You know it's funny, this is supposed to be a support forum or something like that, but I'm always really reluctant to post about myself here. I've always been the kind of person that holds everything inside until they are about to burst open at the seams. I'm not sure if I'm ready to burst quite yet, but lately...
In theory, I guess I should be happy about things. I'm not living what you'd call an ideal life, but I have a safe comfortable place to live, and things have been going reasonably well for me lately. I've been on full dose hormones for about 8 months, and while the results haven't been everything I'd hoped for, I am starting to look somewhat passable. My voice sounds pretty good lately (
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0Co2oXsas52), though it gets less good as I use it more because it gets tired. My facial hair is down to the point where only light and fine hairs are left after only four sessions of laser. I'm also moving forward toward a referral for an orchiectomy, which will be a huge mental relief for me (though it's taking longer than I would have liked; the current time frame for surgery is looking like it might be around Decemberish). All things considered, things are... not horrible... I guess.
And yet, I have been feeling incredibly depressed lately. So much so that I've actually started to take antidepressants again. It didn't hit me all at once, but it has been slowly building up over the summer, and things have gotten to the point where I've started to feel overwhelmed by it. So what exactly has been going on? Well, that's a long story...
I have mentioned in the past that I suffer from non-24 hour sleep wake disorder. It's a condition that normally only affects blind people, and yet somehow I have it. People with sight are known to be affected, but it's extremely rare. Also, I had an extremely bad case of scoliosis growing up (the worst case my surgeon had ever seen). So with being transgender and all, I have pretty definitively proven lighting can strike in the same place at least three times. Anyway, the scoliosis I can live with, and being transgender is something I am coming to terms with, but the sleep disorder is a bigger problem. You might not think that not being awake at the same time as everyone else would be such a huge problem, but it really is. Since the beginning of this year, I have been trying to figure out a way to earn money, and trying to build more social connections, and I have had very little success at either one. It also doesn't help that I have a chronic fear of driving, and my family only has one car the I can drive, which is often in use by my brother. Right now it wouldn't even be practical for me to get a job unless it paid at least enough for me to afford my own car. Also, I would lose my medical assistance, which I sort of need until after I get my orchiectomy.
So that leaves me with a lot of free time. Time that I mostly spend, sitting in my room, alone. Time to sit and think and dwell about how horrible it is to be alone all the time, how disgusted I am by various aspects of my body, how pitiful and pathetic it is that I've wasted so much of my life and I'm continuing to waste it. I've been upset a lot with my parents too, because a few weeks ago I decided I was going to be using the name Allison from now on, but when I finally asked them to start referring to me by my female name and use female gender pronouns, they completely refused. So not only do I have to sit alone, I have to sit alone surrounded by people who have no respect for my feelings and view what I'm going through as some sort of mental illness. I used to at least be able to talk to my brother about these things, but lately even he has been really distant with me. And I think the reason is because he just can't stand to watch me suffer alone anymore. Between the horrible relationship he has with my mom, and watching my dad slowly slide into dementia, and watching me siting alone with no hope of changing things any time in the immediate future, being around this family isn't good for his mental health. Since he got his driver's license, he hardly even spends any time at home anymore.
Oh, and speaking of suffering alone, my dysphoria has actually been really bad lately. Partially it's because I have so much time to dwell on it, but I'm really starting to feel like it's critical for my mental health to start dealing with a few things. Body hair is still a huge problem for me, although it has gotten much more fine and less noticeable, it's just one of those things where I will never be happy until it's fixed. The hair on my arms and hands especially bother me, because I get a ton of ingrown hairs that make my arms look incredibly ugly even if I religiously epilate them. I can live with the rest of it for as long as it takes, but the hair on my hands and arms especially is starting to become something I obsess over. So much so, I have spent hours just plucking away at the hair with tweezers like it was some form of OCD, even though I have an epilator I could use any time if I wanted to. But of course, doing anything about that requires money, which is not something I'm going to be able to have any time soon.
I've actually been going into debt to pay for things involved in transition. The hormones themselves and therapy are covered by medical assistance. I've also been paying for laser hair removal, minoxidil, clothes (not that many unfortunately
), and all sorts of other miscellaneous costs out of pocket for a while now. The only way I've been able to do this, is to borrow money against my life insurance policy. I've already spent about $3,500, and I have about $8,500 left to spend before defaulting on the policy becomes inevitable. When this money runs out, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. And my parents have shown a complete lack of concern over this. Their only solution has been that I go back to school, which considering my sleep issues are the main reason I can't find a job, doesn't really help me. And it especially doesn't help me if I'm going to need money any time in the next three years it would take to earn a degree. Did I mention that even though my parents are fully aware of the degree of debt I'm in, my mom decided to buy a new $4,200 rug for the living room recently? She is literally shoving in my face the fact that she has the money to help me and chooses not to. But I know very well what her position is. She thinks if I just quit taking hormones and went back to "normal" that everything would be fine and that I would get over this whole crazy transgender thing without doing any more "damage" to myself.
There is however, a small gleam of hope on the horizon. There is a new medication that should be coming out soon. From what I have read, there is a very real chance this medication could be effective enough at treating my sleep disorder that it would allow me to live a normal life. If this were the case, it would change everything. I could finally get a job, start digging myself out of the financial hole I'm in, start doing more things to deal with my crippling dysphoria issues, maybe even go back to school sometime in the not to distant future and try to do something meaningful with my life. More importantly, I wouldn't have to be alone all the time... But, I'm not going to get my hopes up too high just. I've been fooled too many times by things that seemed like they would be a solution to all my problems, only to find out they were little more than false hope.
So for now, I will just continue to sit alone, nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to talk to, until something changes. But lately, I'm starting to scare myself a little. I've started to realize that there is really a limit to how long I can keep this up. It's not that I really want to die or kill myself or anything like that, but a person can only keep up living a meaningless life for so long before they start to wonder what the point is. I'm really trying to change things, but if this is the best I can do, there is going to be a point some time in the future where it's not going to be good enough. And it seems like all I can do is wait and hope that something will come along and save me before that becomes the case...
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