Well, it’s the end of a year.

2025 started off really badly for me. The sudden vehemence of Trump’s attack on trans people shocked me. i thought i was prepared for it, but the constant flood of hatred, on top of all the other things going on in the world, sent me into an emotional tailspin. i had to stop reading the news, and even today i still only let myself read LGBT related things. Everything is just too much for me.

In fact, things got so bad for me that my bipolar disorder, which had been stable for a decade, got out of control. i had a hypomanic episode in February, an autistic shutdown in an airport from sensory overload in March, experienced dissociation again for the first time in a decade in April, had more hypomanic episodes in August and September, and had numerous short but intense depressive episodes throughout the spring, summer, and fall. i even had suicidal ideation bad enough that i had to take steps to get certain things out of my apartment for my own safety.

But all of this also got me motivated enough to do things necessary to make my life better. i sold my house and moved 2000 miles across the country from Texas to Maine, a much safer state for trans people, and a place where i love the weather! So much nicer than the Texas heat. i started back to college to help me change careers and get away from the computer industry, which i’m still burned out on. Most importantly, since moving i have made a lot of new friends and actually have something of a social life. For the decade before this i really had no friends except online. i also had my first intimate encounter with someone in a decade.

Notice how many things i experienced, good and bad, for the first time in a decade? i don’t think that’s a coincidence. It was ten years ago that i got on the first medication routine to ever control my bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, i now think that one of the 3 medications, an SSRI, may have supressed more than just my depression. i got off it in March, and since then i have had easier orgasms and a lot more motivation to spend time around other people. i think i can do without SSRIs moving forward. So all the stress made my meds stop working, and that allowed me to experience things, both good and bad, that i hadn’t felt in ten years, and since then i’ve adjusted my meds so that i have fewer side effects, and my life has improved.

So now i’m going into 2026 with actual hope. i am going to be trying to get into grad school to study for an MSW so i can become a therapist. i’ve got a lot of work to do in therapy of my own, not the least of which is finally coming to terms with being autistic, something that i’d known about for 20 years, but which i’d never seriously learned about. But i have a really good therapist who is helping me, and my new social life is giving me chance to learn things that i never learned before. 2026 looks like it could be a good year for me!