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karrenseely · 11 days

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Silver Linings

I just realized something. I learned about the existence of Trans people when I was 12 or 13 I think. I learned about us in a medical encyclopedia. It wasn't a lot to go on, but it definitely was enough. Two things happened when I saw that entry. First I wasn't alone, second I could do something about this.

I absolutely wasn't alone or the only one AMAB who was a girl. That lifted a huge weight off of me, I wasn't alone. People who've never experienced the feeling that you're the only one in the world that seems to not be the way everyone around you is, have no idea how hard that is, I sooo identified with the Last Unicorn as a child. Growing up, I had no positive examples of queer people. None. I can't recall a negative example either that was explicitly queer. There was nothing for me to reference what I was going through. I was taught like all young girls in our society that being a girl is inferior to being a boy (why? Why does our society do this? Even today? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! We're not inferior to men, we never were, but for some reason some narcissistic AH somewhere decided this and then a bunch of other narcissistic idiots with power liked it and here we are living in a patriarchal misogynistic society, which is absolute BS). But I was also taught that being a boy who "wanted" to be a girl (yes I'm aware I was girl all along, though it took me a long time to understand that, because... society) was doubly bad and horrible.

So I was completely ashamed and terrified of anyone learning my secret because I was the only one and I knew it was a bad secret. I'm sure there are other things that happened that taught me this, experiences with my parents, peers, teachers. But I don't remember most of them, and I don't really need to go into it here, as the sadly important point is that I learned very young to be ashamed of myself.

No one ever talked about people like us. Ever. There were the occasional movies involving cross dressing and drag, usually men pretending to be women (notice that key word that differentiates trans people from cis people. Cis people when they cross dress in performative ways are pretending to be the opposite sex or a gender outside the binary. Trans people aren't pretending, we are the gender we identify with.) like Tootsie. I liked the movie, it was nice to see a man who could pretend to be a woman and enjoy some of it. But I never identified with that character, not in any significant life changing way. Because he was a man, he identified as a man throughout the movie and I was a girl forced to be a boy. And most other instances of crossdressing in media were treated as a joke, including Tootsie. "Hello [shame] my old friend, I've come to talk with you again." (1)

So learning I wasn't the only person in the world that felt this way was life changing. It gave me comfort, which I sorely needed. But the second part was just as important. I could actually do something about my body and I could be me. And that gave me hope. Which was sorely needed as I was spiraling downward rapidly at the time. Months later as the horrors of my body changing became more apparent I came out to my parents in desperation, which instead of recognizing me and loving and supporting me, was met w/ dismissal, and attempts to erase me and increased the shaming tenfold. But the one thing that kept me going. The one bright star in that horrible darkness was the knowledge that I could transition someday, not as soon as I'd hoped, not as soon as I needed, but someday. It felt like an eternity away, but it was there, telling me to keep surviving to keep going because I could be me when I got there.

Had I not learned of trans people, I honestly don't think I would have survived my first adolescence. I would just be another dead kid with everyone wondering why I was so depressed and weren't there any signs? (I often wonder how many of the children that manage to kill themselves are queer. Based on proportions of homeless youth, I imagine queer kids are a very large chunk of that statistic.) Just learning about the existence of trans people kept me alive. Knowing I wasn't alone and there was something I could do about it. It was horrifyingly frustrating that I couldn't do anything until I turned 18, but I would be able to do something about it. So learning about trans people saved my life.

Just that one concept, that trans people living their authentic lives existed, was enough to keep me alive. And here is the silver lining that occured to me. Despite all the negative, bigoted, horrible publicity, laws, and hate. Our existence is being talked about a lot. Which means, kids who need to know they aren't alone, that they are not the only one's that feel this way. Are finding out that we exist. Yes they'll need to do research and understand that we and in turn them are not evil, not monsters, not perverts, But beautiful amazing wonderful and caring people. And because of that, maybe. Just maybe, a few more trans kids will survive and maybe even thrive one day, because they learn they aren't alone and there is something they can do about it.

I hope so. I really hope that is the case. I also wish we didn't suffer so much that way, too many of us die. Maybe someday, that will change for the better. (1) Simon and Garfunkel, "The Sound of Silence."

#trans #lgbt+#transgender #lgbtqia #LGBTQI+#lgbt #trans kids #trauma #childhood trauma #family #Silver Linings #silver linings i guess #silver linings maybe

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karrenseely · 20 days

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JK has hurt me and mine far far far more than she ever should have been able to. Because society condones her actions by the few who are vocal, and the many who remain silent. Her books created a worldwide phenomenon. Yes they weren't perfect, or even close to perfect. But for whatever reason, enough people were reading them that we could actually talk about them with other people, LOTS of other people. I'd never really been able to do that about a series of books before. It was a wonderful experience. But then... then she was recruited by death eaters. She became Voldemort's right hand woman. And she betrayed Harry and all the students at hogwarts. She called trans women mudbloods, because in her eyes we're not pure enough women. She betrayed the actors who played her characters. She betrayed us. All of us, by not holding to some of the ideals that Harry, Hermione, and Ron fought for. So if you want to continue giving her money, go for it. Just know you are supporting a death eater, you are supporting Voldemort. You are supporting a bigot who is actively trying to make the world a worse place for all women. Who thinks it's ok to deny the holocaust. Who is a white supremacist.

P.S. I was putting in the tags, and when I put in bigot one of the terms that popped up was JK Rowling. At Least tumblr's tags know what she is.

I haven't purchased a HP item in close to a decade - I use the books I already had as doorstops or to prop a laptop up for meetings nowadays.

There is NO "death of the author" with JK Rowling - she controls and continues to profit from her IP, and uses that money to fund hate groups.

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karrenseely · 30 days

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ADHD

My experience and thoughts.

I've always had it. Frankly, given the level of dysphoria I experienced around my AGAB (Assigned Gender at Birth), it was always on the back burner. The pain I experienced constantly being told to remember things, to do things, to stop being a space cadet, airhead, whatever, to pay attention, none of it compared to the pain of having the wrong body. [To be clear, having this pain, or dysphoria is not a requirement to be transgender, I read somewhere that someone thought a better definition of being trans was feeling a like a gender other than AGAB, and having euphoria when you got to finally be your gender, and I think that is more accurate, though again, hard to get the euphoria until you do get to be yourself so really the first half is all that applies. End tangent]. So the pain of being called those things, just didn't feel as severe. I knew I was a space cadet, I knew I forgot things all the time, I knew I had a hard time with doing things that didn't interest me, and I knew after some time of trying that no matter how hard I tried "to be better," I couldn't manage it.

I admit I think I attributed some of it to my medications for my Asthma, regardless of how true that actually was, and therefore had a slightly easier time accepting it, as I much appreciated the ability to breathe over not being able to (for the most part, in fact one of my greatest fears is dying by suffocation, because I almost have, way too many times growing up, and I knew it was all too possible as my Uncle had died at age 3 from Asthma.). So if that meant I was spacey so be it. But D!@n it was hard sometimes.

I was constantly told to stop talking in early elementary school, to stop distracting everyone, to stop (now that I can recognize it) being myself. In second grade, I'd been my talkative self one too many times and as punishment the teacher had my desk moved to the other side of the room facing the wall. It was embarrassing at first... but then I realized I was actually able to get more work done that way, and when it was time for me to move back, I refused. Somewhere between then and fifth grade the bullying started getting extreme as kids started to see I wasn't a boy. And while I learned to hide being a girl because of it, I also learned to stop talking so much. Looking back I think I was depressed, I withdrew from everyone. I stopped participating so much with my peers at school. Even so... the bullying continued.

Somehow, despite being so distractible, I managed to make it through grade school... I knew I was smart, I was part of the gifted program from 4th grade on, so I think that had a lot to do with it. I remember seeing a bunch of the gifted kids getting to do some amazing things and pestering my mom to let me join them. Apparently my mother and teachers at the time knew how smart I was, but were afraid to let me do that because of my distractibility and "nervous" disposition, that somehow I wouldn't be able to handle the stress of attending a whole separate class.... And for some reason my mom thought it was fine to tell me this... which just added to my feeling so different from everyone else. Unfortunately, even in the gifted class... the bullying didn't stop. But atleast the things to do in there were much more interesting then regular classes, so I really did enjoy it. And it didn't matter if I got tired of one thing and switched to something else in the middle, it was very self directed learning, which suited me.

I don't really remember much of anything of middle school in terms of ADHD or really in terms of anything other than what I think I've already related in other posts. Nor do I remember much of highschool either. But I do remember struggling a lot to get myself to do things I wasn't interested in, and that it took me so so so much longer to get my homework done than my sister. And I remember believing I could get a 4.0 if I just tried harder, and decided to prove it to myself by working at it my senior year. I managed to do it, but I wasn't healthy that year at all, and I think it was mostly because I could use school work to distract myself from the dysphoria and emotional verbal abuse from my parents that I managed to get the 4.0 that year.

College... well college was incredibly hard. I failed English 101 twice before finally passing it. All because at my school they wanted you to stick with the same general topic throughout the semester as you wrote three different papers about it... And I just couldn't find a topic that maintained my interest that long... I knew there was one that would... but it would mean coming out.... and I was afraid to. And by the time I took it for the 3rd time, I had come out to my parents (which as we know did not go well at all, in any way, shape or form) and so it felt a little easier? safer? needful? to do so and write about trans people, and I did come out in my personal essay... maybe someday I'll publish it on here, I managed to get it published in a community newsletter a few years later.

But even the other classes... if I didn't have an intense interest in them, I struggled with them, between my mental health and my ADHD, my grades were not good. And I kept changing majors. I graduated with my 4th major, but even that was a near thing as I was fighting that final year or two not change it something else that had grabbed my attention. Part of it is because I avoided taking gen eds that were required... they just didn't interest me, so the last year or so I was taking nothing but gen eds, and I was getting really bored.

By the way, I don't recommend saving gen eds for last and constantly switching majors... every switch meant I had to start over... and thus it took me 11 years to get my undergrad degree. Not the best route to take, but now that I participate on an ADHD redit group, apparently not to uncommon for those of us that manage to get into college and then manage to finally get our degrees without any learning disability support.

All the time I was growing up, ADHD was never mentioned to me... no idea if it was mentioned to my parents or not. Though knowing what I know now, if it had, I'm sure they'd have completely dismissed it given there views of psychiatry (which apparently they only believed in when they wanted to erase me). Based on what I can remember, I had the pretty stereotypical female presentation of ADHD. So like the vast majority of girls with it... I wasn't diagnosed, nor was it ever suggested.

Then... then there was all the negative media attention around ADHD. And I absorbed all of it, I grew to believe that ADHD was bad, that it was a made up illness, that all people with ADHD were just adicts using it as an excuse to get high. [PSA: None of these are true, at all. But it was what the media pedaled to the layperson all the time, I remember in high school the big buzz words were too many kids were getting diagnosed with ADHD and getting medicated just for the convenience of the teachers. 2nd PSA: Had kids who didn't need that medication taken it, they would have been an even bigger handful and the teachers would know this, so it was just fear mongering by the anti drug propaganda machine). So even though I knew I had issues around attention... I just ignored it, because I didn't want to be one of "those" people.

You know... reflecting back on this... the worst part was that my training in medical school and residency tended toward reinforcing those stereotypes... there was little discussion about the pathophysiology behind ADHD, or how it actually affected the brain or what the actual sxs were or how it could impact patients in so many aspects of their lives. It's really really horrible that our medical education centers do this. Not surprising (looking at you Medical Misogyny, Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism), but definitely horrible.

So if I wasn't treated or diagnosed until a year ago, how in all the realms did I manage to make it through medschool and residency? How did I not only finish both, but (more or less) finish both on time? And looking back, I think the reason was becuase my school and residency program tried to support us and our needs around learning. They were both heavily structured... there was very little choose your own adventure in medical school or residency. And the few times there were... well they were a disaster for me. I really wanted to do a rotation up at Camp Not-A-Wheeze where i'd spent multiple summers as a child, and feeling accepted as me sort of (still couldn't be a girl, but it was perfectly ok and normal to have Asthma, and I couldn't go to a stay away camp otherwise because of my Asthma). So it provided some really good feelings and memories of some amount of normalcy, getting to be around other kids that dealt with severe asthma like I did. And I wanted to go and help those kids myself... except that to do that required a lot more organizational skills and more importantly organizational bandwidth than I had, and by the time I realized this, it was too late and I had to settle for one of the easy to sign up for rotations... And that's generally how the electives would go... unless I had sig help signing up for them... which is the only reason I was able to participate in the rural health program and got to do rotations on the Navajo and Hopi reservations. And I am so thankful I had the help I needed to sign up for those, they were amazing and wonderful rotations.

So yeah, I made it through my graduate training purely because it was heavily structured and as a learner I was heavily supported, and I knew by that time that I needed that extra support and participated in every opportunity to do so. That's why. Even so I didn't graduate from residency on time... but that was mostly because of head injury that put me out for nearly two months... and a bad OB rotation that did not support residents with ADHD whatsoever, and their primary evaluation centered around something anyone with ADHD would struggle with, and failed it, and had to redo it back at my home hospital where my usual OB teachers already knew me, and knew I was more capable than what the Away OB's thought anyway.

That away rotation was incredibly hard. Not only was I being judged for being a family medicine resident... but in retrospect, I was being heavily judged for having ADHD and not knowing how to compensate for it in that hospital setting (lots of patient turnover with lots of patients- I just could not keep track of all the constantly changing details AND report on them in a consistent and coherent manner at shift change). I felt so invalidated, and so resentful because instead of trying to help figure out way to be successful, they just told me to do better and expected me to do better without giving any salient advice that might have actually helped. There was zero learning support there combined with the disdain of not being an OB/Gyn doc. I felt really really horrible about myself by the end of that rotation. Fortunately, if I remember correctly my home hospital OB's when they were consulted by my program about my performance, thought I did an adequate job for a family medicine resident, and didn't have any grave concerns about my OB skills, so the program decided to have me repeat the rotation at my home hospital and that. That went a lot smoother and I got some of my confidence back. As scare as my home hospital OB attendings could be... I trusted them, and they genuinely tried to teach what we needed to know. And they seemed to have enough confidence in me and my skills to pass me. And that, at least, felt good. Even though it doesn't change what happened and that experience in New Hampshire solidly convinced me that I never wanted to do OB after I graduated from residency. (Yup, yay for the avoidance trauma response! though in this case, I don't regret it in the least)

Then... one day I was browsing through youtube and I stumbled onto Jessica McCabe's channel, "How to ADHD", and there were so many moments of wait! But I experience that! But wait... but wait maybe I do have ADHD... to wait then I'm not a failure... I'm not lazy or stupid. I credit her so much with teaching me what ADHD actually was and what it meant and what and how it can and does present. She researches her videos thoroughly, bases them off of the research she has read through in a concise, accurate, and fun manner. And over the years has become an expert in talking about and educating about ADHD. She finally gave me the courage to seek a diagnosis and treatment... Well she did and the day I accidently drank an energy drink and felt like I could function like a normal person because of the caffeine I had that day. (I avoided caffeine because I thought it made me sick, whenever I drank coffee I'd feel icky, but I guess it's something else in coffee that does that. Also don't ask me how I got through medical school and residency without caffeine, I have no idea).

So at age 47 I was diagnosed with ADHD and started on a stimulant. And it's been night and day. I was feeling like a real human being again. Or at least I was until my Depression flared like a magnitude 10 earthquake... though 3 months into being on stimulants the stimulant shortage caught up to me, and I couldn't get my regular medication for 3 months... and coincidentally it was in the middle of all that the depression flared. There's a catch-22 to treatment of ADHD. Once it has been treated adequately, the brain absolutely is not interested in returning to running at 150% percent just to cope with and function somewhat like what the world expects of neurotypical people... I couldn't function like I used to before treatment, I just didn't have the energy for it. Now that I knew what life could be like with treatment, a simple treatment at that, I could not get myself to function like I used to... or maybe it's just that I was aware of how much I wasn't functioning... Now that I think about it, I actually did as well as I used to, but I felt awful. I felt awful because it was so effing hard and I knew, I knew what it was like when my symptoms were treated adequately. And I admit I really really really hate the BS that the DEA and the BS pharmaceutical companies are pulling on ADHD patients. It's horrible and I know it's costing livelihoods, mental/physical health, and lives as a result. Not that the DEA, nor the Pharmaceutical industry care. And it really sucks, for me, for my patients, for everyone and their families and freinds who are affected by this artificial shortage.

It is utter BS that the media is sending out the same negative propaganda around ADHD just like it did when I grew up. That people are being over diagnosed. That people are getting diagnosed who don't need it, that people are being overmedicated, that people just want to get high. BS. The pandemic did lots of horrible things. One of them is that it took away a lot of, if not all, of the coping mechanisms people who had ADHD were unknowingly using to cope with it and function somewhat... Combine that with the increased positive visibility in social media around ADHD. And low and behold people seek medical care and treatment that can help them function and feel better when they can't cope like they used to. It's not rocket science. We've seen this over and over and over again. When society becomes more aware of a human condition in a positive supportive way, more people admit to and come out as having that condition. It's happened with left handedness, Gay people, Autism, Trans kids (don't get me started), and <gasp> ADHD.

It's not because it's trendy, it's not because it will make someone popular. It's because we have the ability to not only recognize it in patients, but that patients are allowing themselves to recognize it in themselves and come to us with the understanding that what they've experienced all their lives, just isn't typical for most human beings and are trying to get help, trying to feel better, trying to understand themselves and what they can do to help themselves. All of these patients don't have ADHD, there are other neurodiverse presentations, other mental health conditions that can mimic it, but if they don't know something is physically/neurologically not typical, then they don't know to ask about it, to talk to their doctor about it.

It is bizarre to me that we expect people who've had a condition all their lives to understand what they experience isn't what the majority of the population experience. Yes, they may get some hints from other people if the situation comes up, but without a solid frame of reference of what our experiences in the human condition typically are like, then it's very hard to know that something is wrong. And if you do know something is wrong, it's often a vague feeling wrongness that's hard to pinpoint. And often when we experience and start to have an idea that we may not experience the world the way most people do, we've already been blamed and shamed for a long time for not experiencing it that way and are anxious/afraid/ and/or terrified to talk about those experiences with anyone, there's so much guilt and shame tied into our experience of ourselves.

Is it any wonder that when suddenly information is presented to us about our experience in a positive manner we latch on to it, and try and get some help? The media specializes in fear mongering. Primarily because it's based in a capitalist profit driven system, and in such a system, fear sells. It sells because our brains have evolved to pay more attention to danger than to pleasure or good things. It's the inherent bias in the entire western capitalist media system. And while having a free media is important, having one that's driven by profit margins leads to the dangerous phenomenon of fear mongering propaganda that self perpetuates. It happens to every minority group that starts to get some positive light in our culture. It is happening right now to people with ADHD. And it sucks. It is happening to Trans kids and adults right now. And that sucks just as much.

It needs to stop. We need to start celebrating our differences. We need to be able to access high quality medical care without shame or stigma. And it needs to happen now. Not 500 years from now, But now. Here in the present. So much of the suffering we experience as human beings isn't generated by natural violency/disasters. But by what we do and how we treat each other. By this us versus them mentality... It doesn't have to be that way. And I wish so much that everyone who had significant power to change that could see that. Hell, I wish everyone could just see that.

The world would be such a good place then, if we stopped trying to hurt each other, and instead tried to help each other. Regardless of what part of the human condition we experience. Including ADHD.

#ADHD #adhd problems #neurodivergent #neurodiversity #Stigma #Mental Health #Depression #lgbt+#lgbtqia #lgbt #trans #transgender #trans kids #family #trauma

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karrenseely · 2 months

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Fear

I've lived with it my whole life. As long as I can remember. I know when I was a little girl I'd have weeks of severe anxiety. I can remember one, that I think was in First Grade. I'd call them scary weeks. I told this to someone at least once that I can remember, she made sympathetic noises. I honestly don't know if I was a child or adult when I told that person. I don't remember who it was, I just remember talking about it and the sympathetic noises.

It shouldn't be surprising that I was not a completely happy and healthy little girl, given the gas lighting I was getting from everyone I encountered, day in and day out. Mostly I coped by not thinking about it. But it was always there, and the anxiety over what was happening to me never went away. The bullying started in kindergarten, but it didn't really start in full earnestness until the 3rd grade I think. As I mentioned before, memories are fragmented and few. Just the memory of hugging my 3rd grade Teacher Mrs. Ames at the end of the day every day and getting thoroughly teased for it and understanding I'm not supposed to do that. Though I didn't really understand why. It was confusing, and the confusion fed the anxiety.

I can vividly remember one night when I was very young, looking at the curtains over my bedroom window and seeing two bright green shapes in the window, one was a circle, just the outline like a neon sign, and the other was a triangle, also an outline like a neon sign. And I remember being absolutely terrified because there shouldn't be anything there. I never saw them there before, and I never saw them again. To this day I have no idea if that was real, or a dream. Most of my nightmares I can recognize, as they involved monsters, sharks, spiders, tornadoes, nuclear holocaust, or a volcano when I was little. When I was older and I started to understand that I needed to be myself, my nightmares changed to losing my family, having them turn on me, and some of the hardest ones were where I got to be me, everything in those dreams were right, I felt wonderful. Until I woke up and learned none of it had happened. It was devastating. Those were the hardest ones because I didn't have time to sit and grieve, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get my parents to understand, to love and support me so that I could make those dreams a reality and be happy. Those dreams showed me what I could have had, teased me with it, when I was powerless to get any of it to happen in real life.

Every night was spent praying I'd wake up in the right body, I'd try to self harm and kill the parts that were producing T, but it was too painful, and I was too weak, too scared to follow through. I had fantasies of body transplants if mine was mangled in an accident... I almost followed through on a plan to do just that to my legs, when I got too scared about the pain and stopped before any serious damage was done thank the gods. I artificially caused torsion in those parts that produced T, but again it was too painful and eventually just to make the pain stop I'd undo what I'd done. I don't think my parents ever knew any of this, but if they did, they ignored it.

I was terrified of losing my family and at the same time I knew if losing them meant I could be myself I'd still want that even though I knew it would suck. A lot. I was right. It sucked a lot. I'll never understand why I had to pay that price to be myself. I don't know if I'll ever recover from paying that price. But if I was faced with the same choice again, I'd make the same decision. I know without a doubt if I hadn't, I wouldn't have seen my 30s. Frankly, if I hadn't learned that trans people existed, that there was something I could do to fix what was wrong with my body, I'm not sure I would have seen my 20's regardless.

I was always on guard. I never knew when a bully would try to attack me, verbally or physically. I rarely played with other kids, I stopped trying to make friends and just had the two I'd already made. Kids would pretend to want to be my friend just so they could get under my guard and torture me. I learned to stop trusting other kids. They all knew on some unconscious level that I was a girl, that I sucked at being a boy no matter how hard I tried. The only good thing to come out of everyone insisting I was a boy, was that no one tried to dissuade me from STEM, and instead encouraged it. But that was about it. I was however constantly given the message that I couldn't be successful if I pursued the arts as a career.

I was a good artist. I repeatedly placed 2nd or 3rd in numerous art competitions in school. But I never thought I could do anything with it. Because I was taught that art isn't a job unless you want to starve. So while I took as many art classes as I could get my hands on, I never considered it as a career, even when I went to college and ended up getting my degree in studio art, I didn't consider a viable career option, it had been ingrained into me so thoroughly. Despite how much my teachers tried to persuade me to pursue it as a career.

Fear was there too. Growing up I knew what it was to be hungry and nauseous. Not because I wasn't fed well, but because my metabolism was so high my sugars would start dropping before the lunch hour, I had to have a special dispensation to eat a snack during recess just so I wouldn't get sick. That got better as I got older. But my parents tied my lunch money to my allowance so I ended up starving myself for some extra cash in middle or high school. Not sure which. That money was saved so that I could do things to help me, whether it was to get support materials to try to help my parents to understand me, clothes for myself when I had the courage to shop, or for doctors or psychology visits my senior year when I turned 18. Though I had to scrounge to get money other ways for some of those visits.

Before I came out to my parents, there was the fear, the constant fear that they would hate me, be ashamed of me, not love me. After I came out, and understood how justified those fears were, it was instead the fear that they'd find something that I was using to cope and start yelling at me, shaming me, gaslighting me, telling me they'd rather I was dead. I was afraid of them now, despite how much I loved them. Despite how much I trusted them, though the gods know why.

I always had anxiety lurking in my awareness. I was always trying to prevent myself from being hurt, either by my peers, or my family. I'd learned from my parents that absolutely no one, not one soul should learn of my horrible secret. And so there was also the constant terror of what if so and so figured it out because I did such and such. With all of that is it any wonder that I developed CPTSD?

And that terror never really went away. I was and still am scared. My fears change over time, they all aren't' quite what they were. These days I'm afraid that my parents were right. That I'm an unlovable, horrendous freak who is either a burden to everyone I come in contact with or that I'll hurt them. That everyone I love will at some point reject me like my family. That I'm a horrendously selfish person who doesn't care about anyone but myself. Those fears have been with me most of my teenage and adult life.

But new ones are cropping up, fears that I'll never really heal from the damage my parents, peers, and society did. That I'll have to live with this emotional turmoil and pain for the rest of my life. In the last few weeks I've tried returning to work... It is not going well. I have nothing left at the end of the day, and the past and the emotions and the unbearable pain begin to overwhelm me. I'm scared I'll never be able to get better, that I won't be able to return to work full time ever.

This week was bad, as bad as the first week back at full time. I've not been able to finish the work week two weeks in a row now. And I know I'm hurting my patients by forcing them to reschedule repeatedly like this. But I have nothing left, and I can feel myself sliding backwards into the abyss. And I'm terrified. That abyss is a horrible place to be. I've been there twice now in my adult life, I don't want to go back ever. But... what if there is no real escape from it? just reprieves until it consumes me again? What if I never heal, and never am able to return to work full time? What happens to my patients? What happens to me? But if I try to push forward without recovering enough, I know that abyss will swallow me whole.

I am so stuck. All of this sucks. Not just for me, but for the people who depend on me. The guilt is horrendous. I've failed people who need me. And yes I'm aware I'm skirting past what I've done to my chosen family while I suffered from this. But my mind isn't ready to face that, so for now it's just vague guilt and failure. But I know I haven't been able to be there for them like I should, that I've failed them too. And it hurts.

No matter what I do. It hurts. I'm so tired of hurting. I'm so tired of being afraid. I'm tired of feeling like a monster, feeling like all I really do is hurt or fail those around me. I don't want to do this anymore. It has been wonderful getting to be me. But I'll never get any sense of normalcy. The pain and fractured parts are never going to be a seamless whole again. I feel like it was too little too late... It allowed me to survive longer than I would have otherwise, it allowed me to be me, but the wounds inflicted by my family, my peers, my society were far deeper than I could have ever imagined, and the bleeding never stopped.

I want the pain to stop, but it's not time yet, I don't want to hurt those I love anymore than I already have. So second by second, minute by minute I endure the pain. I survive.

Author's note: I am safe. And I apologize that so much of what I've blogged has been so dark. I keep wanting to write about positive things, but while I try to recover, it ends up being the dark stuff that I write about. Apparently I need to get it out. But I hope someday to write about other stuff, even happy things.

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karrenseely · 2 months

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Emotional Regulation

So I have CPTSD. Everything I've read mostly points to this being a lifelong condition (yay :P) that is incredibly difficult for all of us whom suffer from it. I know it has been for me. I honestly don't know if I'd have developed it if my parents had been loving, supportive, and understanding like they should have. Because, even if they had been, I would still have likely had many many years of gas lighting from society, them, and my extended family to be a gender other than what I was. And that takes its toll on anyone's psyche.

But who knows, maybe if they'd been really supportive, then I wouldn't have had years of thinking I was crazy or shameful, maybe I would have transitioned really young as soon as I could tell them they were wrong. Then all I'd have to deal with is some body dysphoria. But then even that can take its toll as well. So I really couldn't say if I was destined to have this incredibly difficult mental health condition or not.

Either way, I really wish I'd had the loving supportive family every child deserves. I really wish I didn't find my psyche shattering as I grew up, getting stuck repeatedly at every traumatic event that I can remember, and actively forgetting everything I couldn't along with most of my other memories. Such that now, my memories consist of shattered disorganized shards scattered over the floor, most of those shards long since missing. It's really difficult to live when all you really have is now.

People talk about their childhoods like there's this linear well established timeline in their memories. It was a long time before I realized this was the typical way people remember their past. That for most people, they can remember approximately when such a memory occurred, in sequence with another. Even now, this is so foreign to me. I remember things in disjointed pieces, any one memory is not connected to any other. And few, if any, are connected to a specific time that I can locate.

Then there is the ability to remember what you did yesterday, or last week, or even last month in day to day life. That it's hard to know what's happened and what's been done recently. This was particularly bad when I was dissociating all the time, fortunately, therapy has helped with that part, and I don't do it as much and I can remember more of my day to day life. But even now, there are still significant holes in my memories of adult life. And admittedly as I struggle through my current flare of CPTSD symptoms, I sometimes wish I could dissociate like I used to so that I don't have to feel all of this horrible stuff. It hurts like hell.

If someone created the universe, they must be one of the most sadistic assholes to have ever existed, making it so healing is so effing painful, much less making thinking feeling beings feed off of one another.

In this journey of trying to heal, I've encountered many people talking about how, when we were abused as children we didn't develop our emotional regulation skills like normal loved, unabused kids do. I always found these comments or suppositions confusing. In large part due to the fact that I don't really understand what emotional regulation means. As a child, trying to survive, the only thing that worked, that made things even remotely bearable was dampening down on emotions until I didn't feel hardly anything at all. I wasn't particularly good at this, I still had feelings but they were distorted hazy half hearted things that would escape out, usually as anger, irritability, sadness, often fear, sometimes even joy would get out. But none were fully formed, or fully embraced, because if I did, then the pain would be in full force, the shame, the horror I constantly felt at what I was going through. So I did my best to damp down my emotions to almost nothing, and dissociate as much as I could so that I didn't have to feel or atleast remember feeling all those horrible things I felt. And the plus side to dissociation is that you truly only live in the moment. You can forget so much that way. You can ride the bus to school, but not remember any of it, just one moment you're at home and the next, poof, you're at school, and the next, poof, it's time to go home again and get on the bus, and poof the next you're at home again... you get the idea.

Emotions when all of the above were unsuccessful and I felt them anyway, usually it was the really really bad ones. And they were felt at 120% full blast. It was either 10 mph, or 120 mph. No inbetween. But people who talk about the ability to regulate emotions describe it as having inbetweens. Not having to feel the full blast, but not suppressing it completely either.

For the longest time when I encountered that phrase around emotional regulation, my mind just skittered past it, as it didn't make any sense to me. But I found myself thinking about it a couple months ago. And some kind fellow people with CPTSD pointed me to links that helped to explain the concept... except, those links were mostly just confusing. And unfortunately, my brain interpreted them as, "you are deficient, you're inability to regulate is your fault." Which didn't help. I honestly don't know if those explanations actually implied that, but it's what it felt like. Maybe because I didn't understand what they were saying.

Then... recently I returned to work, full time. And an interesting, if sucky, thing happened. I was fine at work, I could joke, I could laugh and have fun with coworkers and feel empathy for my patients and basically function somewhat like a typical human being in what I imagine is a healthy fashion. But as soon as I left work and went home, I had no energy left to keep the intrusive memories and emotions in check. And I would immediately start to crash. Spiraling down the rabbit hole of all those horrible memories. Nothing had specifically triggered them, it's just I ran out of spoons and they took over. I'd used up all my spoons at work.

Obviously, I'd overestimated my ability to return to full time work, but also it felt like there was an insight here. And it came down to my emotional bandwidth. If I had enough emotional energy, enough spoons, then minor triggers that normally would have lead me back down that lovely negative spiral, wouldn't actually set me off, and I could continue to function. And this was the neat part, I could continue to function without having all my walls slam down and turn everything numb. But, if I run out of that energy, if I run out of those spoons, then any little thing can set me down that self destructive spiral.

And the more I've thought about this, the more I think this is what people mean when they talk about emotional regulation. That most people have a large fount of this emotional energy to buffer against the extremes. And thus can handle day to day joys, stresses and hurtful things without completely falling apart. If this is the case then I guess I've developed some emotional regulation after all, though it's limited.

But why is it so limited? Why didn't I have any before? And the more I look at it. I see it in terms of bandwidth, energy, and/or spoons. Before, when I was having to live in survival mode, all of my emotional energy was being used to just survive. I was constantly in fight or flight. There was no energy to spare for nuance. My bandwidth was incredibly limited because so much of it was taken up with just surviving from one day to the next, with constant vigilance. But when we are no longer in those situations, and just as importantly, when we are not constantly flashing back to those situations, we start to have that bandwidth become available for the nuance. We can start feeling things in between because we have the energy to do so. It's no longer entirely about survive or die.

And that's the worst part about flashbacks. Even though I'm no longer in that constant life or death situation, those flashbacks have me believing I am. And contrary to popular media's depiction of flashbacks, most of the time it's not getting stuck in a living visual memory of an event. No, the vast majority of those flashbacks are emotional flashbacks. Getting stuck in the feelings of the event, the feelings I couldn't suppress anymore, the constant feeling of being in danger, of having my life, my very existence threatened, which brings on the constant sense of danger, of fight or flight. Which means, no emotional energy for anything else, except the extremes. Everything in my life currently can be perfectly fine, safe, wonderful even. But if I'm stuck in an emotional flashback, none of the current circumstances matter, because I'm emotionally back in survival mode, feeling constantly threatened, trying to survive, trying to decide if I need to fight or run. And if I'm stuck there... then there isn't any emotional energy left for anything else.

The really effing sucky part, is that often I don't know I'm in an emotional flashback until after it's gone away, and I can see looking back that how I was feeling didn't fit at all with what was actually happening at the time. I reacted to an outside observer in a rather extreme, or worse in a completely irrational manner. But then when I'm in the middle of it, I guess it's understandable that I have a hard time recognizing it, as all my energy is directed towards surviving, towards keeping the pain and my fears at bay.

So maybe emotional regulation is just having enough emotional energy to filter the experiences you're having into a much more nuanced pattern, rather than having to sort things into binary extremes of bad, not bad. And if that's the case, then maybe, just maybe, I am healing, because I'm starting to free up some of my bandwidth to start sorting out the nuances... even if I can't quite identify what those nuances are yet.

#trans #transgender #lgbt+#lgbtqia #lgbt #trans kids #childhood trauma #complex ptsd #trauma #family #Emotional regulation #mental health #coping #emotional flashbacks #flashbacks #emotional energy #emotional bandwidth #lgbtqia+#queer

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karrenseely · 2 months

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Justice for predstrogen.

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karrenseely · 2 months

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Think before you tell someone they're being too sensitive. There's a reason. There's always a reason. I'm still trying to unlearn all the self hatred those "jokes" taught me.

When trans women are mocked and made into jokes in the media, I get very upset, and I am often told “Kay, you can’t go through life getting offended every time someone makes a joke.” And I sputter and object but they don’t hear me. So I want to be clear for once, about why the jokes make me angry.

I learned to hate myself for being transgender before I knew I was transgender. I laughed at the jokes in stand up comedy routines, and prime time sitcoms, and animated comedy shows, and in the movies, and in books, and in games, laughing at trans women for existing, about “men in dresses”, about people who “got their dicks chopped off”, and I learned to think that was worthy of ridicule.

And then a day came when I felt a pang of envy at what my female classmates were wearing and I repressed it, and felt guilty, and a day where I felt incomplete because I had no breasts and I repressed it and I felt disgusting And a day when I realized the only images of romance that made me feel anything showed two women together and I repressed it and I felt like a monster And a day when I realized I felt sick when I looked at myself in the mirror after every shower before work and couldn’t bear to look at my own face, and I hated myself. And then there came a day when I hated myself so much, and I thought I could never understand why, and so I just wanted it all to end. And it was just a miracle that I swerved my car back into my lane in time.

And all of it started with a joke that I heard on TV, and then kept hearing from all the voices from the ether, over and over and over, worming an idea into my mind before I was old enough to realize I was absorbing it, the idea that a man in a dress is funny, and that changing your body parts makes you a freak, and that women who have penises instead of vaginas are liars and hurt men. And they’re still making these jokes. And somewhere out there right now, just like all those years ago, there is a little girl in a t-shirt and cargo shorts with buzzed off hair watching the TV, hearing that joke and absorbing it without knowing it, who will someday have to pry herself apart to tear it out of her head, just like I did.

That is, if she doesn’t kill herself first.

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karrenseely · 3 months

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This, we women have been pounded since the day we're born that it is undesirable to be us, that we're inferior, that our only worth is sex toys. And it is especially bad to be a trans woman because you supposedly threw away all the privileges and superiority of men to be an inferior woman, never mind that we were always girls/women. Always. I have to remind myself every day that all of that shitty propaganda is false, that it's ok to be a woman, to love myself, to enjoy all the things I do enjoy and there's nothing wrong with it. It took me years to realize just how deeply ingrained that gaslighting was, and I am still trying to dismantle it. It is ok to be who we are :).

it really is okay to be a girl and to want to be a girl. society likes to tell us that being a woman is undesirable. that women can't be funny, smart, nuanced, or have a personality. that women can't have interests. women can't be this and women can't be that- none of that's true in the slightest- talk to any number of women and you'll see that's just not the case. women are as varied and nuanced as people can get.

it's okay to want to do the "shallow" things that people hate women for. it's also it's okay to want to be a woman who doesn't shave or care about their appearance. it's okay to be a butch woman. it's also okay to want to be hyper feminine and wear very well crafted makeup and well planned out outfits. it's okay to be a smart woman, it's okay to be a funny girl. it's okay to be the weird girl. it's okay to WANT to be a woman and ENJOY womanhood, no matter how you express it, no matter what body you're in or how your womanhood presents itself.

trans women, genderqueer women, intersex women, butch women, gnc women, cis women- it's okay to enjoy being a woman. it's okay to find joy in womanhood. it's okay to be a woman in your own way, too, stereotype or not- even if other people say you don't act like a woman or aren't one- it's okay to love being a woman. it's okay to love womanhood.

#women #lgbt+#lgbtqia #childhood trauma #misogyny #sexism #trans women #cis women #self love #self acceptance

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karrenseely · 3 months

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Oh gods, not again.

I've been stuck in my head this week. A new epiphany rocked my world again. My hormones were adjusted recently. About a year ago... I think, I was started on a progesterone cycle. And very quickly I found myself having a desire to explore my body. The really significant dysphoria I was having around my hips, my shoulders, my voice. They didn't bother me as much as they had before. And then. Then I started to have some libido. That was weird and wonderful. My body did things for me I'd never experienced before. It was pleasurable and interesting, and I was feeling less and less like an imposter and more like the woman I am. I know I was also doing a lot of work in therapy as well. Working through the shame and conditioning I'd incorporated into myself that being a woman, being feminine was bad, liking anything girly was bad at best, perverted at worst. And I started to be a little more ok with myself. I wanted to explore the girly things and was finally allowing myself to do so. I even felt sexy sometimes, I think having never experienced those feelings before I'm still not sure if that's what that feeling is or not. I got back into make up, I learned how to paint my nails, I really started enjoying creating outfits and feeling like I was looking good. I was getting in touch with that feminine part of me that I had been suppressing because even though I had transitioned, parts of me were still convinced being feminine was bad, being feminine made me a pervert even though I was a woman. Yes, I know, there's a great deal of cognitive dissonance going on in my brain. And while I was doing these things at some point the little girl in me who'd been crying and along all her life had had enough of being shut away and forced me to let her out, and I got stuck in the past and had a severe bout of CPTSD/Depression putting me out of work for the last 4 months. But doing these things, was self care and when I was able to do them, it helped lift me up some.

I still know very little about hair care, I still for the life of me, have no idea how to do a good tight simple braid without it going off to one side at best, being really loose at worst. You know all the things that I should have learned growing up, that my sister got to learn because it was ok for her to be a girl for some reason and not me.

I love my sister, I don't blame her for choosing to side with my parents, she wasn't facing a choice of death or losing her entire family, she was just faced with losing a sibling or her entire family. Understandably she chose her entire family. I don't think they abused her, at least not the way they did me. She is my younger sister. But when my parents broke me and I just couldn't continue growing and got stuck around age 15, she started to be more like a big sister. I looked up to her. She was good at school, with really good grades, she was popular, she played in marching band, she had lots of friends. And I wished so much that I could be like her. I wanted to be close to her, but I was so terrified of anyone learning my secret and in my head in order to play that role forced on me, meant I was supposed to fight with her. And everytime I beat myself up over it, because I knew I'd destroyed another chance to be close. But I was so scared, and I was just trying to survive. And it hurt so much when she called me pervert for borrowing her clothes.

But despite that, she was an amazing sister. Despite my unpopularity, despite everyone sensing something wrong with me and at best avoiding me, at worst torturing me. She invited me to one of the highschool parties her friends had invited her to. It was a wonderful experience. I felt included. I felt like I'd been seen, but not in a bad way. And for a little while I forgot to be afraid that someone would figure out my secret.

Another time she invited me to go with her and her friends cliff diving at Canyon Lake. That was another wonderful memory, and for all the same reasons. During those excursions I felt like I hadn't completely ruined everything with my sister. That maybe she did care, that she did love me despite me being a pervert. They are good memories.

I don't know how I got on the subject of my sister... Oh that's right, she was in Marching Band and learned how to put her hair up in tight crowns of braids. I so wished it would be ok to ask her to teach me that. I wish I hadn't been so afraid of what my parents would do to me if I talked to her about what I was really going through that I actually did talk to her. I dunno, if I'd had the courage to do that, maybe I'd have had an amazing supportive sister. But maybe not. She was part of the church all through high school. And this church was the one that convinced my mom disowning me was what needed to happen, who convinced my mom that my being dead was better than my being trans. So no I probably wouldn't have had that kind of sister then. Still. I miss her and I love her and I don't blame her for what happened.

And I wish I could apologize to her for everything I did, for saying some of the things I did to her. Maybe I'll write a letter of what I wish I could say to her on here at some point.

anyway I went on a tangent. So yes, it's been a dark few months, but I've been exploring and having some fun with my feminine side. I've also been trying to reconnect with the trans community. So far I've not created a solid connection yet, but atleast I'm part of it on reddit, here, and fb, even though I don't really know anyone on there. It's nice to see how things are different and better for a lot of people compared to when I was kid, and it's hard to see that others in my community are suffering like I had to. But we're all on there, and because we are, we're not quite as alone as we used to be.

And so it's helped some, even though I wish I could make some irl trans friends. But at least I don't feel quite so isolated anymore. But the depression was bad, and I was still suicidal and the treatments hadn't started working yet, so my PCP suggested increasing my estrogen a little to see if that would help. And it did. I started to feel even more like myself. I had reduced it a long time ago because if the dose is too high I ended up with heart palpitations... but thankfully I haven't had issues with it this time around. I dunno, maybe it's because I'm also on progesterone as well now.

There is a part of me that is really angry at the medical establishment and the entrenched misogyny there. Angry that they decided that we only need half our hormones. That progesterone was completely unnecessary because it was only useful with pregnancy. Except that it does so much more than that, but the effects are subtle and... well... it was men that were designing the treatments at the beginning and that misogyny bleed through to later generations of doctors. But they robbed me of over two decades of feeling more comfortable in my body, of having a libido. So yes. I'm a bit chuffed with them.

So yes, about a month ago my estrogen was increased. And it helped my mood, and... apparently my libido. I found myself fantasizing about having sex. I'd never done that before, not ever, and certainly not in a pleasurable way. It was good. But also confusing. I felt like I was waking up from a decades long coma and the world had changed. It's only been in the last 7 years that I understood I was asexual. It's only been in the last year or two that I really began to explore what that meant to me. And it was a shock and confusing that I suddenly had interest in sex. What does this mean for my identity? Does it mean I'm not asexual anymore? And also a lot of anxiety because I suck at dating, I don't really know how to do it, or how to meet people in that way. I was pretty happy with the platonic relationship I had, though there were things I wish I could get myself to talk about, to hash out. And now I found myself wanting a physical relationship with someone.

Still trying to figure out how to find that irl. Then in the past 2 weeks something really really really confusing happened. I found myself fantasizing about a man, having a man love me, touch me, and hold me and have sex with me. And really wanting that. I've known a long time I had slight bi tendencies. But not once, not ever did it those tendencies involve a physical relationship... But here I am wanting one. And it's throwing me for a loop. And I find myself wondering if the assholes who thought trans women didn't need progesterone had robbed me of this too for all these years. And so I thought about finding a man to have a relationship with... and that's when I hit a brick wall. I am terrified of having a romantic/physical relationship with men. Absolutely terrified. And I have been for as long as I can remember, I just didn't understand what it was until now. I just avoided thinking about it. Because you know, trauma response. Something makes you uncomfortable avoid it if at all possible.

And I had no idea why. Except I think I know part of it. I have a good idea what men think of, want from, and how they talk about women. Seeing us as objects, not people with our own wants desires and needs. At best seeing us like children. I have seen so many of us killed by men who felt there masculinity was threatened by us because they didn't see us as women, but as men, and the trans men as women being uppity. I've heard what they say about us, because most of these men don't realize I'm trans and say it in my presence. And I remember Tyra Hunter who died while EMT's and Paramedics laughed at her instead of helping her. And then I remember all the times some random guy decided it was ok to sexually assault me.

I'd coped with that last part by believing that all women had been assaulted at some point in there lives... then a redditor said something that made me wonder if I was wrong, and then a reddit bot pointed me to resources when I wrote about those assaults. And then I talked to a DV advocate crisis line, because I was confused and hurting because I mean how could I have been assaulted so many times if it wasn't the normal level of misogyny all women faced? And if it's not normal then why did it happen to me? What more is wrong with me (yes on a rational level I know none of it is my fault but our brains are rarely truly rational). And the DV advocate told me. She told me that it wasn't normal. And suddenly I felt like I'd done something wrong. That I'd deserved what happened because I was an idiot.

And then I asked a reddit group of women if it was true. If it wasn't normal for women to be assaulted. And the first response I got was someone blaming me for what happened, rather than answering my question. And suddenly the little girl in me that has been in so much pain all along surged up and out. And I've been a mess since then and that happened two nights ago I think. But I'm not sure. Anyway, I'm feeling alone, confused, and really stupid. And part of me still has a hard time believing that advocate.

And just before all of this started happening in my head, just as we increased my estrogen, my counselor went on maternity leave, and I don't know who to talk to. And while I'm really happy for her, I'm feeling really lost at the moment. I've started looking for another counselor, but I won't get immediate help even if I saw them tomorrow, because I don't know them, because of my trauma history it is incredibly difficult for me to trust anyone, much less a counselor (my trauma history includes being traumatized by a counselor, a male one at that, which probably is a contributing factor to my fear of men) So yeah. That's where I'm at right now. Scared, lost, confused, hurting and parts of me also stuck in the memories images and/or feelings of the abuse I suffered growing up. It's not a good place to be.

The treatments are working though. I'm not suicidal during this past week, so I guess that's something? Maybe. But I find myself just wishing I'd gotten to grow up like a normal girl and that I didn't have to go through all of this. That so much time has been wasted dealing w/ this BS. And I hate it. I hate the universe for putting me and everyone in my community through this shit.

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karrenseely · 3 months

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Resilience

I've been thinking about something else the last few days. I've been thinking about how amazing it is that so many of us trans folks not only exist, but manage to exist as ourselves, and do so while remaining relatively sane. I mean, think about it. The majority of us have been gaslit from day one to believe we're the opposite gender. Not just by our parents, but by society, by our peers. And it happens to us non-stop. 24-7. In someways that gaslighting will continue for the rest of our lives as society, bigots, and the world doesn't see us as the gender we are. And despite this, in the face of all of everyone in reality telling you you are the gender assigned at birth. We manage to understand, we're not crazy. Everyone really is just wrong about us. And that we are the gender we wished we were. Then we start doing something about it. In the face of all of this opposition. We realize we can be ourselves. That we have every right to be ourselves. That because gender is so fundamental to our identity, to who we are as a person, how we relate to our own bodies and how others relate to us, as we do them. I think the only reason we can realize who we are in the face of everyone else telling us we're wrong, is because it is so fundamental to anyone's identity.

In the face of all of this, it is wonder any of us manage to maintain our sanity. I mean, between the abuse I got, the constantly being told I wasn't who I was, I don't always trust my perception of reality. But when others reflect what I think I'm perceiving back to me, then 99% of the time my perceptions are if not spot on, pretty close. And yes I recognize the irony of saying I'm sane, when I'm still dealing with the latest mental breakdown from my childhood trauma. But to me, insanity is hallucinating, voices, people, things, animals, seeing what can't possibly be real, and believing it is real. And given my perceptions seem to be pretty spot on despite my doubts sometimes, I'd say I'm relatively sane and self aware.

Granted the haters will continue to claim I'm delusional for not believing their lies. For believing I am who I am in the face of so many people who say otherwise. Except the science, the research, seems to be backing us up some. A little bit here, a little bit there. More importantly, getting to be ourselves generally improves our quality of life compared to before. We're less likely to die by our own hand if we can be ourselves. Which says something all on it's own.

This then makes me wonder about our brains and what differences there actually are in them when it comes to our proprioception of our gender. I mean something had to form differently there, or our bodies wouldn't feel so wrong in the first place. And is it just proprioception, or is our gender even more fundamental then that?

But I'm getting off track. Regardless. I think it's pretty amazing that we manage to figure out who we are and live our authentic selves in the face of so much opposition. I just wish none of us had to. I wish we didn't have to be so resilient.

#lgbt #lgbt+#lgbtqia #trans #transgender #trans kids

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karrenseely · 3 months

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Anniversary

It is the Anniversary. I didn't realize why I was feeling edgy today, until now. I was avoiding going to sleep. Didn't realize why. Finally put my phone down and tried to sleep. But the pain and hurt were right there waiting for me. That little girl in me hurts so very much. And it occurred to me her narrative changed sometime in the past few years. Ever since they threw me away, I couldn't make sense of what happened. I mean I remember being and feeling loved by my parents before the first time I came out. These were my good parents, the parents that loved me. The parents I loved and trusted with my life. Then I came out and things started going to shit. I was told I wasn't real, I was making it up, that God didn't make mistakes, that I was shameful and no one should ever know or see me. I was hidden away as that shameful thing my parents wanted no one to know about. These were the bad parents. The parents who hated me, who didn't want me. And I could never reconcile the two. Those last 5 or 6 years, I never knew from one encounter to the next which parents I would be interacting with. It was scary, hard, and all I wanted was for them to love me, accept me, and help me get away from the pain of the gender dysphoria as much as I could... Why was being me so horrible? Why was being their daughter instead of their son so horrible they started torturing me? I mean they didn't do that to my sister as far as I could tell. But I was bad.

But recently in the last few years, some parts of me finally made sense of the two diametrically opposed parents I witnessed and simultaneous felt loved by, and hated. I realized that they never loved me, they loved their imaginary son. But me, I was a monster, I was something so bad that they wanted me dead, they just didn't know I existed until I made the mistake of thinking that the love they had showered on me, meant that they loved me and came out to them. I don't know if understanding this helped or not. It really really effing hurts to know your parents never loved you, but some imaginary person they thought they had instead. It hurts so much. I was not wanted in one of the worst possible ways. I was not supposed to exist. I was unlovable. And to add to the confusion, it was me they hated, not my gender, otherwise my sister would have been on the receiving end of their abuse too. Even though my gender was certainly part of it.

So the confusion about the good parents and the bad parents went away and left me with never having parents. With the realization that the love I thought I had, was never ever real. And it hurts.

Tonight is the anniversary of them simultaneously telling me they were disowning me, and that my grandfather was dying. Just to add some guilt to the frying pan I was already in. And it reminds me that I never really had a family, I thought I did. It's understandable that I made the mistake of thinking so. But I didn't. But even now large parts of me still don't really understand why. What is so horrible about being a daughter instead of a son that I was tortured and thrown away like that? And despite this change in understanding, the conclusion remains the same. I am a monster. I am something that crawled out of the fetid miasma of slime and existed when I shouldn't have. I am something to be reviled and feared. Not only was I unlovable, but I didn't deserve to be loved.

This is how I ended up believing that at best, deep down, everyone I formed an attachment to after that, just tolerated me at best. But really, they didn't want me. And if I did anything wrong they would get rid of me too. And I believed this down in my subconscious area, I suspect I still do, despite the evidence to the contrary, because I am human and I made mistakes that upset my friends.

So I don't know if solving that confusing dichotomy has helped or changed my feelings in any significant way other than to add to the misery that the little girl in me feels.

And unfortunately, my therapist is now on leave, with an estimated return date of three months. So the little girl can't shed any more of her pain, and it's still there, and it hurts like hell. And I don't want to be here any more and have to deal with it. Not so much so that I'd do anything about it. Just passively wishing I didn't exist anymore. Didn't have to continue to try to cope with the pain and knowledge, of continuing to cope with the dysphoria that will never completely go away, of coping with a society that hates me as much as my parents did.

Anniversaries suck. Abuse sucks. How the hell do people manage to justify hurting their children so much?

#lgbt+#lgbtqia #lgbt #trans #transgender #childhood trauma #complex ptsd #trauma #family #trans kids

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karrenseely · 4 months

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Hurting and Rambling

Depression sucks. My mood has backslid today. I don't want to be here. I don't want to deal with the dysphoria. I don't want to deal with the hate. Nevermind that most of the hate is just remembered from childhood. Parts of me are so stuck that it feels like now. I don't want to be have to be the one that comforts the little girl in me. It shouldn't ever have had to have been me. It should have been my parents.

She hurts so much. My therapist is on maternity leave as of this coming week. I don't know what I'm going to do with no outlet, with no one to help mediate with the part of me that hurts so much and the parts that hate me and the parts that just want to end it all so all of this just stops.

Parts of me are scared. Other parts of me are just done. And the part of me that hate myself is running rampant. He scared the ever living light out of me a few months ago. Up to that point, I had no idea how much self hatred I had. But that day, he made it very clear. In comes this intrusive imagery of him stabbing me with a large knife, savagely, over and over and over and over again. And I so wanted to do that to myself in that moment, never mind that it's not really possible to stab yourself in that way over and over again. The feelings were there. I hated myself viciously and savagely in that moment. I've never fantasized about physically hurting anyone, not even my parents. So this imagery and the feelings that went with it threw me for a loop.

I've kinda been ignoring them for the past few months. But this evening... I just don't want to be here, and I can feel that part of myself egging my suicidal self on... and right now. I don't really care that he's doing that. Over the past 3 months I've been in intensive outpatient treatment. I had TMS therapy, ketamine therapy, psych meds, counseling... And all of it has at most brought me back to my baseline meh at most.

It's not bad, I'm not hurting all the time when I'm at my baseline. But it's still just a feeling of meh. Of going through the motions and not knowing why I'm doing it, but the survival instinct is engaged so I just keep going. I went through all of this treatment to really feel better. Not meh. To actually try and get that feeling of contentment I once had back. But when it comes down to it, none of the things I've done have helped the little girl in me not feel so much pain and hurt. I don't know if anything can help her anymore. Maybe I ignored her too long. Or maybe there's just no healing what was done to me. I feel so broken. I feel like the freak I've been called in the past. And she doesn't understand why her parents didn't love her, why they hated her. So she thinks she's a monster too. Why else would her parents hate her so much?

I've just started equine therapy because I'm running out of options and I thought that it might help... but it's infrequent. And it's conflicting with my ketamine therapy. I do feel better when I'm with the horses, but it's short lived. And last session was hard, we kept getting close to the hurt and pain, and then stepping back. Dancing up to the line and back. That takes its toll too. I'm fairly certain that's part of the treatment. But tonight, everything feels too slow. Nothing seems to be working. And the part that doesn't want to be here, that doesn't want to deal with this world is really strong tonight.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on doing anything about it. I haven't been fantasizing about how I'd end myself. Nor do I have access to my preferred methods when I did fantasize about how to do it. But the feelings of not wanting to be are there. I haven't gotten anything done today. All I've been trying to do is distract myself. I tried sending some of that pain and hurt to my therapy horse to hold for a little while... but I'm not that attached to him yet... He's a nice horse... but he's just an acquaintance at this point. I don't have any strong feelings for him, any significant connection... so it just feels like I'm going through the motions... I wonder if that's the fact that I'm Demi or if it's just because I'm hurting so much and don't trust or form bonds easily. Maybe it's both... or that could be a chicken and egg question. Regardless, it's not really helping. He doesn't feel real when I'm not next him.

Nothing feels particularly solid at the moment. Not even the bonds to my chosen family. Not because anything bad has happened with them. I think it has more to do with just how much the little girl in me is hurting, is longing for a feeling of belonging, completely and unconditionally. And she can't see it for all the pain she's in, that her chosen family does love her, loves her a lot. Other parts aren't helping as they know my SO isn't physically attracted to me. That she doesn't see me as a partner or a lover. And they think that's necessary for an SO, never mind my being ace. Nevermind that the most my fantasies involve of her is cuddling. They see the lack of physical contact and romance as damning of our relationship and love to insert constant doubts, particularly because she's that way with her other SO's. And these parts will latch on to any evidence to help support it, no matter how unreasonable that evidence is. But the end result is I feel lonely despite my chosen family.

We're poly, so it's not like I can't look for someone to fill the need for physical contact... but, it's hard. I didn't really get to be a kid, I almost never dated. And I learned early and deeply how dangerous it is to tell the people you love your deepest needs, fears, feelings. So even if I find someone I can't get myself to talk about anything meaningful. But then I don't know if that's what society has told me I need to do/taught me...

I mean, if I write it down and give it to the person... or talk via texting, I can sometimes get those deep feelings across. But to verbalize them? I've never been able to verbalize them with anyone I love. Even when I came out to my parents the first time, I did it via letter because I couldn't be verbal. The second time was the same... I think. It's all kinda fuzzy. The last time I came out to them and put my foot down, it was still via letter. I dunno. Maybe if I'd gotten the love and support I needed then, I would be able to verbalize my feelings in the moment today. But maybe not. Maybe it's just inherent faulty wiring in me, like all the other faulty wiring...

Being Trans, ADHD, not knowing if my feelings are atypical when it comes to SO's. Having recently begun to want to have sex w/ someone but not with my SO even though I'm fairly certain I'm ace. I mean, do I even really understand what love is? What it means to be in love? What it means to be ace vs just some completely broken miswired human being?

Can I be ace if a part of me wants to have sex with someone? I thought I was demi, but this part that wants to explore that form of physical contact doesn't want it to be with anyone I already have a strong emotional bond with... Is it because of the trauma? Is it becuase there's something wrong with me? Some faulty wiring. Or is it because I'm just a freak of nature that never should be?

I thought I understood what love and romance were, because I thought I felt those things in movies and stories where it was happening... but now. Now I'm not so sure. I mean... I never really understood sexual attraction. Anyone that I had the hots for, it wasn't that I wanted sex with them, it was just that I wanted to be in there presence. I wanted to get to know them, to be friends... These days, I understand how not typical that is. Worse, it's rare for me to even have those feelings about a person in the first place. And that makes it that much harder to find someone who would even remotely return those feelings. That's not to say there aren't people out there that want a sexual or romantic relationship with me. I know of at least one... but I don't feel the same way. My feelings rarely mesh with anyone else in a way that would meet either of our needs wholly and completely. The closest I've gotten is my current SO.

Add to that that I know how much self hatred is present in me, and how am I supposed to love anyone wholly and completely when I don't even love myself, when I feel like a monster, a pervert. Someone whose own parents couldn't even love her. How could anyone else? And so these thoughts just run around and around in my head. And nothing ever really changes. I still feel bad, I still have no idea how to interact with people to indicate I'm interested in them in terms of a close a relationship. I never got that education growing up, because I couldn't be the teenage girl I was at that age... And now, it feels like it's too late, even though the rational part of me says otherwise. It's easier to believe the parts that hate me.

And so no solution is in sight. And now I just end up having fantasies that a someone will come and save me. Will sweep me off my feet and just hold me and comfort me and love me, except, I don't want to be called George. And I want to be able to give back. I want to be able to give back so much... Now that I think about it, I suspect that's why I'm constantly trying to help my SO in lots of ways, whether it's paying for stuff, or giving rides, driving, or getting dinner... it's because I want to give back and I don't know how else to do it. I feel like all I do is take. Constantly take, that people only tolerate me because they pity me, not because they want my friendship, or want to spend time with me. Because who could ever want to spend time with a freak like me? So I give... I try to give what I have to give. I try to be there, I try to listen, I try to find solutions, I try not to criticize, I never demand, I never ask for what I truly need because if I do, then they'll realize that they just tolerate me and don't need me around anymore and drop me.

I've wandered all over with this post. I'm sorry. My thoughts tonight are not organized. I just needed to write. Even if it's nonsense with no real purpose other than to go in thought circles. It's hard to heal when you don't trust your own perceptions, when you feel like a monster, when it's so hard to trust the people around you. It's even harder when you live in a society that hates you, actively wants you dead and has no compunctions about killing children who are like you.

That's the most terrifying thing about the Right wing terrorists in power across the U.S. they not only don't care that they're hurting kids. They're actively trying to kill the kids in my community... because they know they can. Because they know they can get away with it. It's horrifying. It's even more horrifying watching that evil spread to other countries across the globe. Why? I cannot fathom anything justifying what they are doing. Why would anyone want to hurt and torture children? Why does our society hate children so much? Why does it hate its future so so very much?

Why do so many people claim to be Christian, and then do the very things Jesus would abhor. Worse, they do it in his name. Why? I don't understand. When I was younger, I really thought Satan had won, afterall he seemed to be in control of the churches, the religions, the followers. But these days? I know he doesn't exist. This is all the people's own doing. They are the ones that choose to do these evil things. Not some imaginary being. But people, who feel it's ok to murder and torture other people. Who feel it's ok to murder and torture children. People are responsible for the own actions and inactions. Including myself.

Last year, these terrorists targeted my child's school. Because a parent couldn't accept their trans son and told the terrorists about it. Multiple bomb threats were called in to the school. Traumatizing the children, traumatizing my child. Traumatizing the parents. We don't live an era where it's inconceivable that someone would bomb a school full of children. Not anymore. Not with all the mass school shootings. Not with the evidence of school bombings occuring in other countries. No. There is nothing benign about these threats. They are terrifying. And that's what terrorists do. They work to instill fear, and they do whatever they feel is necessary to do it. Eventually, threats won't be enough. They'll follow through on it. Gods forbid it be at any school, much less my child's. And this is the worst part, our government doesn't take any of this seriously enough. Not really. Yes it's aware right wing domestic terrorism is the biggest threat right now. But it's not doing much of anything to stop it, to curtail it. Because right now it's fashionable to torture and kill LGBT+ kids. Because our society has never seen LGBT+ people as human.

Even after Hitler was defeated, and LGBT+ were freed from the concentration/death camps along with Jewish and Roma people... my people were thrown right back in jail. We were never freed. The world has never acknowledged what it has done to us. It never acknowledged all the LGBT+ people they put back into prison after the war. Everyone else was allowed to go free. The world sympathised with the horrors that were inflicted on the people in those death camps. Except for queer people. We apparently deserved it. We never should have been freed. The world agreed with Hitler when it came to queer people. That hasn't changed. Our society still agrees with Hitler. If it didn't then none of these terrorists would have been allowed to have any power whatsoever. None of them would be allowed to terrorize the queer community as they have. Queer people wouldn't be living under the fear of capital punishment for being queer in other countries. We wouldn't be the world's scape goats for all the ills that exist.

How can I or any of us heal knowing this? And you know what the hardest part of this is? Unlike every other minority group in the world. Way way way too many of us don't have our families, our communities of origin to fall back on. Because our families hate us as much as the world at large does. We don't have the love and support of our families to help us through all this dark horrible stuff. We do the best we can by being each other's chosen families, to be each others communities... but that's not the same. Knowing your own flesh and blood hate you, at best want nothing to do with you, at worst want you dead. That takes its toll, even with the support of communities of individuals who have gone through similar things. Don't get me wrong. We are a resilient group of people, we've survived, some of us have even thrived. But then, we've had to be. We had no other real choice.

And on the individual level? It's hard. It hurts. And some of us are more resilient than others. Some of us survive by believing the propaganda that we're evil, or that certain groups in our community are evil. Some of us don't survive. Some of us survive, but hurt all the time. Some of us... Some of us are fortunate and have loving supportive families. And that is an amazing thing, the most wonderful thing. That families exist today that love and support their queer children and siblings. That so many do is a miracle given the climate we exist in. It's a testament to the hard and diligent work our community has done over the last century. To the sacrifices we've had to make. But it also makes it that much more disheartening when society takes a nosedive and starts targeting us all over again.

Healing is hard enough in the best of times. It's nearly impossible when the world hates you. I don't even know if it is possible when both the world and your family hate you. And I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of constantly having to justify my right to exist. My right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Of my children's right to the same. Of my community's children's right to the same.

I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want to have to, or need to. I just want it to all go away. Because unless you are what your society wants, you're garbage to be tossed out when ever you inconvenience that society. And I'm so done trying to get it to change for the better. I'm so tired of it. These days I just want to go to some uninhabited part of the world and create a sanctuary for people to exist, to be compassionate for each other, to understand that we as a species could be so much more if we loved and supported one another rather than try to kill each other over this mote of dust we live on, over one trait one group feels is superior to another group. The problem is, I don't think any place like that exists, I don't think it's existed for millenia... so no I'm tired and I don't want to be here, I don't want to be part of this world. And we don't have the technology to colonize Europa so we can't leave (Billionaire predators have already laid claim to Mars and the Moon)

It is late, I'm going to try and find something else to distract myself with because I'm just saying the same thing over and over again and it doesn't change anything. The world still sucks. And I still hurt so very very much, and the little girl in me still never got the parents/family she deserved and needed.

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karrenseely · 4 months

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The United States of America hates children.

Yes, I said it. And if you look at what our country has been doing to children since its inception. I don't see how you can come to any other conclusion.

If we actually loved our children, we'd fully fund their education everywhere, not just in white upper middle class neighborhoods.

If we actually loved our children we'd make sure that they and their caregivers were clothed, housed, and ate enough healthy food.

If we actually loved our children, all employers would be required to pay a living wage at the minimum. Why? Because parents who can't make enough have to sacrifice something that their child needs, which is a crime our society commits against the parent and the child.

If we actually loved our children we would fully fund child protective services, the foster system, and make sure children in the system were safe, happy, and well cared for. Instead many kids get abused and thrown around from "home" to "home" to "home" never feeling safe, never getting the mental health care they so desperately need.

If we actually loved our children we wouldn't forcibly remove them from situations where they are safe, just to enforce the nuclear family, our racism, preconceptions of gender and sexuality, or continued active genocide of indigenous nations.

If we loved our children we would make sure they and their parents and everyone around them had access to good physical and mental health care.

If we actually loved our children we would actually adequately fund after school programs, childcare facilities.

If we actually loved children we'd monitor and enforce regulations on any government, charity, or business entity that interacts with children directly or indirectly. This includes safe drinking water, safe air, safe soil, a safe ecological system.

If we actually loved our children we would make sure any new chemicals didn't have actual toxic effects before they hit the general public.

If we actually loved our children, no level of lead would be acceptable in them except zero.

If we actually loved our children, we'd stop trying to adhere to the ridiculous idea of the nuclear family. Teachers are part of a child's family, adults in general are responsible for the children they interact with. It takes a village to raise a child isn't just a saying, it's a truth that we need to acknowledge.

If we actually loved our children we would actually consider parents who try to cure, demean, dehumanize, hurt, murder, neglect their LGBT+ children actual abuse.

If we actually loved our children we as a society would actually consider emotional and verbal abuse important.

If we actually loved our children we would teach them about how to regulate their emotions in a healthy manner throughout school.

If we actually loved our children we would teach them throughout school how to interact with other kids and adults in a healthy manner and encourage it, throughout school.

If we actually loved our children we wouldn't elect politicians who lie, spout hateful rhetoric, we wouldn't idolize bullies and sociopathic narcissists, or propose/pass laws to hurt one oppressed demographic just because they can and it's fashionable.

If we loved our children we wouldn't start wars, destabilize other governments for our society's political gain, or outright colonize a nation just because we can and it serves our interests.

If we actually loved our children we would teach them all that they matter and they are important.

If we actually loved our children we would teach them evidence based sex education in totality, including all the amazing sexual and gender identities, because there are too many kids who need to know they are not alone, that they are not a freak.

If we loved our children the government would apologize for its crimes.

If we loved our children we would actually teach them the evidence based history of racism, colonialism, imperialism, sexism, and oppression that occured in this country and elsewhere, a lot of it to this day.

If we loved our children we would actually defund the police to a much more reasonable size, level of force, and stopped sending them to schools to enforce social divides around race, sex, colonialism, and imperialism.

If we actually loved our children we would hold police officers responsible when they murder people.

If we loved our children we wouldn't separate families or murder people at the border just because we can.

If we loved our children we would teach them about empathy with other people throughout school.

If we loved our children we wouldn't deny people asylum just because they're not white. We wouldn't deny that so many people of color are coming here to escape from some horror in their native land. We would model good behavior and take them in and help them. I mean really, think about it. How bad would things have to be for you to uproot yourself and/or your family, travel a route fraught with its own dangers, to a strange country that you probably don't speak the language of because you heard it might be better/safer there for your children, family, or yourself?

If we loved our children we wouldn't put religion before there own health, safety, support, and care.

If we loved our children we'd teach them about mental health, and psychological development throughout school.

If we loved our children we would teach them in an age appropriate manner what pedophiles say and do and to be able to recognize it and not be so afraid to tell a parent or teacher.

If we loved our children we would believe them when they tell us something hard, or that means a lot to them.

If we loved our children, our society would do everything that it is totally capable of to make sure they succeeded, were happy, and loved.

So, so many of the worlds problems, so much of the pain, the hatred, the death, the horror in the world would disappear if we actually loved our children as a society and stopped making excuses to mistreat them directly or indirectly.

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karrenseely · 4 months

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I won't be invisible, because others in my community need to see that we exist. I also wear it because some cis/het/allo people know what they mean, and some of them need to know we exist. We're not made up, and we're humans just trying to live our lives like everyone else.

🌈 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 solidarity.

#lgbt+#lgbtqia #trans #transgender #lgbt #LGBT #lgbtq community #lgbt pride #queer community #lgbtia+

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karrenseely · 4 months

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This so much this. I see so many kids and adults asking themselves or the community if they're just making it up. Cis and/or het people don't do this.

If you think you are a gender/sexual identity. Odds are really good you are or some variation thereof. Could you be wrong about the specific identity, possibly, the whole thing is confusing and we aren't taught by our society how to sort through our feelings and figure out how we feel. Instead we're dropped in the Deep end and forced to learn how to swim or die trying. Nor does our society really talk about sexual and gender identities with kids.

But in the end does it really matter if we are wrong? All we do is modify our own view of our identity further. There is no such thing as being trans, gay, lesbian, queer, ace, aro, or any other gender/sexual identity enough. Our Identities are our internal experiences of ourselves, which we use language to try and describe and make sense of, but no one but ourselves can tell us who we are.

It's not talked about much, but to add to the confusion, for some people their identities naturally change over time. They weren't wrong, things just changed and that's ok too. You aren't faking or making anything up, at worst you're exploring a possibility, at best you're finding yourself. All kids do this about all aspects of their various identities. And many adults are still doing this because Identity isn't a static state.

It is, however, immutable from outside forces, I.e. no one can force our identities to change, including ourselves. Yet it can, sometimes, change on it's own, or we can learn more about ourselves. I learned I was Ace in my 40's, because Aro/Ace and everything in between wasn't talked about back then, I had no idea why I couldn't make relationships work, and far too frequently had no idea I was already in one. So my identity changed in many ways, because I had language to better describe it and understand it. And then there's the fact that, oddly (for me as I've identified as a lesbian most of my life), lately I've been having fantasies of having penetrative sex with men. Which means I may need to change my sexual identity again from lesbian to bi, and even my Demisexual/Asexual identity as well as I don't normally have sex fantasies in the first place. And that's ok. It doesn't mean I was pretending before, or that it's wrong for these things to change.

You are who you say you are, and it's ok if your not sure, it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. It's ok to figure yourself out. It's normal to figure things out about yourself throughout your life.

My dear lgbt+ kids,

"What if I am not actually queer and just want to get special treatment?"

Well, I consider that highly unlikely, for the simple reason that the world doesn't operate the way many homophobes/transphobes seem to believe:

You don't really get positive special treatment for being queer. At best, people treat you with the same respect they treat cishet people with and at worst they literally want you dead. It's not like people give you a standing ovation and hand you gift baskets whenever you enter the room, just because you're queer. (And even if you would get a gift basket at Pride - do you really consider it likely that you'd pretend to be queer 24/7 365 days a year just to scheme your way into getting, like, some free rainbow stickers in June?)

But even if we ignore just how useless this whole lie would be: lying is a conscious act. If you lie about something, you are aware you're saying something that isn't true. That's a decision you make. If you said "Yeah, I'm gay, please give me my sticker" (because you just really really want that sticker) while knowing full well you're a 100 percent straight, you wouldn't lay awake at night worrying "What if I'm actually not gay" - you'd already know you're not!

This worry is based on the assumption that you can't trust yourself - but you can. You're not somehow tricking yourself into believing you are queer. You just are queer.

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Dad

#lgbt+#lgbtqia #trans #trans kids #transgender #lgbt #Identity #gender identity #perception #society #childhood development #lgbtqia+#lgbtqi community #lgbtq issues #queer #lgbtq community #Questioning #Questioning your identity

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