Heartaches
Apologizing for my life and ever entering yours
- May 6, 2021
- 261
Something's been on my mind for some time now.
I find it difficult to connect with reality and life in general. I can sorta navigate through it, but I never fully end up feeling like I'm a part of it.
I'm a clueless spectator, not a participant.
I've suffered from heavy symptoms of dissociation for many years due to my PDD and the traumatic situations I've had to endure; it has been a challenge, because even in my happiest moments I never feel truly there, I feel disconnected and that fact remains on my mind at all times, it never leaves. It decreases or increases depending on mood, circumstances or whatever my brain pleases to do to fuck me up. I've learned to manage it, but it still feels bad, wrong, dirty, offensive; never feeling like my mind and my body are on the same page. Whenever I interact with others, I always feel like an outsider, even in communities with shared identities.
Other trans folks have told me going on HRT helped them decrease depression and dissociation. I want to go on HRT in the future and legally change my documents (if I'm ever able to leave far away from my family and I'm somehow able to sustain myself on a regular basis, which feels impossible knowing me well) and that could help me with my presentation and how others perceive me; it deifnitely doesn't help being seen as a woman everyday and getting reinforced attitudes associated with womanhood and cis feminity, when I'm actually a closeted trans man. But, still, I don't think HRT could resolve all those emotions, because they go further than gender, body, identity and perception.
Slowly I've come to the realization that I heavily struggle understanding concepts so ingrained and "normal" in society. Family, for example, is something that, for the love of my life, I struggle to understand and have complicated feelings about. Legally and genetically, I have a family, but I don't feel much attachment to that family. I grew up in a loving, economically stable household, but my feelings and boundaries were always disrespected. Honesty was lacking; I was never taught how to establish boundaries or how to defend myself, nor was I defended very much by the adults who were supposed to take care for me, I had to learn about many things by putting myself in risky situations that traumatized me.
I have a grandma I love and a mother I'm repairing my relationship with, but it still doesn't feel like family. I love and care for them, but is that family? I don't understand it. I've been told that I can choose my family, but even my supposed "chosen family" doesn't feel like family, simply friendships, some closer than others. The only person I've genuinely feel like family is my best friend, I would consider him like a brother separated at birth. Other than that, I don't know. The concept of family brings me more pain than solace.
Another concept I struggle to understand is social interaction/human connection. I've become better at it, but more because it was mandated by therapists, school administrators and my 'family' than by my own will. My current therapist has helped me a lot understanding things, but it still is hard, I feel I never interact in a "socially acceptable/appropiate" with others, such as greeting or giving farewell to someone, taking too long to think on a response, physical interaction, among others. Spirituality is also something I don't get, I don't consider myself a spiritual person; I don't consider my dissociation, mental rambilngs or what else as a spiritual thing (or even medical in its totality); I don't relate to virtue, living beings or other ideas in that sense. I have nothing against it, but I don't get. And I could go on and on about many things I feel dettached from.
And what does it all have to do, in the end?
This dettachement makes me feel guilty, monstruous, inhuman. I feel less of a person because of my inability to understand these social constructs, not just from society at large, but by own peers. I've never told anyone else all of this at length because I fear they won't understand or feel similarly, and being alone in my own thoughts is something I'm very aware of. The loneliness makes me feel less human, less deserving of anything, like I was born broken.
I wish I didn't feel forced to engage, to believe, to think of relationships in a specific, rigid way. I wish my disconnection didn't make me feel like an abomination. I wish I could connect and engage with my communities on similar terms, but no matter how hard I try, I feel like I can never achieve it.
I don't doubt I'm probably autistic or neurodivergent, just merely undiagnosed. But even if I got diagnosed and I was correct on my previous assertion, I don't know if things would change too much. Everytime I discover more about myself, I feel the spiral just goes further and further. My therapist tries to reassure me there's nothing wrong with being different and not understanding social cues as others, but I feel less worthy of anything in life; I feel ashamed and self-destructive.
I find it difficult to connect with reality and life in general. I can sorta navigate through it, but I never fully end up feeling like I'm a part of it.
I'm a clueless spectator, not a participant.
I've suffered from heavy symptoms of dissociation for many years due to my PDD and the traumatic situations I've had to endure; it has been a challenge, because even in my happiest moments I never feel truly there, I feel disconnected and that fact remains on my mind at all times, it never leaves. It decreases or increases depending on mood, circumstances or whatever my brain pleases to do to fuck me up. I've learned to manage it, but it still feels bad, wrong, dirty, offensive; never feeling like my mind and my body are on the same page. Whenever I interact with others, I always feel like an outsider, even in communities with shared identities.
Other trans folks have told me going on HRT helped them decrease depression and dissociation. I want to go on HRT in the future and legally change my documents (if I'm ever able to leave far away from my family and I'm somehow able to sustain myself on a regular basis, which feels impossible knowing me well) and that could help me with my presentation and how others perceive me; it deifnitely doesn't help being seen as a woman everyday and getting reinforced attitudes associated with womanhood and cis feminity, when I'm actually a closeted trans man. But, still, I don't think HRT could resolve all those emotions, because they go further than gender, body, identity and perception.
Slowly I've come to the realization that I heavily struggle understanding concepts so ingrained and "normal" in society. Family, for example, is something that, for the love of my life, I struggle to understand and have complicated feelings about. Legally and genetically, I have a family, but I don't feel much attachment to that family. I grew up in a loving, economically stable household, but my feelings and boundaries were always disrespected. Honesty was lacking; I was never taught how to establish boundaries or how to defend myself, nor was I defended very much by the adults who were supposed to take care for me, I had to learn about many things by putting myself in risky situations that traumatized me.
I have a grandma I love and a mother I'm repairing my relationship with, but it still doesn't feel like family. I love and care for them, but is that family? I don't understand it. I've been told that I can choose my family, but even my supposed "chosen family" doesn't feel like family, simply friendships, some closer than others. The only person I've genuinely feel like family is my best friend, I would consider him like a brother separated at birth. Other than that, I don't know. The concept of family brings me more pain than solace.
Another concept I struggle to understand is social interaction/human connection. I've become better at it, but more because it was mandated by therapists, school administrators and my 'family' than by my own will. My current therapist has helped me a lot understanding things, but it still is hard, I feel I never interact in a "socially acceptable/appropiate" with others, such as greeting or giving farewell to someone, taking too long to think on a response, physical interaction, among others. Spirituality is also something I don't get, I don't consider myself a spiritual person; I don't consider my dissociation, mental rambilngs or what else as a spiritual thing (or even medical in its totality); I don't relate to virtue, living beings or other ideas in that sense. I have nothing against it, but I don't get. And I could go on and on about many things I feel dettached from.
And what does it all have to do, in the end?
This dettachement makes me feel guilty, monstruous, inhuman. I feel less of a person because of my inability to understand these social constructs, not just from society at large, but by own peers. I've never told anyone else all of this at length because I fear they won't understand or feel similarly, and being alone in my own thoughts is something I'm very aware of. The loneliness makes me feel less human, less deserving of anything, like I was born broken.
I wish I didn't feel forced to engage, to believe, to think of relationships in a specific, rigid way. I wish my disconnection didn't make me feel like an abomination. I wish I could connect and engage with my communities on similar terms, but no matter how hard I try, I feel like I can never achieve it.
I don't doubt I'm probably autistic or neurodivergent, just merely undiagnosed. But even if I got diagnosed and I was correct on my previous assertion, I don't know if things would change too much. Everytime I discover more about myself, I feel the spiral just goes further and further. My therapist tries to reassure me there's nothing wrong with being different and not understanding social cues as others, but I feel less worthy of anything in life; I feel ashamed and self-destructive.
Thank you to anyone who read this,
