Specific trauma feels so far away

Posted: November 11, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: mental health, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

For as long as I’ve had this blog (9 years!), I’ve written annually around this time of year, about a hospitalization I went through at age 17. I was there for 19 days; it was voluntary but quickly became involuntary once it was clear I wasn’t actually based in reality.

This year, I wasn’t sure if was going to write anything. I’ve been thinking it over for the past few days. What else is there to say? I mean, there’s a lot, but is it worthwhile? Do I want to get back into the headspace? I’m not even sure if that’s possible anymore (which is mostly a positive thing.)

I started by opening a tab for each post I’ve made about it, so far. Rereading it all. I’m not sure why, but I think I want to try to plot out a timeline, even if it’s hazy and incomplete.

November 12 – December 1, 1999 – hospital
Spring of 2001 – wrote down everything I could remember, for a college course
Next 10+ years – continued to get blindsided by the emotional intensity of this trauma, all the time, but especially mid-November
Spring of 2012 – talked a lot about it, tentatively, in therapy, which really started to help
2013 – got a copy of the medical records. Was disappointed at how boring and repetitive they were. There were some nuggets though, for sure. First wrote about it on my blog.
2014 – brought the records to therapy. Watched my therapist zero in on the paperwork as if she were working out a puzzle. She kinda tore it apart, actually! This was both alarming and calming. Something was definitely lifting.
2015 – I got the records back from my therapist (she had been hanging on to them for me). I had been hospitalized earlier in the year, for the 2nd time for the same reasons, and it started to sink in that I might actually have bipolar disorder, type 1, might have had it this whole time.
2016 – didn’t dwell on it. Lots of other things were going on.
2017 – I was hospitalized for a third time, and the traumatic event was starting to be re-contextualized as just, one of the times I was hospitalized.
2018 – This is where I really started to rework things. I’m not sure how to distill that down into a sentence; it’s just pretty amazing to be able to look back on this journey.
2019 – This was the 20th anniversary of my first hospitalization. I wrote that I thought all this writing might serve a future purpose; I just wasn’t sure what yet. I included a photograph of a re-working of different photos I did for a college project, in the spring of 2002.
2020 – I wrote about starting work on a memoir, and the raw material from that college course in 2001 factors into it, but I couldn’t get myself to revise that stuff; make it more cohesive. I was working hard on everything else surrounding it.
2021 – I had gotten past that block and had reworked the writing quite a bit.
Earlier in 2022 – I was clearing out a lot of old stuff from a storage area in my parents’ house, this spring. I save everything. In sorting through all that stuff and reorganizing it to bring to my house, I found a hand-written letter my mom had given to me while in the hospital. I had been looking for this ever since then! I even asked her about it; I was at a loss for where it might have gone. It was in response to a letter I wrote her – that piece is still a mystery, but it was so healing to finally find this thing.

Present day (my 10th time posting about this) – I’m stuck. My memoir is off track and I’m sad about it. I started to revise it drastically in a whole different direction for a long time, but it doesn’t feel like it’s mine anymore and so I stopped. I haven’t touched it for over 6 months. Instead, I’ve been doing a lot of journal writing, emailing my therapist, the usual. Recently, I started on ideas for a 2nd memoir. I’m starting to feel a little more serious about writing overall; I think I have three different stories to tell. Working on this other memoir has felt rewarding, but it’s not the story. I want to get back to this traumatic event and the events surrounding it. I feel like I might be on the cusp of getting back to it…

In those early posts about the hospitalization, I kept ascertaining that I didn’t need to be there, that it was extreme, and I didn’t actually lose a grip on reality until I got there. I see it much differently now. I definitely was going to need to be there – it was more a matter of when? If I hadn’t gotten my mom to get me there, I would have eventually had to go some other way. I know that now. And I could have ended up doing a lot more long-term damage. It’s kinda incredible that at 17, I had enough insight to know I needed to get there. Somehow, I saved myself. (In looking back over all these posts, I realized I wrote something very similar in 2018. For me, writing and recording and reviewing and revisiting all overlap and blend into each other. I’m starting to feel like maybe I am a memoirist? And trying to understand this one experience could be the impetus that has been pushing me there?)

20th anniversary of a specific trauma

Posted: November 11, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: mental health, Uncategorized, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

For 20 years, I’ve been churning and mulling over, obsessing and ruminating about, writing and re-writing the events surrounding my first hospitalization which happened around this time of year in 1999, when I was 17.  Up until the age of 30, it had a hold on me in that way that trauma can stay with a person:  it was my biggest source of shame and fear, I felt like it defined my past and if only I had avoided it, maybe my mental health wouldn’t have gotten so derailed for so long.  It was a super sore spot that for some reason I just kept picking at, revisiting, but wasn’t getting anywhere with.

I’m 37 now, and I’ve been seeing it much differently, with the help of my therapist.  It was extreme and drastic, for sure, but it led to me getting real help that I desperately needed – without that help, my mental state could have festered and bubbled badly for much longer, in a much darker place; who knows what might have happened.  Not that I didn’t suffer for way too long regardless.  I did!  But some systems were in place that helped me feel not so alone, even through those times where I despised those systems.

I’m writing kinda vaguely here…    I voluntarily admitted myself to a psychiatric unit because I thought I was bipolar and I stopped being able to sleep, and things were getting wonky.  I was indeed diagnosed with bipolar disorder, as well as having gone through a psychotic break.  I was there for 3 weeks, even though I kept thinking I could leave at any minute, if I could just figure my way out.  I was put on medications, and later on, different ones and different ones and different ones.  So many different ones.  I got disillusioned with drugs and eventually weened myself off of everything because they ultimately didn’t make any sense.  They did do me some good at some points in time, but not much.

The thing that helped more than anything else, ever in my life, was getting assigned a therapist.  I was required to attend 20 sessions after my hospitalization; I ended up going so many more times than that; if not specifically with her because she moved away, then to the therapist she referred me to.  In fact, I’m still seeing this therapist (with a break of a bunch of years in between, during that time where I wrote off meds and all other psychological interventions).

I was talking recently with a friend about therapy, (It seems like all of my friends are currently in therapy…) and I referred to the fact that my parents facilitated me being in therapy from such a young age (and by young, I mean 18) as “early intervention.”  I know that term usually refers to 3-5 year-old’s who might be on the spectrum or might have a learning disability or a speech delay.  But, sadly, when it comes to emotions and figuring out how to communicate them, age 18 is still pretty much “early intervention,” in my opinion.  Things are definitely getting better, but not fast enough!  And when I said that out loud to my friend, it hit me how lucky I was.  I always went to therapy willingly – at some times, it felt like the only thing I had to look forward to.  Usually it felt like the progress was not quantifiable.  Was it doing anything?  What good was it?  Was it worth it?  I still pretty much always loved going, even if logically I wasn’t so sure.

My therapist has told me that among her clients who have gone through psychosis, I’m the only one who has ever wanted to revisit it (for me, there are 3 instances).  Everyone else just wants to put it behind them.  I don’t understand that; and I’ve ended up doing a lot more than just revisiting it.  I think there’s a lot of worth there.  It feels like a gold mine in an alternate universe.  The more I write, the more I can mine it later, for future purposes.  I’m not sure what those purposes are, exactly, yet, but I want the raw material to be intact as much as possible.

In the spirit of that, here’s one short snippet, that I first wrote in 2001:

“I’m going to be leaving tomorrow,” I announced at our afternoon community meeting.  I figured that since I wanted to come here, I was allowed to tell them when I wanted to leave.  I was getting sick of this charade.  The day before, I had told the nurse that I wanted to go home, expecting to find my parents there when I woke up.  When nothing came of that, I panicked, but then I realized the key was for me to get myself out.  I was going to have to stand up to everyone and announce my intentions.  I had to take control.  Everyone, including the staff workers, stared at me without saying a word.  That made me uneasy, especially when my statement went untouched, and the meeting continued with staff member Bob saying, “If no one has anything else to say, it’s time to go to the gym.”  It’s alright, it’s alright.  They’re just testing me.”

There’s a lot more where that came from.  Maybe one day I’ll share it with a wider audience.

Two year anniversary of my most recent hospitalization

Posted: May 15, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: mental health | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I’ve been hospitalized a total of 3 times for mania and psychosis; for some reason, the anniversary of this one, this time around, is hitting me pretty hard.  Every year in November, I make a post to remember and acknowledge my first hospitalization, because it was so traumatic, and it’s stayed with me even now, 20 years after the fact.  These two other, more recent ones were much easier to get past / work through.  In fact, I’d even say that this most recent one was even cathartic, in a positive sense (not so much for my loved ones, I know!)  But personally, it helped me heal from the other two times.  And the fact that I didn’t boomerang into a deep, dark depression afterward… that I was able to take as much time off as I needed and kind of come back around gradually, organically, meant the world to me.

It’s been a very rainy May so far.  It reminds me of looking out the windows of the hospital; it was rainy a lot of the time then too.  It was my brother’s birthday, and then Mother’s Day, and right after that, I was admitted to the hospital.  The Lilac Festival was going on; there are lilacs in bloom right now.  We have a lilac bush; I can see the flowers from our dining room window.

Last year during this week, I was preoccupied with a trip to Massachusetts to visit our friends.  I didn’t think about the fact that we’d be away during this week.  It occurred to me while we were on the trip, I think.  I remember being hyper-aware of everything blooming at that time, exactly.  We smelled lots of flowers while we walked around different parts of Boston and Salem.  Things weren’t in bloom when we left, but suddenly, bam!, they were, when we got back.

_________________________________________________________

I’ve been super stable, mental health-wise, for a long time now.  I’d say I re-stabilized by September of 2017, and I’ve been good since then.  Great, even.  Super productive with creative projects.  Anxiety has been at an all time low.  I have energy.  My mood is very very very even-keeled.  Iike, maybe a little too much.  Meaning, there’s so little variety in how I feel, from day to day.  But… I’ll take it.  I haven’t felt any compulsions.  I haven’t been having obsessive thoughts.  The only down-side to my mental landscape, in an ongoing way, is that I sleep a LOT.  And I have trouble waking up in the mornings.  I usually sleep 10-11 hours a day, on average.  Which is most likely a side effect of the medication I’m on.  (Seroquel.)  But, also, as the years have gone on, I’m also realizing it just might be how much sleep is actually optimal for me.  I generally slept that much, if I was able to, long before starting this medication.  And I used to beat myself up about it, like I was being lazy and unproductive.  And whenever I’ve had to get on an earlier schedule, such as during summers, for work, my mood, energy levels, and motivation have always suffered.  Probably because I wasn’t sleeping as much as I seem to need to.

So I’ve decided to give myself a break.  It works out much better if I let myself sleep as much as I tend to need to (as opposed to how much I think I should want to, I guess?), life goes much more smoothly.

Huh, I went on an unexpected tangent about sleep!  I meant to write about my most recent hospitalization.  Actually, I’ve already written, in a word document, as much as I could remember from my week-long stay.  It was jam packed with activities; it was action packed.  So maybe I’ll just cut and paste a slice of life from that time.  …I just pulled it up to find an excerpt I could put here, but it’s total nonsense!  No one paragraph makes any sense within itself.  Also I burst out laughing a bunch of times.  I think it’s not quite ready for consumption yet.  But it might be, one day, as part of a larger project…

Recent books I’ve read with mental health content

Posted: January 29, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: mental health, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Back in November, I lamented about not being able to find much writing out there that really portrays what can go on in someone’s head while they are in the middle of a psychotic episode.  In the past few weeks, two such books sorta fell into my lap, so I want to mention them!

My spouse picked up a book called Mental:  Lithium, Love, and Losing My Mind from the library last weekend.  They pointed it out to me, like, eh?  You’ll want to read this!  This weekend, I was super sick, and I binge read it in 2 days, while trying to stay warm on the couch.  It was compelling for so many different reasons, one major one being that I could relate to so much of it.  The author, Jaime Lowe, was also hospitalized for a good chunk of her senior year of high school, and she also just took the pills without much reflection for years and years.  Like, it’s something that is a thing now.  (Although, for me, it was Depakote, and not Lithium.)  She had another manic / psychotic episode when she tried to get off Lithium at age 25.  I successfully(?) did get off all my pills in my early 20s, and that was my new normal for a long time, until I had 2 subsequent manic / psychotic episodes in my 30s.  She had to switch off of Lithium because it was killing her kidneys, and she had a really hard time stomaching Depakoke, but she finally did get through it.

Having to switch sent her on a spiritual journey to learn about Lithium as not just a psychotropic drug but as an element, super common in nature.  Which made the book encompass much more than just her mental health trajectory.  The best thing about it though, was how thoroughly and deeply she gets back into that headspace of being so completely out of her mind.  The slightest suggestion toward a minuscule thing could send her on an all-day (or longer) journey to do and/or be that thing.  She devastated every aspect of her life that second time around.  I was surprised by the fact that everyone around her wanted to keep her out of the hospital for a second time because she was no longer an adolescent and the adult ward was apparently to be avoided at all costs.  As a result, she was in that state much longer – days, weeks…  I was brought to the hospital like, BAM!  So fast my head didn’t get a chance to spin out too far too fast with too many repercussions.

The second book I’m reading with a portrayal of a breakdown is called The Petting Zoo, by Jim Carroll (of The Basketball Diaries fame).  He wrote this book in 2010, and according to the forward by Patti Smith, he died at his desk while writing.  He had finished it at the time of his death, but it was still in the editing process.  A few people had their hands in trying to edit as close to Jim’s style as possible.  It’s fiction.  It’s hard for me to get through (probably largely because it’s fiction – I almost always gravitate toward non-fiction and memoir).  The book opens with the main character, Billy, in the midst of a manic frenzy.  I didn’t know the book would be about that at all – nothing about that on the back cover summary – I bought it on a whim from a record store that was going out of business.  So it was interesting to get thrown into that unexpectedly, but I gotta say it felt lacking in… something.

Billy has some kind of crisis over an art opening at the MET and how what he saw of this one artist affects how he’s approaching his art for his own upcoming show.  He careens off down the steps, on his own, into the Central Park Zoo, more specifically a side spectacle, an outdated petting zoo.  From there, he flees down the street, in his tuxedo and fancy shoes, to a building that reminds him of an Aztec temple.  He then hits his head and his eye on branches or something and starts shouting something about a knife.  He has a momentary black-out and the cops pick him up.  At which point he comes back to reality, and that’s it.  Although the aftermath ends up taking longer, red tape and everything.  He has to stay overnight in a mental ward, which is just kind of looked at as a novelty, a curiosity, a stop-over.

In conclusion, real life is zanier (or at least more compelling to me) than fiction.

As that specific trauma dissipates further…

Posted: November 11, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: mental health, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Every year around this time, I revisit the first time I was hospitalized, which was Veteran’s Day weekend in 1999.  It used to feel like the worst thing that ever happened to me.  And, in terms of fallout, I still think that it was – it just no longer feels that way.

Two years after this hospitalization, I wrote an essay for a class, including every little thing I could remember about the experience.  A few months ago, I gave that document to my therapist to read over.  I didn’t necessarily want to delve into it or have her probe me about it.  I just wanted for her to have read it.  And she really only said one thing:  “There were always questions about whether you had been in a psychotic state or not.  This definitely shows that you were.”  And, strangely, I was satisfied with that.  As if I could lay to rest whether I needed to be there or not.  For the most part…

I’m currently giving my most recent hospitalization (from 6 months ago) the same treatment, as best as I can remember.  I’m up to 2,500 words so far, and only about 15% done.  I don’t have any plans for it other than just something that I want to do for myself.  We’ll see.  I feel like there’s not much writing out there that really portrays what can go on in someone’s head while they are in the middle of psychosis.  (If anyone has any recommendations, let me know!)  That does not mean I have lofty goals for where I could take this writing; it’s just a motivating factor, something that pushes me to try to capture it as best as I can.

I just did a cursory search, and a couple of books that stand out as worth checking out are:
Stress Fracture: A Memoir of Psychosis and Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

Here are the other posts I have made, yearly:

Continuing to work through a specific trauma – Four years ago, I wrote about how I finally gained access to the medical records from my hospital stay, and how I started to process things differently with the help of my therapist.

That specific trauma is still there – Three years ago, I wrote about finally bringing that record into therapy and how it felt to have her go through it.  I was starting to realize that maybe I didn’t need to pick it all apart; maybe my perspective was shifting naturally, over time.

That specific trauma is no longer a big deal – Two years ago, I wrote about how much time has changed things, and it no longer felt like a big deal.  The fact that I had been hospitalized again, that year, surprisingly helped me find ways to heal, rather than adding more baggage onto the feeling of it.

Anniversaries, traumas, deaths, and name change – Then last year, I wrote about how other things were going on, and I really didn’t have the space or time to reflect.  Which was perfectly fine.  Between the election results, working on getting my name legally changed, and other emotional markers, it just didn’t come up.

This year, I am thinking about it, but it is more in terms of “one of the times I was hospitalized,” rather than, “a traumatic event – the worst thing that ever happened to me,” etc.

 

I’ve been thinking of all the little occurrences that go into the bigger story.  Like, for example, in that state, my mind was so malleable and adaptable that it seemed like, theoretically, anything could be true and just as easily, not true all at once.  Which is one of the reasons I avoided watching any TV.  (There were two TVs on the unit – one played music and had legalese constantly scrolling, in both Spanish and English – like a “know your rights” kind of thing.  The other TV had a remote and listing of channels, and we could watch whatever we wanted, 24/7.)  At one point I did sit down, and there was a documentary on about pineapples.  (Er, rather I’m sure the documentary was on something more broad, but I saw the pineapple part.  I started yelling about the unlikelihood about these pineapples growing.  Don’t pineapples grow on trees like sensible fruits?  What were these miniature pineapples growing up from fronds in the dirt?!  A patient who knew-all immediately matched the intensity I was spewing, and argued for the realness of these pineapples.

A few months later, my spouse’s aunt was visiting from Hawaii, and sure enough, she grows pineapples on her property and sure enough, she had pics to prove it.  I can now accept it fully.

A local doctor was fired for providing HRT

Posted: October 7, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: mental health, Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

This actually happened a few months ago – she was fired from a nearby college on May 24th.  It’s only now hitting larger news outlets because there are now three state-level civil rights complaints, trying to get her re-instated.  I read about it in the newspaper while at work, yesterday.

She was treating transgender students who came to her with a previous diagnosis.  She was definitely qualified to do so, having gone through many hours of training in trans-health care, attending a conference sponsored by WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health), etc.  She was doing this at the college’s expense, which just makes it seem like it was condoned by the college, right?!!

WPATH’s stance is, “With appropriate training, …hormone therapy can be managed by a variety of providers, including nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and primary care physicians.”  Apparently, this was outside the scope of what the Student Health Center did, but this was never communicated to her.  The termination came from out of the blue.

Hormones are prescribed for other reasons at the health center, with no problem.  Birth control, ovarian disease, and low testosterone are all treated regularly.

Interestingly, the information on the Student Health Center’s website changed two months after her firing:  While it had said, “comprehensive primary care,” and “continuity of care,” it now says, “basic primary care” and has no mention of continuous care.  At least they’re being accurate about the downgrade???

This just angers me to no end because this doctor took it upon herself to step it up and become well versed in an area that, for whatever reason, makes so many medical professionals so squeamish and stand-offish.  And if this was something she did of her own volition, and it was well within the standards of care, then back it up!  What was the university afraid of?  There are standards in this field, despite the fact that the medical professions are grotesquely behind the curve with this, in general.  A bunch of transgender students were left in the lurch.

The college’s associate vice president of student wellness was quoted as saying, “We are fortunate to be situated in [city], where there is a strong medical community rich with resources.”  As if to say that students can just go elsewhere.  I’ve tried “elsewhere” around here, as an adult, and it was a super-frustrating process.  If I think back to who I was at age 18 or 19, disrupted care at the on-campus center in this regard would have definitely sent me into a tailspin and/or mental health crisis.  I would have felt like I didn’t have the means or psychic energy to find out another path.  I would have felt deeply cut, in a personal way, by my institution’s sudden change in policy.

It just seemed like this college was at the forefront – it could have laid the groundwork for other area places of higher education to follow.  And then it just took a huge leap back into the wrong direction.  One step forward, two steps back sometimes I guess, right?

I had a bunch of problems with getting continuous care.  I was first getting hormones from a sketchy-ass doctor.  I finally felt so disgusted with his practice that I sought out another path.  I went to one specifically because she was listed as being LGBT friendly and knowledgeable.  That ended up being wrong basically – she told me she didn’t know how she had gotten on that resource list.  I had to have a pretty heated conversation with her – her stance first was that I could come to her for primary care, but I should continue to get my hormone prescriptions through that other doctor.  I told her I wasn’t going to do that.  She told me this was beyond her scope and if she had a male patient with low-testosterone, she would not even monitor him for that reason.

We finally landed on a compromise.  She would continue to prescribe what I was already at, and she would monitor that.  If I wanted to make any changes though, I would have to do that through other means.

When I did want to make other changes, I first got on a long waiting list for an LGBT-specific clinic.  I kept hearing negative stories about the quality of care there, so I decided to also try another approach:  an endocrinologist.  I had to get on a long waiting list for that, as well.  I’ve been going there since January, and so far, I’m happy because I don’t have to deal with the PCP anymore.  Getting an endo was not like adding yet another medical professional and another series of appointments.  It was more like, instead.  Unless I get like, a rash or something, then I’d go back to my PCP.

All of this was hard enough, and I am an adult who has worked really hard at advocating for myself.  Thinking back to who I was as a student I would have withered under this kind of stress.  Students need to be able to access trans-specific care on their campuses.  Period.

A note about the lack of specifics in this post:  I left out the doctor’s name and the name of the college, city, etc. because that’s been the way I’ve always operated with this blog, in order to keep some anonymity.  I’m not sure anymore whether it’s all necessary, but I’m not about to try to figure that out here-and-now.  If you’d like specifics and the names of the sources I got a lot of this information from, just leave a comment, and I’ll get back to you!

 

I’m doing something I dreaded, and it’s not so bad

Posted: September 12, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: Janitorial work | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

At the school I work at, there are two main sections to be cleaned – upstairs and downstairs.  For the vast majority of my time there, I’ve always cleaned the downstairs.  The water fountain was better.  It was cooler in hot weather.  There were more people to interact with.  The rooms were cleaner (for the most part).  I was closer to things that I needed to access:  receiving room with supplies, dumpsters, the custodial office.

About 2 years ago, I cleaned the upstairs for roughly 6 months.  It was not my choice – things were rough in a lot of different ways, and this was just one more thing.  One more really big thing though, in my head.  I was in and out of work a few times, due to a serious depression.  When I was up there, it felt as if I could barely do the tasks, and the fact that they were recurring forever and ever was intolerable.  I was rushing myself, always feeling like I didn’t have enough time to do everything.  I was at a loss as to what to do about all the recycling, which for me is a “must do.”  I just felt like I did not belong up there.  I was trying to pop in and out of areas before kids were out of school, and then backtracking, which felt totally inefficient but seemed to be the only way to keep busy.  Just being felt painful.  And the fact that the being was on the second floor made the pain feel compounded so tightly within itself that I was struggling beyond belief.

By about mid-October of 2015, I was told I was switching back to the first floor.  Apparently my co-worker wasn’t doing a great job, there were complaints, it was more important to be clean on the first floor than the second floor.  ??  Anyway, at that time, I was sooooooo relieved.  It was a visceral feeling.  All the negativity was left up on the second floor, and although I was still struggling, I fit right back into the first floor.  A few months later, I got on a medication that really started working for me, and the next two years went really well for the most part.

Sometimes a little too well:  As I’ve mentioned before, I went through a manic episode in May, and I was out for two months, recovering from that.  In a good way though – so far so good on the avoidance of a rebound depression.  However, I lost my status at work.  When I got back, it was clear that the new guy was now the new second-in-command.

In the past, this would have felt devastating, and I would have clung onto whatever control I did have, to the detriment of myself, only, really.  I know because I’d already put myself through all that, big time.  This time around, I decided to take it all in stride, as best I could.  Instead of arguing about how I couldn’t do the second floor or anything like that, I spent time “staking it out,” I guess you could say?  Just, spending time up there visualizing this or that and getting accustomed to the idea, before kids came back.

Now that school is back in session, I am IN IT.  And it’s not actually bad.  So far it has felt preferable, in fact.  I’ve made some changes to my routine that really feel like they’re making a difference.  Instead of bringing my cart plus mop bucket plus garbage barrel to each and every classroom, I am “sweeping through,” first with the garbage and rags to wipe everything down, then with the vacuum for all the area rugs, and then with the dust mop.  I am taking WAY more steps going through multiple times instead of going room-by-room, but it’s feeling good.  Feeling faster, even.

And the weather has not been too hot.  And there’s a new drinking fountain up there as of a couple months ago – the kind where you can easily fill up a water bottle from, and it says how many plastic bottles you are saving by doing so.  I love it!  And I like the fact that the teachers clear out early up there, for the most part.  And the rooms have been clean thus-far.

Best of all, I have my own “room” to store stuff, up there.  That’s new.  So while things are kinda turbulent with co-worker dynamics, I am so glad to have all my stuff and activities separate from theirs, more-so than ever before.

All the negative associations I’ve held about the second floor have pretty much melted away.  A lot of that has to do with mental health and coming out at work.  I don’t feel like I’m trying so hard to get in and out of places.  I actually feel like I belong.  When I talk with people, I like my voice.  When I walk and do all this physical work, more muscle mass is making it feel much more effortless.

The only thing I’m dreading now is “gym use.”  Coming soon will be screaming children using the gym for their cheer-leading practice, from 6-8:30pm.  And once that’s over, it’ll be basketball all winter-long.  We’ll see how well I can adjust…

Saying goodbye to my co-worker / ally

Posted: March 25, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: coming out, Janitorial work | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

My co-worker’s last day was yesterday.  He is moving on to work security at one of the middle schools.  Some people have a lot of co-workers; I really only have just one.  I have a supervisor, a co-worker, and then a 3rd person who works per-diem 4 hours per day (so, a co-worker, but it doesn’t feel the same.)  We didn’t actually work “together,” but we worked at the same time, and for the majority of each day, it was just us in the building (along with after-school activity groups.)

He started roughly 3 years ago, and we got off to a rocky start.  I can’t really explain it, but it wasn’t just rocky – it was jarring, and jagged.  It was, in effect, a disastrous mix.  Things slowly repaired themselves, with time and effort, and I learned a ton about human connection and priorities, during this process.  Maybe someday I’ll really write about that, but it won’t be here.

In some ways, we are opposites  he grew up in a rough part of the city and now lives in the suburb I grew up in, and he generally stays put out there.  He seems to know everyone there.  I moved to the city as soon as I was able to, and I never spend time in that suburb, unless I stop at the grocery store after work, or get gas, etc.  I feel a comfortable level of anonymity within the city…

We had a complete turn around within the time we worked together – he was the person I confided in the most. He actively participated in being my ally in a bunch of different ways.  I wrote about this a little, over a year ago, here:
I came out to my co-worker

As soon as I told him about my preferred name, he started using it when no one else was around.  He called me “Kam-Ron” at first, and then just shortened it to “Kam.”  This later became, “Killa Kam” and “Cuz.”  He lightly pressured me to come out at work when he could feel it was imminent.  I appreciate it more than he’ll know. Well, he does kinda know – I explicitly told him yesterday that I wanted to thank him for being my ally, most specifically.

Super early on, he organized a district-wide work happy hour at his dive bar.  I was the only one who showed up.  Later, he narrowed down the guest list, and our co-workers / kitchen staff hung out one time outside of work.  That was a first!  He later bonded with me through my enthusiasm with a local community radio station I volunteer with.  He came on the air with me on two occasions, taking pics and putting them on facebook and just hyping it all up in general.  One time, we met for lunch before work.  That was a first.

Last night, I picked us up some tacos from that place we had lunch the one time, and we just chit-chatted one last time.  He had gotten a bunch of cards from students, like whole classes-worth, and a couple of gifts from teachers.  He was exuberant, like he often is, gesticulating a lot, not sitting down, etc.  I was low-key, like usual, trying to offset that a bit.  While still being interested / engaged.

I’ve never met anyone like this person.  I observed the ways he navigates through situations with my eyes and ears perked.  Out of everything I learned from him, I think the most all encompassing thing was what he summed up as “teamwork makes the dream work.”  (He would say this a lot.)  But not teamwork in the way I knew of teamwork – this is a different brand of teamwork.  I thought of “teamwork” as doing the same thing at the same time with another person or group of people, until the job was done.  But whenever I tried to enact that with him, we would usually clash.  His teamwork involves a network of small favors with as many people as possible, like, “I do this, which motivates you to do that,” kind of thing.  Which may or may not work depending on the other person, but he is an extremely motivational person.  In addition to just going way above and beyond, in that rare situation which arises from time to time, just to help you out.

He made a personal connection with probably almost every single person, whether principal or teacher or part-time staff, in the entire school.  And now he’s moving on to go do that in a school that’s twice or maybe three times as big.

I’ll miss him.

I also wrote about the co-worker I had before this co-worker, here:
Saying goodbye to my mentor / co-worker
That was when he retired, two and a half years ago.

Emotions and taking testosterone

Posted: March 22, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: mental health, Testosterone | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Lately, I’ve felt an increased breadth of emotionality, and I’ve been wanting to embrace that and document it.  At this point, I’ve been on injections for about 2 months.  I’d say I could first recognize this about a month ago – I saw the film, Moonlight, and I felt choked up / on the verge of tears a couple of times.  This was no small event:  I haven’t cried or even come close for a very very long time.

About two years ago, I was seriously depressed for a year.  It’s definitely different for everyone, but whenever I’ve been depressed in that way, I do not cry.  I don’t have any emotional experiences, really, other than fear and panic and deadened mental capabilities.  And physical pain, but not in the way where I want to cry.  Then, after about a year of trying different meds, I got on one that I actually like, for the first time ever.  It helps me sleep.  It helps me not think in obsessive ways.  It helps me absorb new information and changes and take those things in stride.  I’ve had some serious high notes, in this past year.  This drug has actually helped with that, perplexingly.  I’ve also had a couple of anxiety attacks, but they were extremely few and far between, and related to stressful times.

But I had not felt sad, or any of those nuanced pallets / ranges within the emotion called “sadness.”  Until I started (again) on testosterone – which is kinda interesting because the more likely narrative is “once I started T, I couldn’t cry anymore.”  I have yet to actually cry, but the sensation is there, and I welcome it.

Today, I was listening to a podcast, and I felt overwhelmed with emotion.  Like I said, this has been so rare, that I embraced it.  It was “This American Life,” the episode called, “Ask the Grown Ups.”  Tig Notaro was giving some advice to a teenage girl who’s mom had recently passed away.  It was so moving that the world around me changed, temporarily.

Also, I’ve recently been seeking out music that I listened to while I was depressed, 2 years ago.  (There’s not much at all to uncover because I listened to so little music.  It’s basically 2 albums by Royksopp, something by The Notwist, and, probably a couple more I could track down if I really wanted to dig…)  It’s been… interesting.  There have also been big changes in my life lately, mostly at work, that has triggered some images of violence to flash before my eyes.  I’m all too familiar with this, and in the scheme of things, it’s been super mild.  But, yeah, haven’t experienced that in a very long time.  Instead of acting on it or obsessing on it though, I just came home, took my pills, and went to bed early.  I feel sooooo grateful that that’s all I have to do.  And then the next day it is not too bad.  What???!!!  It’s true!

So, essentially what I’m saying is that I have felt some intense emotions over the past couple of years, but very rarely did that involve any form of sadness.  Which, is pretty bizarre if I think about it.  And that’s been due to depression and medication.  And then, this higher dose of T opens back up a world I have not been able to access.  It includes nostalgia and emotional connectedness and feelings associated with the weather and isolation and the season and the environment, etc. etc.

As long as I’m not continuously bawling my eyes out, it’s all good.

If you’re interested in this topic, I also wrote these posts:
Depression and taking testosterone
Depression and taking testosterone pt. 2

200th post / I came out at work, cont’d

Posted: January 29, 2017 | Author: | Filed under: coming out, Writing | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Last month, I wrote about coming out at work, and I left a few loose ends that I want to circle back to.

Real quick first though, I wanna acknowledge this blogging milestone!  It’s been 3 years and 6 months now.  Which is 42 months, meaning I’ve averaged close to 5 posts per month.  And that’s been fairly consistent:  I haven’t had times of being prolific followed by times of not writing anything and back-and-forth.  Same with word-count – posts have been no more than 1,000 words, no less than 600 words.

Although it’s been moderate and steady, the way I feel about the writing and the blog changes fairly drastically and frequently.  Sometimes I feel like I’m an objective observer, recording down what has transpired.  Other times, I have put so much of myself into what I write, that the process, and the feedback I get has helped boost me up through some really difficult times.  So, thank you, for all that feedback!  Sometimes I’ve felt like there isn’t much point to continuing; I have nothing to say.  Other times, I feel super good about this ongoing personal account of experiences that are valuable for others, and myself, to look into / look back on.

I’d say, currently, it’s mostly the first thing:  I’m an objective observer, writing down what is happening and feeling kind of distanced from it.  And that’s OK – it’s not going to always feel this way, I have learned.

So, in that vein, here’s that account I said I would write, of my first month being out, at work: A quick recap – I had talked to my supervisor, co-workers, 4 teachers, the principal, and the assistant principal.  I had also gotten things moving in the HR department, and we were just going into Xmas recess.  During that week when kids and teachers were out, I though it’d be a great time for my co-workers to start, while it was just us.  I wrote, ” I have a feeling my co-worker / ally will step up and lead it, followed by me correcting everyone every single time.”  The first day, my supervisor called me through the walkie talkie, “[old name], can you get a 20″ red pad?”  Me, “It’s going to be Kameron now.”   Long pause.  Her, “Kameron, can you get the 20″ red pad?”  Then when she saw me, she said, “You’re going to make me practice now?”  “Yeah!”  And we were off!  With, as I hoped, my co-worker leading.  But the thing was, I didn’t actually have to correct anyone.

When break was over and everyone was back, I told 8 more people in person, and also had a 2nd, much more productive, conversation with the principal.  More details are in the post, How I became “Mixter”.  We talked about how to come out and the timeline, how my name would appear on my name plate on the custodial office door, and bathrooms.  She told me I could think about these things and get back to her tomorrow.  That all sounded fine, but as I went about my cleaning routine that night, I thought about how tough it is to just catch her, and what if it’s a while before I am able to get back to her.  Plus the monthly faculty meeting was the following morning!!!  (And even though I don’t attend these, that’s a great place for school announcements.)

So, I left a note on her table that night, so that action could start rolling ASAP.  The note read:

1/3/16
Hey [Principal],

Here’s what I”m thinking:
Fac Meeting – a heads up about a forthcoming email
Email – That I’m changing my name and that I’m now using male pronouns (he/him/his)
Sign on Custodial Door – Mx. [last name] (pronounced Mixter).  I’m comfortable answering any questions about this.

also a recommendation if you one day have a transgender student:
A podcast called “How to be a Girl,” told from the point-of-view of a parent – with lots of input from her 8-year-old daughter (male to female).  They talk about school, friends, privacy, etc.  The parent is a great advocate.

Thank you!
-Kameron

There was some slight confusion in which the principal included all this information in the school-wide email, where, for example, I had only intended the podcast recommendation to be for her.  But, I realized, the fact everyone received all of the above was actually way better!  It gave people more context, which, I really really really think helped the information lodge into their brains better.  Like, I have not had to correct anyone, once!  Which is just completely blowing my mind.  People seem more into addressing me by my name than before.  Some people have decided to call me “Kam,” instead, of their own volition, which I’m OK with – it’s just plain fascinating.  (My one co-worker / ally has been calling me, “Killa Kam” for a while now.  Haha.)

A barrier between me and other people has definitely started to lift, just within this past month.  I have had more conversations with more people about a wider variety of things than ever before.  This is what being a person within a work environment is mostly about.  The connections are what make it something more than just a random assortment of people that you (seemingly) have nothing in common with.

I wanna just keep running with this!

PS:  This post has 882 words.  Haha.
PPS:  Posts coming soon about this amazing podcast, “How to be a Girl.”

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