Complex post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic grief

[Anothergirlsparadise]

Hi everyone.

I am transgender...knew this when I was 4 years old...being aware of being transgender and not being able to talk and do something about it and being forced to live as a boy has resulted in me becoming physically and psychologically extremely unhealthy. I have had a very unhappy life where negative experiences seemed to be piling up endlessly. From self destructive behaviors, depression, self mutilation, addictions. Some times it seemed I had developed almost all mental disorders known to man except for psychosis (thankfully).

I transitioned. Had almost 15 years of therapy (most of them failing and ineffective). Am still in therapy now. I am fighting hard to continue on but there is this thing that I cant seem to fix:

First my ptsd
And my grief and sadness due to genderdysforia.
The grief is like a bottemless pit that seems to have no end apart from committing suicide.
I tried everything but I seem not to be able to heal myself.

I have no plans of ending it. I struggled for so long...there is no point in stopping now unless life comes really unbearable. But the quality of my life today just plain sucks. I suffer every hour of the day.

Of course have tried everything...refraiming...denial...acceptance....
But nothing works.

If someone relates...why does there not seem to come an end to my genderdysforia?
I transitioned...it has helped but it just does not fix my ptsd genderdysforia and traumatic grief.

I am really looking for somthing that works. Even though I am not planning on killing myself...my genderdysforia and my ptsd is literally destroying me.

[Rikigirl]

Hi,

Have you been prescribed HRT? I found that helped my disphoria a lot. You say you transitioned but not where you are with the transition.

Riki

[Anothergirlsparadise]

Hi !!! Yes I have been on HRT for 7 years.

[SadieBlake]

Girl, can I relate :-( Check my post at https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,218478.msg1934028.html#msg1934028

PTSD cannot be addressed by HRT or any other element of gender transition, it changes our brains in ways that don't really have anything to do with gender and therefore have different solutions.

I'm going through a lot of pain right now due to recognition of the depth and specific damages I bear and that recognition could not have come without being on HRT. So in that sense hrt has been helping. Right now however it's dialed things to a more difficult place and I've been hurting pretty badly of late.

[groudon18]

i have ptsd as well for the same reason. i had only come to the conclusion with my therapist last year and i'm still learning how to deal

i don't know if dysphoria ever truly goes away for some of us. the lack of proper childhood some of us have makes it kind of seem like we missed out.. things will never truly be the way they should have been, and it's hard, it's an everyday battle

i don't really have any advice but just know that you aren't the only one hurting in this way

[cheryl reeves]

Ice been diagnosed with PTSD and I have no clue why  I had a good childhood and adulthood nothing to bring this type of trauma on other then being transgender and that has never been traumatic too me for I accepted it when I was 12.

[flytrap]

My heart goes out to you, Anothergirlsparadise.
I'm not transgender, but I am the only girl in my Multiple Personality (Dissociative Identity) Disorder System. And I had PTSD real bad when I woke up in a 48 year old guy's body. For all the progress in 8 years of therapy my System refuses to integrate.

I don't think my brain will ever be able to completely let go of the pain. No matter how much it hurts or I think I want to. The horrible things that happened to me when I was small are too big a part of who I am. And it terrifies me to think who I would be without them.