So.
Before we start today’s little ensemble piece I’m going to say I’m okay. I am, however, thinking I might want to get some therapy. I’ve been talking about it for a while, and with my customary speed am moving in that general direction. So yeah. I’m okay, but just not in a fabulous place right now.
The world’s been hard lately. And I know that for plenty of trans folks who came before me the world was harder and sharper and flayed the tissue from their bones. I know that the world was harder and they couldn’t exist in any meaningful way, that their treatment was brutal.
I have the good fortune to have transitioned at a time when while the care was shit, gatekeepery as fuck, and at best haphazard, it was possible for me to use my privilege to get adequate care, adequately quickly. Althought he brainworms I had and have meant that stuff I may be should have done or could have done, I didn’t (FFS, for example, which I’m considering and have a consultation appointment for).
And the irony is that I’m happier in my body now than I think I’ve ever been (although if I could stop randomly hurting, that would be nice. Waking up at 2am because my brain’s fucking stupid and then not being able to go back to sleep because my knee randomly aches is aggravating). I’ve dropped slowly and gradually to 66kg (literally, the scale read 66.0kg today) just through actually exercising and eating healthier (basically not eating extra snacky shite every single day and cutting out a bunch of milky coffee drinks).
But right now I do feel like I’m fraying at the edges. Like the constant abrasion of the world attacking trans people, the loss of feeling like I could ever go back to the UK, all layered on top of the fucking ridiculousness of people ignoring the Eldritch horror that is the impacts of climate change, the dissonance of working in a slightly semi-rural bit of the US where people are just not getting it, and a bunch of people are trump supporters so I don’t feel comfortable or safe at work?
It’s starting to take a toll on me. I’m finding myself wanting to shelter in the same kinds of online spaces I did when I first came out. I’m desperately seeking out more queer – specifically trans – people to be around. To just feel like there are others (outside of just my amazing wife) who I can actually just relax around.
And I know the fact that (for some opaque reason that my brain isn’t yet giving me access to) the fact I’m not sleeping isn’t helping. It’s wearing at my capacity to cope in a way that’s slowly exhausting me.
And I know that the combination of my anxiety about and inability to finish the damn house isn’t helping. (Because I feel like next year’s election may go in a direction that makes staying in the US long term untenable – in which case selling the house will be a priority – which I’ve harped on about before and to an extent I just need to do it, but also when?
All that said, the singing has been good, the writing has been good too – probably why I’ve been writing her. And I’m trying – really fucking trying – to do some socializing. Hopefully that will help.
And maybe I should just get on and organize a chat with a therapist.
