While I was “out,” Part 2 – partly out of the closet, fully out of the loop
Posted: April 17, 2014 Filed under: coming out | Tags: anxiety, coming out, depression, gender identity, genderqueer, lgbt, lgbtq, mental health, non-binary, queer, testosterone, therapy, trans, transgender 1 CommentFor roughly 6 years, I was living sort of as the person I envisioned myself to be. Prior to that, I’d gone through a bunch of intense periods of introspection (or maybe one really long period of continuous introspection is more like it), trying to find myself and how I identify.
By my mid-twenties, I had just kind of given up and said, “Good enough.” Tried to move on and live my life as best I could. (That doesn’t mean I stopped being introspective. It just means I tried to have a life despite that.) That life involved disconnecting from most things that were causing me too much stress and anxiety. The LGBT community was definitely on that list, but at the time, I would have shrugged it off and told you, “it’s not that important to me.”
The LGBT community kept sending me this, and I just kept ignoring them, because the details were always left blank.
The break-up was never about interpersonal drama or ideological disagreements. (Although, I did feel some of that. I strongly feel that a facilitator / leader can really make or break a group.) I broke away because it felt too sensitive to be in touch with what was going on, and to connect with others on this identity-based level
I didn’t stop being an activist / contributor, but I did stop focusing on things that hit too close to home. I immersed myself in endeavors such as Food Not Bombs, our local Free School, and benefits to raise money for a particular community space, Indymedia, etc. I overextended myself way past the point of burn-out. I’ve taken huge steps back. I’m currently at a precipice, figuring out what to throw my energies into next, and how to do it differently.
I was not very happy, but I had resigned myself to thinking that this is just how things are for me. I was so uncomfortable in my own skin. My anxiety levels were so high, on a normal day, on every normal day. I self-injured and shut-down (dissociated) regularly, just to cope with daily life. I forced myself to do so many things, all the time, out of fear of sinking into yet another depression. I was hyper-vigilant of my internal states and tried to regulate all my emotions – squish and squelch them, twist them into something else and rationalize them away. I was aware that I was capable of having a sex drive, but it was so far gone I didn’t have the slightest idea of how to coax it back. (And I really wanted it back.)
It’s not like my life was super stressful! I work as a janitor. I don’t have any dependents. I don’t have money concerns, health concerns, family drama, nothing! Haha.
I just did not want to worry any more about gender! I had a huge amount of body dysphoria. I felt totally lost a lot of the time. But it wasn’t going to be about gender. It was going to be about any number of other things. Because, bottom-line, trying to figure out if I should transition or not was stressing the hell out of me, for years and years and years. I did go through a (fortunately unsuccessful) time period where I said, OK, this is about gender. And I found a therapist to talk about that, specifically. (I was probably 28 at this point.) I thought I was headed on a neat and tidy (and difficult) path to finally sort this all out and probably start testosterone and transition into a visible man. Except, I never wanted to be a man. It’s just that I had backed myself into a corner, and this was my escape plan. But there was no way that could have worked; I knew myself too well. I never ended up connecting with the therapist, I never even convinced myself to begin with, and the whole plan just stalled out.
(This kinda ends abruptly, but part 3 will be coming soon. If you’re interested, here is part 1.)
Blog writing shows promise for… future blog writing
Posted: February 13, 2014 Filed under: Writing | Tags: blog writing, blogs, class, college, depression, gender identity, genderqueer, non-binary, nostalgia, professor, reminiscing, self-injury, writing Leave a commentJust for fun, I decided to go back to an old online diary and see what I had written (if anything) ten years ago today. And there was one dated 2/13/04! At this time, I was a senior in college, I had no plans, and I was trying to rebuild my sense of self after a destructively devastating depressive episode.
I had been in a screenwriting class the previous semester, and had had some difficulty with the class and the professor. We’d had a few miscommunications. For example, I disclosed to him some of my struggles (such as issues with self-injury) in an attempt to get him to understand why I needed to take an incomplete, going to class and doing the work later. As a result, he decided to show the movie Secretary for the class, letting me know somehow (I don’t remember how) that this was his way of connecting with me. But actually, I felt mortified by this.
So what I wrote exactly ten years ago was this:
___________________________________
[The professor} emailed me today, saying he had been reading my “blog,” [which he must have found by Googling his name] and in my head, I was like FUCK, WHAT SORT OF SHIT DID I SAY ABOUT HIM? Oh man. But it turns out I didn’t really say any shit about him, just wrote about a conversation the class had in which I was excluded from the female POV. And I was like, awesome! but in the journal, it sort of sounded like I felt sligted, because I call myself “other.” He didn’t realize I love “other,” so he wrote to me in the email that it is easy to recall times when one has been slighted, but one must also remember times when one’s unique humanity is recognized. (ex. showing Secretary in class.) So I just had to write back that I didn’t feel slighted – I was pleased, rather, to be excluded from being able to speak from a female’s POV. Yeah, I don’t know if this makes much sense, but, he wrote back saying thanks for the clarification, and he also said to keep writing. “Your blog writing shows promise.”
Promise for what?
__________________________________
Even though I was still a long way off from using the words non-binary, genderqueer, or trans* to describe myself (apparently preferring “other” haha), it’s awesome to see I was thinking about it and writing about it.
With this guy, it’ll be just my luck that he’ll find this post somehow and strike up a long-lost conversation with me, haha. College was weird.
Continuing to work through a specific trauma
Posted: November 12, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anniversary, communicating, coping with trauma, depression, disconnect, medical records, mental health, psychiatric hospital, psychotic break, therapy, trauma 1 CommentFourteen years ago today, I was taken to the emergency room and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for nineteen days. It was by choice – I voluntarily admitted myself, but once I got there, I realized that basically, I was stuck, and things got much much worse for me. Essentially, I went from being in a confused and vaguely depressed state to suffering a full-on paranoid psychotic break from reality, which in retrospect, I believe could have been avoided had I not been there at all. My plan in my head was to go there and sleep and restore my mind and body for a day or two, and then make a plan from there. Their plan was to do what they do, on a medical and legal basis, and this took so long, I was unsure if I was ever going to get to leave. Also, I was a month shy of 18 years old, so I was not yet a consenting adult, and my parents signed everything that needed signing. (On the other hand, I’m relieved I was not yet 18, because that month’s difference was the difference between being on the Adolescent or Adult unit. I am glad I was with people my own age and younger.) This was during my senior year of high school. I went back to school with a (mis)diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and even more of a disconnect from everyone around me. I felt even more isolated, and self-stigmatized than before. I sank into a severe depression. I dropped out of a few of my classes and took a leave of absence from my job. I tried to stay occupied with some art classes at school, but nothing at all interested me. As the summer before college started, things finally did start to lift. I got my driver’s license. I started to hang out with friends a little bit. I felt excited to be moving two hours away and starting college.
This experience has stayed with me as a lasting trauma. In college, I wrote a lengthy personal essay about it, trying to capture every tiny thing I could remember. I was in therapy for a long time after – I was actually doing a lot worse in general after being discharged. I was on a lot of pills and unsure if they were helping. Therapy, at least, was helping. Therapy has been the one thing I’ve done for myself that has made the biggest difference in my adult life. Therapists have taught me how to be a verbal person and communicate with others.
About a year ago, I worked at talking through this experience that still haunts me, in therapy. My therapist was a little hesitant to delve into it – she’s not too big on rehashing the past. But she did help me through it, and encouraged me to talk with my mom about it, in order to dis-spell some long-held beliefs that might have actually been way off. Such as, “it didn’t really affect my mom that much, that I was there.” So I did talk to my mom about it (however difficult that was), and felt myself getting to a new place through doing that.
And then this year (every year around this time, I’m thinking a lot about it again), I decided to gain access to my medical records from back then. I didn’t know how to go about that because the hospital I was at has since been closed, demolished, and rebuilt into a new multipurpose health facility. But I was told my records are somewhere, on microfilm, and I can get them at a fee of $0.75 per page. So I went through the request form and noted I’d like to be informed of the length of the document before it’s sent. Two weeks later, a heavy package arrived, with a bill for $168.10! I thought we were talking about something in the range of 40 pages! This thing is 210 pages, and this bill is much more than I want to pay. (So I did email back and forth, explaining my request was ignored, and I did get the bill knocked down to $100.88 – still way more than I was planning to pay.)
The document itself is largely made up of pages that have no interest to me. And many pages in which I can’t read the person’s handwriting. But, in the process of gleaning as much as I can from it (and skipping over quite a few things that feel triggery, for right now), I’m coming to some kind of new terms with what happened to me, way way back then. And, something is lifting.
Trying to get out of the fog, back to the party
Posted: September 27, 2013 Filed under: Testosterone | Tags: bipolar disorder, depression, emotions, in a funk, mental health, optimism, testosterone, trans 3 CommentsI’ve been on testosterone (very low-dose) for a little over 6 months now, and in some ways, that was the best 6 month streak I’ve ever had. Now, I find myself crashing, in some very familiar ways… Did I think I was now immune to these lows? I’m not sure – I’ve felt more “normal” than ever before lately, so yeah I think I figured maybe my “highs and lows” would not vary as much as they have my whole adult life. But I think they’re still a pretty big part of me.
At age 17, I was diagnosed as bipolar. By 23, I was seriously questioning that, and slowly getting off all my meds, and deciding that I had been misdiagnosed. I’m certain of that by now. But, I’m pretty sure I do have some ups and downs that are outside “normal range.” I also have a tendency to just emotionally shut down to avoid the whole feeling things in the first place (not fun!) . Being in therapy recently has helped me avoid shut-down mode. So has testosterone. I think. Maybe.
I’ve been pretty down for the past few weeks. But, relatively, it’s not that bad. In the past, I’ve experienced bouts of depression that have lasted roughly 4-6 months at a time and have left me basically non-functional. Currently, I’m pretty much normally functioning. I’m just not getting much enjoyment out of things, and I’m dreading anything upcoming in the near future. Like, really dreading. Also, interestingly as per my unfaltering optimism, I believe this fog is going to lift any day now, and I’ll get right back into things. We’ll see about that.
It’s just… kind of a bummer. The first few months on testosterone were a really fun mix of elation, warm and fuzzy, cozy, euphoria, sexual energy, confidence burst, and anxiety-be-gone! Now it’s feeling like… party’s over! But, again with the optimism, I think that as soon as I navigate out of this gloom, the party will still be there, waiting for me.
janitorqueer 