u/Tendou___-

Is there an uprise of transphobia or is the media just pushing it again?

More importantly, why?

I want to let you know if you’re struggling with severe existential anxieties and derealization, that it does and will get better

this is going to be a bit long, however I’m so much better and feel its urgent to tell and reassure someone who may be going through what I did about a year nd a half ago

I was 16 and I was abusing sertaline (an antidepressant) and topimax (an anti epileptic medication) because I at the time didn’t understand the differences in prescription stimulants and prescription drugs that boost your serotonin. For about a week and a half I went from using no medications to taking about 7-12 of each prescriptions a day. My dopamine/serotonin levels were EXTREMELY high, and one night (i did this with a friend, it was her prescriptions) I was sitting and my mind started to drift into a very strange and unsettling chain of thoughts that I had previously never experienced. It was along the lines of “no one in the universe will ever understand how you feel and think right now”.

She later recalled that she just watched me look very scared, my eyes widened and I ran. I distinctly remember it felt like my reality was melting, i was running upstairs to get my mom because I was so scared but it felt like I wasn’t moving at all. It felt like I was on the stairs and couldn’t go up.

I will never forget the look on my moms face when she seen me flipping out. I couldn’t talk, I was stuttering and slipping over my words and seriously couldn’t get anything out besides “something is wrong”

She went downstairs to ask my friend what I had took, (she knows my history with substance abuse). I don’t exactly remember the entire thing, but she blew it off and went back to bed. I couldn’t sleep, my body felt like it was on fire and my head was rummaging through so many existential thoughts. “What was anything? was anything real? was I eternally trapped in a universe that never ends and what exists beyond it?”

I went up and laid with my mom. I cried hard and told her what I was taking.

She took me to the hospital after dropping my friend off, I remember the doctors didn’t really listen to me when I asked why I was having weird thoughts, they only really talked to my mother.

I quit cold turkey everything that day, however this was just the beginning of several month long anxiety. For literally months, I couldn’t do anything but sit and question the unanswerable questions of life, the universe, and existence.

I lost 30 pounds, I couldn’t eat because I was so anxious, I couldn’t sleep without my mom next to me, and I cried when the thoughts got too loud. I was convinced I had given myself schizophrenia, or was losing my mind. I still can’t explain what “losing your mind” feels like, but at the time i felt i had lost touch with all of reality. Every-time I moved it felt like I was floating, shifting through staircases and levels of ground. When I was in the car i could feel myself moving (hard to explain, but severe derealization.)

The severe drop in my dopamine and serotonin put me in a pit that I was literally unable to feel good feelings for months. Every action was riddled with anxiety, more thoughts, questions, and nobody could seem to help or reassure me besides for some reason the movie ratatouille, which i nominate real quick as my favorite and most meaningful movie of all time.

Distraction isn’t the best method, they say the best way out is through. But when school started up again, and I was busy with work, new friends, a new life, i began to stop having so many panic attacks and “reality bending” moments. Today, I almost never have them. I can’t remember the last time I struggled with it. It’s become the new norm, but I will never be the same as I was. I’m aware, but it no longer gets to me and I hardly think of the unanswerable anymore. It feels good.

every-time I shake my mom awake she still panics, that part will always suck.

But almost two years later, i’m no longer the same person who is unable to focus, eat, or sleep alone. My life isn’t filled with day-to-day dread and a pit in my stomach and mind.

It gets better. It does and will get better.

i’m going to be realistic and say that the internet does get to me, it makes me question everything.

I’m gonna copy and paste something i wrote the other day in hopes to reach someone, or something, that understands this hell i’m unfortunately born into (?)

(dont know why it’s in this garbage format, i promise its not a poem. I don’t care about fixing it right now)

i wonder many
things about why
and how, and if i was born
transgender.
Am i merely a
byproduct of
gender
essentialism? does
my existence in this
world act as a wall
against gender
abolishment?
maybe my identity
was purely
manufactured, a
slip that shouldn’t
have happened. Is it
a fetish? a product
of grooming and
manipulation,
maybe sexism
made me so
uncomfortable in
my skin that i felt the need to repent. It feels
as though I was
never meant to
exist in this world,
and my existence
alone is a mystery, a
mistake or phenomenon that was man made and never put out of its misery.

I can’t really articulate anything of what I feel in the same depths as i feel it, that actually pretty sums up my experience in this world, mind, and body

I just turned 18 and i’m looking for a job but i’m getting no where, ive only worked one spot my whole life

I’ve applied to 40+ places on indeed, 98% have given 0 response. I’ll seriously do anything, i just want to do something productive

if you know anywhere that’ll at-least get me an interview or are in contact with someplace that could use help please hmu. I will literally do anything to my best ability

im about to get a tattoo for my birthday, it’d be my first

Places to avoid? Recommendations?

I’m going to start and say that in no way, shape, or form, trying to invalidate transgenderism/gender fluidity.

But,

being transsexual, in a world thats constantly trying to conform, and to group trans people, is a very isolating and lonesome experience.

The idea that you can’t be transgender without gender dysphoria is believed and only led by people who group/dont know the differences in transsexualism and transgenderism. In actuality, Transgender people don’t have any prerequisites for being transgender outside of gender incongruence. This doesn’t align with me, this doesn’t align with being transsexual.

People, so many people, misinterpret transgenderism from transsexualism. While being transgender is both a piece of identity, it’s also a blanket term that encompasses me, a transsexual, but instead of feeling apart of a community I relate to, I further feel disconnected when I meet a transman that doesn’t experience dysphoria, or doesn’t feel it’s necessary to medically transition.

Because we are so different, because our struggles differ, I find myself wondering why conformity is deemed appropriate when it creates a space for invalidation and confusion.

So I ask the same question, what purpose does conformity serve besides a constant reminder of differences. Is it solely to promote the broader picture?

Anyone know a good place to get a perm? a place that won’t fuck me up too bad lmao. Also cool with leaving town, anywhere within a 45 min drive

I swear to god i’ve applied to 90% of restaurants here, only ever getting one job at pizza hut which was *heavily* dysfunctional, don’t want to be the guy who talks shit on his old jobs but it was a terrible first experience

I’ll literally work anywhere or anything, restaurants are just what comes to mind because im 17 (soon to be 18) but no one is really hiring and the competition to even land an interview is always insane. Recently been looking for a job in construction or something involving physical labor but I don’t know how to even get into that sort of thing.

But i’d seriously work anywhere and do anything, I just want something to do and some money on the side. Does anyone know anywhere that is hiring or in need of help