losing hopelessness

Losing hopelessness

The past few months have been weird as my therapist has noticed that I am more future thinking than I was in the past. I attribute this to losing hopelessness. I don’t know when it happened. I started feeling less suicidal and wanting to move forward with my transition. It is unusual for me to think of future thinking such as having top surgery and doing what is required to get it done. I feel like I lost some of my suicidality. I just don’t see things as dark or dire anymore. I have noticed that my CRPS pain isn’t at the high levels it once was and maybe, because the chronic pain isn’t so bad, I have become more hopeful about the future.

It is a strange feeling to go from complete hopelessness to being hopeful in a few months. The depression seems more manageable than it was and so the psychache that I feel isn’t as great. I have gone from feeling suicidal on a daily basis to really only when my pain levels are at a 10 or above. The feelings of not being able to escape have gone away as well. For the first time in my life I feel I have a future. I want to lose weight so I can lose the things on my chest. I can picture myself doing this where it seemed impossible before. I can’t attribute this to one thing because I think it is a combination of things. One is the alliance of my therapist and psychiatrist, possible medication has eased the depression symptoms enough that I can see beyond the horizon and not feel like I am drowning so much. Also better pain control and accepting my physical dysfunctions are now a part of my life that is not going to go away anytime soon. I also think that having a community on social media has helped during the dark times because just when I am at my lowest there are people saying that I matter and that they are glad I am still here. Words like that help when you feel like scum of the earth for no reason or when the pain is so bad all you can think about is death.

I also think music has helped to ease the troubles I have faced. For months now, I have been listening to Taylor Swift’s albums, new and old. Her evermore and folklore songs have brought meaning to me as well as the extra songs in her Fearless (Taylor’s Version) album. To identify with lyrics is powerful and meaningful. The songs help to heal the traumas I have been through as well as heal from past relationships and deal with current ones. In her 1989 album, I found a song that I can relate to my current therapist with that helped to deal with our rocky relationship. This therapist has helped me to see things differently and also to come to the realization that I have serious depression. It is something that I always knew but never spoke aloud before. Working through the severity of the depression has been difficult. I think I have come to terms with it and thus the hopelessness it has given me doesn’t seem to strangle me like it once did.