I’m reading an article (Slivers) from @Impossible_PhD on the Stained Glass Woman site, and I just came across this:

“If you’re lucky, the result of this is burnout, which is a combined flop/flood collapse. If you’re unlucky, it becomes cPTSD.

Often, though? It becomes both.”

And suddenly a light went on in my head. Two years and a month ago I quit a job I’d held for 13 years as a computer programmer, and I had worked as a programmer or system adminstrator going back as far as 1994 before that. I quit because I was burned out. How burned out? I would not wake up until almost right at 10am when I’d have to get online for a daily stand-up meeting. Sometimes I’d even do the meeting from bed. Then after the meeting I’d make breakfast, and maybe 3 days of the week I’d then go back to bed and not get up again until after noon. The other days I’d sit online for a couple of hours just reading Discord or news websites, and then I’d go back to bed. In the late afternoon, I might finally get the energy and will to actually do some real work. So yeah, really seriously, incredibly, astoundingly burned out.

So I quit. At first I played games. Then I started learning how to write games, thinking I could turn my programming skills in a new direction. But then, even that stopped holding my interest and I gave that up too. Since then I’ve struggled to find the willpower to look for a new job, because I know that thanks to my 30 year career in the computer industry (mostly) working with computers is the only thing I know how to do, so if I go back to work I’m likely to end up in another job that I hate and just burn out all over again. Looking for a new job is kind of terrifying to me and makes me emotionally shut down, hard.

So I burned out. And what am I doing now? I basically have flashbacks whenever I think about being a programmer again. I avoid places and people that remind me of it – I quit the programming related Discord servers I was in, for example. I no longer really see myself as a computer toucher of any kind and I feel dread when I think about it. The thought of going back to programming makes me feel like a worthless failure and makes my chest tighten up. I no longer talk to any of my old colleagues. And computers, once a central focus of my life for decades, no longer hold any meaning or inspire joy anymore. Folks, those sound an awful lot like CPTSD symptoms.

I think now I understand why I am having such a hard time getting myself to look for a new job and why I react so badly to the thought of going back into the computer industry. I didn’t just burn out. My job actually became a source of every day, low level trauma for me and now I’m dealing with the consequences of that.

This sucks.

Oh! And while I don’t neccessarily think I have CPTSD caused by my old career, I do think I have CPTSD from gender related trauma growing up, and maybe it and my career burnout decided to get together and do a little tango with each other.

I’ll also drop this little self assessment result here for grins.

For months now (four months, even) I have been going to public social events around town trying to meet new people in the communities I’m part of. I just want to get to know people and have them get to know me so that I can expand my circle of friends. However, I’ve been running into a huge problem: between my sound sensitivities and my social anxiety and my general austic social awkwardness, I have found myself shutting down at almost every event. I end up sitting alone, wearing earplugs, or even noise canceling headphones, trying to block out the noise of the crowd that is overwhelming my senses. Sometimes I will leave the room and go outside to take a break, but while I eventually calm down, I just get overwhelmed again as soon as I go back in. For most of these events, I have left early, usually without even saying goodbye to anyone. Needless to say, I have not been successfull at meeting new people.

But towards the end of last month, I had a regular appointment with my psychiatrist for a medication checkup, and while there I talked to her about all of things I’d been experiencing, and I asked if I could go on lorazepam (Ativan), which I had done about 11 years ago during my last extended attempt at being social. She agreed, and I picked up my new prescription the next day. Before anyone worries, I am not taking it every day, and having been on it before I knew I probably wouldn’t experience any negative side effects. (I haven’t.) I only need to take this when I actually have, or can expect to have, a severe anxiety attack.

Well, Saturday was my first chance to try it at one of these big, crowded, loud, public events, and guess what? It worked! I took the pill about 45 minutes before hand, right before leaving to go there, and when I arrived I preemptively put on my earplugs to give me some partial sound blockage. I went inside and … everything felt fine. It was loud, though not as crowded as usual, but my sound sensitivities did not get triggered. What’s more, I didn’t feel any anxiety (well, maybe a smidgen) about talking to people. I ended up talking to 18 different people that day, mostly people I’d never met before, and I had extended conversations with several of them. I even stayed until the very end and was one of the last people to leave.

It was actually fun! I don’t recall the last time I had fun a big public event like this. It would have been about 2003 probably. The idea of a big social gathering actually being fun is astonishing to me these days. I almost felt like an extrovert, for a change! (Though I’m not really one. I still expended energy for this, but it was not a massive burden like it normally is for me.)

I think the lorazepam is going to work out well for me. Hopefully it works well enough for me to finally really get to know people and make new friends. After that I will hopefully feel more at ease and be able to attend these things without the chemical aid. I’m looking forward to being more social, finally.

In fourth grade one day, I and another girl (remember, this was when people still thought I was a boy) were sitting next to each other while most of the other students were doing something else, and we had nothing interesting to do. Now the desks we used had wooden tops and at the top edge there was a little trough where you could lay a pencil without it rolling away. I watched in fascination as she got out a bottle of Elmer’s Glue and poured a bit into the trough. She let it air dry until it was just barely tacky still, then she carefully pried up the glue, now molded into a thin, elongated shape, and she pressed the still barely wet end of it onto one of her fingernails. Instant long fingernail! She then proceded to make “long fingernails” for all of her fingers.

Now that got me excited, so I eagerly got out my own bottle of Elmer’s Glue and started doing the same thing. It was the first time I ever “did my nails” and she helped me try to get it right, though sadly my efforts were not as practiced as hers and my “fingernails” didn’t stay on very long. Nonetheless it was a really happy moment for me and is one of the few memories I strongly remember from my childhood.

I was 9 years old at the time (almost 10) and my real gender was starting to burst forth even without me consciously understanding what was going on.

Seems like lately everything is conspiring against me to strip me of any and all masks, coping skills, and ability to avoid my problems. All the pain and confusion and anxiety at my core has been laid bare for me and everyone else to see. I don’t like people seeing the real me because it’s so chaotic. Under the emotionless exterior I’ve always presented, is a seething, roiling, mess of raw emotions and unfullfilled needs that looks like something that crawled out of a Lovecraft story, and when others are exposed to it I worry that they will run away from me, leaving me even more alone than I already am and feeling even more isolated and unable to cope.

But I also know, intellectually, at least, that right now, with everything exposed and open to the world, is my only chance to actually heal some of the pain and to get some of my needs met for a change, so I’m fighting the urge to shut everything down again. I just hope I don’t end up hurting others in the process.

A major period of my life has come to an end. I just moved. I’m living alone again for the first time in years. I’ve met a lot of new people online, some of whom are becoming good friends. I’ve also become interested in BDSM and am discovering that I’m not quite as asexual as I’d previously thought. So I start going out to social events. Meeting people in public and trying to have an irl social life for the first time in more than a decade. I start having anxiety attacks. I begin wearing headphones when I’m out in public to control the sonic sensory overload. I begin seeing a therapist because being around strangers is so stressful and difficult for me. I start taking anti-anxiety medication. I pull out of anticipated social events because I’m worried that they are going to go wrong. Eventually I start drinking a lot and get drunk for the first time who knows how long.

This was 12 1/2 years ago when I got divorced.

This is also my current reality after selling my house and moving across country.

If history keeps on repeating itself, then the next steps for me are entirely withdrawing from anything resembling a social life and going back to being online only. Giving up trying to make new friends and just sticking with the ones I now have. Giving up any idea of having any kind of romantic or sexual relationships ever again. And probably spending another decade of my life living in greyscale until one day my real needs break through again, under still worse conditions where it’s even harder to do anything about them. I really don’t want this to happen again, but I have absolutely no idea how to avoid it.

I’ve been quiet the past few months. At the beginning of April I moved across the continent to a new city and a new state and ever since then, my life has been in turmoil. It all started, though, back in February when, for whatever reason, I had a hypomanic episode for the first time in a decade or more. It lasted a couple of weeks, and it was great! I felt on top of the world. I was absolutely euphoric the whole time and got a ton of stuff done. Towards the end of it, when I started to come down, I had my first intimate encounter in 11 years. It was just a cuddle session, but it went on for 5 hours and it was so intense for me that I went into subspace from it. (BDSM term – look it up. It’s a wonderful state to be in!) That gave me a soft landing from the hypomania and I didn’t experience any depression afterwards.

That was when I decided it was time to stop being the recluse that I’d been for the past decade. I started going to social events in the trans community of the city I was in at the time. Just once a month, but it was still a major change for me. I started putting out feelers in the BDSM community again, something I wish I’d never gotten out of. (I had gotten out of it because of social anxiety.) But during this time I was in the process of selling my house and getting ready to move. Finally, on April 5, I drove away from my old home off towards my new life.

When I got to my new home, I decided it was time to fully break from my old life and try to build something better for myself. I registered for a college class to start studying psychology; I’m taking some basic undergrad classes in prep for applying to grad school. I got actively involved in the local trans community and started going to support group meetings, and social events. I started going by my first name again, after spending 27 years going by my middle name. I even have, for the first time in probably 23 years, an in real life friend who I actually see and hang out with on a regular basis.

And what’s happened to me as a result of all these changes? I’m spending money like crazy, still have no job, am in therapy again for the first time a years, am on a waiting list to be evaluated for autism, am taking anti-anxiety meds again, regularly experience anxiety attacks, have had my sound sensitivities go through the roof and now carry noise cancelling headphones everywhere I go, I got my first ever stim toy to help me calm down when things get bad, and I carry a small plushie of a lamb with me as an emotional support toy. My life is, in short, a disaster.

What the fuck has happened to me? Why did I have to fall apart? All I did was stop repressing my feelings. You’d think that would make things better for me, not worse.

And now I’m drunk. I’m on my fourth glass of wine since getting home about a hour ago. Before I moved I might have one glass a month. These days it’s becoming very common for me to drink at home. At first it was because it helped relax my back muscles, and I’ve been experiencing a lot of back pain lately. Tonight though, it’s about dulling the mental and emotional pain.

I just don’t know how I can make it through all of this.

Today in “things that flew over my head at the time” I suddenly remembered something from high school. It was probably the first time I went to the Renaissance festival and at one point I was sitting in a tavern with a female friend and some guy she had met. He was hitting on her by holding her hand and taking about palm reading and what her hand was telling him. She was eating it up. And even though I knew that was what was happening I kept pestering him with questions about my own palm. I didn’t really know why I was doing this and I knew I shouldn’t but I just couldn’t help myself.

Driving to my doctor just now it suddenly hit me that I was jealous and wanted him to look into my eyes the way he was looking into hers! I never thought of it like that before and suddenly the whole incident makes a lot more sense to me.

It’s funny how things like this slipped under my notice back when I was still in denial about who I am.

A common refrain that trans people often hear from parents when they come out is “but there were no signs!” Somehow, many of our parents think that as children we never showed any signs of being trans. To give you an example of what I mean, consider my own case.

My egg fully cracked when I was 19, and that is when I came out to my parents and very hesitantly told them that I wanted to live as a woman. My mother responded with “but there were no signs”. Now, in point of fact, there had been many signs. Some of them were things that my parents didn’t see simply because they weren’t around when I did these things. Putting flowers in my hair when playing outside in the spring, for example, or dressing up as a cheerleader and pretending to be the girlfriend of my best friend, who was dressed as a football player. I can’t blame my parents for missing those things of course.

But now think on this one. When I was 12, my mother found a stash of women’s clothes I’d stolen from her extra things that were stored away in a back room, and some things from her extensive wardrobe. She asked me if I wanted to be a girl. I hesitantly told her I did. I literally told her that I wanted to be a girl! On top that, she then sent me to a psychiatrist for what today would be called conversion therapy.

“But there were no signs!”

Sadly, many of our parents simply go into denial about our gender while we are growing up because they don’t want to believe we are trans.

Saw this a few minutes ago and felt it so deeply that I just had to share it. I’m not just trans, I’m also autistic and this statement is so true.

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of healing, or at least trying to heal. I have found that even at my age and so many years after transition that I still have lingering trauma from when I was a child, trauma around my gender not being recognized or accepted.

If you’d asked me as a child what I wanted to be when I grew up I would have said that I wanted to be a soldier (an “Army man”) or a doctor, but if you’d pressed further you would have also learned that I wanted to be in a sorority like my big sister and to be a cheerleader, and maybe even be the girlfriend of a football player. My taste in toys ran the same way. I had Army men and Tonka trucks, and I built models of WWII ships and airplanes, and I played with a GI Joe doll, but at the same time I kept that GI Joe in an old Barbie doll case, and wanted to play with dollhouses, and I asked to play a girl role if my friends wanted to play house. On the surface everything about me said “boy” but if you scratched the surface with your fingernail you’d find the girl underneath.

For this reason I have recently started referring to my “girlhood” instead of just being wishy washy and saying “childhood” as a way of avoiding the word boy. I am now thinking of myself as having once been a “little girl”, and my inner child has become my “inner little girl”. These are simply the correct terms and I need to get over the hesitancy to use them that was beaten into me by society. This is one part of the process of healing my inner little girl from the accumulated trauma of being raised as the wrong gender and having my true gender rejected when it was finally revealed.

To understand the healing I need, it’s important to understand the injury to be healed. First, of course, is simply that being raised as the wrong gender is stressful in and of itself, no matter how well intentioned my family may have been. The unfullfilled desires for things like having pretty dresses like my sister, and not having the toys I really wanted, left holes in my life that only filled up with sorrow as time went by. That’s a big part of what I need healing from, but looming even larger is the explicit rejection by my family when they finally discovered the truth about me.

When my step-sister L. walked in on me dressed as a cheerleader and pretending to be my best friend’s girlfriend she reacted with shock and revulsion. She treated me as if I were the worst scum in the world and made it very clear that what I was doing was wrong in her eyes and in the eyes of all adults. When my mother found my hidden stash of women’s clothing that I would dress up in, and I told her that I wished I was a girl, she reacted by sending me to a psychiatrist to “cure” me of this and make me want to be a boy instead. Just writing that sentence made my chest tighten up because that is such a powerfully traumatic memory.

So how do I heal from this? How can I possibly get over this trauma and move on from it? I haven’t spoken to L. in decades. As far as I can tell she hates me or probably just doesn’t even think about me at all. My parents are dead, so there’s no possibility of talking to them and getting them to understand the pain they caused me. Is healing even possible under these circumstances? I don’t actually know, but I am trying.

After talking with a therapist last week I have started trying to recover. A few days ago I noted in passing that I was having an internal dialog with a non-existent person about some sort of potential disagreement that might come up in my life at some point. These ultra hypothetical conversations and arguments are a regular feature of my thought process, even though I find them to be unhelpful, and even to perpetuate negativity in my outlook on things. They are simply ingrained in me in a way that I can’t seem to extricate. But this time it occurred to me that I might be able to make positive use of this habit in dealing with my trauma. I can’t really talk to my parents, but I can still imagine what a conversation with them might be like. I can write down all the things I want to tell them, how I think they’d respond, and how I think I would respond to their responses.

So I did. I got out my diary and wrote the dialog. It was hard! It was so hard that I couldn’t keep it up and had to stop eventually. But I did it. I told them how they rejected me, how they hurt me, how they tried to change who I was, to make me stop being me. I screamed at them. I made them apologize. I’ll never get that apology in real life, but maybe this hypothetical one will help? Certainly I can say that writing this, and also reading over it again, made me cry and feel all of the raw pain of rejection all over again, and that is a positive thing, I think. Being able to accept and experience my emotions has always been difficult for me, so doing it now seems like breaking open a dam. There will be a flood that will destroy everything in it’s path, but eventually the waters will subside and the river run freely again as it is supposed to.

I also decided to do healing on a spiritual level. I am a Wiccan witch and practice magick, so for the recent full moon, I wrote out a magickal working in which I talked to my inner little girl about all the things she was denied as a child: the dolls, the dresses, sisterhood, and just being treated like a girl by my mother. And then I told her that I love her unconditionally, that I accepted her as a girl, and that I would give her all the things that she was never given. I cried incredibly hard during this healing rite, and afterwards I held my Raggedy Ann doll, one of the toys I was denied as a girl, and sat with my inner little girl as we hugged our doll and comforted each other. The next day, I put on a cute little dress and big, floppy sun hat, and went to the park nearby to play in the grass. I picked dandelion flowers and put them in my hair, and made a necklace of them, just like I used to do as a girl when I was out playing with other kids in the neighborhood. I plan on spending more time with little me, too, and I am now waiting on some things for her that I ordered online: a fancy Barbie doll and a pink, princess dress so she – and I – can finally play dress up as a princess! It may seem weird for a 55 year old woman to be doing things like this, but it’s really a neccessary part of the healing process for a 55 year old wound.

I can never undo the pain of the past. I can’t erase it. I can’t get closure by talking to the people who hurt me. But I also can’t ignore it, or let it fester any longer. It’s time to heal, finally, and I’m doing everything I can to make that happen.

I’m here for you, Little Me. You are a beautiful little girl and I’m going to take care of you and finally give you the girlhood you deserved.