Snowball effect

[cathyrains]

In my recent mindfulness work with regards to my transition I've come to realise that the emotions surrounding my gender are a very strong factor in my perception of my predicament and I am prone to experiencing a "snowball" or "runaway" effect. The more I dwell on the legion of issues surrounding transition, the bleaker and more urgent my situation seems to the point where it becomes disabling.
Does anyone else deal with this? How am I expected to make rational and potentially life-changing decisions if my emotions so easily hijack my cognition?

[LilDevilOfPrada]

I use hobby addiction and study to keep my sanity however whenever my hobby fails or I fail in my studies the depression hit hard and thats when you see me back on these forums to lift my soul .

[Cat]

I experience something similar if I spend too much time dwelling on things -- I'm guilty of 'overthinking' and it almost always leads to imagining (exaggerated) negative scenarios and outcomes.  I also run into trouble often if I do too much reading on the subject (including here), because I'm quite sensitive to anecdotes regarding negative or sub-optimal outcomes or problems that others are having with their transition.  I have to be careful or else I end up getting really down and feeling like things aren't going to go well for me either.  As I'm sure is the case for all of us, my transition is so important to me that it's easy for me to get super anxious about progress/outcomes/social aspects and it can really damage my mood and my self-esteem.

All I can do is try to identify times when I'm upsetting myself (or when I'm likely to upset myself if I continue).  If I'm already down about something, I try to remind myself that my negative emotions are just a function of a bunch of my own thoughts and projections that have nothing to do with reality.  However much they may seem real or inevitable to me at times, they're really not.  However rational they may seem, they're ultimately baseless and often irrational.  So I try to rein myself in before it gets to the stage where my thoughts and feelings are out of control. 

Of course, I don't always succeed with that. ^^

[aylaliara]

I hear you. We often put a lot of things to the back of our minds so that we can rationally deal with them one at a time. But there will nearly always be times we click that something doesn't feel right, and that's all it takes to get a negative frame of mind about EVERYTHING. The only thing to keep us sane is that eventually it'll all fall into place. Maybe CBT can help with the propensity for worrying about these things? I only ever hear good things about it...

[Cat]

Oh, it's interesting you posted that, aylaliara.  That whole thing I wrote about me trying to identify negative thoughts and contextualise them before they get me down too much is something I learned from CBT (slowly, over many years when I was depressed prior to coming out & beginning my transition). 

The other thing I do is to make myself imagine a positive alternative to whatever negative thing I'm thinking, which can help counterbalance it and put things into perspective.

In theory, at least.  It's really hard to do it all the time in practice.  Sometimes I end up relying on other people to pick me up again instead. 

[Lostkitten]

I am not sure I understand what you mean.. do you mean that you are not transitioning yet legally (like, no surgeries, HRT, such) but are waiting for that to start?

What I personally did to make the waiting less difficult, was to make myself happy to buy something every end of the month transition related. New clothes, make-up, or I went to the beauty salon. It helped for me and maybe it is a good suggestion for you ?

I might just am rambling random stuff having no idea what you actually meant, but I tried .

[Ms Grace]

I had this as an issue big time the first time I attempted to transition. My obsession about my gender branched into every corner of my life and pretty much drowned me in misery if I didn't have something else to distract me. I'd be reasonably OK at work because it required a fair bit of focus but the minute I clocked off I was swamped with emotions. Part of it might be because I was on an injection cycle, the dips were pretty horrible, I'd be in tears over a misgendering or an attractive young woman I felt I'd never be able to look like. How did I get over it? Technically I never did. It consumed me and I imploded. This time has been different, I'm not sure why, other than I've got too much other stuff going on in my life so my transition has felt more like a project than a major life defining event. It's also been a case of acknowledging my limitations and understanding that nothing, including myself, is perfect. This forum has also been useful since it has allowed me to vent problems and issues and theories and whatever before they could snowball.