Alright I really hate posting threads about me, it always feels self involved and I always feel like I'm just attention seeking if I do it, so if you don't like reading those sorts of threads, you may want to leave the thread right now. If you don't make it all the way through this post, I wouldn't blame you.

So for a brief catch up, I joined the forum almost exactly a year ago now, and since then my situation as far as resolving my gender dysphoria has improved substantially, and my life has changed a lot.

Since joining the forum I have...

Come out to my family
Developed symptoms and been diagnosed with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis and started injected interferon therapy (basically I give myself an injection not dissimilar to a diabetics insulin injection every 48 hours)
Turned 21
Seen 2 general doctors and 3 psychiatrists trying to get on HRT, plus a third doctor and a neurologist for MS, prior to this I hadn't seen a doctor probably since I was a child.
Self medicated for about 3 months.
Started prescribed HRT a week ago.
Had 2 MRI's and 5 blood tests (only 1 of which so far has been to do with gender stuff, though that will become 2 in a week or so)
Lost over 20kg (45lb)

So, a lot of good has happened and a lot of bad has happened, all in all its been a life changing 12 months since I joined.

I haven't had any real doubts about my gender related feelings, and not once have I wanted to be a male. I have had obsessive thoughts about why I have these feelings to begin with, but I've never doubted how I feel or thought I was making the wrong choice.

And yet, as time goes on I've only felt more and more depressed.

I thought I was depressed this time last year, but I feel so much worse now.

I think about killing myself and dying all the time, I have compulsive thoughts of thinking that I'm horrible, that I'm going to die, that I deserve what's happening to me, that nobody would ever even so much as like me, and certainly that nobody would ever love me.

My whole life I've been excluded from being apart of the rest of the world, when I was a child I couldn't get along with any other kids, other kids would provoke me into getting into trouble, I have never had a circle of friends, the best I've had was a circle of school related friends at college in the one year I went there before having my gender related breakdown eventually leading to today. I was so bad I was taken out of school and home schooled following a diagnosis of ADHD, Aspergers syndrome, PDD, and possibly a few other things. But I couldn't even succeed in home schooling, and eventually dropped out of high school completely.

And yet despite all that, I have never felt like I fit the aspergers label, all of my psychiatrists so far have stated that I don't appear to have much in the way of autistic traits, I don't feel like I have any problems socializing with people, reading peoples emotions, if anything I'm very good at it. Some people (though none of my therapists) have suggested maybe I just learned coping skills, but it feels completely natural and instinctive, but nobody "grows out of" aspergers syndrome, so how can it have seemed so clear that I had it then, and show no signs of it now? Even my mother, the person all my life that most tried to convince me I had aspergers syndrome, says I don't seem to show any tendencies of it anymore.

What I do have that connects me as a child and me now, is gender issues.

But it feels like with everything thats happened (and I've had a lot of problems as a kid and as a teenager that I'm not even go go into detail with) that I must just be crazy, that my feelings about my gender, as real as they feel to me, must be delusional. And because my life has been so abnormal, I have a long history of lying about it. Not outright fabricating anything, but omitting large chunks and phrasing other parts in such a way that while not technically untrue, I know will lead people to misleading conclusions. I've done it so much, and for so long, that it feels like I compulsively mislead people when talking about myself, because I feel like if they ever knew even a little bit about my past that they'd reject me.

And all of this together, being diagnosed at various times with MS, GID, AS, ADHD, all the abnormal things that my life has been, despite the fact that I don't really feel like as a person I'm all that different to anybody else, I feel like there's no escape from what's happened and that it will follow me in whatever I do, that my life is permanently damaged by it all and that if I wanted a normal life, I might as well give up on it because it's a delusion. And that there's no way I could have had all this non-gender related stuff happen to me and have my gender related stuff not be just another product of my mentally damaged mind, even if I can't see it myself.

So... yeah, I feel like there's no point in living anymore, I don't really want to kill myself, and honestly I don't think I'm going too very soon. But it feels like its inevitable, that things are just going to keep getting worse until I can't take it anymore. And I'm just waiting for that to happen.

I keep compulsively imagining all the things people would be thinking about me if they knew about me, and imagining people wanting to hurt me for what I am, and me just wanting to let them.

I know I should speak to a therapist about this, but I just don't see her frequently enough or for long enough to get into it.

In the last week or so I've felt so horrible that I started cutting my arm because I just felt like I had to feel something other than this if only for a moment.

I'm not sure what I'm hoping to get out of making this post, I guess I just want to tell someone, anyone. If you made it all the way to the end, thank you.

I'm not sure how much I'll be able to help, but here goes.

First off, tell your therapist about it.  That stuff about 'not seeing her often enough' or 'for long enough' is just excuses you're making for yourself.  Tell her about it the next time you see her.  As much as we can try to help you on the internet, the issues you're talking about here are very serious and you really need someone to talk to in person about it.  Your therapist can either help you with it, or help you find someone who *can* help you with it.

Second, there's really nothing you can do about the muck-ups in the past.  The more time you spend thinking about it, the less time you spend living in the present, and that only contributes to the feeling that you're wasting time -- because you are!  Whenever you find yourself obsessing over the past (or wanting to cut yourself), stop whatever you're doing right away and go do something else.  Take a walk, jog, ride a bike, bake some cookies, read a book -- anything except whatever you were doing.  You need to reconnect with the world outside your head.

Lastly, try not to get hung up about the 'Asperger's' thing.  There's been a bit of a fad in recent years with diagnosing anyone and anything as having Asperger's.  There's been several times in my life where I probably could have been diagnosed with it based on my behavior.  The difference is that I know someone who actually really truly does have Asperger's.  He's a good guy, but socially he operates in a very different way than people without Asperger's.  So yeah, just forget about that whole idea, you don't have it.

Okay, so I made it all the way to the end, and while I don't feel qualified in any way to offer advice, I can say what I feel. Yes, you have a lot of problems of one sort or another, and taking them all together is going to feel like a ton weight. But one piece of advice I was given ages ago was to fix little bits here and there. At the time it really pissed me off to be told that, but it sort of works. Any little thing you can do to reduce the whole is going to have a bigger effect than you might think.

This bit leapt out at me:

Quote from: Ashley4214 on February 23, 2010, 03:52:57 AM

But it feels like with everything thats happened (and I've had a lot of problems as a kid and as a teenager that I'm not even go go into detail with) that I must just be crazy, that my feelings about my gender, as real as they feel to me, must be delusional. And because my life has been so abnormal, I have a long history of lying about it. Not outright fabricating anything, but omitting large chunks and phrasing other parts in such a way that while not technically untrue, I know will lead people to misleading conclusions. I've done it so much, and for so long, that it feels like I compulsively mislead people when talking about myself, because I feel like if they ever knew even a little bit about my past that they'd reject me.

I'm a pretty ordinary woman, unremarkable in most ways, and yet I did that for most of my life. I don't think it's that unusual to smooth over, rearrange, generally nicen up one's life story. Most people don't want to show themselves up to be "odd" or misfunctioning or whatever. We tend to think everyone else must have a perfect life compared to ours and so we alter our autobiography to make it fit. I used to feel that if people really knew me, they'd reject me - that's pretty normal behaviour, so don't beat yourself up about it.

It's not much help but maybe it will get you through the next five minutes.