Just got my haircut. Little boy on the bus was staring at me and I was wondering if he was thinking I was a boy or girl and had to stop myself. I am a boy and I nearly wept as my chest was throbbing. The euphoria was finally hitting me. I wondered if I would ever feel it since my mother’s death. I looked at my photo I took and posted on an FTM support groups. A member said they see a grown man, complete with a male hairline. I am losing my hair and the pic kind of looks like a comb over that my sister pointed out. I don’t care. I still think I look good. I have issues with my body. My stomach is giving me such dysphoria since the binders have been off. I haven’t gained weight but I haven’t lost any either, which is frustrating. I have been cutting calories to no effect. I know I haven’t been active either but it’s a slippery slope with my foot. Any big active days such as walking more than 5 blocks hurts me. My limit is 0.4 miles, anything more than that and I am in pain.
Today has been a rough day due to headaches. I woke up a couple times after dreaming with them. I told my psychiatris about it and he doesn’t have answers. I need to see a neurologist. I had one. I need to call to see if I still do. I had a skipped appt with her back when I was catatonic so don’t know if they kicked me out because of it. It has been thundering and downpouring the past couple of hours so my head hurts. Not sure if it is a migraine or not. I need a nap. I am tired.
My internet was not connecting well today so m psychiatrist called me. We talked about meds. He wants to play with my Latuda and I told him we could but I could become psychotic again with a lower dose or stopping it. He wants to bring the Effexor dose up but until I have my neuro appt, he is holding off.
Gonna stop here. My head is hurting too much.
Tag: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
In a grumpy mood
I’m in the hospital. I’ve been here since Thursday. The depression and grief were just so overwhelming that I didn’t want to live anymore. So before things progressed to a bad place, I got evaluated. Sleep has been an issue so we are working on that while I am here.
I had a difficult night sleeping. For some reason dreams hurt my head and give me severe headaches. Not fun waking up to them. My foot also flared up (CRPS) around 0530 so I had to take pain meds. Then I was pretty much up and didn’t go back to sleep. My BP and heart rate were up this morning. I’m not surprised. I have been working with a friendly LGBTQ nurse the past few days. She had to give me my T shot today and they ordered it for the glut muscle. She was good. The only thing that hurt was the pinch of the needle.
I’ve had three cups of coffee today, all caffeinated. Has not helped my headache. Hoping tylenol will. I have been using diclofenac gel for my knees and it has helped so much. I haven’t been doing stairs so still not sure if that is a problem for me. At home, stairs would hurt my knees going down. Going up, not so much. I do stairs a lot when home because my room is above the living area.
I hope to be going out today for some fresh air. One of the MHS’s will be taking me. Depending on how well she knows the hospital, I might give some history. I did the last time I went out. It was cool for me to speak about it. When I leave, I want to take some pics of the current construction so I can remember how the Bulfinch is right now. I love that building so much. It was built by my favorite architect, Charles Bulfinch. He has a place in Rockport that I really would love to see. The place is I think 1.5 miles from the commuter rail stop, which is too far for me to walk right now. I might take an Uber if I go this summer.
I went to a webinar yesterday. CAMS care hosted Dr. Thomas Joiner and his theory of Interpersonal Theory of Suicide. It was very interesting. I learned a lot and got my wheels turning. I might write about his theory in a future blog. He is coming out with a new book in Jan/Feb and I can’t wait to read it.
There is another pt here who is trans. I am glad I got to meet them. I hope we can stay friends after the hospital.
I am tired. I hope today goes OK. Also hope this fog I am in dissipates. I am going to try sumatriptan to see if it helps this headache. Could be migraine activity as it has gone on for a few days now. I just feel shitty. I went outside and it is nice out. Hot but a dry heat. Not too humid.
thirty years of therapy and what I have learned
Thirty years of therapy and what I learned
I’ve been in therapy since I was 15. After 30 years and 15 therapists, I’ve called it quits. Not because I was cured because I couldn’t get the care I needed. Not all therapists are the same. And even if someone has the credentials I am looking for, doesn’t mean it will work out. I have seen social workers, psychologists (PhDs and PsyD), psychiatrists, and psych RN. The first 10 I saw within the first 10 years of starting therapy. Each therapist I saw didn’t last more than a year. One resident I saw lasted three years, till the end of her residency, but she moved on and I didn’t see her again. I tried DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), and the various psychodynamic therapies out there.
My suicidal career took up talk for the last 10 years of therapy, maybe more as it got more serious and I didn’t want to live anymore. I started researching into the different treatment options and found very little to help myself. The therapist I was seeing at the time was stuck in her ways didn’t want to adapt to what I wanted her to do in therapy to help me. It was frustrating. Then I saw a PsyD with the credentials and I thought yes! This is going to work out finally. But it didn’t because she didn’t have empathy and couldn’t give me validation when I needed it the most.
What I learned from my research into suicidology is that the person needs to tell their story of why they are suicidal. It needs to be heard by an empathic person who validates why they are suicidal. They also should appear eager to listen and to know more about the person, their pain and suffering. To find out where it hurts and to try and heal it the best they can. I can go on about things like perturbation, lethality, constriction, and psychache but those are just words no one uses anymore.
Living with pain— physical or emotional— for years is a traumatic stressor. The experience of living with pain evokes many of the same responses that being subjected to abuse or neglect does. — Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle
I came across this quote while scrolling through Twitter. Dammit this guy always posts something when I am in the feels. He is correct. Pain does have the same responses as being abused or neglected. I have suffered physical pain consistently 24/7/365 for the past twelve years. Each time my foot or ankle flared up, I had flashbacks of when my back gave out ten years prior. I had to go through a series of checklists to make sure it wasn’t happening again, each time, nearly every single day. Once I had a diagnosis for the pain the checklist checking stopped but the feelings of the trauma didn’t.
My therapist who I just stopped seeing, asked me what I was looking for in therapy. But I didn’t have the words. As I am reading the book Building a Therapeutic Alliance with the suicidal Patient, I am figuring out what I need in therapy. I knew she wasn’t able to give me what I need. I am not really sure what I need. I know I want someone to talk to tell my story to. For them to listen, empathically and compassionately to what I have to say about why I am suicidal and why it has become my only option left to me.
Sunday Blog 22082021
Sunday Blog 22082021
Post op day 4 hysterectomy
I got some good sleep finally. I feel really good. I am not in as much pain as I was in yesterday. I made sure to empty my bladder throughout the night and that helped. I am cathing every four hours to make sure I am empty completely. It hurts to void so that is why I am cathing. My genital area is sore but that is to be expected and the vaginal entrance is a little swollen. I noticed some clear discharge that is not mentioned at all with the post op stuff so I hope it is nothing to be worried about. I sent my surgeon a message anyway to ask if it is a concern or not.
Only thing I am planning on doing today is reading my MLB book. I started reading it last night as I couldn’t sleep. I read for about an hour and it helped to relax. I wanted to finish the chapter but it was too long. It was covering the two decades of 1900 and 1910. A lot of interesting baseball stuff happened during those years. I am having my doubts about being able to write a book about the history of team names. There is a lot of cross over between the leagues and some cities stays and it just gets confusing because things changed year to year, season to season.
I also plan on watching DS9. I can only watch so much TV before I get bored so if I watch two episodes, I will call that a win. Because of Tropical Storm Henri, baseball has been canceled for today in the New England area. We already had a tremendous thunderstorm and heavy rain. It is supposed to continue until tomorrow. I just hope nothing floods.
I am trying to fight off a nap right now. I am so tired from just having a cup of coffee and some breakfast. I know I am tired from post op. That is a given. It just comes on so suddenly that it is overwhelming sometimes. I am not having a lot of pain today. I made sure I took my pain meds during the night as I had my med alarm set to go off. I still only slept every three hours or so because I had to empty my bladder. My bladder seems to have its own schedule. I am glad I cath. It makes me feel like a man because I am standing while peeing.
I have been in the mood to write something profound but words are escaping me. I want to write a letter to my therapist about my trauma, just talking about one aspect of it and see where it leads me. I have so much emotion pent up in me right now that I think writing about it might help. I might post it on my blog if it isn’t too graphic in detail. I think writing about my cousin’s molestations might be helpful for me. I have been having intrusive memories about it the past few days. The one thing about anesthesia that I had is it brings things to the surface that you are trying to keep undercover. But with trauma there is always something under the surface. Anything that has to do with my genitals is a trigger for my sexual abuse to be in the forefront of my mind, even if I am not conscious of it.
midnightdemons7 
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