Thursday 28 May 2009

Picking Up The Pieces

Yesterday Pieter and I went to the local health center to pick up my new batch of sleeping pills as well as the referral letter for the UMCG. Once back home and after having had dinner, I went upstairs first to the computer room and started reading through the referral letter and the attachments my GP had added, mostly letters from the VUMC, Erasmus MC and AMC. Especially the former two confronted me with a look through the eyes of those doctors and such.

The effect of reading their reports was... I don't know how to describe it. During dinner, Pieter and I had been watching the Star Trek (Next Generation) episode called 'Frame of Mind', in which Commander Riker finds himself trapped in illusions, with him trying to discern what is reality and what isn't. He had people in one 'reality' telling him that he was suffering from a mental illness and needed treatment, while in another 'reality' he had his friends telling him that he was safe and there was nothing wrong with him.

I felt this split too. On one hand there is my environment, never accepting me as being a boy or man, more than willing to accept me as being a girl, intersexual or not. On the other hand there are the medical specialists who firmly deny that I'm even remotely like a girl and most definitely not intersexual, but that I do need serious treatment to 'fix' me. It's like one is the 'pleasant' reality and the other the 'harsh' reality. I also know that I'm not crazy. I'm not a normal male. Yet in the 'harsh' reality they keep telling me I am.

What is real? Am I crazy? Will I have to admit to something which neither I nor my family or environment believes in? Is this 'pleasant' reality the lie? Is the 'harsh' reality? I truly don't know... all I know is that I'm not crazy. Which may be true or not true.

This morning I woke up feeling incredibly down, with the previous thoughts still firmly embedded in my mind. I just can't seem to fit things together... all my experiences, all facts, everything people have said to me. Just everything. It's like I have a pile of jigsaw puzzle pieces, each of them handed to me by someone else, yet while putting it all together it seems as though they're all pieces of many different puzzles.

What can I do but suppress all those useless thoughts? What option is left for me but to discard futile ponderings on my body? Why concern myself with things unobtainable to me and not focus on that which is still available to me? That is the mode I slipped into again during the day.

Today I finished the first refresh of the Nyanko.ws website in years, with more changes coming up. Thanks to Trevor and vicmarcal for their help in debugging the (live) site :) I did some (puzzle) work on Jan's site. It's fun to piece together an entire database worth of data from a minimal set of input files. At least it's a challenge :P My normal 2-hour nap turned into 3 hours today. My headache and coughing hasn't really changed compared to yesterday, but at least the fatigue is less, probably because I'm suppressing bad thoughts so heavily now.

Anyway, I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in nearly two weeks where I met up with my gym girl again. She had been sick for a while. It was good to see her again. One thing I was pleasantly surprised by was when she told me that she felt strangely uninhibited when talking to me, something she rarely experienced with others. I told her that I had been told that before :) She also told me that she has finally read the 'about me' section on my main site and felt surprised at what my situation is, as it's quite different from what she had imagined. She seemed to take it well, though, even if we didn't get much time to really talk about it yesterday.

A feeling I have had on and off the past months especially, and more and more strongly recently, is that of denying myself access to anything related to my body which goes beyond its basic functioning. My body is a vessel, a mere tool with no other purpose than to follow the whims of the intelligence inside it. Everything else just seems so superficial then. The whole male/female thing, sexuality, looks, and the worlds we have constructed around them. It feels good to stand outside for a change and consider turning my back on it forever.


Maya

Wednesday 27 May 2009

Early Hope

Medical progress: on Monday Pieter wrote an email for me which I then sent off to the doctor at the UMC Groningen (UMCG) who leads the gender team there, Prof. dr. W.C.M Weijmar Schultz. Pieter had found his email address the day before. Today I got a response, which was quite positive. In it doctor Weijmar Schultz expressed his interest in my case and requested from me all medical information I had lying around. I sent the German and Dutch (Erasmus MC) MRI analysis reports in addition to the report of the physical examination at the AMC. I also described the reports from the VUMC and the second German clinic in it, plus the urgency of my case due to the intense emotional pressure this uncertainty about my body places on me.

I got some emails from my mother too, regarding the handling of my case by her therapist, Engel Vrouwe. Vrouwe had shown the emails he got earlier to a colleague and requested more medical information. I sent the same information to him as I did to Weijmar Schultz. It'll be interesting to see how those two leads work out the coming weeks.

The past few days I have been suffering from a rather painful cough, forming a nice friend for the headache and feeling of exhaustion I have been playing around with for a few months already. I think they'll make nice friends.

I'm working on a quick refresh of the Nyanko.ws site prior to a full upgrade to the new custom CMS. It'll be nice to see a list of games with up-to-date release dates, I guess :P The site will feature a 'contact us' page for the first time too. Kind of makes for a more realistic company site, I guess :)

I also started on the new Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time chapter (number 2). I'm not promising a release date beyond somewhere between next month and the end of this year. The responses to the first chapters so far have been overwhelmingly positive, which is nice :)

Alright, back to work with this little kitten...


Maya

Saturday 23 May 2009

Back On Track

Things seem to be heading in the right direction for a change. Pieter did call the UMC in Groningen on Friday, but the gender team there had a day off, but Pieter will do some more research this weekend and contact them again on Monday. My mother has also enlisted the help of her therapist, Engel Vrouwe (www.engelvrouwe.nl), who is also a member of the European Klokkenluiders party, a political party which aims for more transparancy in politics, among other things (www.klokkenluiderspartij.nl, some parts in English). It'll be interesting to see what this contact will result in. Thanks, mom :)

I also released the first chapter of the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (OoT) novel I'm working on yesterday. So far a few people have read it and given their approval. I also submitted it to Joystiq (www.joystiq.com), a gaming blog I read a lot. I'm already planning the second chapter, but I wanted to await some more feedback on the first chapter before I begin writing it.

As you might have noticed in the comments to 'Momentary Happiness', in which I looked back on my meeting with Nicole in November of last year, we are going to meet again, probably next week. Don't be alarmed if I'm absent for a week or longer :P

Generally speaking I'm feeling a lot better than a few days ago. Reaching a level of understanding with Pieter was crucial, turning my gradual descent into madness into an upwards curve, with the clearest indication of the reduced stress levels being my sleeping pill having its same '5 minutes until crash landing' effect again as before, while its effect was nearly zero the past month or so. I actually took the sleeping pill last night while I was still sitting upstairs with Pieter (who was WoW raiding again) in the computer room. By the time I was about ready to hit the deck he told me it might be a good idea to go to bed. I felt really giddy and happy by that time :D


Maya

Thursday 21 May 2009

Keeping One's Distance

A pattern appears to emerge whenever someone admits to thinking about suicide a lot: people begin to avoid that person, often making him or her feel even worse, leading to more suicidal thoughts, which leads to more people distancing themselves from that person, and so on. This pattern I could see with my cousin, and I can discern it in my case.

After the medical adventures of the past two years I was feeling really drained, really losing hope and this lead to me thinking about suicide. Not planning or really considering it, just thinking about it. I admitted to having those thoughts both to people in my surroundings and on my blog. What I really wanted was attention for my case, and help, but the more I asked, the moment they discovered that I was thinking about suicide, they ran away.

Yesterday there was a bit of drama between Pieter and me, in the sense that I had felt the past weeks that Pieter was distancing himself from me, yet I didn't really understand why. I tried to explain my wishes and desires, what had to be done to resolve my current stand-off, yet I increasingly got the feeling that I was being left to fence for myself. This worried me a lot, I had expected him to help me like he had before, pulling me through everything.

The thing was, as Pieter told me yesterday, that he felt that I was wrecking myself, that I was a ticking bomb. He didn't want to be too involved when I would decide to end it all. A few times already when he returned home from his work he half expected to find me lying in a blood-soaked bed. The ironic thing is that me not understanding why he was distancing himself was worsening my situation. I insisted that I was not going to kill myself, that I would do anything I could to stay alive, but that I needed his help with all the medical proceedings and such.

I'm glad Pieter and I got to talk things through. He will help me with the upcoming situations and in exchange I will show my will to live by doing actual work. I'm glad we could arrange this, as earlier today when Pieter was looking at the website of the UMC Groningen and was reading bits and pieces from the (transsexual) protocol they use there (which I'm intimately familiar with already), I began to feel violently ill. The last thing I want to go try is get it through the heads of the people who are supposed to help me that I'm not a bloody transsexual. Fortunately I have got at least Ms Salvatore's (AMC) word going for me, even if it didn't carry much weight at the VUMC.

Anyway, today I have revised and written most of the first chapter of my Ocarina of Time story. I'll finish the chapter before going to bed, read and revise it tomorrow and then publish it on my site (www.mayaposch.com, under 'Projects' in the menu). I really hope that people will enjoy it and will donate a few Euro (cents) to indicate that they'd like to see the next chapter(s) too. For me personally it's a big milestone, as I have attempted to write this story ever since I first played Ocarina of Time in 1998, with this last attempt originating in 2007.

I will publish the chapters in PDF format, A4-size, but I'm open for suggestions for other formats and sizes to make reading on PDAs, Kindles and other devices easier. The publishing rate for the next chapters depends on how much time I will be able to spend on writing them, which is linked into how much income it'll generate for me. I intend to advertise this novel on a few game blogs and such, and would humbly ask others to put in a nice word for me online and in real life if they like my writings. Much obliged.

There are two more novels I'm working on as well, but I want to keep details about them under wraps for a bit longer. At any rate, please check back tomorrow for hopefully my first (online) publication :)

If it's any comfort or indication of my writings, I have won the writing contest during the first year at my High School by a wide margin and have had some things I wrote for classes Dutch read to the class by the teacher as an example of proper writing style, as well as some (Dutch) stories I wrote back then (because my English was almost non-existent at that time). It still makes me kind of proud that I got so much recognition by teachers during my early years at HS for my literary skills. I'd really like to get that feeling of appreciation from that time back again. Anyway, enough dreaming :)


Maya

Tuesday 19 May 2009

Sweet Sleep

I actually managed to sleep for two hours after writing my previous blog post. I wrote some more of the Ocarina of Time novel (revising first chapter), before I went back to bed at 4.30 PM due to feeling unwell again. I read a few more chapters in my current book in the Drizzt Do'Urden Lost Realms series: The Legacy. It's a pretty good book, resuming the same writing style as the preceeding books in the Dark Elf Trilogy. It feels less clumsy and reads easier than the books in the Icewind Dale trilogy which admittedly were written first in this series. After reading those chapters I slept some more until Pieter returned from his work.

After waking up this time I felt incredibly depressed, crying for the second time that day (first time was after returning from the GP, while preparing breakfast). During breakfast I watched an episode of the Aria The Animation anime series, which cheered me up quite a bit. After waking up from my second nap today it was Pieter's turn to cheer me up.

I actually received a letter from the psychiatrist today, inviting me for an intake appointment on the 23rd. Of June. So to summarize, after waiting one month I get the invitation for the intake appointment one month from now. Even after that appointment I'll probably have to wait one month between each appointment again. Good thing I'm not suicidal. Oh wait...

Right now I'm feeling dazed, having repressed all negative feelings as much as possible while trying to ignore the incredible feeling of weariness pressing down on me. I'm actually managing to work some more on the OoT chapter. Hopefully I can release it later this or else next week. My hope is that it'll at least generate some positive feedback and possibly some donations.

It's past 11 PM now. Just waiting for Pieter to finish his WoW raid so that I can get my sleeping pill and retire to bed.


Maya

Balancing On The Edge

Yesterday I didn't do anything but lie in bed with a crushing headache. Painkillers didn't help one bit probably because it's a stress-induced headache, similar to why my sleeping pills hardly seem to work these days. I tried to sleep a bit a few times during the day, but every time I closed my eyes I got assaulted by upsetting thoughts about sexuality and medical stuff.

The worst feeling I keep having to deal with is that of being identity-less. Nobody knows what I am, nobody tells me, and I don't know either. Why can't I just be neither male or female and live my life that way? My environment expects me to be one or the other, and I don't want to isolate myself from the world. Yet even now I can not say in good faith that I'm female. Every time I call myself that, or someone else refers to me as being female, I feel like a bloody fraud. It hurts so much.

I just returned from my appointment with my GP. She has contacted the VUMC, who referred her to the medical center (UMC) in Groningen, the other place in the Netherlands where a gender team is located. She will write a referral letter for me and I can make an appointment there. To be honest, though, I have zero faith in them not treating me the way the VUMC has.

For that reason I will with the help of others research my options at private clinics, both here in the Netherlands as in surrounding countries. I think that perhaps attention for my case via the media (TV, others) may be a good idea as well.

Of course, I keep thinking about the possibility that no test ever performed will find anything unusual about my body, leaving the female skeleton unexplained as I would be genetically 100% XY, with no female reproductive organs or even traces of them. Part of me believes that this will be the result.

Could I live with the idea that my body is male? No. My entire life I have been reminded that my body isn't male, especially during puberty. I have never been able to see my body as being male, nor has my environment ever been completely convinced of this either.

I just don't know anymore... I just found myself searching again for ways to knock myself out for at least a few hours. None of the medicines in the house would work for it, though, and I already tried strangling myself before. All I do each day is live towards the moment when Pieter returns home and I can feel happy for a few moments again. I fear that I will do something stupid really soon, harming others, myself or both.

Am I really crazy?


Maya

Sunday 17 May 2009

Murderous Intent

Saturday started off as usual, with Pieter and I doing groceries for the next week. For the afternoon, however, Pieter had an appointment at a music store, particularly organs, and I wasn't opposed to the idea of accompanying him.

You see, Pieter is quite a good organist, he started playing at quite a young age already and at around the age of 13 he could easily have performed the more complex pieces. He has played on a number of smaller and larger church organs in the Netherlands and still professes a profound interest in playing this instrument. The last few years, mostly due to not having access to anything more than a semi-broken electronic organ from 1989, he hasn't played that much any more, but he wants to pick it up again. Ergo the need for a new organ. Enter Hauptwerk.

Hauptwerk (hauptwerk.com) is a software application which uses audio samples from real organs, church, theatrical and so on, to simulate the experience of playing on the organ in question. The result is a near-perfect sounding simulation. One can combine the Hauptwerk software with a variety of enclosures, whereby the actual controllers, keyboards, buttons, LCD panels, connect with the PC running the software via a MIDI interface.

Traditionally electronic organs have used a purely hardware solution, with a fixed sample set of a real or virtual organ. As it takes years to develop a new model these organs are very expensive and offer few upgrade or customization options. Hauptwerk allows for nearly complete freedom in the physical setup and the sound of the resulting electronic organ, all for a fraction of the price with a traditional solution. This is why we went to this music store for more information.

After over 3 hours at the store we came back very impressed, with the only thing keeping Pieter from ordering one right away is the price of the configuration he has in mind. Not everyone has over 10,000 Euro just lying around :) Hopefully next month Pieter will be able to order the organ (full enclosure with PC and everything complete). It'll then take around 8 weeks before it is delivered.

I think that organs are very impressive instruments, if only because they're absolute massive, with thousands of pipes at a total weight of 20+ metric tons for the larger ones, and I think they're quite nice to listen to as well. While Hauptwerk faithfully replicates much of the authentic experience, there's one thing which bothers me about it, namely the fact that you are confronted with the fact that it's still an application running on Windows or Mac OS X, with the regular boot and load times.

Something I have been working on for a bit, which I have also talked about with the owner of that music store, and of course with Pieter, is an embedded solution, which would use a basic operating system (Linux?) and a customized version of Hauptwerk, reducing the complexity and load times and possibly making for a more pleasant experience. I wrote up a basic analysis of this concept and I'll see what the response to it is.

Because we spent so long at the music store and with the drive back home, it was around 9 PM already by the time we had finished dinner and everything. I had been feeling a bit tired the entire day already, yet when we were sitting upstairs in the computer room I felt so much pressure inside of my head and so incredibly tired that I just kind of shut down. Pieter even asked me whether I hadn't taken a sleeping pill or so. He practically had to carry me downstairs to my room and even help me into my nightgown.

On the upside, I slept until 8.15 AM, with only a short break around 5 AM. I didn't feel terribly rested, however, yet I still went to the pool with Pieter and friends. There I had generally quite a bit of fun, playing with the usual group of Chinese children, talking a bit with their mothers and Pieter, me and the others trying to kill each other with a soft ball.

Less fun, however, was the presence of a young couple. At one point when I was walking past them while in the pool, dragging along one of those floating separators with me, I noticed them all hugging and kissing and stuff, and I felt this enormous anger/rage/hatred welling up inside me. I seriously could have killed them in that moment, yet I reduced it to merely splashing some water at them, something which they barely noticed.

This apparently had set off my PTSD again, leading me to move over to the kid's pool, where the Chinese children were playing. That kind of helped me stabilize a bit again, yet I still found myself wondering about this murderous rage I had felt earlier. I can think of a few reasons for it, including my PTSD (not trusting guys in the presence of girls), my medical issues (frustration at being the only one without physical/sexual identity) and my bad experiences with relationships (getting used, abused and such).

To deal with it would require a) a solution for the medical stand-off leading to a physical identity I can accept, b) therapy for the PTSD, and c) possibly a relationship with a person I can fully trust and care about. I do however wonder whether I haven't suffered too much emotional damage already for this to be viable. Considering the enormous amounts of stress I have suffered and still suffer, as well as the increasingly severe physical effects it has on me, the thought keeps occurring to me that perhaps I have already passed the point of no return, that I'm merely living out my last weeks, or months until the curtain finally falls.

I don't know... I guess I'll have to see for now what my GP came up with on Tuesday with my next appointment. I still think that the psychiatrist idea is a friggin' joke, as one appointment a month can't possibly be remotely effective, let alone prevent a case of self-harm or suicide without active and very regular treatment. My only hope is that the medical side won't take that long.

But yes, I still feel absolute desperate inside. 4.5 years simply is enough to break anyone.


Maya

Friday 15 May 2009

Momentary Happiness

It's been many months since we first met, online. You knew about my 'secret' right from the beginning, yet it didn't frighten you. We talked many times afterwards, both online and via the phone until we didn't communicate for a while. You were the one to call me to get back into contact. Then suddenly by the end of last year you came to visit me in real life. It was both an exciting and unnerving prospect, as I had no idea how it'd be like to see you for once not captured by a camera image. Nor did I really know whether we'd really like each other.

You cared enough about me at least to insist on accompanying me to the hospital to support me. I didn't know whether I'd want you to get involved that far, but I couldn't find a reason to disagree.

I keep recalling fond memories of the two of us meowing at each other the entire time, much to the annoyance of Pieter. I remember your softness as I embraced you. You understood my pain as something you told me triggered my PTSD, something which still haunts my thoughts today, also because I still don't feel that I fully understand you. I keep seeing your face as you were lying asleep next to me.

I won't claim any feelings of love or affection. I do however feel that for those few days we spent together you did make me feel happy. It saddens me that I don't have the courage to contact you. I know you are dealing with your own issues and won't let others support you with it, or even talk about it. You are also surrounded by friends who are always there by you, while I'm too weak to even deal with my own situation. I think you'll be fine.

Perhaps we'll see each other again some day... else I'll at least have one happy memory to accompany me to the last moments of my life.


I'm sorry.


Maya

Thursday 14 May 2009

Missing The Child Inside

So yesterday's gym time went pretty well. My gym girl didn't show up, though, because she got detained at her work for longer than expected. I did some exercises together with a couple and my regular trainer, however, like I did on Monday as well. The guy was pretty lazy, though, and quit after a while. The girl was pretty impressed at my 80 kg with the leg press compared to her 30 kg. Afterwards we all drank some tea and chatted a bit. By the time I got home, however, I noticed that I had developed a pretty serious headache again.

After taking a shower and chatting with Pieter a bit we both went to bed. By then it was already near midnight, yet I still read a few chapters in my book (second part of the Icewind Dale Trilogy) before I went to sleep. After a few moments already I could feel the dark thoughts stirring inside me, resulting in new record in emotional breakdowns. It really felt as though I was being torn apart inside. I managed however to keep the volume down so as not to wake Pieter, as well as prevent any physical harm to myself. Ironically these breakdowns are quite a good work-out for nearly all muscles in my body.

I fell asleep at around 1 AM, to wake up again at around 3 AM, went to the bathroom, drank some water and fell asleep again at around 4 AM to wake up at around 5 AM, after which I just dozed a bit until Pieter dragged me out of bed shortly after 8 AM. I whined a lot about how miserable I felt, of course, plus how I don't exist and am nothing and such. At the very least even the mirror was clear about how I looked absolutely tired.

In my initial sleep-deprived state I was able to concentrate quite well on my work, until I began to feel exhausted again. Yet as I had promised Pieter to try not to sleep during the day, I resisted this and instead watched some anime series. I had already watched the new Bleach episode (219) during breakfast (muesli + yogurt) and decided to finish watching the last five episodes of the Kanon 2006 remake as well.

I'm still not entirely decided on whether I like the original Kanon anime series more or less than the remake. Both have some points I like, with the remake especially having more character development, also made possible by the fact that the first series was 13 episodes and the new one 24. There's been a few years (4+) since I last watched the full original Kanon series, so it's hard to judge the emotional effect both series had on me. I do remember crying like a little girl at the original series every time I watched it, though.

During the remake I had a few heart-wrenching moments too, but not as intense. Perhaps I have just been desensitized a bit, though the (* * * SPOILER * * *) scene where Shiori is on the verge of committing suicide as well as some subsequent scenes involving her did evoke some strong feelings of sympathy in me. In her case she wanted to commit suicide because she was suffering from an illness which would soon claim her life. I experience my situation somewhat similar, in that having no identity is the illness I have been cursed with, causing a similar level of suffering when it comes to finding fulfilment in life with regards to friends and social situations due to the limitations of one's body.

Anyway, after finishing that series I went for another bathroom break and saw in the mirror the one thing which keeps terrifying me: the sight of my adult self. I have always known it, but now I think I should just confess that I was wrong or lying when I said that I was still a child emotionally until a few years ago. The truth of the matter is that I'm still that child. It seems so obvious now that without knowing the identity of my adult body I could ever grow emotionally into an adult. While the rational side of one's mind does just fine without such trivialities, for the emotional growth it is essential.

Most of the time I hide this truth from my conscious self, allowing me to see myself as something... not an adult, not really a child either, but something neutral. Something which looks feminine, yet without the certainty behind it of knowing what it is exactly that I see. When I see my adult self, however, I see an adult who has no clue who or what he/she/it/whatever is, with this confusion taking away any and all joy in its life. That's the entire issue with my youth too; I have never known what I am, ergo I do not know how to deal with my youth, not when I was experiencing it and not now. It's all a mystery, and I bloody hate it.

I can experience it every day in all my perceptions; while rationally I'm still as interested as ever in intellectual pursuits, my emotional side hasn't progressed at all since 2005. Today this veil of child-like innocence (or ignorance) was pulled away, showing me how unprepared I truly am to deal with the emotional responsibilities of adult life. It scared the hell out of me. I don't want to be an adult, I don't even know what it'd be like other than the few traumatizing encounters the past few years. Yet I also know that I can't stay a child forever. Please, let me know what the identity of my body is already...

While dealing with this painful reminder I cried, or rather my body got wrecked by painful muscle contractions and waves of intense discomfort, while I slowly dragged myself through the house, trying to find some place where I could calm down a bit. In the end I found it at the top of the stairs. Now that I think about it, it seems like a somewhat symbolical location.

After letting out all the frustrations and pain, I dragged myself downstairs to my bed, read a few chapters in my book and then immediately fell into a really deep sleep from which I awoke 1.5 hours later when Pieter returned home from his work. When Pieter entered my room to drag me downstairs for dinner, he thought I had been carving myself up again with my nails, but it turned out to be merely the dried up traces of my tears. For some reason my right arm was lame for like ten minutes after I woke up.

Happier news today is that I finally received the pills for my hormone therapy I ordered a month ago. It's always a relief when they arrive, as I don't get a second chance at ordering them before my supply runs out.

Right now I'm feeling relatively okay. Just gorged down about a hundred grams of pure chocolate while watching the new Mythbusters episode. Chocolate is good. Chocolate makes one feel happy~

I'm grateful that tonight I can take another sleeping pill, though. I have come to love and hate sleep at the same time. I love how it allows me to get away from the pain for a few hours, yet I hate going to sleep and waking up, especially waking up during the night. Long live forgetfulness.


Maya

Wednesday 13 May 2009

Hiding From Everything

My memory is a bit fuzzy on the past days, so excuse the brief summary. Friday I didn't go to the gym either due to feeling rather tired. Saturday I tried to work a bit on a programming project, but when things didn't really work out, I kept losing my temper, which is unusual for me. The rest of the weekend I planned to take it easy. Sunday morning we went swimming as usual. After over an hour at the pool, however, I broke down emotionally and found myself crying in public for the first time in as far as I can remember.

Monday I had the appointment with my GP. She doesn't want to request a chimera test directly, as she doesn't want to become too involved in my case. She will however contact the VUMC to inquire about their refusal to perform any tests, as well as about other specialists in the Netherlands who could help me. Finally she had the results of the blood test: all of my hormone levels are normal, meaning that I won't have to change my dose, nor has an imbalance affected my mood lately.

After I returned from the GP I went to take a nap around noon, which turned out to last five hours. After dinner I got an email from my gym girl. An hour later I was at the gym, where she told me that she only had like fifteen minutes before she had to return home again. We did end up talking that time. I'm still not sure how much she knows about me yet, so I kept things a bit neutral, but I did tell her to read at least the summary on my site.

Last night I slept okay, only waking up once during the night. After being out of bed for about two hours, though, I felt so sick physically that I had to return to home. I ended up sleeping another two hours. Right now it's approaching 3 PM and I feel extremely tired again, so I'll return to bed now.

See you all later.


Maya

Wednesday 6 May 2009

Bearing The Pain... Hope?

Last night's sleeping pill unfortunately didn't work too well. The headache I had been suffering all day yesterday kept it from working or so until after I took some painkillers, after which I fell into a restless sleep.

I got up at around 6 AM, eating breakfast in front of my computer as usual while watching another episode of Kanon. Pieter was working from home today, so I spent the rest of the day with him in the computer room with my laptop. I was unable to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time, though, due to the headache which refused to leave me. After a few hours of trying to ignore the headache I felt so tired that I just went back to bed for a nap.

As I made my way downstairs I realized that the headache was solely due to my fight against the negative feelings inside of me, and that I was wearing down much sooner than before during this fight. I was leaning against a door when I contemplated this and smacked it out of frustration, which for some reason made Pieter think that he had heard the door bell. Odd. After waking up again from my nap, though, I didn't feel much better and stayed in bed feeling miserable until I dragged myself out of it, got dressed and went back upstairs to the computer room.

While I was cooking dinner a few hours later, Pieter checked the minimum age (advisory) labels on a few DVDs to check their suitability for me. He also noted that the 'Stripes' (extended cut, but still...) DVD carried an advisory age of 6 years. With the amount of nudity and sex in it I doubt I would show it to my child if I had one if it was 12, let alone 6 years old. Plain retarded.

We had dinner quite late because Pieter got too entranced by his book or so, leaving him to rush to be on time for his D&D night with his friends, and me already late for going to the gym. In the end, though, I decided to not go to the gym, as the headache was still pretty bad, in addition to me feeling quite terrible in general. Perhaps I should have gone, I don't know.

At any rate I just finished a conversation with my mother over the phone. We talked a lot about things, including how the girlfriend of my brother would like to see me, and that I am invited to dinner later this month for some kind of celebration involving my oldest brother. I told my mother that I'm not sure whether I will be capable of attending. I didn't tell her directly that it is because I can't bear to see happy couples, or men and women together, but I'm sure she'll understand.

My mother will also send my GP another email, in addition to Pieter writing up another list of important points to discuss on Monday. She said that I made it sound like Monday is some kind of deadline to me, and I agreed that it does indeed feel like that to me. If Monday doesn't result in anything constructive I'm not sure what I'll do. My mother already got quite emotional as she expressed her distress at seeing me slowly move closer to self-harm and worse. She can't bear to read my blog any longer as it merely upsets her, something which I can quite understand.

Something Pieter has addressed before as an option was mentioned by my mother again in our conversation, namely the option of taking this issue to the media if no solution is to be expected from the side of the medical 'experts'.

Meanwhile I remain waiting feeling as though I am waiting for the results of the chimera test and MRI scans, even though I rationally know that I can't expect them yet, and that I may never get them. I'm really struggling to deal with the pain I'm feeling, unable to deal with it more and more often. It makes the thought of death seem like such a sweet and innocent offer of release.


Maya

Tuesday 5 May 2009

Injuries

I'm not sure what the heck happened, but today has been an absolute ordeal. After an initially successful start this morning, with me getting out of bed at 6.45 AM and spending some time with Pieter including walking the dogs before he left for his work. Things started going wrong when I checked the old emails I had received from doctor Linthorst in preparation for writing a new email. Something in those emails must have triggered something, as the next thing I remember is fetching breakfast downstairs in the kitchen whilst crying the entire time.

During breakfast I watched the first episode of the 2006 remake of the Kanon anime series (the original is my absolute favourite), and felt relatively okay. After breakfast I did some work on the NyanKana: KKE game, specifically detailing some characters and enemies which will appear in a mini-game. Around 10.30 AM I began to feel rather tired again, with a mild headache, so I decided to go back to bed again. After waking up two hours later, however, I felt absolutely terrible. Extremely demotivated, with me having to force every single movement of my body, let alone do any useful work.

So I decided to go back to bed again, read a bit, perhaps sleep some and see whether it'd pass. In the end I cried some more, read a chapter and finally kept sleeping for nearly three hours straight, until Pieter returned home. Before I even had a chance to eat dinner, something horrible triggered inside me.

Right now I still have a bloody scratch on my neck where I used my nails about an hour ago in a kind of choking/scratching manoeuvre. Fortunately Pieter was sitting next to me and was able to prevent more damage than the scratch and a few torn out hairs. I don't know why in the world I did this to me, except for this rage I feel inside me at times, born from some kind of disgust at my body or so. I'm not entirely sure. I only know that I keep having those urges to injure myself.

At the moment I'm feeling relatively okay and stable. I will take that sleeping pill I didn't take last night, though. I'm not entirely sure how to explain that scratch on my neck (it's a few cm long and pretty visible) tomorrow at the gym. Talking about which, my tummy muscles are still hurting a lot today from the exercise they received yesterday. Legs are okay, arms are a tad sore too.

I'll see whether I can do some more work on NK: KKE today. I'm liking what I have done so far on it. I'll have to check with Trevor to see when I'll be able to use the new game engine and tools he has been working on while I was slacking off. All we need now is someone to commit to doing the sound for this game and we're set, with a possible release within two months.


Maya

Monday 4 May 2009

Gym And Work

Today was mostly a physically exhausting day. I started the day at around 8 AM, seeing Pieter off to his work, then I got started on my own work after breakfast. I finished some major revisions to the Lilium hardware simulator implementation and intermediate language, with plenty of programming work and revising requirements/specifications left to take care of. I hope to finish much of it tomorrow.

At around 10 AM I got an email from my gym girl, informing me that she was going to the gym in thirty minutes time. Ultimately she got there about 45 minutes later, but hey, who cares :P at any rate it was an enjoyable time again. I got the resistance of the crosstrainer up to two-thirds of its maximum (8 out of 12), leg-pressed 80 kg up from 50 kg and generally had a good time. Our trainer still wants to take us out for dinner some day, but no date has been set yet. He did get my site's address, though, now I just have to see how good his English is :D My gym girl has only read an earlier blog post so far, so I am not totally sure how much she knows already. Perhaps I should ask in a more private situation or perhaps via email ^_^ not that it really matters.

When I got back from the gym it was already past 2 PM. I still had to clean up the house and take care of the laundry before I could take a shower. After that it was pushing 5 PM, leaving me just enough time to catch up on some news before Pieter returned from his work. We just finished dinner.

Earlier today I also added a new section to the MayaPosch.com site: 'Media'. It contains or will contain all appearances and such of me in newspapers, on TV and such. It should provide a convenient way to access all this information. The 'About Me' section got a make-over as well, with mostly some cosmetic changes, but also a bit of editing. I'll probably add some more to it later this week.

Right now I'm going to do some work on the game script and materials for the NyanKana: Kana & Kanji Explored (NK:KKE), as well as possibly some writing on my interpretation of the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time story. Once I get the first chapter done I will publish it on the main site, followed by each subsequent chapter as I finish it.

I'm still considering whether or not I shall take a sleeping pill tonight. I will see, I guess. I feel the usual crushing pain inside my head, indicating that I may collapse emotionally again soon.


Maya

Sunday 3 May 2009

Exhaustion And Pain

This weekend I haven't done much. Saturday Pieter and I did groceries as usual, and I spent 1.5 hour at the gym around noon. After that the day took a less pleasant turn, though, as Pieter and I watched a DVD movie, which turned out to trigger my traumas in new and interesting ways. The movie in question was 'Stripes'.

The first half of the movie was mostly just exhausting for me emotionally, with some scenes involving nudity and guys with dirty thoughts. Nothing I am not confronted with at least a few times a week. During dinner, however, we watched the second part, but it was filled with scenes involving seedy nightclubs, as well as even seedier parts approaching a pornographic movie, until I was wondering two things: why did Pieter consider this to be a suitable movie for me to be watching, and secondly why in heaven's name was I still watching it?

In the end I got up from the couch during the movie and left Pieter behind in the living room, to throw myself on my bed and try to keep my emotions in check. When Pieter came to check on me a short while after that, he was witness to a spectacle new to even me. I was lying on the bed, feeling how convulsions coursed through my body. The convulsions got more rapid, primarily resulting in contractions of the back muscles. This was accompanied by a severe emotional outburst: not mere crying but cries of pain, as it felt like waves of pain were surging through me.

I do not fully remember all details; afterwards I was in such a dazed state until I went to sleep that I was barely aware of my surroundings. The next morning I woke up around 6 AM, feeling miserable still. A few moments later I got a slightly milder repeat of the 'attack' the day before, crying loudly enough to wake up Pieter, who came rushing downstairs again to comfort me. I'm fairly certain that those two collapses, or attacks, or whatever you want to call them, were caused by that one movie. I absolutely loathe that movie now. Something tells me that I shouldn't watch 'Entrapment' either, which is another DVD Pieter recently bought.

Today I did manage to go to the pool, and I actually had a decent time there. I was able to recover a piece of jewellery a girl had lost on the bottom of the pool, and played around with some young girls who were also at the pool. By the time I got home, though, I felt rather tired. After a brief nap of an hour I woke up with a severe headache. I really love painkillers.

This entire weekend I have been planning to write an implementation of some synchronization code in the Lilium hardware simulator project I'm currently producing a demonstration version of, yet while I have worked out in my head all the details, I somehow feel too tired or overcome by a headache to write even a single line of code. It's so frustrating :(

Tomorrow Pieter's week-long vacation ends, and I'll have to spend most of the day alone again. I'll possibly go to the gym again, also depending on my gym partner. Somehow I'll have to do some work, though, else I might as well give up on accomplishing anything any time soon...

Next week I hope that there'll be something definitive on the help I can expect from the AMC, on the chimera test and possibly the MRI scans. If it takes any longer I'm not sure I'll care enough about it any more, let alone anything else. I need to end this nightmare soon, before it consumes me fully.


Maya

Friday 1 May 2009

Emotional Pain

Tuesday was my appointment with my GP. She has set me up for a new appointment with the psychiatrist. This to provide me with emotional support and guidance. I'll see how useful it'll be this time. First of all I have to wait 1-2 months until I get the intake appointment, and with perhaps one appointment each month, it doesn't seem terribly useful, but I'll see.

Issues which can be dealt with other than purely my physical issues include getting some semblance of a feeling of self-worth, plus learning to deal with various traumas, such as those involving my rape, sexual assault and of course sexuality in general. At this point I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hang on to my sanity with the daily assault of unpleasant thoughts and experiences.

I can feel how my nerves are getting more and more frayed, with me ready to lash out physically at anything which gets in the way or somehow annoys me. The nearly continuous sensation of feeling extremely tired emotionally has deepened into sessions of severe headache. Not nearly as bad as the migraines I used to have until a few years ago, but still very unpleasant.

While thoughts on and confrontations with sexuality have upset me for a while already, primarily in the period after my rape, at this point it has gone far beyond just getting upset and moved into the realm of irrational hatred. Just thinking about scenes involving sexuality, I can feel this intense hatred rising up from deep inside me. I feel convinced that what men and women do in intimate acts is wrong and completely evil. Men are vile beasts who only prey on mates to either fool into lowering their defences or merely to downright assault and rape them. Many women aren't much better, possessing only the minimal amount of intelligence, allowing themselves to be used for decorative purposes, to show off with, and to serve as mere breeding machines. It's all so sickening it makes me want to do horrible things, either to myself or to others.

Anyway... Wednesday Pieter and I went into the city for some movie-watching and some others things. We went to see the new X-Men movie: Origins. It was a pretty okay movie, quite on-par with the previous movies (sequels). After the movie we went to the Flevo hospital where I got drained of some blood so that my hormone levels and liver functioning could be tested again. I'll know in just over a week what the results are. It's been about two years ago since this test was last performed. I have been on the same dosage for that time and even ordered new hormone pills last week worth over 330 Euro based on that dosage. If the dosage changes that supply may not last the 6 months I had calculated.

The past weeks my ability to concentrate has been decreasing rapidly. I'm having a hard time focusing, feeling either numb emotionally or completely upset. I haven't cried a lot lately, mostly because it physically hurts to do so, between the pain in my head and the violent surges of pain and frustration which try to get out. The last time I really let myself go was Wednesday, I think... I nearly lost control, leading to what can only be described as absolute hysteria, with my rational side taking a back seat, frantically trying to keep myself from inflicting physical damage. I really do not care to repeat such an experience.

At this point there's very little I still care about. I haven't been to the gym since Monday and I feel little incentive to go again. I just want everything to be over soon... at this rate of emotional degradation I estimate that I have only weeks, possibly a month or two left before I completely snap. The physical pain is already nearly too much to bear, let alone the emotional pain. I'm just so incredibly tired... I'm glad I have those sleeping pills, I just wish I could take one every day instead of only every three.

In the comments to my previous post Jan asked why I would tell people about my 'secret'. Pieter also asked me whether it was wise to inform this girl at the gym about it already. To me, however, the reason is clear; if I pretend to be just a girl, it'll tear me apart inside, just as it did in the past (2006 - 2007), with a friend ultimately urging me to just tell everyone. I now realize that I am not a girl. I'm not a guy either. I'm those few facts I have collected over the years. That is my identity, and I want people to know it, not some fake, made-up fantasy.


Maya