had powerful experiences with psychedelics, and I think to sort of give it a general category like you and Kim are more like kind of new age touchy-feely woo-woo spirituality if I can sort of put that kind of label on it. And you found this sort of like soul connection, this kindred spirit, beautiful mentorship relationship. And that's something that just warms my heart to know that people are creating because I really think that mentorship is sort of a lost art. I talked about this with Heather Hying in my episode with her. I asked her about it because She her background before she blew up and became internet famous professor in exile and podcaster and author. Before that, she had these really intimate relationships with small groups of students. And I asked if she missed that. And we had a little bit of a conversation about that. It's something that's been on my mind because I feel like in this era where everyone's so busy and spending so much time online and spreading their energy so thin, there's a decline in the overall quality of relationships. And then there are certain types of relationships that I feel like we're really losing. We're losing those. what people will sometimes call third spaces, you know, the coffee shop or the bar, the the club where people can mix and mingle. A lot of that has really died down over the last few years. Even places that people do go, they're working on their devices rather than interacting with each other. So there's the decline of those types of relationships. And then there's definitely been the decline of the apprentice relationship over the last, I don't know, several decades or hundreds of years. I'm not really sure. But it used to be that young people would learn a skill in an apprenticeship sort of way. Everyone goes to college. A few people go to trade school. And mentorship is, I think, just such a beautiful relationship. It's like somewhere between therapy, coaching, grandparent, auntie, uncle role. It's a fluid role, but it's kind of, I think, in some ways a sacred relationship because the person who is in the role of mentor is essentially sending the message to the mentee, if you will, I believe in you. I believe in the seeds of potential within you. And I believe that watering those seeds with what I have to offer is a really worthwhile investment of my time. So it's like sort of, you know, taking the time to tend someone else's soul garden, so to speak. And so it just delights me to know that you and Kim have had that type of relationship. And I just want to see more of that in the world.

Nicolas Blooms: yeah i would like i don't think it'd be where i am today without my relationship with kim it's we've only known each other for a year but I have so much love for her because before meeting her, I had such huge heart pain. I guess it was emotional and physically related where because of all my suppressed emotions, like there was this intertangling of emotions and feelings within my heart that felt like my heart was being ringed out every single day. As soon as I woke up throughout the entire day. and she has given me such a chance to see that okay life is painful but also full of joy like I can find I can create a life that can allow me to love and witness and soften these emotions to the point where I don't become these emotions, then these emotions can be released from my body. And she showed me that possibility. So it's just such a cool gift to be given to have a mentor. Like, I never realized I needed a mentor. Therapy never really worked for me because it just didn't give me that one-on-one to the point where I could connect with them, call them every other day. and be given that belief to be like, you can do this. I believe in your potential. Just like you said, I believe in you. And I was never, ever given that to the point where I could actually believe it in myself to the point where I'm talking to you today. Because I was really, really, throughout my transition and early transition, I was, and my entire childhood, I was belittled with, or I was mentally clouded with self-doubt, self-judgment, self-hate, all that. and social anxiety was super rampant. So even chatting with you today, it just feels like a miracle because two, three years ago, I would not have imagined even chatting with you on a podcast, writing a book, talking about it, all that. So I think having a mentorship relationship with my friend Kim is so magical because it opened my eyes to the possibility that life is magical.

Stephanie Winn: As you were speaking, the saying came to me, you've probably heard before, the grass is greener where you water it. And I was thinking about that in contrast with what I've observed in some of the trans ideation is like this sort of implicit belief that the grass is greener on the other side. So, and sometimes, you know, detransitioners have revealed that looking back, their thought process was really naive about what it meant to be the opposite sex. There's sort of like a sense that they were escaping what felt like the burdens of becoming a full-fledged adult of their own sex. It's sort of this like romanticization of what it was to be the opposite sex. I'm sure you've seen these things like, you know, for males, like this idea that to be a sexually attractive female who's desired by everyone is like somehow a delightful way to live for women really shows naivety about the lived experience of women who have to deal with being physically weaker and vulnerable to predation. And for girls who idealize the idea that the grass is greener being male, they really underestimate the burdens of being a male in our society and just fantasize that being a male means that you don't have to worry about your appearance because people aren't going to look at you a certain way, or you can be gross and crude and get away with it. There's these very naive understandings that people have and I talk with parents a lot too about this grass is greener mentality and I'm just sort of throwing that out there not even knowing what you think about it but I do suspect that this is going to come up as we go through your book because your book is really about like it's about self-acceptance starting right where you are and instead of trying to become something that you're not to escape your problems like finding that way to nurture yourself

Nicolas Blooms: Yeah, that's huge. I feel like a huge part of my experience was just associating with my body, disconnecting from the biological male body and saying, I reject nature. I hate my body. I hate everything to do with being a man. And, you know, I don't think people really paint a beautiful picture on what a man and a woman could be. Like I was never given. Like everything about my experience as a male growing up just felt awful and disgusting. Like puberty just seemed like this most horrible experience. Growing up to become a man was just like painted like so horribly as I grew up. So it was just like, there was always this sense of rejection and rejecting my body. So I almost wanted to be a different person, different identity, get away from being a man. So part of that was, like you described, wanting to be seen as beautiful, loved and appreciated by straight men. Growing up as a gay boy, I had ginormous amounts of internalized homophobia. So that made me want to run away from being a man. So I feel like that made me want to be like, oh, there's a possibility of being a woman. Well, I love to do that and try that so that I can, you know, plus I was also a people pleaser, so I wanted to please men and go that route so that heterosexual straight men would be like, OK, who is this woman? Can I get with this woman? So it was very much like I wanted to be like super feminine. And once I got into the mentality of like, oh, maybe I am trans, it became like Okay, I'm not woman enough. I don't look woman enough. So, like, my mentality was so messy. It's so messy.

Stephanie Winn: Well, and it's such a, I mean, hindsight being what it is, you can see clearly now, and with so much compassion for your former self that you had unattainable goals. Like the idea that a straight man would ever want you is like, it's silly now that you're grounded in reality about how biology and human sexuality works. But it just makes me feel for all the young people growing up in such a confusing environment. Not only are they personally confused, but their entire sort of social world, all the information they're getting from the internet and even from schools, is really confusing about human sexuality. You know, they're being sent these messages that deny the reality that, like, everyone is either male or female and most people are straight. And I feel like, you know, withholding that information from young gay people is only harming them. Because it's creating this sense that if for you as a young gay man, the idea that straight men weren't into you made you feel like you needed to do something differently, as opposed to just having a grounded sense of, nope, that's a hard limit. That's a wall. I'm not going to try to push it. I'm going to look for where the door is.

Nicolas Blooms: It's very true. I feel like once you start losing the sense of truth when you're going as a kid and you don't have any like a grounded sense of what truth or reality is, you can start to get really delusional really quickly, at least from my experience, because I like to say like I had a ungrounded twist of self, ungrounded twisted sense of self where I was like, oh, I can like straight boys could possibly love me or Oh, I'm not good enough. I'm unlovable. I'm an abomination. All these thoughts and beliefs that were created by my wounded self or wounded ego turned into a volcano eruption of, you know, into self-hate and disassociating from my body. I think all the self-hate of like hating my Adam's apple. pressing on it all day long, like as early as I can remember, like six, seven, until age 18, I was just pressing on my Adam's apple all day long being like, go back and go back in. Yeah. And I remember, like, I know, right? I love you. And I remember like even when my facial hair started to grow around freshman year of high school, I would just be in front of the mirror with the tweezer plucking it for hours because I was like, this is so disgusting. It's so ugly. And I feel like it always stems from a belief. And that belief just turned into a snowball and created, manifested in a way that made me do things to my body that I was like, this has to be off of me because it just creates more discomfort. So that wound wanted to do anything to eliminate it from my body, from being able to see it. So I think that eventually turned into, okay, maybe I need to go on hormones. It was one thing led to another that exploded into gender ideology. I feel like my wounded self was preyed on by gender ideology just because I remember as early as maybe like 14, 15, I started watching gender identity or like LGBTQ content on YouTube. And I would watch it for hours and hours and hours and being so enamored by it being like, Oh my God, maybe, you know, being gender fluid or non-binary, maybe that's the answer as to why there's something wrong with me. I always wanted to fix the feeling that there's something wrong with me. And I felt like gender ideology was the outlet for me to be like, okay, there is something wrong with me and it's because of this. So I get to be non-binary or gender fluid so that I can be okay. And I think that fixation led to believing I was trans.

Stephanie Winn: I love sleep. Sound sleep is a crucial foundation of good mental and physical health. Within the USA, but also to Canada, the UK, select countries in the European Union, and Australia. Thanks for considering purchases that support the show. And the whole thing seems like sort of a detour that ultimately just distracted you from giving yourself what you really needed all along was just that unconditional love and support for being yourself. And we talked about like the myths of gender ideologies, that it's about love, compassion, acceptance, and being your true self. But I think your book highlights really well how you were at war with yourself and the gender ideology sort of fueled that. It made you hyper fixate and the content you were consuming just sort of gave you more examples of, you know, fixation on all of these ideas of, and you didn't go into this specifically in your book, but you know, those of us who've been following this issue are aware of some sort of the like online trans echo chambers around like I can't shower. I just hate being alone with my body so much." And people just sort of like sending themselves and other people spiraling into these thought processes of being at war with themselves and their bodies. And I think in this book, you highlight ultimately realizing that that was a choice and that you could choose something else, that you could choose more directly and powerfully to respond to the calling for love that was coming from within. Now you mentioned your voice and I think that's a perfect segue for us to start sharing some imagery from your book. So I'm going to do a screen share and for those who are just listening we will do our best to describe what's in this imagery but I do encourage you again to watch on video if you can. Here you describe, actually I'll let you describe it.

Nicolas Blooms: There is a close-up of a past younger version of myself where I'm painted in green? Where the mouth would be? Is there a scribble saying my voice is way too feminine? And then where my Adam's apple would be is traced, is drawn in a shape of an apple, but there is no color there showing that there is absence of an Adam's apple from being pressed. And then there's words all around the neck and in the arms where it's writing osu in Japanese, which means press, press, press, press, press, press. So that it just shows that imagery of like, okay, I am pressing on my Adam's apple. And there's a quote, one line on the page saying, I'm going to push on my throat all day long so that Adam's apple won't come out. And I feel like that's what I really wanted to capture is the amount of hours and painful thinking that led me, my wounded self to be like, okay, I'm going to push on my Adam's apple because I hate that I'm going to become a man. I hate that fact that this is protruding out and representing that I'm a biological male. I hate everything about being a biological male. So I want to erase anything that relates to that. And I think that was one of those symbolic cool images in my body that represented that. And that's what is on the page.

Stephanie Winn: So it really shows how much you are at war with yourself, right? Or it says, I don't want my voice to lower. I won't be able to sing the high notes. I hate my Adam's apple. I hate the way the Adam's apple sticks out. I look too much like a guy with it. I want it removed. I can't stand listening to my voice. And then on the next page, there's this really evocative image of where it looks like you're going within your own throat and shoving down this. There's a sign that says, beware of evil Adam's apple. It's just like, oh, honey, you were so antagonistic toward yourself. And then one of the things I love about your book is that there are these, what did you call them, soul intermissions. So going on to the next page, it shows, and I think throughout this book, you use pink to symbolize the healing part of yourself that you found, sort of this wise, true self that comes along to give you love. And will you read this part out loud?

Nicolas Blooms: Yeah, so it starts off with how I give love to my voice today. I see the suppression and pain you've endured for years. I'm here now, open and willing to listen to the beautiful sound waves you create in this world. I see your unique sounds as a gift to share love and relax the body. thank you for being the vessel that carries the messages from my heart and i feel like that last line i read it today and i just started getting full body chills and just feeling so much gratitude for having such a unique voice because i think every single time i open my mouth to somebody new they're always like you have such a unique calming voice and i'm like Thank you. Thank you. It took some time to really love and accept that part of myself. But here I am today. The image itself is a river and there's the Adam Apple that's been collected, hold and embraced by this soul version of myself and the wounds are almost being washed off by the scrub and the flowing water.

Stephanie Winn: And you do this with several parts of yourself that you were at war with, including your genitals, your body hair, sort of highlighting the distress that you were in and the way that you're fixating on treating that part of yourself as if it was the problem, and then how you've learned to bring this sort of self-nurturance. And then, you know, there's more examples. So your first appointment with the Planned Parenthood counselor, So tell us about what's happening in this image.

Nicolas Blooms: Maybe I'll talk a little bit about what happened there so that people can get a context because of what's happening. So the night before my Planned Parenthood appointment, my parents had no idea I wanted to transition. My parents had no idea that I wanted to go on medication. to take the spironolactone estradiol. So I had to also take a day off to go take a day off from school in order to go to Planned Parenthood. So my dad, he liked to come downstairs and knock on my door and be like, hey, good night. But before you could do that, I was like, Dad, I have to tell you something. I was like, Dad, I am going to go to Planned Parenthood tomorrow because I want to transition. And he had no words. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to take it other than like, well, I want to support you. Can I come with you? Which I was like, oh, I was not surprised. I was so surprised that he would say something like that. So he came along with me and we're both of us are in the office with the Planned Parenthood lady. I don't know if she was actual counselor or not, but she told me what's going on. I told her all the gender dysphoric thoughts and feelings or by dysmorphic thoughts. I think now I would interpret today being like. I can't live like this anymore. I feel suicidal. I hate my voice, my genitals, and the body hair. It's just become so obsessive. I started talking about that for probably like 10 minutes. And within 10 minutes, she was like, let's start you on hormones as soon as possible. And then within within two weeks, I came back to Planned Parenthood and there was a doctor that gave me a a pamphlet of effects in expected course of feminization, feminizing hormones, like what I would expect within a year or so, what I would expect in a month, that sort of chart. And then probably like 20 minutes after, I went to go get the pills. And then I took the spironolactone estradiol.

Stephanie Winn: So there's a lot happening here. And in any other situation where someone comes to a counselor saying, I hate everything about myself, I hate this, that, the other about myself, I hate this, In what other situation do we say, oh, well, great, then let's just change it all, right? As if that's the solution, as if it's an objective fact that there's something truly wrong with the fact that you being whatever way, which in this case, just the fact of you being male. And what was that like to, I mean, your relationship with your dad at the time, you were surprised by how I guess, quote unquote, supportive he was. But I'm wondering if after that you had maybe wished that he'd put up more of a fight or what's that relationship been like over the years?

Nicolas Blooms: Our relationship was awful. With my parents, my sister was horrible before transition. And what was funny is it actually improved our relationship. Transition actually improved it. And so my dad and I, we fought a lot about my gender expression first coming out as being gender fluid. And when I told him that, he's like, oh, you're gender confused. You're confused about your gender. And he did his best to support and love me through it. Helped getting me a therapist and having me talk to the therapist. But I was very much like closed off and emotionally like not willing to share with anybody. Even when I went to a therapist, I would not tell the therapist anything. I'd honestly kind of just be silent the whole entire hour just because I was not willing to talk at all. It just felt like my parents were forcing me to go to therapy to get better because I also had anger problems. And so I kind of closed my mouth. I really didn't explore any of this stuff, anything going on in my inner world to the therapist at all. So I almost had this antagonistic view of my parents being like, they're horrible. I hate them, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I would get my anger out on them. So that's why I was surprised to see my dad wanting to support and love me through that because I wasn't, my relationship was horrible. Like we didn't really talk at all. It was almost like if we'd have like one word exchange or something like that, or the only time we'd be talking a lot is if I needed something or we'd be fighting. So our relationship was down in the dumps until I would say once I started taking the hormones, like my whole emotional system started to shift because it allowed me to explore and express my femininity and allow me to be more free and share my emotions and feel a lot more. So it completely changed my relationship with my parents. How I have my relationship today compared to four years ago, five years ago when this started is completely different today. Like my mom and I were like, I can, I could be like, I could smirk at her and we start laughing or my dad, we can start talking about deep stuff. We can talk about esoteric stuff and spirituality and we'd geek over that for an hour or so. today we're in a completely different place and I'm just so grateful that I've been able to pull myself out of this, for lack of a better word, mess and be here today.

Stephanie Winn: It seems like you were really bottled up before and you didn't have a language for expressing your emotions and And so your emotions, I want to say, almost got somaticized into this self-hatred or this, as you said, body dysmorphia, which there was a whole conversation to be had about how do you distinguish between gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia? I think most of the time, it's body dysmorphia, right? It's like, why does it get special treatment if it's about your sexed body parts specifically? And there was some imagery earlier in the book, too, that you shared about just how closed off you were to self-expression. Do you think that you declaring a trans identity and declaring your intention to medicalize maybe sent a signal to your parents about just how real your distress was? Because it seemed like there was kind of this, like, cry for help going on for a long time, but it was also like a push-pull, which is very common for teenagers. Like, I want your attention, but also I want my privacy and my autonomy. Do you think that made it like, oh, wow, our kid is really, really going through something we need to pay attention here?

Nicolas Blooms: Oh, I think that's so funny. I just feel for my parents just because I can only imagine what it would be like to have a kid like me. I write in the book, imagine having a kid that doesn't share anything with you and then just one day is like, I'm in transition. I just think it's just so, like, it would be so intense to, you know, have a kid like that. So I feel like that was raising the alarms for them to be like, OK, we got to pay close attention, but I don't know what to do. I feel like my parents were like, we don't know what to do. He is an adult. He is 18. So I feel like all they could do was love and support. Like, I don't have any resentment like that towards my parents for Like not pushing back because I was an adult like it was my responsibility to do the research and know everything about it, but I didn't. Um, so I think my parents were afraid. Like my dad constantly told me after the fact that I transitioned, he was like, we were so afraid. We don't, we didn't know what to do with you. We were just did our best to love and support you and help you the best we could because we didn't know what to do. So I think my parents just didn't know what to do. And yeah, I think, I think that's the best way I could answer your question. They just didn't know.

Stephanie Winn: And I wonder how much culture plays a role, too, because you talked about being Okinawan. And I found this image here from page 1920, where you share that your family moved from Okinawa to America right before you turned 13. And that's a hard age to move, because it's like, on the one hand, you're just entering adolescence. And maybe on some level, you feel like you've just gained a certain degree of mastery of all the basics that you learned in childhood. And then right when you're supposed to be moving on to sort of the next stage of mastery of the tasks of adolescence, at that same time, you have this whole additional challenge, which is the cultural change. And you talk about the issues with fitting in and being bullied. I wondered how much you feel like those things played a role in some of your self-hatred and maybe in your parents, for lack of a better word, your parents being lost or overwhelmed in all of this. Because they're experiencing this cultural change too. They're figuring out how to raise a kid in a culture that's not their own. And now this new culture has this whole idea of being trans on top of it all.

Nicolas Blooms: I spent around six to seven years living in Okinawa. So most of my mom's family, my mom's side of the family lives in Okinawa. My dad's American, so I'm mixed. I am half Okinawan, half American, or half white, however you want to see that. And this is a predominantly This is a society that predominantly does not embrace femininity in men, that they will shame men into it, they don't talk about emotions, they can't express yourself freely, there are expectations that are supposed to be met in the culture, you have to act a certain way if you're… gender stereotypes, basically. Like, there was no box for me to fit in. My voice was high-pitched, I was so feminine and fruity, and I was singing, I was playing music, I was dancing. I was very much a free-spirited kid, and I think once I started going to school, that was almost kicked out of me because all the kids had the same belief that you can't be a feminine boy. So they almost kind of like how to get it out onto me. Like that's how I see it. Like they were almost like suppressing themselves. So they saw someone being free. So I feel like they had to like project that insecurity onto me and, you know, bully me in that way. So I feel like a lot of my trauma had to do with my childhood experience of growing up in Japan, just for the fact that I wasn't allowed to be feminine. I wasn't allowed to be me. I gained the template that I need to be submissive. There's something wrong with me. I'm too feminine. And that self-hate only grew bigger and bigger from then, because it was six years of bullying. Like from the moment I went to kindergarten all the way until I graduated, like it was almost every day. Didn't know how to stand up for myself, didn't know, didn't have a backbone to be like, F off. You know, it was nothing like that. I didn't know how to stand up for myself, didn't have the confidence. So you could imagine a kid without Being able to plant the two feet on the ground and be like, this is me and I am strong and powerful. Not having that belief in themselves. You could imagine like this fish being slapped in the ocean, unaware of what current is, how to go and navigate the world and insecure of themselves. Like it was, it was intense.

Stephanie Winn: So you were bullied your entire childhood growing up in Okinawa for being this effeminate, free-spirited boy who was sort of an easy target for the bullies. And then making this transition to America at age 13, right when you're on the cusp of adolescence, you brought in all the fear that that could happen again now that you are different for a multitude of reasons. You're coming from a different culture, different country. Do you feel like all of that played a role in your sort of internalized self-hatred?

Nicolas Blooms: when I did move over to America, that the bullying was still the same. Like, it would be the same sort of boys, same way. They would always have, like, it went from being called okama, which is that the gaysler in Japan, and then the, you know, the F word in America. So it's just like, okay, like, I'm literally still seeing the same thing as the same thing, but just different locations. So that was interesting that the language was still translated. But it did play a heavy like play a huge role in how I showed up in school when I grew up here In America like after moving from Japan. I was already insecure. I didn't want to share myself So I created this like wall around myself to be like I don't want to share myself. I don't want to talk to people I don't want to make any friends so with that mentality I I went throughout school even more quiet. I literally closed off my mouth because I didn't want to talk to people. I made myself, I think, relatively mute. I didn't really want to share my voice because I felt like if I shared my voice, if I spoke, that will give people a chance to judge me and therefore bully me. And I felt so scared. And being that fearful mentality for years, cut me off from a lot of experiences I could have had. It took me away from living life freely. I feel like that trauma really takes away from living a life that could serve me and be more enjoyable and more fun it actually just made life like this image right here where it's just super dark and gray and being an autopilot

Stephanie Winn: I recently told you about a group called Do No Harm, who's working to do just that. Eliminate the harm that so-called gender-affirming care for minors and political ideologies in medicine are causing. Do No Harm is made up of thousands of members across the country, from doctors to nurses to policymakers to concerned parents who see what's happening at practitioners around the country and are waving a red flag. Membership is free, and you get unlimited access to information from experts, on-the-ground updates from people working in medicine or state houses to take a stand, and collaboration with other thinkers. Learn more and sign up at do-no-harm-medicine.org slash some-therapist to learn more. That's do-no-harm-medicine.org slash some-therapist. When we're hurt by others during a vulnerable, formative time in our life, there's sort of a few ways that we can position ourselves in relation to that. So one is that we can sort of aggressively slough it off and become oppositional, and that comes with its own set of problems, but it can also have sort of a protective mechanism. And then another is that we can internalize it and sort of antagonize ourselves so in a way there's like this collusion with the bullies that as much as they were hurting you and on some level you might not have wanted to take on their opinions you did you sort of you know because your behavior just by being yourself naturally your behavior was very telling it sort of gave away that you were this you know fruity little kid this you know, gender atypical boy who's probably going to grow up to be gay, like it was just written all over you. And so I can imagine the sense of almost like feeling out of control, feeling like your body or the things that are automatic about your personality have betrayed you because simply by being yourself, you have brought upon yourself this hostility and antagonism. So this feeling that your voice, which it sounds like you both at certain times felt like was too effeminate and at other times felt like it was too masculine or at risk of becoming too deep, like your voice betrayed you. You're just like this. I just have the sense of like feeling out of control of your body, like your body is betraying you. Your body is the problem as a way of sort of somaticizing and internalizing The fact that obviously something's wrong because you're being bullied and mistreated.

Nicolas Blooms: Yeah, that is exactly it. I have a clear memory when I was maybe like 10 or so where, like, I don't know, sometimes I love looking outside the window when I'm driving, and I can be like, you know, that'd be a cool thing. Like, I can imagine and start dreaming about stuff. And I remember this image of, like, me in the future popped in my head. And it was, like, fully bearded, fully masculine, like, muscular. And I was so repulsed. I, like, I had to shove it down into, like, garbage to be like, I cannot think of that ever, ever again. I did feel like my biology was rejecting me. Like, as soon as I noticed that my voice was changing, like it was this constant internal battle of like, I'm too feminine, but I also love being feminine. So it was just like this constant battle of like, whenever my voice started to change, I was like, oh my God, I don't want my voice to change, but I am. And I just, it was just so scary constantly to be afraid of my body and what my body was doing just because I had no control over it. And plus, I was just being hated for it. So it just was like, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do.

Stephanie Winn: And so when you first went on medication, there was this, as it shows here, this drug-induced euphoria. So tell us about what's going on in this picture.

Nicolas Blooms: Maybe it'd be great to give like a analysis of like the two different fields. So me without cross-sex medication, it was very much like I was Like this image, like there is a zipper over my mouth. Like the moment I woke up all the way to bedtime, I really didn't say a word for weeks at a time, like maybe one word or so a day, if at most a sentence. I really kept myself, I closed myself in and that was me without cross-sex medication. And then the first day I was being on hormones, cross-sex hormones, I would open the zipper, open my mouth to throw the pills in. And within 20 minutes, it felt like the most joy I ever felt in like a decade. Because it created this fake sense of joy that opened me up to starting talking to my parents. I was like, I'm so excited, look at me, like I'm transforming, I'm becoming me. Like there was just so much joy. It was like hopping around and excited and just seeing a new way of seeing the world was so exciting. This transformation was exciting. So it really created this fake sense of like, I'm happy. Like it really did feel like I was on drugs.

Stephanie Winn: Well, you were. And I'm curious about how much of that was placebo, because we know that hormones of any kind are mood-altering substances. And it seems like it took your mood in both directions, where you say there was this euphoria, but also increased anxiety and depression. And I'm curious, maybe to get into a little bit later, how you experienced the emotionally destabilizing impact of hormones. Because I talk to a lot of parents who you know, when their son starts on hormones, suddenly he's like crying and having these mood swings and stuff like that. But I wonder about, you know, on the one hand, there was this actual impact of the mood-altering chemical, but also the placebo effect works in conjunction with the active ingredients in any medicine. what you believe about a medicine does influence its ability to help you or your kind of sensitivity to its impact. And I wonder too, like what you had pinned on the medication, I mean, medication, the drugs that you were taking, like the hopes and dreams that you projected onto them and how much of that was, you know, was there this like fantasy that like, I'm going to feel so free, I'm going to be myself, I'm going

Nicolas Blooms: you're so on the nose. Like, it's so true. I think for months at a time, like I remember there was this time I was in Arizona visiting family and it was like the worst amount of body dysmorphia and suicidal ideation cocktailed together, creating this loop in my head. I was just like wanting to die. And from that moment I was like, I am going to go on hormones. And from, it gave me this sense of hope, like, Because for a long, long time, for at least a decade, I was like, I hated life. I felt like there was no hope. I didn't know how to live life joyously. There was no excitement in life. And this was that one thing that meant that was like, I'm going to get better. I'm going to heal. And this is going to fix all my problems. So I feel like I really did project all that emotion, thoughts, and desires upon two singular pills, that's putting too much expectation on a drug. Like no drug is going to be able to fix me ever. And that's what I really, really learned through this experience that no drug is going to heal me.

Stephanie Winn: You know, I can really, in a way, relate to what you're saying right now in a way that I hadn't thought of until just now, because I've been battling long-haul COVID for two years, and I just recovered from my second acute COVID infection, so I'm set back a ways to, like, my lowest previous baseline level of fatigue. And I've gone through some mood swings, some despair, helplessness. You know, I felt frightened about, what does this mean that I'm reinfected? Am I getting it worse? I've been really highly motivated to find long-term solutions so that I don't have to be a chronically ill person for the rest of my life. And I talked to a researcher a few days ago who told me about a promising, let's say just for now I'll just say product that has the potential to reset the gut microbiome in a way that could be potentially very healing for me. And I've noticed how even though I haven't tried this new supplement yet, how it's brightened my mood just to look forward to trying it. Just to feel hopeful that here's a therapy that I haven't tried yet that looks promising, and wow, wouldn't that be amazing if it fixed my problems. And it's, you know, one of several things on a list of things I haven't tried yet that I use to kind of keep myself going so that whenever I do feel despair, it's like, well, I haven't tried this out or the other intervention yet, so even though I've tried these other 20 things, you know, there's hope and maybe the reason I'm functioning at the level I'm functioning now and not the totally bedridden level that a lot of people are at is because of the 20 things I've already done. So just noticing that sort of, I don't know if there's a term for it, like the almost like preemptive or anticipatory placebo effect of just like looking forward to trying something and I'm just kind of seeing that parallel because I know what that feels like right now just to be like, there's hope, I'm going to try this new thing in a few days.

Nicolas Blooms: Yeah, it's totally there. when you've been feeling heavy and having all those emotions and you know just being like nothing is working I feel like I'm just gonna be suffering for a long time and then you get this like you know spark of hope basically to be like this maybe maybe there's something here maybe I don't have to live in this darkness forever like it's almost like I feel like maybe it's just one step closer to relief and I think we crave relief sometimes because when you're bogged down for a long time anything that gives you relief could mean a whole lot like my friend Kim she always says like we're not trying to heal everything all at once like even if you even if you start a session from I don't know like you got 90% of pain and you bring it down to 87% that's still progress that's still progress to be celebrating about because I feel like oftentimes we could create all these extreme expectations of what healing has to look like or what hope has to look like, something like that. But when we are able to just whittle it down and make it simple like that, I feel like it creates so much more harmony and peace within our bodies. Like you were saying, you're like, oh, I've tried different things and maybe This is another step closer to relieving myself because you've been experiencing so much of that fatigue and pain.

Stephanie Winn: So here in this image, this part of your book, you talk about that initial high, what you term here drug-induced euphoria, and what a lot of people call gender euphoria, which I think it's funny that they use that term because it's like euphoria is by definition a temporary state. It's like what goes up must come down, right? But then you say further down the page that you also experienced more anxiety and depression. So can you tell us about when you were on the hormones, any emotional instability that you experienced and what that felt like?

Nicolas Blooms: So imagine feeling crazy every single day. That's kind of what I was feeling. It was like I already had it's, I was already experiencing, you know, over and analyzing analysis paralysis mentality. So like, imagine that, like brought up 10 times more, like, it was really intense. And there's a page in the book where it's just like, there's a spiral staircase of overthinking. And that's kind of how I was feeling like every day or every other day, at least, where it could it was like to the point where i couldn't even go outside sometimes because i was just so scared of social anxiety like it was this belief that came from like i'm not woman enough like someone's gonna judge me for being trans someone's gonna clock me for being trans like stuff like that where it was just like stuff i didn't have before i was trans was now magnified. Like the gender dysphoria wasn't intense anymore. Like, like my facial hair, I didn't have like so much hate towards it. My, maybe I had some hate towards the sound of my voice being like, Oh, my voice doesn't sound woman enough. But like the rest of the by dysmorphia, I was like, it really flew out the window, but now it turned into like fixating on I'm not woman enough. So like I started to fixate on all the parts that I was like, um that became more social like whenever I went outside I'd be like thinking about what other people are thinking about me so it just became so paranoid and yeah I almost didn't want to go outside and the depression was more like not wanting to do anything didn't want to get off the bed I really just didn't have any willpower or like this desire to live almost was gone like it on one hand the hormones did give me the sense that I can live life, but on the other hand, it created this intense, heavy emotion in my chest. I was talking about earlier where like my heart was being squashed and like a heavy, heavy cat was sitting on my chest. Like that feeling was with me all day long. So that's how I would attribute to my depression. I was like, I was sad and in pain, like really emotional pain all day long from, I would say after reflecting, like restricting my self-expression because physically putting in hormones into my body or cross-sex hormones into my body, that signifies symbolically to my body to be like, okay, I'm rejecting myself, rejecting my biology, rejecting my nature. So it's even more rejection that I already was experiencing. So let's add more to it by putting in pills daily to represent that. So I think that's how on my chest was telling me like, Hey, you're really suppressing yourself, suppressing the feelings and the pain. Let's tune into that. So I saw the pain as a gift, like this depression, I would say. to actually soften to learn to feel again and that was the journey to That was a journey in and of itself to the point where I could actually start feeling again because I was so confused how to feel. I didn't know how to feel. I was already anxious with social anxiety, but there was this time where there was a few years where I was like, I can't talk. There's something wrong with me. I can't think when I'm in social situations. There's no thoughts going through my head. Oh, my God, like I can't talk with people like there's something wrong with me. Like every single time I stepped outside, that was intensified. It didn't make me want to live. I just felt like this crazy person.

Stephanie Winn: Now, taking estrogen as a male, estradiol, I never know how to pronounce it, estradiol, estradiol and spironolactone, the testosterone suppressant. I mean, it it does have a huge impact on cognition. and mood and and then you combine that with I guess this image is coming to mind and it's like imagine a magical illusory mountain where you start off like with the euphoria, if you will, of I'm going to get to climb this mountain and reach the goal at the top. But then every time you move forward on the mountain, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and growing in the distance. You'll never actually get there. So on the one hand, there's this hopefulness of, I'm finally going to become a woman. And on the other hand, the hopelessness of the monumental task of being a woman is actually completely unattainable. It's well known now about how the dysphoria moves around, so to speak, and that even if you were maybe feeling relatively better about this or that aspect of your appearance or presentation, then there's, of course, there's going to be an endless dissatisfaction because it's impossible to change sex.

Nicolas Blooms: It's true. Like I remember writing in the book being like, I've tried everything, but I'm still anxious and depressed more than ever before. All the trans YouTubers said that I'd be happy after this. They listed all the signs that I'm trans, but still I'm not happy. I've done everything they did. Do I need to do surgeries now? Like, and it was really considering surgeries and thank goodness I didn't do any of it. But you know, the hormones still did leave physical effects on my body that I don't know if I'll ever be able to change. But still, I'm just like, it does move around, like gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia, it still does move around, even if you think one thing fixes it, but it won't ever completely fix it because it just translates to a different thing. Like it intensifies to a different area of my life. It was just so interesting that you said that. Because like to be to actually hear it from someone else, it's just like, you're so right. Like it does move around.

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Nicolas Blooms: Yeah, I would term it my soul. I love that term. I feel like it could be universally used. But yeah, it's my soul throughout. The text in pink that is thin in text way is my soul speaking. really subtly because the soul really does speak in subtle, gentle, calm ways that you really need to slow down your mind to really actually listen to what your body is saying and what your soul is saying. So I feel like that's why I really wanted to represent like the two contrasting tones and how it shows up physically by color. and graphically so like the black text that are just fake and also like wonky looking with spikes around them that is my wounded ego talking really loudly creating swirls in my head to be like did I make the right choice what if I messed up no I have a gender dysphoria I know I do but what if I don't and this was all a huge mistake and then justifying it by saying these thoughts are my mind adjusting to the changes i don't need to question if i'm trans like these thoughts would loop around my head for like a long time like i don't think they fully ever left like even in periods of time where I was like accepting, finally accepting being trans, like they were still popping up here and there once in a while to be like, hey, I'm checking in with you. Are you still wanting to be trans? And I feel like those moments of doubt is like, I almost see it like my heart shining to be like, listen to the truth, maybe? It's just, it was like, just kind of nudging at places where there were holes. Cause I almost see these incoherent thinking as like, like light shining on it to be like, let's be curious here. Let's engage here. Let's listen and discover what this part of me has to say, because it's almost like it's being suppressed from expressing itself to be explored.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, so you really depict with this vivid imagery this being at war with yourself and everything's very like spiky and angular and tense. And then your soul is trying to say this message I'm going to read this part out loud. Honey, doubt needs your attention. He needs to be heard. Let him in. He will show you the way towards love. This is me trying to sound the alarms for you. Listen, my love. Something is feeling off for you and you can feel it. Your emotions are your guidance system. Trust it. Thank you, doubt, for showing up.

Nicolas Blooms: You can clearly tell and feel into the difference of tone, like one's freaked out and the other one is calm and wanting to listen deeper.

Stephanie Winn: And so throughout you have these what you call soul intermissions, sort of recognizable with the pink a call to the wounded self, and all these sort of messages coming from your inner self that's reaching out and trying to heal you. And then you have some journal questions throughout as well. So skipping ahead here, here's an example of some of the journal prompts where, you know, up until this point you're sharing these soul intermissions where you're sort of talking to yourself, and then here you offer up for reflection questions for someone else who might need to go through this journaling process. So maybe this is a good time to ask, who is this book for?

Nicolas Blooms: I originally wanted to create this for gender confused people and de-transitioners because I am in training to be a life coach so that I could help de-transitioners and gender confused people. And I really wanted to give a voice to my story so that these people can have the feeling and the belief that healing gender dysphoria is totally possible. And I feel like we live in a culture where I feel like we need to fix everything with a pill, get a surgery. And I feel like there is no belief that you can heal something. So I wanted to give that belief to people. So that's one demographic I thought about approaching. But then my friend Kim was like, this would be so good for parents because parents could look into the nitty gritty intimate world of what their gender confused kid may be going through. and maybe spark dialogue or even ways to help them approach self-love because I feel like parents also tend to lack that care for themselves. I know for a fact that my parents or my mom has a hard time loving herself. So I feel like this could be a great portal into witnessing like, oh, that is a great way to have a dialogue with my body part, with my Adam's apple, with my facial hair, my genitals. And that would be another approach to connecting with your child. I think that's why I create this book, because I want it to be raw and real. and honest with the fact to parents like parents need to know what's happening with their kids, whether that's from their kids or from hearing other people's experience to be like, oh, this is maybe something my kid is going through so that they can have a broader perspective and visually. I think words do a lot, but I feel like visually it can help them explore and feel what their kid could be going through. Because I think as parents, it could be really difficult to not imagine my parents. It'd be awesome for my parents to have a book like this because they honestly didn't know what the heck they were doing with me and that's okay but to have a book like this could help them get insight into like what their child be going through.

Stephanie Winn: In some families there's a parallel process where the sort of cry for help that's coming from the trans identified child is pointing to something in the family system that needs healing. It's sort of like, actually, another parallel is like with COVID, which I obviously have been in a long term battle with, it's often been said that it will it will kind of the spike protein will sort of exploit any weakness in your system. So whatever, you know, sort of trait disposition you know, slightly things that were a little weak about you before just get magnified when you have long-haul COVID like I do. So for example, I've always had blood pressure that's on the lower side, but now I have like massive low blood pressure to the point where I have to take a medication and take salt tablets throughout the day. Otherwise, I get lightheaded. And so it's sort of like this thing that's designed to exploit any weakness. And I feel like gender ideology is like a virus that's also designed to exploit any weakness. And that weakness could be a weakness in the family system and then the trans identified youth might be sort of the identified patient in that family system, but sometimes it's a call for healing on the part of the family. Like, for example, there's an ROGD parent I interviewed on this podcast, Alan Michael, who shared about his use of psychedelics to process some trauma from being involved in a cult that he felt like was causing PTSD and basically trickling down to create trans ideation in his daughter. So he found that his own healing was a necessary part of trying to help his daughter. I feel like for a lot of these families, you know, there's a fine line where I'm not trying to blame the parents. You could have, you know, the strongest family in the world, and that doesn't necessarily mean that your kid's going to be immune to a culture or their peers that are that are pushing on every insecurity, but it certainly does help to make your whole family system more robust. So here on this page, you're really sort of, there's a lot of color yellow. And I feel like yellow, I think of light, the sun, illumination, bringing warmth and light to something and sort of healing. So here on this page, it's like your doubts are finally, you're finally integrating your doubts. You're finally allowing yourself the chance to really think this through in a loving way. So it says, the way I see myself is the way out of darkness. Change the mind, shift the self. Maybe I can heal my thoughts around being trans. Maybe by creating new belief systems, I could shift out of being trans. Maybe being trans is a mentality. Maybe then I wouldn't have to take cross-sex medication to feel better. Trans is caused by gender dysphoria, wounded thinking. If it's in the mind, couldn't I change that after all? And there's some pages around here, too, where maybe you can help me find them, where you talked about questioning, why do I need to take a pill to be my true self? So here we are, where you It says, two waves of doubt. And is the star, let me guess, is the star shaking these maracas now because the star is so happy that you're finally listening to your soul? Is that what's happening?

Nicolas Blooms: Yeah, you're pretty close. So it's almost like the soul is causing these waves. So the first doubt was, why do I need to take two pills to be happy, even though I'm so left with anxiety and depression? So those thought-provoking questions dissecting and inspecting those thoughts was, I truly believe, led by my soul, like shaking this rack is causing music so that there was a flow and consistent thinking to the point where I can start questioning like maybe trans isn't for me, maybe I need to transition. So that's why There was this first wave where there was a deep, deep, deep connection with Mother Earth for me in my spirituality. That, I feel like, was my core, bringing me back to my body. Because if you think about it, the whole trans thing is heavily body-related. To me, my body is connected to Mother Earth. Your body is connected to Mother Earth. She gave us these bodies because if we can breathe our oxygen and live in these bodies, I feel like we're part of the Earth. So I was like, okay, I'm connected to the Earth, but why am I taking these pills that are programmed to go against mother earth like that didn't make sense to me like if i'm fully healthy and my body can survive without these pills Then I'm rejecting nature every time I swallow these pills. I feel like this is more self-hate. I don't want to do this anymore. I also ask the question, if my body is equipped with all that I need, can't I heal myself from the inside? At this point, I was reading stuff on books like The Subconscious Mind. I was reading books on self-healing. I was listening and reading about affirmations, all that, all the ways I could heal myself internally. And I think that's when I was starting to create these thought-provoking questions for myself to be like, exactly as these questions, just because This was one area of my life where it didn't make sense anymore. I was like, it doesn't make sense for me to take pills anymore. I really didn't want to at the same time because I was like, I'm healthy and whole. I don't want to do this anymore to my body.

Stephanie Winn: So at this point, you're really letting doubt in and you're maturing psychologically and you're grappling with cognitive dissonance and you're seeking wholeness and integration so that you're not this sort of mismatch of ways in which you're out of integrity. You're really saying, I value spirituality, I value nature and health and authenticity, so why am I poisoning my body trying to change into something that I'm not and being at war? with nature. And I feel like this is actually a good segue towards something that I wanted to make sure to share before time's up. So I'm actually going to stop this screen share and start a screen share with this image I shared with you last time we spoke. For the audience, you'll have to be a little forgiving of the fact that this image was created in a journal. And so you can see the other pages sort of bleeding through the journal. But this is an idea I came up with a little while ago that I shared with you, Nicholas, last time we spoke. and I'm going to explain what it is. So I've talked about the concepts of ego dystonic and ego syntonic. So for those who are just hearing this for the first time, this is a way of conceptualizing a person's relationship with their mental distress. Ego dystonic means that you experience the distress as foreign to your sense of self. So let's say, for example, a person with OCD who has intrusive thoughts, let's say this is a very conscientious, caring person, they have intrusive thoughts about harming someone, that's really distressing. They don't want to be thinking and feeling that way and maybe they have insight about this and so they seek help for it. Egocentronic, on the other hand, is when a person's sense of self is fused with the thing that is the mental condition. So, for example, with grandiose narcissism, where a person truly believes that they are the greatest and that they deserve special treatment. And I think that this is a missing piece of the conversation around gender dysphoria and how we treat it in our society. And I made this map as one hypothetical example of how where a person falls on the ego-dystonic, ego-syntonic axis with regard to gender dysphoria can actually change over time, which is something that gets overlooked in conversations, you know, where the people who are pro-gender affirming care really have this very ego-syntonic view where they think that a A person's gender dysphoria is an indicator of who they are as a person, and therefore we need to make that permanent. And that's where the divide is in our society, is whether we're thinking about this condition in an egocentronic or an egodistonic way. And so what was really interesting is that when I showed this to you last time we spoke and I explained it, you said that it really matched up with your experience. And what I was doing here is I was actually just making up a hypothetical detransitioner and speculating as to what the journey could be like for them. So to sort of walk people through it, What we see here on the screen, we have ego-dystonic to ego-syntonic on the y-axis, and on the x-axis, we have a person's age over time. So this hypothetical person, it goes from 15 to 26. And so early on, they're introduced to this idea, am I trans? And there's this rapid skyrocketing of the gender dysphoria becoming ego-syntonic, becoming fused with their sense of self. And what's fueling this is this rapid immersion in online trans propaganda, love bombing from the trans community, so-called gender euphoria, and the almost obsessive pursuit of trans-related goals like with regard to social and medical transition. So then we have it sort of start to peak and taper off at a high level of egocentronic nature where there's the cementing of the identity and maybe the beginning of the medicalization. But during this time, while there's the initial euphoria, there's also sort of the worsening of a person's mental health, which in your journey, Nicholas, you talked about like how on the one hand you had that euphoria when you first started taking the hormones and at the same time you also got emotionally destabilized by it and you became more obsessive and more sort of agoraphobic and socially anxious because you were pursuing an impossible goal. And so at some point this reaches the peak, so in this chart for people who are looking at it, the peak is, you know, around 20 or 21. And then it starts to decline, and there's sort of a rocky process of declining. So what we're looking at is the gender dysphoria declining from being an egocentronic condition to an egodistonic condition. And for some people, like for those who have medicalized in a way that's irreversible, let's say females who have experienced a receding hairline, body hair growth, fat distribution, and a vocal lowering, there are some females who, after detransitioning, can no longer pass as female, so they have almost the opposite, you know, at that point, where they have a new type of sort of dysphoria over the experience of feeling like they can't be seen as female. So, along the way, as this person's condition is going from more Ego-syntonic to ego-distonic, their belief system is falling apart, maybe they're experiencing some of the downsides, like the onset of medical issues, or how impossible these things are, and then the thought enters, like, do I need to detransition, or am I detrans, or am I not really trans, or for some people it's like, am I non-binary, is sort of the stepstone out of it. And meanwhile, their brain is maturing the whole time, And so in this person's chart, I have the brains reaching maturity around age 25 or so. So I think this is something we need to talk about more in society. And I just wanted to present it because of how it lines up with your story, Nicholas. Any thoughts on that? No.

Nicolas Blooms: Last time we talked, I was crying because I was like, it felt like you were witnessing my journey and put it into a visual representation on a bigger picture. You know, it's hard to talk about it in a sense to have someone else understand it. People can be like, OK, that's an interesting experience. That's intense. And maybe that's the end of the discussion if I have a conversation with someone. But like you, you went above and beyond. You were able to really articulate and formulate how someone could be experiencing from transition and detransition because I think I started my pursuit to gender identity at 15 and it started to take hormones at 18 and then the peak of my trans ideation was 2020 so like when I was 20 years old and then I started to de-transition 2022 so we're in the belief system falling apart yeah somewhere around there so I was just like this is so oddly close and I just I love that you're so smart and intelligent to the point where you can actually I feel like, put yourself into my shoes and then really analyze objectively what was going on.

Stephanie Winn: Thank you. I feel like this needs to be studied more. And I feel like it's an important part of introducing the framework of a book like yours, because your book is written from the perspective of someone who had, let's say, egocentronic gender dysphoria. You believed that you were trans for a time. But that's not your perspective anymore, because these things change over time. And you're at a point now where When I've asked you in the past, what is your mission with this book or where are you coming from? It's you want to instill hope that people can overcome gender dysphoria. That is not something, a condition that people have to suffer from forever, certainly not something people need to make physically permanent. And that's coming from an ego dystonic worldview. That's where I and all the gender critical people are coming from. That's where the parents that I talked to are coming from. It's all this idea. that just because you have gender dysphoria, whatever that even means, because that can mean a lot of different things, it could be body dysmorphia, it could be internalized homophobia, it could be sexual trauma, whatever, just because you've declared this identity or come to this belief about yourself or are grappling with self-hatred around a certain body part, whatever it might be, just because you're experiencing that at a certain time in your life does not actually say anything about your identity as a person. And We're on the side of, that's a good thing because the alternative is this medical pathway that turns someone into a lifelong medical patient. But I think those who are thinking of this issue in an egocentronic way are very threatened by this. that we are promoting this idea that you can get help. You can get psychological help. You can treat your body in a way that's natural, that preserves your long-term health, well-being, and fertility. Who you are as a person does not have to mean body alterations. These ideas, as much as they sound hopeful to us, are actually very threatening to people who are looking at it in an egocentronic way. And that's why I think that we need to bring this issue front and center in the debate over this issue.

Nicolas Blooms: Well said. Well said.

Stephanie Winn: Well, we're in our last few minutes, Nicholas, so any kind of like burning last thoughts that you want to make sure to get out?

Nicolas Blooms: As much as the trans ideology was led from a place of disassociation, disconnecting from my body, I feel like it's important to talk about the fact that when you're self-hating, mentally ill, disassociating from your body, that cultivates a disconnect from a sense of who you are and your body. So I remember there were times where I was floating above my body and feeling like I'm not in my body. And that was my entire experience with transition. It was just transition, self-hate, my childhood. It was just like this battle between what's within me and then my body. Part of detransition is what taught me through my spiritual experiences is that when you're so ungrounded you don't you lose your sense of self but when you come back to your body to realize the importance of your body and honor your body I feel like then that's when you start to bring all this mental activity back into your chest and your stomach and then your your legs all back into yourself and I think that's what's missing in the conversation from my experience is like We live in a culture where we prioritize the mind and always talk about the mind, but we never talk about, you know, relaxing the mind and coming back to the body and doing the opposite, being grounded in your body. And I think that is also my message about Trans2D Trans, the soul solution. Like, let's get grounded. Let's realize and come back to the core of who you are, which is your soul resting in your heart. And from there, Let's take a deep breath and just ease back into our bodies and have so much gratitude for our bodies because it does so much for us.

Stephanie Winn: In my head, I'm hearing that song Back in My Body by Maggie Rogers. Do you know that one? Sounds so good. So good. Yeah, it's really it's a very I would say like victorious triumphant song. I love Mikey Rogers. So beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing. It's just it's really good to see. You know, I've talked to D transitioners at different stages in their process and some are are dealing with lifelong pain and disability and it can be really hard on on some people, but it's just really good to, you know, hear stories of victory and resolution and sort of re embodiment and connecting to joy. And there's there's so much of that that shows through your book. So I really hope that this book reaches and touches the people whose lives it's meant to impact. It's on Amazon, and so I'll make sure to add it to both the show notes and to my bookshop at sometherapist.com slash bookshop, where the topmost section is books from guests of this show. And Nicholas, it's been such a pleasure to speak with you today. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Nicolas Blooms: Yeah, thanks for having me. It's been so awesome to chat with you and share my story and my book.

Stephanie Winn: I hope you enjoyed this episode of You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist podcast. To check out my book recommendations, articles, wellness products, guest episodes on other podcasts, consulting services, and lots more, visit sometherapist.com. or follow me on Twitter or Instagram at sometherapist. If you'd like to go deeper, join my community at somekindoftherapist.locals.com. Members can dialogue with other listeners, post questions for upcoming podcast guests to respond to, or ask questions for me to respond to in exclusive members-only Q&A live streams. To learn more about the gender crisis, watch our film, No Way Back, The Reality of Gender-Affirming Pair, at nowaybackfilm.com. Special thanks to my producers, Eric and Amber Beals at Different Mix, and to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, Half Awake. If you appreciate this podcast and want more people to find it, kindly take a moment to rate, review, like, comment, and share on your platforms of choice. Of course, just because I am some therapist doesn't mean I'm your therapist. This podcast is not a substitute for medical advice. If you need help, ask your doctor or browse your local therapists online. And whatever you do next, please take care of yourself. Eat well, sleep well, move your body, get outside, and tell someone you love them. You're worth it.