Lily R

So my cat is nearly 2 years old now. He doesn't like the outdoors so is exclusively an indoor cat (he is scared of even going on the balcony).

I had some minor spraying issues when I got two new roommates but he soon settled and he is generally a healthy and happy cat. He enjoys play fighting and the rest of the time he keeps himself to himself.

My vet seems very insistent he be neutered though, which I am a student and it is difficult for me to afford and given the fact he is an indoor cat, I really don't see the benefit.

Does he really need neutering?

Okay, so I'm 23 years old in case that has any relevance and 4 weeks ago I had some pretty major surgery and for a large duration of my hospital stay (I was in for a week) I was confined to bed rest which lasted roughly 5 days.

During that 5 days I had to stay on my back and be laid flat and due to the type of surgery I had there was high risk of bleeding down in that particular region. So they placed an incopad (kinda like a absorbent sort thing) beneath my butt to prevent blood getting on the bedding.

Anyway, it being Summer and the fact this incopad seemed to absorb heat as well as blood and the fact I wasn't allowed out of the position of was in lead to me getting extremely sweaty and sore down there leading to cuts and irritation.

For the most part it seems to have cleared up however certain areas that are prone to sweating more are still getting extremely irritated due to there still be residual skin irritation in the area.

I'm able to be up and about again now so things aren't quite as bad as they were in the hospital but yeah.

How can I reduce skin irritation on my butt?

So as a kid I was never a huge reader, I read the Harry Potter books but I don't really think that counts as most people when I was younger read the Harry Potter books.

Anyway, at 16 I guess that was when I first started independently reading and although I enjoyed the 2 books I read back then it took me quite a while to engage with them and I stopped reading for a long time after that. Didn't pick up another book until I was 21.

Over the past couple of years (I'm 23 now) I have since read quite a lot of books but unless the book really jumps at me in the book store, I can enjoy it but I take literally ages to engage with the book, sometimes I can be halfway through the book before I feel engaged enough to read it. I even had the same problem with some of the Harry Potter books.

Something that might be worth noting, I don't really a have a visual imagination. I literally, no matter how hard I try cannot create an image in my head. So when I do read a book, it is just words. I mean I can follow what is going on and stuff but I can't create an actual scene in my head if that makes sense.

Could this be why I struggle to engage with books?

So I'm having surgery in 6 weeks and I have been told I am not allowed to wear jeans when leaving (I only own jeans) or to be wearing jeans period during the 7 days I am in hospital.

Now the obvious answer is tracky bottoms which if I absolute have to wear them I will but quite frankly I despise them and they remind me of a period of my life I wouldn't like to return to. Also quite frankly I don't find them comfortable.

What trousers/pants can I buy that aren't tight fitting and aren't jeans or tracky bottoms?

So I'm 23 years old and I met this guy nearly 2 years ago and pretty much liked him straight away. He's sweet, he's funny and he gets me. And like during the past year or so I've been going through a rather rough period, as some former friends spread lies about me and lost me most of my friends. Fortunately this guy didn't buy into them lies and stuck by me and has helped me get over it. I lost a lot of self-confidence after it happened.

Anyway, this guy has a super close relationship with this girl, let call her Liz (and I'll call the guy Steve) to the point that everyone thinks they are together which has always made me extremely jealous and also I was feeling really depressed lately. Anyway, long story short I ended up telling Steve how I felt about him, the friendship felt kinda awkward with me keeping it to myself.

Anyway, he told me he isn't ready for a relationship at the minute but he considers me his closest friend (which has made me way less jealous of Liz) and that he does love me and perhaps in the future things can be more between us.

Anyway, we're still really good friends and he recently invited me to have a sleepover with him and Liz. Gonna drink booze, watch movies and I'm gonna bring my PS4.

Just worried that drinking and getting drunk around him might not be a good idea. To my understanding we'll be sharing a room together and like well he has already made is position clear on the dating front for the time being.

Should I perhaps hold off on...

Like I don't know how to explain it but I kinda feel light headed and relaxed after reading for a bit.

So I'm transgender and well I'm now 23 and well I started puberty when I was 9 (which yes I realise is extremely early for someone born male) and with these seemed to come an extremely violent temper. Even when I wasn't actually angry I still felt some pent up aggression there, quite often walking with closed fists and really feeling like punching something.

I admit I was quite dangerous and not really a safe person to be around, especially when my temper snapped. One of my friends who knew me back when I still had testosterone running through my veins has referred to me as being psychotic back then.

Anyway, 3 years ago I started on estrogen and androgen blockers and within a month my temper greatly deteriorated. I stopped feeling pent up and aggressive and felt a lot more happy and at ease and in place of violent out bursts, I quite often ended up crying instead.

It's taken 3 years to stabilise my estrogen levels though and every time they have slipped my violent short fused temper has returned but then as my estrogen dosage is upped my temper and aggression retreat again.

I'm just really curious though as to what could have possibly caused testosterone to make me so violent and aggressive as I know most people born biologically male don't have such a violent reaction to the hormone?

I was also reading recently that testosterone isn't the sole cause of aggression and that it in fact plays a minimal role which confuses me even more.

Okay so I'm transgender and well I wouldn't say I identify as a lesbian but I definitely swing towards girls way more than I do guys.

Anyway, back in school although my gender caused me a hell of a lot of confusion the one thing I was always certain of was that I liked girls. I had a rather healthy dating life in school both before and after coming out and yeah. I never really questioned it.

Well I guess on the odd occasion I asked myself; "Could you ever see yourself with a guy?" but I always ended up thinking it through and coming out with the answer of "No, I couldn't."

Anyway, since then I have had about 2 crushes on guys. Quite hard. I'm 23 by the way. Usually I get drawn in by a guy with a sweet personality and it is pretty much once in a blue moon I fall for a guy. Aside from these very specific guys it is still hard for me to imagine myself dating a man.

Anyway, the reason for this question is I am remembering that ages ago before I even came out I was friends with this guy and well I quite often acted around him how I act around my present crushes. I also remember really loving the fact that after a sleepover my clothes smelled of him which as I understand is quite intimate.

Makes me wonder whether I had a crush on him that I never let myself fully embrace.

It was along time ago and I guess I am dwelling on the past.

But is it possible to have a crush on someone without knowing?

I have no idea why but I have picked up the habit of using words like this a lot and I overuse the word like a lot as well.

I overuse like most of the time but the "hella" and "totes" kinda emerged from me trying to impress guys and then it has slowly gone from my flirtatious vocabulary to that which I use in day to day life and I find it irritating.

I mean it isn't like I don't have a decent vocabulary. I read a lot and so I do have quite a good grasp of the English language. I'm also training to become a teacher and part of my course involves me reading scholarly articles and writing essays, etc.

I just want to know how to drop the habit of using these words?

So back in high school I had my first proper relationship with a girl but that didn't work out on the account that she is straight, which at the time she thought she was bisexual. So yeah. That was a mess.

In college I had my second proper relationship, this time with a guy and turned out he is gay, again dating under the premise he was bisexual.

So yeah, with those relationships I totally screwed up.

And then after those two relationships I went through a long period of rejection which caused my confidence to totally crash. Okay, I guess I had two people who showed interest in me, two guys but their pick up lines largely focused on "Hey do you want to get into bed with me?", which although that is where a relationship would usually lead I don't want that to be the pick up line.

So yeah, anyway I recently started talking to this guy who is really sweet and everything and totally perfect for me, but he doesn't want to be in any sort of relationship right now on account of his mental health (and it totally isn't a lie).

Just seems no matter who I fall for though, they are totally wrong for me and the odd times someone approaches me, they start off down the road of sex, more like one night stand material sort stuff.

I'm not even that picky, as long as I like a person's personality, which in most cases I will unless you are a total *** hole I'd date anyone.

How come I keep falling for and attracting the wrong people?

I ordered a book from Amazon US as it isn't available in the UK yet. Anyway, so far the package has smoothly got to the UK and it cleared customs within a few hours. Since clearing customs checks though it has been stuck at Heathrow for almost 3 days now with no update, okay Sunday is an excuse, but Friday evening, Saturday and today. I just can't understand how it has made no progress whatsoever.

My order is being delivered by UPS by the way.

Why hasn't it done anything for 3 days since clearing customs?

I have McAfee security on my laptop and for almost a week now it has been detecting the exact same virus and exact same trojan everyday.

I quarantine the virus and I restart my computer to fix the trojan but then on the next scan the exact same two programs seem to have breached my computers security yet again.

Any advise?

So I like this guy and have done for a while, I met him and he was just one of those people you just click with instantly but we have never really made it past being friends.

He has mentioned before being in a relationship scares him (I think he had a bad relationship in the past) so he just avoids them altogether and I don't mean the player type either.

He also seems to have this weird friendship with a girl that almost borders on being a relationship in how they act so it is hard to really figure out what is going on with that. I know they are best friends and nothing more but... the closeness of them makes it feels like making a move would be kinda out of line.

And like just in general the guy is really sweet, he spends money on me and really insists I don't pay him back (not something I look for in a guy but I find it kinda cute, I always insist on buying him something in return even though he insists I don't) and most importantly he is there for me when I need him most, when I'm having a hard time I know I can count on him to be there for me and well he goes through a lot of similar crap too so he kinda gets me in a way some other people just don't.

I just don't know what to do cos I really like him but I don't want to make our friendship weird either as he is someone I value as a friend.

Any advice?

Okay, so a while back I was on the twitter page of Laura Jane Grace (lead singer of the punk rock band Against Me! and she is transgender) and well it was when she had her first run in with TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) and there was a long thread of abuse from TERF members.

Anyway, I put a message and it got the attention of one member of TERF who started attacking me at first, but then we got to talking and it turned out her frustration was less at the trans community and more at gender identity services, where she felt they are misogynistic institutions taking advantage of mentally vulnerable men and women while enforcing harmful gender roles. Basically she viewed trans people as being as much victims as cis women.

Anyway we had a long discussion and in my experience some of what she said did ring true. For example my gender identity clinic, the doctors there do have this rigid idea of what it is to be male or female. To put it crudely there view falls in the ball park of "Men wear trousers, women wear dresses, Men go to work, women do the housework." Okay, not quite as exact but still along those lines. One of my friends who is FTM was told if he wanted to start on testosterone he'd need to cut his hair short as men don't have long hair which I find ridiculous and me it, it took me 5 years to get to the point of surgery simply cos I am more masculine in my gender expression. Born female I would have probably been a tomboy but according to my gender....

A few days ago he took my purse and wouldn't let me have it back, he kept scratching at me if I went for and I had to wait till he left to get it back.

And then yesterday he randomly laid on top of a 2L bottle of Pepsi Max and clawed at me each time I went to get that.

He just randomly picks things to guard and won't let you have them back until he finally decides to walk off.

Why does he do this?

So I'm quite a massive caffeine addict and I can have anything between 480mg up to 1g of a caffeine in a day.

Anyway, I have noticed if I ever withdraw from caffeine I find it quite difficult to sleep. I feel extremely tired due to the withdrawal but my body refuses to sleep too.

However if I am keeping my caffeine intake up, I get tired around 10pm and go to bed and wake up in the morning perfectly happy.

I found lately though before I go to bed I have a massive craving for an energy drink, I typically have a can and then doze off to sleep quite contently. I also struggle to sleep if I don't have source of caffeine nearby which I can drink in the night (I rarely do drink during the night, but I just feel happy when it is there).

I have found I don't even really rely on caffeine to stay awake either. In the morning I usually won't have my first dose of caffeine till about 3 hours into my day.

I actually tend to have more on the build up to me going to sleep and without it I seriously struggle.

How come I struggle sleeping without caffeine?

So I have Brittle Asthma Type II and since my last major asthma attack in 2010 I have suffered scarring of the lungs.

Anyway over the past few years I have been with an awful GP who has denied I suffer with Brittle Asthma Type II, despite me being diagnosed as a kid and I'm sure all he has to do is access a file to see that on my record.

Also for the past few years I have been suffering with a very bad cough which regardless of treatment has not gone away which I have just recently found out is a common symptom of scaring of the lungs AKA IDF.

It has become quite clear to me my GP has not been accessing my medical records and just been acting off discussion and although I remember the odd details of my medical history, I don't know it all. Also when I told him I had Brittle Asthma Type II he dismissed it saying my asthma is just badly managed.

I have now changed GPs but in case I encounter the same issues, I'm wanting to request access to my medical records.

I know the IPF was diagnosed in 2010 during an asthma attack so that part is easy to get hold of.

The issue is all I know about my asthma diagnosis is that I was very young, even my Mum doesn't know the rough year.

I'm just wondering can I request full access to my medical record. Like the entire thing from birth to the present day.

Just be nice to have that access though as then if my new GP proves as unhelpful I have the bit of paper that says otherwise.

Can I access my full medical record?

Okay, I have Brittle Asthma Type II and I live in the UK so have the NHS for healthcare purposes.

Anyway, Brittle Asthma is quite unpredictable and extremely hard to manage, it can be fine one minute but one it is bad in time it often leads to a hospital visit.

Anyway, for the past 2 years my GP has been extremely awful in treatment, they ration my salbutamol saying I should only require one a month (which in the past even the hospital has said on the run up to an asthma attack I need at least one that I can empty in one burst, something they attempt at the hospital to stabiliser my asthma) but my GP refuses this. Plus during bad periods I can need more than one a month as I run out after a week or two.

Brittle asthma can be bad for long periods (Type I from what i know is bad all the time), with me being Type II I have good periods a lot but I can still have long bad periods which unless I'm having an attack, I don't need to be in hospital for but need adequate treatment.

Plus my GP has missed things on several occasions, like once my asthma was bad, during February, 3 years in a row. First time he says it is just badly managed, second time same thing, 3rd time I request to be referred to the hospitals specialised unit which he looked offended by. Guy at the hospital pulled some blood tests I'd been having over the past 2 years and noticed I had inflamed lungs.

Oh and just to add to the badly managed asthma point, my GP claims (despite being diagnosed) that I don't...

I'm just curious of peoples opinions on the matter because, well I'm British myself and I am quite patriotic about that fact and I hold my nationality to have great meaning for me. Granted this island has been the perpetrator of many atrocities which I am ashamed off, but at the same time great good has come from this island too.

Regardless I'm proud to be British and I'm proud of my nationality. I'm also quite Conservative in my beliefs and my world view.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend and they brought up the topic of immigration, my friend is actually American and quite liberal and they just made the instant assumption that because of my mindset of being quite patriotic and right wing I would instantly be opposed to immigration and I would be scared that Muslims might change the national religion of my country.

In reality though I'm quite open to immigrants, due to the present economy in Britain, etc I feel there should be a temporary closure of the borders until the British economy is back to a level where the people already here are able to get employment before letting others in. But overall, I have nothing against people wanting to immigrate and I have even less against asylum seekers especially considering quite a few problems in the world are the fault of Britain's. Anti-gay laws in the Uganda for example.

Do you think patriotism and conservative values instantly equate to racism and an inbuilt prejudice?

Okay, so it was my 23rd birthday on Saturday and today me and my Mum met up to go for a meal and well my sister had also come along (I actually have several sisters but it was just the one in this case).

Anyway, I'm transgender (I was born male but I identify as female and I am presently going through transition) and it is a thing me and my Mum are at each others throats about. She is dead against it. As a result I ran away from home at 17.

My Mum has said she will have a phone relationship with me once I've transitioned but she is going to refuse to see me face to face. Since this point me and my Mum have kept the topic off limits and over the past few months we have been having meals and drinks in cafes and been quite civil with one another provided that topic is kept off limits.

Anyway, today my sister was arguing with my Mum, expecting her to pay for a car and all sorts and making out she is so hard done by cos she is expected to pay for some things out of her own pocket. And well it was meant to be my birthday meal so it was getting a little irritating and both me and my Mum repeatedly told her to just shut up. Eventually my sister decides to try and get me and my Mum arguing though by bringing up the transgender topic going "You do know she is going to disown you" and me and my Mum were just like "We don't discuss that topic" and by that point my Mum gave her she option of shutting up or going home.

Why the hell did she even decide to try and start that argument?