Possible Anxiety

[Guest LauraJen]

I wasn't sure where to post this but after a search I saw a thread or two about anxiety issues in this forum so I thought this would be the best place.

In a matter of days I will be having a graduation. This is supposed to be the greatest day of my life and everybody assumes that I am looking forward to it. Most of me is, but part of me is not. These tend to be very formal events and there will be a very strong gender divide. I was present around campus last summer and caught a glimpse of one of last year's ceremonies. As my transition hasn't exactly been a success story, I will not be experiencing this as my true self, but rather a very smartly dressed young man, receiving a degree in the wrong name. Chances are I am going to be feeling uncomfortable and not that great, which, given the significance of the day and it being once in a lifetime, really does make me feel sad.

Something else bugs me and I am not sure if this is a general social anxiety issue or something else. During classes and lectures I would always sit on the corner or at least on the end of a row, and I would always get there before everybody else to make sure I got there first. If I were to sit somewhere in the middle I would start to feel slightly anxious, and the moment I would have a person sitting either side of me in the adjacent seats I would begin to panic. This would intensify more when the class actually began. I would get butterflies and feel panicky, and get up and leave when I couldn't take it anymore.

I don't know whether this is some kind of social anxiety, or whether it is something else like claustrophobia. I just wondered if anyone had experienced anything similar or if anyone had any advice, as I figured that issues like this tend to affect quite a lot of us. Also a big worry for me is that in this graduation that may be unavoidable and may just have to sit wherever I am told.

I can't help but wonder if this is some kind of silly thing to which most people would ordinarily just say something like "get over yourself" (not here, I mean in general real life). It really doesn't help that sometimes I just feel as if people around me won't take me seriously. It also doesn't help that, with transition I have been made to wait for years and these years of hard study working against my dysphoria has left me in a less than brilliant state. I am back with my parents, don't have a support group anymore and my depression has gotten worse. Plus at the moment I am looking after a sick elderly dog which isn't making me feel great (I haven't looked for jobs in about a week because of this). There was a time in my life as well when I was a bit of a hypochondriac, and would make myself believe I had something like cancer, or HIV despite never having had sex before. I am better than I used to be, but occasionally it starts to come back. Sometimes I find it difficult to tell my dad how i feel about things, particularly when I get low.

I'd normally sign off a post like this with a name, but after thinking heavily about sharing a name with a cousin I just don't know anymore. Some people have said it's something to avoid, some people have said that it's nothing to worry about. I don't know who to believe. Maybe I just can't think clearly enough at the moment.

[JJ]

Your anxiety reminds me in some ways of mine going back to college and even into grade school to some degree. I would cross the street rather than walk by someone if I coud, I did socialize but avoided being surrounded by people or even next to them as much as I could. I learned to deal with it in my life-especially as a social worker. It was always different when I was working anyway but I was never, ever comfortable with ot. Until transition. I think for many of us our brains are always sending a message that something is wrong with us. We sublimate it and handle it different ways. And as they find more and more of the brain is gender configured with differences in hormone receptors it looks like we may also have lifelong hormonal inbalances unless we go on HRT or T. It may explain our astronomical suicide rates in fact because other groups even under extreme stress don't have as high a rate as we do. INot that HRT soles everything and the stress of transition can be terrific as well for people who are already over stressed. And it takes time for our bodies to adjust to hormone changes and-Neither fear nor anxiety will kill you or harm you unless you give it power. I know push through it is not what you want to hear but sometimes there aren't other good answers because giving in will make it stronger and worse and it can take over your life. When I talk about pushing through I am also talking about internally. Working to face it and switch to something else mentally. Counseling has helped many find coping mechanisms-as long as the theerapist is aware of and up to datew with the effects of TS and the brain. Otherwise they may ne treating you for a mental illness you don't have.

As far as graduation-In spite of all the feelings how it goes is still up to you. We can change our attitudes and our focus and decide to feel differently. Why not see it as a celebration of your hard work and making it through a very challenging time? Rather than focus on what it is not see it as a door opening to a future that can be better. I know that sounds easy to say and cliche but it is still true. Just as it is true that your brain chemistry doesn't know a smile is fake so if you smile a lot even though you don't feel it at first you will be in a better happier mood. We are really amazing creatures and capable of far more than we dream.Dream a better future and see graduation as the day you start walking toward it instead of a time to mourn what cannot at this point be changed

Johnny

[Guest LauraJen]

Thanks JJ,

Neither fear nor anxiety will kill you or harm you unless you give it power. I know push through it is not what you want to hear but sometimes there aren't other good answers because giving in will make it stronger and worse and it can take over your life.

I figured that that might be the case . I think my whole problem is, if I am honest about myself, that I just spend too much time wishing there were easy answers to things, like for instance sometimes I wish my parents just magically had different attitudes. I can't face up to fears. That's why I have let other people control me in such a way that my transition has been a case of one-step-forward-one-step-back for the last eight years. That's why I have had a fear of spiders for three quarters of my life. That's why I have the problem I talked about in my post.

After reading your response I thought about my life again. Yes, I never got to enjoy school, or university, as my true self, and that's a shame. But nothing can bring those years back and the best I can do really is to just suck it up and get on with it. I can talk on forums like these all I like, but ultimately the hard truth is I have to land myself a job in order to claim the independence I need for my life to finally start, and only that will have any real effect on my current situation. No online help will make that happen - I can make threads like these until the cows come home, but I have to be the driving force to make things happen. Sometimes I feel as if I can't do it, as if the depression takes over and stops me from performing in interviews and aptitude tests as well as i otherwise could. I noticed that my grades dropped a bit towards the end as well - a sign that I couldn't cope anymore, perhaps? But that doesn't change the fact that I have to do this to begin everything else, so press on I must. Like it says in your signature, only me can stop me.

About the graduation, I dwell too much on what things are not, rather than what things are. This is a celebration of me completing the toughest years of my life, but a lot of the time I just can't see that. I just see what could have been. Maybe me going as male and getting the award could be symbolic of what I had battled, and won, during those years. I will try to take that standpoint instead.

[Charlize]

Please try to look at your graduation in the positive light you mentioned. We always have the chance to enjoy or be miserable. I find that it is often more a matter of how i'm looking at things rather than what the events are. You have finished a great journey. Enjoy the fact that at least that destination has been met. Others will come whether you are living as a man or a woman. I found that making a list of things i am grateful for brings me back into the present world and often helps to see the bright side.

I can't look at 63 years of my life as being wasted as a male. i've got to accept that and then i can enjoy this being female as well.

Hugs,

Charlie