A fun factoid about my body is that large sections of it are still unknown and unexplored. My exact genetic makeup. The exact build-up of my hormone levels and the effects of the in between testosterone and estradiol levels I grew up with. Whether what portends to be my prostate is more like a female or male prostate. In how far my existing vagina is functional, and what state it is in after having been closed off before I was born. Whether an infection has formed and still exists in said vagina ever since the surgery in late 2011, or maybe that a new infection has occurred.
Shortly after the surgery in October 2011 I was put on a month-long regime of medium-spectrum antibiotics due to a staph infection of the surgery wound above the vagina. Last year I was in severe pain for a few months in that same region, but a cause could not be established. When a urologist at a local hospital examined me with me nearly fainting from the pain, he just dismissed it as nothing serious and prescribed strong painkillers (NSAIDs) which did exactly nothing. It took quite a few months for the pain to pass.
Recently I have begun to experience pain that region again, with this time the area around and underneath the old surgery wound being painful to the touch and regular flare-ups of pain regardless of the activity I'm performing at the time. I'm also noticing that I'm short on energy for much during the day and am in general not feeling a hundred percent alright. All rather vague symptoms, and leading me to my plan of action.
I will be doing exactly nothing. My experiences have made it clear that unless there are clear outward symptoms which leave no doubt of something serious going on, there is no way you're getting anything more serious prescribed than painkillers or antibiotics. Even a medical student knows that inflammations in the body can become encapsulated, where antibiotics can not reach them, along with other complications which warrant a proper examination. Unfortunately such an examination is not part of Dutch medical protocols, ergo it's pointless for me to even try.
So far I can still function on a daily basis and do not exhibit worse symptoms than the ones I described. Hereby should be noted that even as a child I rarely if ever developed a fever when I was sick, so that's no symptom to count on. Whether or not at least some of my symptoms are due to simply stress from the situation I was forced into is hard to judge, but shouldn't be discounted either.
Together with my status of 'medical experiment', I think that my best chances lie in awaiting a surgeon who can perform that final surgery on me which would restore my female side. If there is an inflammation in that area, it would be discovered and dealt with that way. If there isn't, it'd be one less worry. Until that time it seems I can only wait.
Here's to gambling with one's own body.
Maya
Wednesday, 8 May 2013
Dream: Executions
This morning I was more or less awake around around 5 AM, fell asleep again and had the following dream:
I walked into this large hall with brick walls and relatively small but copious windows placed in the wall I was facing. To my left the hall opened into a bright market place, but I barely glanced at it as the spectacle directly in front of me, near the wall I could see best from where I entered the wall, had inevitably caught my eye. There, on top of a raised narrow platform a number of men and woman were placed on their knees with their hands apparently tied behind their backs. To my right were I think four men, to my left three women. They all looked young and attractive.
As I looked on - mesmerized - I caught the men standing behind the kneeling men on the right push them forward onto thick, sharp wooden stakes placed in an angled fashion towards their chests. One by one, the stakes pushed into their chests, just below their breastbones, until they were fully impaled. Bleeding and gasping for breath they were left like that. At that point my gaze was drawn to the left side were the women were still kneeled on the platform.
I could see the right-most one the most. She was pretty, with dark hair and a regular face. As the men behind them pushed them forward to similar wooden stakes, I could see her take a deep breath as though preparing herself, while her eyes went blank. It made me think of how odd it was to prepare for your own death that way, though not hard to imagine. As she got closer to the stake, suddenly all three women were inverted, wih their backs towards the stakes and facing their executioners. When the stakes pierced their bodies, blood gushed around. I could see the executioner of the right-most woman pull back and stare aghast at the sight in front of him.
That's when the dream ended. I woke up feeling quite tense and somewhat unsettled.
Executions and deaths have long fascinated me, much like they have every average person, but in my case I can not push away the details of what is happening at each point. The severing of nerves, of muscles and ligaments. Of nerve clusters ceasing their activity, and the cessation of conscious thought as the mind starts it inevitable slide towards decay. The abject fear of the victim as it realizes that it'll soon fade into nothing and that nothing can be done about it. One's own death is the most frightening prospect one can think of as it really is the end of everything, ripping control of our existence including our very existence itself from our hands.
Through it all, I have not managed to find comfort in what I consider to be delusional thoughts about things turning out fine because of some kind of 'next step', during which one's consciousness and memories will simply be transferred to something or other. While I do consider that a limited form of reincarnation is conceivable within the boundaries of quantum mechanics through the interconnected nature of the fundamental fabric of matter and energy, the collection of nerve cells and ganglia forming a human's brain is truly the only residence of that particular collection of memories and resulting 'personality'.
The frailty of an existence is both fascinating and terrifying. To me it makes the deaths of people in accidents and during executions so impossible to ignore. It's the moment when one realizes the strongest that one really, really doesn't want to die, that there's absolutely no reason to die as nothing can be worse than to cease existing. Call it survival instinct, or whatever you like. It's the basic tenet of existing, to not die.
My reaction to someone inching towards death in such a fashion and possibly dying is one of feeling sick. I can not even witness the execution of the average convicted criminal on death row, as something just isn't right about it. Maybe it's just my strong sense of empathy, which allows me to experience what that person is feeling and thinking. I have died in many ways already due to it. Every time I go through it it makes me just want to live more strongly.
Death in the end isn't part of life. It is the anti-thesis of life and existence. It's oblivion. Nothingness. Even a black hole is churning with life in comparison.
Still doesn't really tell me why I had to have this particular dream this morning, however. Brains are weird.
Maya
I walked into this large hall with brick walls and relatively small but copious windows placed in the wall I was facing. To my left the hall opened into a bright market place, but I barely glanced at it as the spectacle directly in front of me, near the wall I could see best from where I entered the wall, had inevitably caught my eye. There, on top of a raised narrow platform a number of men and woman were placed on their knees with their hands apparently tied behind their backs. To my right were I think four men, to my left three women. They all looked young and attractive.
As I looked on - mesmerized - I caught the men standing behind the kneeling men on the right push them forward onto thick, sharp wooden stakes placed in an angled fashion towards their chests. One by one, the stakes pushed into their chests, just below their breastbones, until they were fully impaled. Bleeding and gasping for breath they were left like that. At that point my gaze was drawn to the left side were the women were still kneeled on the platform.
I could see the right-most one the most. She was pretty, with dark hair and a regular face. As the men behind them pushed them forward to similar wooden stakes, I could see her take a deep breath as though preparing herself, while her eyes went blank. It made me think of how odd it was to prepare for your own death that way, though not hard to imagine. As she got closer to the stake, suddenly all three women were inverted, wih their backs towards the stakes and facing their executioners. When the stakes pierced their bodies, blood gushed around. I could see the executioner of the right-most woman pull back and stare aghast at the sight in front of him.
That's when the dream ended. I woke up feeling quite tense and somewhat unsettled.
Executions and deaths have long fascinated me, much like they have every average person, but in my case I can not push away the details of what is happening at each point. The severing of nerves, of muscles and ligaments. Of nerve clusters ceasing their activity, and the cessation of conscious thought as the mind starts it inevitable slide towards decay. The abject fear of the victim as it realizes that it'll soon fade into nothing and that nothing can be done about it. One's own death is the most frightening prospect one can think of as it really is the end of everything, ripping control of our existence including our very existence itself from our hands.
Through it all, I have not managed to find comfort in what I consider to be delusional thoughts about things turning out fine because of some kind of 'next step', during which one's consciousness and memories will simply be transferred to something or other. While I do consider that a limited form of reincarnation is conceivable within the boundaries of quantum mechanics through the interconnected nature of the fundamental fabric of matter and energy, the collection of nerve cells and ganglia forming a human's brain is truly the only residence of that particular collection of memories and resulting 'personality'.
The frailty of an existence is both fascinating and terrifying. To me it makes the deaths of people in accidents and during executions so impossible to ignore. It's the moment when one realizes the strongest that one really, really doesn't want to die, that there's absolutely no reason to die as nothing can be worse than to cease existing. Call it survival instinct, or whatever you like. It's the basic tenet of existing, to not die.
My reaction to someone inching towards death in such a fashion and possibly dying is one of feeling sick. I can not even witness the execution of the average convicted criminal on death row, as something just isn't right about it. Maybe it's just my strong sense of empathy, which allows me to experience what that person is feeling and thinking. I have died in many ways already due to it. Every time I go through it it makes me just want to live more strongly.
Death in the end isn't part of life. It is the anti-thesis of life and existence. It's oblivion. Nothingness. Even a black hole is churning with life in comparison.
Still doesn't really tell me why I had to have this particular dream this morning, however. Brains are weird.
Maya
Monday, 6 May 2013
Welcome To The Nomadic Life Style
The past months have definitely been an interesting experience so far. Chased out of the place I used to call home amidst the disintegrating mess which maybe with the clarity of vision after the consumption of liberal amounts of alcohol and various substances which may or may not be legal in your jurisdiction could have been called a relationship, my life was properly turned upside-down. So badly even that I'm not even at liberty to reveal at this point where it is exactly that I'm staying currently, or where I have stayed previously, as it's too risky.
In some ways it's as though I was forced to shed a part of myself. Right out of the aforementioned mess I found myself in an ICE train to Germany to start my new job. Only a few months out of my previous job which had been everything but fun, it was all together quite a daunting thing. Over in Germany I did however find myself in good company. The owner of the business is one of the most awesome bosses you could imagine working for, and my colleagues are all pleasantly whacky, just as you'd expect of fellow developers, sysadmins and the like. I felt right at home.
Traveling away again after a short week, I found myself at temporary lodgings. From there I was able to take care of the legal matters required to get my home back, something which I hope will get resolved soon now. I was also able to continue all the other things with regards to the legal case against my insurance company, Unive, and the Pride Photo Award submission. For the former I'm now awaiting the next move by my lawyer, Yme Drost, and as for the latter, it's going to be hard to make the deadline, I'm afraid. I haven't been able to get into contact with the photographer for over a week now. Maybe that one is a loss after all.
In the end, though, the one thing I have learned through all of this is how it feels to be a nomad. I have no fixed place of residence, no large possessions and can pack up at a moment's notice. My laptops are the only things which combined with internet access give me some kind of fixedness in this world. It does mean that I largely exist on the internet, and that the world around me has become something less... solid and less relevant, I guess. It's there and then it isn't any more. My days mostly exist out of working on my laptops and going outside only to buy food and other necessities. When I'm not traveling, that is.
In some ways it's liberating to not be fixed to a single location and all the taxes, duties and annoyances and burdens which come with it. On the other hand it's also unsettling to be a transient. It does make one realize how fixed everything is in this world. It also makes me realize how many things are trying to pin me down to this one location as well. With currently four legal cases underway, me awaiting the judgement of this one surgeon and various bits and ends, I could easily stay fixed to this location for a very long time.
I'm a nomad and yet I'm not. I have a home and I do not. I may get this surgery or I may not. I may win certain legal cases or I may not. I definitely could use more certainty in my life.
On another note, I'm planning to obtain a video camera soon as some of you may already have gathered from following my online postings on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. With it I'll attempt to resume the video log I started back in 2011 but didn't quite continue in 2012 or this year so far. Maybe it'll give some more solidness to my currently quite insubstantial existence and words.
Maybe some day I'll be able to vlog from a place I can call 'home'. Haven't done that yet.
Maya
In some ways it's as though I was forced to shed a part of myself. Right out of the aforementioned mess I found myself in an ICE train to Germany to start my new job. Only a few months out of my previous job which had been everything but fun, it was all together quite a daunting thing. Over in Germany I did however find myself in good company. The owner of the business is one of the most awesome bosses you could imagine working for, and my colleagues are all pleasantly whacky, just as you'd expect of fellow developers, sysadmins and the like. I felt right at home.
Traveling away again after a short week, I found myself at temporary lodgings. From there I was able to take care of the legal matters required to get my home back, something which I hope will get resolved soon now. I was also able to continue all the other things with regards to the legal case against my insurance company, Unive, and the Pride Photo Award submission. For the former I'm now awaiting the next move by my lawyer, Yme Drost, and as for the latter, it's going to be hard to make the deadline, I'm afraid. I haven't been able to get into contact with the photographer for over a week now. Maybe that one is a loss after all.
In the end, though, the one thing I have learned through all of this is how it feels to be a nomad. I have no fixed place of residence, no large possessions and can pack up at a moment's notice. My laptops are the only things which combined with internet access give me some kind of fixedness in this world. It does mean that I largely exist on the internet, and that the world around me has become something less... solid and less relevant, I guess. It's there and then it isn't any more. My days mostly exist out of working on my laptops and going outside only to buy food and other necessities. When I'm not traveling, that is.
In some ways it's liberating to not be fixed to a single location and all the taxes, duties and annoyances and burdens which come with it. On the other hand it's also unsettling to be a transient. It does make one realize how fixed everything is in this world. It also makes me realize how many things are trying to pin me down to this one location as well. With currently four legal cases underway, me awaiting the judgement of this one surgeon and various bits and ends, I could easily stay fixed to this location for a very long time.
I'm a nomad and yet I'm not. I have a home and I do not. I may get this surgery or I may not. I may win certain legal cases or I may not. I definitely could use more certainty in my life.
On another note, I'm planning to obtain a video camera soon as some of you may already have gathered from following my online postings on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. With it I'll attempt to resume the video log I started back in 2011 but didn't quite continue in 2012 or this year so far. Maybe it'll give some more solidness to my currently quite insubstantial existence and words.
Maybe some day I'll be able to vlog from a place I can call 'home'. Haven't done that yet.
Maya
Sunday, 5 May 2013
Is One Allowed To Hate One's Country, Or: Finding That One Perfectly Illusive Country
To those following me it's hardly a surprise that I do not much like this country I was born and raised in. Yet despite everything there are enough people who keep telling me that I am essentially not allowed to hate the Netherlands and everything it stands for. Their reasoning is more or less that with all the bad that this country has inflicted upon me, there are still so many good things, and that I should be grateful that I grew up in a rich Western country like this.
Of course, that reasoning is about as sensible as telling a woman who is constantly being beaten and sexually assaulted by her alcoholic and aggressive husband that there's also a lot of good about him, because he always does the dishes, takes the garbage outside and picks up the children from the daycare. Some things just can not be overlooked. A country which is guilty of just one major lapse in morality does not deserve it to be praised, much like in a relationship there's a lot you take of the other person, but physical and psychological abuse are some of the lines which should never be crossed.
To summarize my relationship with my country, I have been exposed to brainwashing by Dutch psychologists and physicians who knowingly and willingly ignored my intersex condition and attempted to make me believe that I had to be just a confused transgender boy. Two letters to the Dutch Queen didn't receive any personal attention. The first got forwarded to the current Dutch Minister of Health, who dismissed my case, insisting that the Dutch physicians 'know best'. On top of that the Dutch police force saw it fit to violently arrest me despite me offering no resistance after a Dutch family doctor called them upon me, and detain me for an entire night under inhumane conditions, while denying me needed medical and psychological care.
But hey, at least I get to grow up strong and healthy in a wealthy country, right? Even if I have to launch lawsuit after lawsuit to fight for my basic rights, as physicians and my insurance company alike discriminate against me. I can feel totally safe here, right? Even if I suffer severe psychological and physical trauma due to the actions of health specialists and friendly police officers.
I do wonder what the good points are again about this country, and why I am not allowed to just outright denounce it as a horrible place to live if you're not white, rich, male and preferably Christian. Not to mention for homosexuals, transgenders and the even larger group of intersex individuals. All of us have our basic human rights trampled. But it's still an awesome place to live in. Better than in a less wealthy country. Even though the education system, healthcare system, infrastructure and general economy in the Netherlands are crumbling a bit more every day.
I'm sorry, I must admit that I live in a very different side of reality in which the Netherlands is not a pleasant country to live in. I guess that's the point of Calvinism, which underlies Dutch culture. Be white, rich, male and Christian and you're awesome. Otherwise you may as well get out while you're ahead.
I, too, want to leave the Netherlands. Preferably before the end of 2014, to stay realistic. Around 150,000 individuals left the Netherlands forever in 2012, and I intend to join them. To go where, though? I'm not entirely sure.
There are so many countries out there which have varying degrees of 'pleasantness' when it comes to embracing intersex individuals. I have looked at places like Canada, USA, Norway, Australia, South-Korea, Japan, China, New Zealand, and many more. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. At this point I'd say that it's a pretty illusive choice to make. Secretly I hope for something or someone to help me with making this choice. Maybe through my media attention which should be spreading world-wide this year, I hope. Maybe due to a relationship I'll suddenly find myself in with a 'foreigner'. Maybe due to something I can not possibly foresee at this point.
At any rate I do really hope, wish and pray for that one country and place which I can actually come to like if not love.
Maya
Of course, that reasoning is about as sensible as telling a woman who is constantly being beaten and sexually assaulted by her alcoholic and aggressive husband that there's also a lot of good about him, because he always does the dishes, takes the garbage outside and picks up the children from the daycare. Some things just can not be overlooked. A country which is guilty of just one major lapse in morality does not deserve it to be praised, much like in a relationship there's a lot you take of the other person, but physical and psychological abuse are some of the lines which should never be crossed.
To summarize my relationship with my country, I have been exposed to brainwashing by Dutch psychologists and physicians who knowingly and willingly ignored my intersex condition and attempted to make me believe that I had to be just a confused transgender boy. Two letters to the Dutch Queen didn't receive any personal attention. The first got forwarded to the current Dutch Minister of Health, who dismissed my case, insisting that the Dutch physicians 'know best'. On top of that the Dutch police force saw it fit to violently arrest me despite me offering no resistance after a Dutch family doctor called them upon me, and detain me for an entire night under inhumane conditions, while denying me needed medical and psychological care.
But hey, at least I get to grow up strong and healthy in a wealthy country, right? Even if I have to launch lawsuit after lawsuit to fight for my basic rights, as physicians and my insurance company alike discriminate against me. I can feel totally safe here, right? Even if I suffer severe psychological and physical trauma due to the actions of health specialists and friendly police officers.
I do wonder what the good points are again about this country, and why I am not allowed to just outright denounce it as a horrible place to live if you're not white, rich, male and preferably Christian. Not to mention for homosexuals, transgenders and the even larger group of intersex individuals. All of us have our basic human rights trampled. But it's still an awesome place to live in. Better than in a less wealthy country. Even though the education system, healthcare system, infrastructure and general economy in the Netherlands are crumbling a bit more every day.
I'm sorry, I must admit that I live in a very different side of reality in which the Netherlands is not a pleasant country to live in. I guess that's the point of Calvinism, which underlies Dutch culture. Be white, rich, male and Christian and you're awesome. Otherwise you may as well get out while you're ahead.
I, too, want to leave the Netherlands. Preferably before the end of 2014, to stay realistic. Around 150,000 individuals left the Netherlands forever in 2012, and I intend to join them. To go where, though? I'm not entirely sure.
There are so many countries out there which have varying degrees of 'pleasantness' when it comes to embracing intersex individuals. I have looked at places like Canada, USA, Norway, Australia, South-Korea, Japan, China, New Zealand, and many more. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. At this point I'd say that it's a pretty illusive choice to make. Secretly I hope for something or someone to help me with making this choice. Maybe through my media attention which should be spreading world-wide this year, I hope. Maybe due to a relationship I'll suddenly find myself in with a 'foreigner'. Maybe due to something I can not possibly foresee at this point.
At any rate I do really hope, wish and pray for that one country and place which I can actually come to like if not love.
Maya
Sunday, 28 April 2013
Dreams: Relationships And Sexuality
Yesterday while taking a nap due to feeling exhausted and somewhat sick, I had a nightmare, one in which I had somehow met this guy and I found myself in his room which I knew to be inside his mother's house. I never saw her. The guy was kind of lonely so I wanted to help, yet throughout this all he exhibited a weird mean streak. Only afterwards did I realize that he had just been cruel. I eventually managed to sneak away and hide in a pile of firewood ("becoming the wood"). I woke up from this dream with one of my arms crossed over my chest, and both hands more or less clenched into a fist and my heart pounding like crazy.
Today I felt very agitated and depressed. After deciding to go take a nap again I got to my bed where something inside me kind of snapped. I felt so frustrated that I began to hit myself on the head over and over again until it started hurting so much that I could only drag myself into bed where I fell asleep. I then had another nightmare.
The initial part of the dream I do not remember well. I was apparently in the house in which I grew up, and yet it wasn't really. It was more light and spacious. There was something going on with food. Dinner, I think. I didn't feel like eating yet, until at one point I told my mother that she could warm up some of the pasta for me. Shortly after that I decided to go upstairs to my room. Nearing the top of the stair I could see that my room's door wasn't fully open as I had left it, but slightly ajar. Pushing it open I went into my room, which again wasn't really like my room of the past. Again more light and spacious. To my left was my bed, but in it was already someone. A woman. First she looked like Jeri Ryan, who was wriggling about under the blankets, seemingly amused. As I got closer and slid into the bed as well, she changed into a more African looking woman.
The moment I first saw a woman in my bed I didn't really feel anything, it was more a matter of observing a fact. Sliding into the bed next to her I found it to be a comforting thought to be next to her. Nice and cozy. Lying next to her she suddenly proposed getting intimate with me, which caught me by surprise. Working in my head through the logistics of such a thing, I found no problems there. Preparing, I had just changed from fully clothed into wearing the same but my pink pyjama pants instead of my jeans, when my mother came into the room to tell that dinner was ready. At this point I thought it would be a good idea to lock the door, so I got out and wandered over the other side of the room where I knew that the key probably was. I didn't find it, however.
Meanwhile the woman was just wandering about near the bed, talking with my mother or such. Her presence didn't incite anything negative, which I think meant that she was supposed to be there. Maybe she was my girlfriend after all. I decided to ditch the locked door idea and walked back over to her. My mother and the shadowy male figure I had sensed near her had left. As the woman and I came close we embraced. As we stood there, I started trembling. The really bad kind of shaking when you're either nervous or anxious enough to nearly bolt away to safety, or stricken with fear. I held her tightly as I said to her in a trembling voice that I felt so nervous, more than I had ever felt before. The image then suddenly distorted into nonsense.
As I woke up from that nightmare, I found both my arms firmly crossed on my chest and both hands tightly clenched into fists. I was crying.
Thanks to today's nightmare I think I now know what yesterday's nightmare was about, namely my experiences living together with that person. The second nightmare was for me a frightening look into how traumatizing sexuality has always been to me. I have actually experienced such trembling before with a real-life experience, though I chose to ignore it at the time. In the nightmare I chose to finally admit to myself that there's nothing which fills me more with terror than the thought of sexuality. I have just been forcing myself to try and accept it as something normal, while further damaging myself that way. My experiences the past months more so.
This all taken together it seems quite clear where some of my worst traumas are, and the worst roadblocks on the way to recovery. It's in some ways infuriating that a good, healthy relationship could be so beneficial to me, while the possibility of such a thing happening is sheer random chance. I could run into the perfect person tomorrow, or never. Maybe a plan B is in order, with a shrink specializing in sexuality poking and prodding me. Maybe.
Or maybe that's plan C and plan B is to become a bloody hermit.
Maya
Today I felt very agitated and depressed. After deciding to go take a nap again I got to my bed where something inside me kind of snapped. I felt so frustrated that I began to hit myself on the head over and over again until it started hurting so much that I could only drag myself into bed where I fell asleep. I then had another nightmare.
The initial part of the dream I do not remember well. I was apparently in the house in which I grew up, and yet it wasn't really. It was more light and spacious. There was something going on with food. Dinner, I think. I didn't feel like eating yet, until at one point I told my mother that she could warm up some of the pasta for me. Shortly after that I decided to go upstairs to my room. Nearing the top of the stair I could see that my room's door wasn't fully open as I had left it, but slightly ajar. Pushing it open I went into my room, which again wasn't really like my room of the past. Again more light and spacious. To my left was my bed, but in it was already someone. A woman. First she looked like Jeri Ryan, who was wriggling about under the blankets, seemingly amused. As I got closer and slid into the bed as well, she changed into a more African looking woman.
The moment I first saw a woman in my bed I didn't really feel anything, it was more a matter of observing a fact. Sliding into the bed next to her I found it to be a comforting thought to be next to her. Nice and cozy. Lying next to her she suddenly proposed getting intimate with me, which caught me by surprise. Working in my head through the logistics of such a thing, I found no problems there. Preparing, I had just changed from fully clothed into wearing the same but my pink pyjama pants instead of my jeans, when my mother came into the room to tell that dinner was ready. At this point I thought it would be a good idea to lock the door, so I got out and wandered over the other side of the room where I knew that the key probably was. I didn't find it, however.
Meanwhile the woman was just wandering about near the bed, talking with my mother or such. Her presence didn't incite anything negative, which I think meant that she was supposed to be there. Maybe she was my girlfriend after all. I decided to ditch the locked door idea and walked back over to her. My mother and the shadowy male figure I had sensed near her had left. As the woman and I came close we embraced. As we stood there, I started trembling. The really bad kind of shaking when you're either nervous or anxious enough to nearly bolt away to safety, or stricken with fear. I held her tightly as I said to her in a trembling voice that I felt so nervous, more than I had ever felt before. The image then suddenly distorted into nonsense.
As I woke up from that nightmare, I found both my arms firmly crossed on my chest and both hands tightly clenched into fists. I was crying.
Thanks to today's nightmare I think I now know what yesterday's nightmare was about, namely my experiences living together with that person. The second nightmare was for me a frightening look into how traumatizing sexuality has always been to me. I have actually experienced such trembling before with a real-life experience, though I chose to ignore it at the time. In the nightmare I chose to finally admit to myself that there's nothing which fills me more with terror than the thought of sexuality. I have just been forcing myself to try and accept it as something normal, while further damaging myself that way. My experiences the past months more so.
This all taken together it seems quite clear where some of my worst traumas are, and the worst roadblocks on the way to recovery. It's in some ways infuriating that a good, healthy relationship could be so beneficial to me, while the possibility of such a thing happening is sheer random chance. I could run into the perfect person tomorrow, or never. Maybe a plan B is in order, with a shrink specializing in sexuality poking and prodding me. Maybe.
Or maybe that's plan C and plan B is to become a bloody hermit.
Maya
Thursday, 25 April 2013
Planning My Pride Photo Award Debut
Today I got a message from photographer Eric Brinkhorst informing me that he'd like to plan a photography session for the Pride Photo Award really soon now to fill up the series as the final submission date is May 31st. It's going to be quite excited to see what will end up in the final series in the end. While a lot of things you can plan yourself, there are a few variables, such as when the first public hearing against the VUmc's gender team gets planned and what the response from that surgeon on my final surgery will be. Both would provide excellent material for the series, but there's no way to know whether any of them will work out the way we hope and whether they would occur within next month.
I felt pretty heartened by the response from Pride Photo Award (PPA) so far, with them spending an actual news article on their site on my story. I think that having a successful submission to PPA could mean a lot to intersex people in general. It would not only inform a large number of people that we exist at all, but also of the major horrors we have to suffer due to medical and political ignorance and will will. My hope is that the series works out well and gets into the top 5 at the PPA.
As far as the surgery goes, I doubt that it'll get into the series, as physicians are very busy people. I was supposed to be contacted by the surgeon this week, but with just one more day to go, I think it'll take longer. Probably far into next month. Even then I expect a rejection, as that is the only response which would be consistent with this world I was born into. Deny, crush, extinguish. Fatalistic, maybe, but based on years of cruel experience.
Then the public hearing. This may actually work out, as I received a response from the VUmc's lawyer via my own lawyer's office to the hormone level results I had put in as new evidence for my case. That the disciplinary commission is sending this now may mean that they are preparing to set a date for the public hearing. I really hope that this is the case and that the hearing is next month. Not just for the PPA series, but also to move this case ahead at last. This waiting is killing me.
In my fantasies I am contacted by a enthusiastic surgeon who wants to examine me for that surgery which he thinks will restore full functionality of my vagina. I also hear that the public hearing is early next month. In those fantasies I can finally shed off a lot of the impossibly heavy burden resting on my shoulders.
In reality, however, I'm left a bitter, overly sarcastic person. It's not who I want to be. It's what life has made me into. As someone once said, only fairy tales know happy endings.
Maya
I felt pretty heartened by the response from Pride Photo Award (PPA) so far, with them spending an actual news article on their site on my story. I think that having a successful submission to PPA could mean a lot to intersex people in general. It would not only inform a large number of people that we exist at all, but also of the major horrors we have to suffer due to medical and political ignorance and will will. My hope is that the series works out well and gets into the top 5 at the PPA.
As far as the surgery goes, I doubt that it'll get into the series, as physicians are very busy people. I was supposed to be contacted by the surgeon this week, but with just one more day to go, I think it'll take longer. Probably far into next month. Even then I expect a rejection, as that is the only response which would be consistent with this world I was born into. Deny, crush, extinguish. Fatalistic, maybe, but based on years of cruel experience.
Then the public hearing. This may actually work out, as I received a response from the VUmc's lawyer via my own lawyer's office to the hormone level results I had put in as new evidence for my case. That the disciplinary commission is sending this now may mean that they are preparing to set a date for the public hearing. I really hope that this is the case and that the hearing is next month. Not just for the PPA series, but also to move this case ahead at last. This waiting is killing me.
In my fantasies I am contacted by a enthusiastic surgeon who wants to examine me for that surgery which he thinks will restore full functionality of my vagina. I also hear that the public hearing is early next month. In those fantasies I can finally shed off a lot of the impossibly heavy burden resting on my shoulders.
In reality, however, I'm left a bitter, overly sarcastic person. It's not who I want to be. It's what life has made me into. As someone once said, only fairy tales know happy endings.
Maya
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
An Overload Of Wrongness
Despite the fact that humans are quite irrational beings, they still seem to hold firmly on to the belief that all actions and thoughts are still somehow governed by reason. There is also the belief originating from this initial belief that every human being is capable of complete self-control. Suffice it to say that this is as far from the truth as one can be. Case in point is that of a post-traumatic stress disorder - or PTSD - which is a crippling psychological and neurological disorder which completely shorts out one's capability to reason before it has a chance to act.
Knowing something and feeling the same about it are two separate things. Sometimes they align, but more often they don't. With conditions like PTSD they can go so out of whack that there's no stopping it. I can say without exaggeration that PTSD is the worst thing I ever incurred and that the thought of living with it untreated seems quite unbearable. What keeps me going is that the coming time things will happen which will soften the traumas at the root of the PTSD and thus reduce the stress.
This morning I was just sitting there, working, when someone started talking with another person about the latter guy's girlfriend. While logically this shouldn't do anything to me since even if I did know the people in question it still shouldn't matter to me. Instead I began to experience a sensation akin to physical pain or severe discomfort. Continuing to listen to the conversation was impossible. I became beset by a feeling of... wrongness. Everything I heard was wrong. What was happening was wrong. I had to shut it out. Do something about it, but I couldn't.
Even after walking away and finding a calm spot I found myself unable to control my emotions. I was overcome by this massive sense of frustration, pain and anger, all targeting eventually the root cause of the wrongness: this body I inhabit. It's exceedingly hard to not give into the urge to then assault, maim and even murder one's own body. I have complete understanding for war veterans who struggle to live a civilian life again. The sense of wrong must be agony to them.
It's all conflicting emotions, reasoning and thoughts. The sense of wrong where there is no wrong. Every PTSD episode is another attack on one's sanity and another step taken towards ending one's tortured existence. Having to never experience or even better know this overload of wrongness must be bliss indeed. I'm not sure I'll live long enough to ever experience it again.
After withdrawing from the situation in which the episode started it usually takes about an hour for me to regain my senses, although I'll feel numb and emotionally worn out for a while longer. It will also reinforce for me the underlying traumas and the associated conclusions, no matter how misguided. Should I really be considering relations between men and women to be evil and wrong? Of course not. Is being intersex something akin to torture, best ended swiftly and mercifully? Of course not. There should be nothing keeping me from living a happy life.
And yet... the undercurrents of the brain, where the subconscious lives and emotions reign freely, there such logic doesn't hold. There is just the pain of past experiences. The memories of all that happened and the concrete conviction that all that will happen again. The frail conscious mind is no match for it.
No match at all.
Maya
Knowing something and feeling the same about it are two separate things. Sometimes they align, but more often they don't. With conditions like PTSD they can go so out of whack that there's no stopping it. I can say without exaggeration that PTSD is the worst thing I ever incurred and that the thought of living with it untreated seems quite unbearable. What keeps me going is that the coming time things will happen which will soften the traumas at the root of the PTSD and thus reduce the stress.
This morning I was just sitting there, working, when someone started talking with another person about the latter guy's girlfriend. While logically this shouldn't do anything to me since even if I did know the people in question it still shouldn't matter to me. Instead I began to experience a sensation akin to physical pain or severe discomfort. Continuing to listen to the conversation was impossible. I became beset by a feeling of... wrongness. Everything I heard was wrong. What was happening was wrong. I had to shut it out. Do something about it, but I couldn't.
Even after walking away and finding a calm spot I found myself unable to control my emotions. I was overcome by this massive sense of frustration, pain and anger, all targeting eventually the root cause of the wrongness: this body I inhabit. It's exceedingly hard to not give into the urge to then assault, maim and even murder one's own body. I have complete understanding for war veterans who struggle to live a civilian life again. The sense of wrong must be agony to them.
It's all conflicting emotions, reasoning and thoughts. The sense of wrong where there is no wrong. Every PTSD episode is another attack on one's sanity and another step taken towards ending one's tortured existence. Having to never experience or even better know this overload of wrongness must be bliss indeed. I'm not sure I'll live long enough to ever experience it again.
After withdrawing from the situation in which the episode started it usually takes about an hour for me to regain my senses, although I'll feel numb and emotionally worn out for a while longer. It will also reinforce for me the underlying traumas and the associated conclusions, no matter how misguided. Should I really be considering relations between men and women to be evil and wrong? Of course not. Is being intersex something akin to torture, best ended swiftly and mercifully? Of course not. There should be nothing keeping me from living a happy life.
And yet... the undercurrents of the brain, where the subconscious lives and emotions reign freely, there such logic doesn't hold. There is just the pain of past experiences. The memories of all that happened and the concrete conviction that all that will happen again. The frail conscious mind is no match for it.
No match at all.
Maya
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