Maisie Bell

tech

RIP: The bottom of the webpage

I was spending some time over the weekend doing what most other millennial/zoomer crossover freaks usually do: scrolling web pages on one of the many rectangles I own. It struck me. Something had been missing from my browsing experience, and I don’t really know when it disappeared? Website

mental health

Severance and Dissociation

I just finished the 7th episode of season two of Severance. Oh my gosh I have so many thoughts I need to get out into text form. This is going to contain a lot of spoilers for the show. If you haven’t watched, you should close this browser tab.

climbing

The Road to V5

Aaaaaaaa. I started 2024 just about being able to climb V3 graded routes at a few gyms around London but I wanted to do better and get to climbing V4s consistently. Actually, let me correct myself there. I started 2024 with a sprained ankle and a lot of sitting around

lgbtq+ Featured

A leap of faith.

The hardest thing about transition is trusting yourself that you’re making the best decisions possible. None of us really know for sure what the future holds and what will happen next. We’re always taking a leap of faith. Yeah, uh, this is a post about my upcoming Facial

The simple joy of climbing

I first went bouldering at a north London climbing centre in summer 2022, in order to try and impress someone I was dating at the time. We joined a friendly group of people who visited weekly and climbed together, and I initially suffered through it because they were very lovely

mental health

Whoops! Let’s try this again.

Having finally seen a psychiatrist this week to look into my serious mental health symptoms, I’ve finally been given a diagnosis and treatment plan—I have Complex PTSD, which is honestly what I began to realise I had already. But it’s definitely a big jump from thinking you

safe mode

Safe mode is a feature in Windows where your computer boots up in a basic state, with most features and abilities disabled. It’s intended as a way to safely rule out bad settings and rogue hardware drivers that can be causing issues, and give you a more stable place

mental health

The existential fear of rejection

I signed up for my second round of therapy with the goal of managing and breaking out of a depressive spiral. In the first appointment, my therapist predicted that my depression is powered by anxiety alone, and by tackling that, it would lead to much better management of my depression.

mental health

Surviving

Content warning for strong depression themes, mentions of suicide It wasn’t until the last couple of weeks, that I was fully able to comprehend that just getting through life makes you a survivor. I’ve been struggling with depression and anxiety for years and years, and it came to

mental health

on my mind

This is a follow up to the post I wrote a few weeks ago (Committing To A Better Me). Content warnings for depression themes and mentions of suicide. About five weeks ago, I finally reached out to my doctor about my symptoms of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. They gave

Committing To A Better Me

I don’t need to tell any of you about the many stressors and anxieties surrounding being a trans person in the year 2023. I feel like it’s a topic that’s been done to death and only serves to make people needlessly worried and scared and serves no

food

Pizza Restaurants Are Too Pretentious For Their Own Good

Pizza should be an unfussy vessel for cheese and carbs to enter your mouth.

i wish i was normal

i wish i didn’t have breakdowns from being around too many people or unfamiliar situations or too many sensory inputs. i wish i didn’t have to act hard to blend in with others. i wish i didn’t have to constantly worry about my access to healthcare and

lgbtq+

Trans Day of Invisibility And Two Years Out

Trans Day of Visibility 2021, two years ago, I changed my social media and came out to everyone remaining as Maisie. You can read about it here: Hello World, Again. The two years that have followed have been such a whirlwind rollercoaster ride. I’ve made some incredible friends, found

lgbtq+

this weekend

tw: transphobia this weekend, i was the victim of a hate crime. i was walking through my local park when i overheard a bunch of guys talking about me, saying “that’s a bloke isn’t it” and talking about throwing beer on me, before proceeding to start throwing pebbles

to my cis friends

this is something that i didn't really know if i wanted to write or not, and also whether i should, whether my words are necessary. but i felt like it would be cathartic to put some words and thoughts out. i'd really appreciate all my cisgender

trans Featured

Reflecting On The Most Impactful Year Of My Life

About a year ago, I was sitting in front of my iPad, writing and reflecting on how I felt about how my 2021 had been. I’d essentially gone from zero to one hundred—starting a new job at Apple, coming out to everyone as trans in just a couple

music

My Favourite Albums of 2022

There were a few albums I kept coming back to this year which I just really enjoyed throughout. These are them. Don't expect any fancy review here, haha. I'm just going to drop a favourite track from each album. Everything Everything - Raw Data Feel Honestly

coffee map Featured

Prufrock Coffee: Old School Vs New School

Visiting Prufrock Coffee on Leather Lane to experience two state-of-the-art espressos; modern style on modern hardware, versus classic Italian style on restored vintage hardware.

Four Weeks

If all goes according to plan, in four and a half weeks’ time I’ll have a vagina. Fuck. A year ago this felt unattainable, a pipe dream, a vague concept, and now it’s really finally happening. Assuming everything runs to schedule, I’ll be healed and back on

lgbtq+

It Started With A Selfie Filter

Two years ago, I took this little selfie, and ran it through a filter that promised to “make you look like the other (sic) gender”. This photo above was the result. The moment that I saw this, I broke down sobbing. I had, only in the previous couple of days,

trans

Maisie × Estrogen

Preface This is intended as a living (i.e., constantly updated) guide documenting all the changes, effects and feelings I’ve experience while undergoing hormone replacement therapy in the first few years of my medical transition. The guide is meant to present how I feel throughout as-is, and will try

lgbtq+

Trans Visibility, And One Year Out

Reflecting on a busy and spectacular year full of changes, as well as discussing what it means to be visible.

trans

How I Worked Out I Was Trans

Warning: this post talks about some of my dysphoria, however I don’t go into a lot of detail. A quick timeline as an overview: * 2015 - 2018: got meeting trans people at university, realised being trans is a thing * 2019: seeing trans people share their transitions on social media,

lgbtq+

We Don’t Do Valentine’s

My relationship with my partner, Izzy, is not the most orthodox. We first met on Twitter about eleven(?) years ago, through a shared interest in the video game, Portal. We spent the next six or so years becoming really close internet friends, helping each other through difficult times and hanging