Gender Dysphoria, Depression, And Social Anxiety Are Eating My Soul

[Tristyn]

So even after spending a whole hour typing out an extremely well thought out, though obviously lengthy rant, it all disappeared thanks to the fact that Susans signs me out for no real reason other than being idle. I also wonder if this site even has it out for me. Not only do humans seem to have it out for me, but yes, I think even inanimate objects or space even, also can be sentient enough to have ulterior motives that can damage me. In short, I was just whinin' about how ->-bleeped-<-ty my life has become within only two short days a couple of days ago.

How I have not eaten or showered at all or slept any more than at least 3 hours since my last dialysis treatment, which always sucks. How the cab drivers who take me there and back are so rude to me and how the last one I went with scolded me for my particularity towards being addressed by male-only pronouns and preferred name to coincide with my gender identity. How my crush for my social worker getting so strong that when I was near her last time, I went mute around her, not from anger but rather shame due to my overtly sexual attractions to her.

Just a real ranty sad post. Sorry for its 'realness' and tellin ya'll how I really feel, what I really want, and what I really need...

~Nixy~

[Galyo]

Make sure to write lengthy rants in notepad before you post them. :p It saves a lot of frustration when the system backfires. It's not the forum's fault; these things are just not made for writing during long periods of time.

I think most people can relate to your problems including myself. I've been in a depression for the last two and I'm just now slowly getting out of it. I think the first thing you should do that helped me, is admit that you have a problem. Once you processed that it should bevome easier to talk to others about it. Remember; if people don't know why you're having a depression, they can't help you.

I'm not sure if you already had some form of help or not. If so you can ignore the paragraph above.

[FTMax]

Hey friend,

Make sure to write lengthy rants in notepad before you post them :p

+1 to this. I write everything in Notepad and copy/paste it into the post box. I don't have issues with the site, it's just easier for me to edit in Notepad for whatever mental reason.

As far as your site issues with logging in/out mid-post, I believe there is a checkbox somewhere either by the login space or on your profile where you can tell it to never log you out, or log you out after a certain period of time. I haven't logged out here in basically 1000 years.

I'm sorry you're having these experiences. Do the taxi drivers speak with you enough to justify the conversation about your name and pronouns? Personally, unless I know someone very well, have regular repeated interactions with them, or they are going to potentially be introducing me to other people - I don't care one way or another what they refer to me as. It's not worth the potential headache of correcting someone and explaining why.

Is there a chance that you can request another social worker? I'd be very honest about the reasoning when you ask. I think your feelings for her are impeding you from potentially asking for the help that you need, and for someone who has health considerations on top of being early in transition, the ability to talk to someone and get results is critical.

[Tristyn]

Make sure to write lengthy rants in notepad before you post them. :p It saves a lot of frustration when the system backfires. It's not the forum's fault; these things are just not made for writing during long periods of time.

I think most people can relate to your problems including myself. I've been in a depression for the last two and I'm just now slowly getting out of it. I think the first thing you should do that helped me, is admit that you have a problem. Once you processed that it should bevome easier to talk to others about it. Remember; if people don't know why you're having a depression, they can't help you.

I'm not sure if you already had some form of help or not. If so you can ignore the paragraph above.

Hey Galyo.

Yeah, I actually had to do this notepad thing with my old tumblr before when making a post. But not because it signed me out but because the typing cursor would disappear and become unresponsive. That is a great idea about the notepad and I will keep this in mind next time.

As for the depression you are battling with, I'm glad its getting better. As for me, mine's is improving too. But having clinical depression means to me that it will return someday. I always worry about someone saying something wrong to me or something going wrong enough for me to become very stagnant in my daily progresses. Whether its exercise, body building/weight training, writing, vlogging/blogging, whatever personal projects and/or endeavors gets put on hold due to the depression. It really pisses me off when I think about this because I imagine the object of my anger/aggression/irritation/annoyance(usually a person or people) doing all the things they need and want to do not even thinking for a second about how they hurt me, as I wallow around in bed wasting valuable time. People can always get back money but no one can ever get back time. Whatever time is lost is lost forever.

And yes, Galyo, you're right also about speaking up to get help. The thing is I have yet another problem too where I see "getting help" as a huge sign of weakness, especially now that I genuinely want to be perceived by others and self as a "real" man. Unfortunately in our society, everyone seems to see men as not ever needing help and if they ever get accommodated that makes them a "sissy" or "wimp" or "chicken" or "coward." Plus I have been rejected so much in the past when asking for help or just not even get the right kind of help. Like right now I still have made zero progress in my efforts of obtaining the letter for hormones. The last therapist I saw was just another quack! Gave me the biggest runaround in my life like a damn circus. I will be seeing another one next monday for the initial consultation, only this time I will have to pay out of pocket. But I honestly have no problem doing this because luckily he charges by income instead of by the hour. So I can afford to see him at least monthly which is indeed better than seeing no one or wasting time seeing someone inexperienced with transgender clients. Still, I am not going to expect much but not too less either. That way I won't be perpetuating myself for pain and suffering if it fails yet again...

Hey friend,
+1 to this. I write everything in Notepad and copy/paste it into the post box. I don't have issues with the site, it's just easier for me to edit in Notepad for whatever mental reason.

As far as your site issues with logging in/out mid-post, I believe there is a checkbox somewhere either by the login space or on your profile where you can tell it to never log you out, or log you out after a certain period of time. I haven't logged out here in basically 1000 years.

I'm sorry you're having these experiences. Do the taxi drivers speak with you enough to justify the conversation about your name and pronouns? Personally, unless I know someone very well, have regular repeated interactions with them, or they are going to potentially be introducing me to other people - I don't care one way or another what they refer to me as. It's not worth the potential headache of correcting someone and explaining why.

Is there a chance that you can request another social worker? I'd be very honest about the reasoning when you ask. I think your feelings for her are impeding you from potentially asking for the help that you need, and for someone who has health considerations on top of being early in transition, the ability to talk to someone and get results is critical.

Hi Max.

Yeah, I'll look into that checkbox option. Now that I think about it, I do recall seeing something like that when I sign in. I'll definitely look next time. I always have to sign out of all my accounts for like anything. I think it has a lot to do with unfavorably past experiences where my own family, people we are taught to trust, eavesdropped on my phone when it was unlocked and things like that. I'm so paranoid that I find it hard to intentionally remain signed into anything and am constantly clearing my cookies and cache probably far more than required.

Oh, about the taxi drivers, yes, I do have to communicate with these drivers all the time. I go to dialysis three days a week as scheduled by my nephrologist. However, the drivers are random and I will not always get the same driver. I would like to bring this to the attention of the manager who supervises the taxi drivers. I think that if I had a personal cab driver who always takes me to and from dialysis that things could really improve here. Some of the drivers I don't see again and others I see much more often, so yes I do at least let them know that I am the person they are supposed to pick up but I prefer to be called 'Phoenix.' I usually do not tell them why. Its enough for me that they at least address me by that name instead of my assigned name at birth.

The reason I brought up the pronouns part of it is because I suppose out of the drivers or just people trying to be polite, they will automatically call me "ma'am" or "miss" to the point where I feel it is necessary for me to correct them. Or even worse, they might go on and on about how "pretty" my at-birth name sounds and how unique of a name it is which sends me into an unbelievably burning internal rage within me. And even though I may become clearly upset about it, I am much better at holding my composure now than I ever did in the past. In spite of calmly correcting the last rude driver that took me to dialysis last Thursday, she cut me like a knife with the tone and response of her words by saying, "Jesus! I will call you nothing!"

Maybe I am overly sensitive but those words really hurt and had me so down for nearly three whole days. It wasn't just the words but the meaning behind the words. As if she were reinforcing a belief that I have had since I discovered how "different" I am from 'normal' society; that I am an 'exception,' that I do not matter.

About the social worker, yeah, I would love to ask for another one. The problem is I don't think they do have any other ones at that center. So are you perhaps suggesting I reveal my feelings to her when you say to be honest about why I am requesting for another social worker??? Are you sure that's a good idea? I don't want to frighten her. I had that suggested to me by my older therapist and immediately began to worry about things like; "What if my social worker gets her husband to beat my ass?" "What if I get screamed at?" "What if I get looked down at?" I mean I wouldn't even know what to say to get this out. Not sure how I could go about this. I've never revealed any "puppy love" feelings to anyone, let alone a female especially because of being socialized to only 'like' men sexually. Because of this, I feel so shameful and even guilty about having this "forbidden" desire. I feel like such a wreck. I don't want to be ashamed to be attracted to women or whoever I am attracted to. I don't want to be ashamed of being transgender. I don't want to be ashamed anymore about anything about me. But I am....I am just so scared she is not going to receive this well at all.....

~Nixy~

[FTMax]

Say something to your nephrologist about your preferred name. Ask them to update it with the taxi company. If they arrive using the wrong name again, confirm with your nephrologist that it was updated with them and then ask to speak to a manager. That should straighten that out.

I don't think your social worker would find it strange. I'm sure to get where she is she probably had to take a course where they explained that this kind of thing can happen. If you don't feel comfortable being 100% honest with her, then the relationship you have with her isn't going to work. You need to be able to tell her what's going on and ask for help. If you can't do that all the time because of how you feel about her, you need a new social worker.

BUT. You could always just go above her. Call or stop in to see her supervisor, and just say "Are there any other social workers available to work with? I am no longer comfortable working with my current social worker for personal reasons, and I would like to request someone new." If they want to ask why, just say you aren't comfortable discussing it and would just like someone else.

[cindianna_jones]

You know what dude? Ranting helps. I'll sometimes sit down and type out a 1500 word rant as part of my diary. When I look back at them and have to laugh. I've faced some real serious stuff in my life and that which works me into a frenzy is little stuff. But to write it down, helps me cool down.

So, I get it. You'll work through these problems. A rant or two won't hurt.

Get some sleep man and eat right. Don't let the dialysis do that work for you. Please. Take care of your most important issue, your life.

Chin up,
Cindi

[Tristyn]

Say something to your nephrologist about your preferred name. Ask them to update it with the taxi company. If they arrive using the wrong name again, confirm with your nephrologist that it was updated with them and then ask to speak to a manager. That should straighten that out.

I don't think your social worker would find it strange. I'm sure to get where she is she probably had to take a course where they explained that this kind of thing can happen. If you don't feel comfortable being 100% honest with her, then the relationship you have with her isn't going to work. You need to be able to tell her what's going on and ask for help. If you can't do that all the time because of how you feel about her, you need a new social worker.

BUT. You could always just go above her. Call or stop in to see her supervisor, and just say "Are there any other social workers available to work with? I am no longer comfortable working with my current social worker for personal reasons, and I would like to request someone new." If they want to ask why, just say you aren't comfortable discussing it and would just like someone else.

Great suggestions here, Mate!^^

I honestly didn't think to do this, with both the transportation and social worker.

I'm not sure if anyone would recommend this, but yesterday, I got so fed up with the anxiety I have to endure while interacting with my social worker that I let her know right off the bat that I have something very serious and pressing to share with her after my dialysis treatment. However, my worrying and fear accumulated to such intensity that once I got off my machine, I made a break for it to the main entrance. I was praying to God that the taxi would pull up immediately as soon as I exited, but it did not and sure enough she came after me which made for some very awkward 'conversation'(if you could even call it that>.>). Luckily, the cab pulled up before she could get it out of me.

In spite of my, somewhat, successful escape, guilt possessed me to give her a ring while she was still at dialysis and tell her that I would type the reason I want to switch social workers or have none from that dialysis center at all, in greater detail. I spent about three to four hours yesterday typing this. I'm not sure why I did not consider this before and I can't remember if someone here already suggested that to me. I'm glad I have my own printer now because asking my dad to print this with his printer would be a BIG "NO-NO!" And my handwriting looks like a kindergartener's rudimentary attempt at hand drawn hieroglyphics. So yes, the letter has been neatly prepared and now I am ready to reveal this to her hopefully tomorrow.

Now, Max, I read what you said about going to the supervisor about this but that would cause me even more guilt. Why? Because this matter does concern my social worker. I feel like that wouldn't be fair to her if she did not know the reason why I want to replace her "all of a sudden." Also, to go to the supervisor like that instead of handling this myself would make me really feel even less of a man than I already do on a daily basis. Its time for me to be bold and handle stuff myself.

As far as the transportation, I will have a word with the receptionist about this. She is usually the one who arranges my transportation to and from dialysis at least. But what about other medical appointments? Well, I suppose in this case speaking to the cab's supervisor would indeed be most appropriate and I have requested that I be addressed as Phoenix before. But like one cab driver did that right and the rest afterwards have reverted to addressing me by my assigned name at birth ever since. Even when I write 'Phoenix' in parenthesis under my assigned name a birth on their sign-in slip. I will keep trying to contact that supervisor though because this really grinds my gears, so to speak!>.<

You know what dude? Ranting helps. I'll sometimes sit down and type out a 1500 word rant as part of my diary. When I look back at them and have to laugh. I've faced some real serious stuff in my life and that which works me into a frenzy is little stuff. But to write it down, helps me cool down.

So, I get it. You'll work through these problems. A rant or two won't hurt.

Get some sleep man and eat right. Don't let the dialysis do that work for you. Please. Take care of your most important issue, your life.

Chin up,
Cindi

I couldn't agree more.^^ Thank you. But honestly, after writing out my rants I always feel ten times more satisfied with it if I tear it up on paper. Its an awesome release, let me tell you! XD

~Nixy~

[cindianna_jones]

Tearing them up certainly has a physical aspect to demonstrate to yourself how unimportant some issues are. I get that. I sometimes write messages to myself and post them on my mirror to help boost my self esteem. There are so many ways to deal with hurt feelings, depression, and the like.