Tuesday 20 November 2012

That Sudden Sneaky Dysphoria



Yesterday started off as a good day, a day that I was looking forward to and hoping to enjoy.  Yesterday was the day I was going to get my new phone.  Yeah, I know,  a new phone, nothing too special.  But it was special to me because, honestly, I don’t have much stuff to really look forward to, and having a new little toy to play with had me excited.  That and getting a nice chunk of cash for trading in my old phone.

So, I awoke early with a sliver of excitement running through me and was dressed and ready to go into town much earlier than I’d normally even be awake.  It would appear that not even my messed up sleeping patterns would overcome my good day.  With my housemate joining me, we headed into town to do our shopping.

Our first stop was at a local café, that we used to frequent when my housemate owned his comic book shop, for a rather unhealthy breakfast.  And that’s where things took a turn.  I don’t know why it suddenly affected me, I’d had my anti-depressant that morning and was in a great mood, but as soon as our waitress came over I was hit with a massive wave of dysphoria.


There was nothing overly special about this girl, yeah she was attractive, but it’s not like she was the most stunning woman I’d ever seen.  There was just something about her that turned my happy morning upside down and made me feel like complete and utter shit.  One minute I was happy and excited, the next I felt like I could hardly breathe and I just wanted to run and hide myself away from the world.

Perhaps this should have been a sign for me to give in and go home, to just let the dysphoria pass.  I ignored this, however, and tried to continue on with my day.  After leaving the café I went to the phone shop.  ‘At least I can just get my phone and go home before this gets any worse’ I thought to myself.  Boy was I wrong.

The first person to serve me in the phone shop was one of the managers, who when he had to go and assist another of his colleagues assigned me the one and only female working in the store that day.  So here I was, yet again faced with another pretty young woman.  A young woman who was extremely nice and chatty and appeared to have a great personality too.  After half an hour being served by her I was ready to just break into tears.

I hate that part of being trans is that I’ll have these sudden bouts of dysphoria, that what is supposed to be a good day for me can suddenly turn on its head and make me feel like complete shit, for no apparent reason.

I know that things are moving forward for me, and that I’ve come a long way in the past year, but it still doesn’t stop these little attacks.  No matter how logical I try to be, no matter how many anti-depressants I take or fun I try to have it always seems like my dysphoria will always be their.  I hope that this is something that will go away in time, that at some point it won’t hurt anymore, but I really don’t see that being the case.

I see my dysphoria lessening, I can picture periods of time where it won’t bother me as much any more, but I don’t think it will ever truly disappear.  I see it being their my whole life, no matter how well my transition goes.  I feel like this is something that I’ll never completely escape.

Thank you for reading my little rant, sorry for how depressing it is, I promise a much more enjoyable read for my next post.

Amy.
xx
 
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