See A Little Light

Hello all!

Please accept my apologies for the lack of posts recently.

As I have mentioned, I try to be honest about how I am feeling.

And I was feeling poorly.

For a while.

Fortunately, though, I feel better now.

I seem to have hit bottom on Monday - well, really, early Tuesday morning.

I woke up in the middle of the night feeling as down as I have felt in a long, long time.

I suspect it was the culmination of what has been a challenging 18+ months, and a particularly challenging two months. What I was trying to convince myself was just exhaustion was something more serious, and all too familiar. However, there was one big difference this time:

I am myself now.

And that makes - and made - all the difference in the world.




Pre-transition, I simply endured these episodes, some of which lasted many, many months.

I never told anyone about them; I assumed that they were my problem, so I had to deal with it.

Moreover, those feelings - or really, a lack of feelings, just a vast, all-encompassing, aching numbness - were so commonplace that I took them for granted.

My first therapist expressed genuine astonishment when I described what she termed "multiple episodes of severe, severe depression" that, in retrospect, had started when I was in first grade.

She asked me, without judgement, how I possibly endured a lifetime of them without seeking help.

I was puzzled.

"Well, everyone fees like that. Don't they?" I replied.

And then she understood.

"No," she said. "No, they do not."

"But how would you possibly know that? These feelings are all you've ever known, so to you they would seem normal."

With her help, and with the help of my other therapists, including M, my wonderful current therapist, I have learned that not only are those feelings not normal, but  that I do not have to endure them.

In fact, when I became aware of what was happening - in large measure thanks to several close friends (including Halle and my dear sister April) who told me how worried they were for me - I did something "he" could not do:

I reached out for help.

And I talked about how I felt.

In fact, I had to talk about how I felt.

As I am sure I have written before, I simply cannot keep my feelings, no matter what they are, inside any longer.

I simply must express them, and let them out.

At first doing so didn't seem to make a difference. I still felt awful.

But early Tuesday morning, this "fever" peaked...

... and then rapidly burned itself out.

After several long early morning hours of dark, dark thoughts, I fell asleep.

And when I woke up... those thoughts were gone.

I felt, and still feel, some of the "hangover" effects.

I am very, very tired, and my emotions are a bit raw.

But that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach is gone.

I feel like myself again: outgoing, happy, more "smile-y," and sort of, well, goofy/geeky. (OK, more than sort of!)

For instance, I had no problem earnestly expounding at length with a work colleague today about how the Seattle Mariners youth movement paying dividends.

The fact that this means I admit I am a diehard Mariners fan, in spite of near-constant ineptitude for most of their history did not make one whit of difference to me. The Mariner Moose (below, to the right) will always have pride of place in my bed top menagerie. Well, next to Cody the Cow, anyway. Hey, even baseball pales next to my love of cows...

Oh, and I am as clumsy as ever. Of course. As my fellow klutz Stace can attest, the fact that I spilled coffee on myself not once, not twice, but three times today - the last time while chatting in the hallway with a vice president at work :#) - is a clear sign that yes, I am getting back to normal. lol

So, thank you to Halle, my sister April, my friend B (who patiently and sympathetically listened to my semi-coherent rants on two separate occasions this past week), and, really, all of my friends, whose support helps me more than they can ever know. I am a lucky, lucky girl to have you all in my life.

I promise my next post will be much more positive.

And hopefully worth the wait! :D

***

Here's a great song from Husker Du frontman Bob Mould's stellar solo debut, 1989's Workbook:

 It is a wonderful album, as nearly all of his work is, including last year's stellar Silver Age.