This thought came to me when replying to another thread about looking back on the signs of dysphoria in hindsight.
When my dysphoria hit full force, I fell hard. As in, four seconds from going out with a gun in one hand and a bottle in the other. It had been building for years but when I finally couldn't take it any more, I fell hard and I fell far.
But the thing that's bothering me is I'm still not fully recovered. It's been an extremely long and difficult emotional recovery and it's been helped along a good bit by my doctors and my successes in transitioning, but I can tell I'm not fully "there" yet. I guess I only got any sense of perspective of how far I'd fallen when I began to recover. I've just gotten past the point where I felt like anything could knock me down again and I'm starting to recover some of my old resiliency but it's not what it used to be by a long shot.
Has anyone else had this experience? Is it a lifelong upward struggle, or did you hit a point where you finally felt like you had it all together again?
I needed to learn to like myself. I starting thinking of myself as my best friend. I figured out what sorts of things I liked to do - that helped me be true to myself. These included reading, walking, listening to music, and watching movies. I did these things whenever I could fit them in. I periodically treated myself, and grew to see myself as a precious human being.
I actually had a brief discussion just about what you described in your post Rose. The doctor explained to me that however well I have rationally arranged my life for my transition (I deferred it until I could secure myself both financially and non-financially should something go wrong) or how comfortable I feel now, emotions are incredibly slow and won't care about a rational explanations. Not to mention I've been holding it in myself for way too long...
So randomly I have emotional breakdowns and am capable of crying through a pillow for hours. But at least those moments got shorter over time. Not to mention the highly positive changes in my life heavily outweigh this. If it will take another month, year or 10 years to get over it? Who knows. Still, mood stabilizers or stuff like that will only defer it. So I just let it go out so that the past will eventually no longer haunt me.
I guess it's like with all negative emotions. Let time fix it. That is as long as you're not holding it inside. Or at least that's how I understood it and it seems to work for me. Slowly but surely :-) .
I have noticed that there seems to be lot more further to go "To get there" the more you successfully traveled along the path of self discovery and self acceptance.
In crises situations you do not have the luxury to ponder the universe, you have to react NOW. Once the lion is no longer trying to bite your ass you get the luxury of time to think about the "Now what?"
After six years on this road I am probably more into the "Now what?" mode then ever. I am turning my life around for the betterment of myself and my spouse. I am finally coming to be at peace with who I am. I am able to look in a mirror and not be repulsed by what I see no matter my presentation. I recognize now the many things I have done in the past which ultimately led to the excrement hitting the air handler events. THe last of which so took me down the tunnel of darkness I finally saw the light.
After six years I learned learned two important things. First is that I can make myself better, with work. Second is as you get better you realize a lot more work is needed.
OK make that maybe three things, this last one is something I readily apply in my line of work and have never had success in my life until now. Plug away at the easy "Low hanging fruit" things to fix. Reward yourself with successes. Don't overwhelm yourself taking on the "BIG" things. It is funny how what seems big today is a minor issue once all the other little easily fixed things get fixed. In fact, there may no longer be a big complicated beast to tackle.