Today as I was talking with a colleague, we happened to end up talking a bit about the Netherlands. They mentioned that they had been there once for a while and had found the people to be quite pleasant. They then proceeded to ask me whether I travel back to the Netherlands a lot since I was born there. My response was a curt 'no', detailed by saying that I hadn't been back there aside from a visit last year for something important. They seemed set back a bit by this, also when I further mentioned having had bad experiences there.
What surprised me the most was the strong feeling of negativity I felt both at the suggestion that it can be pleasant in the Netherlands and when I explained why I hadn't been back there in more than a year aside from one brief visit. It's really just pure hatred which I felt. Examining this feeling a bit more, as well as the underlying motivations, it's clear that it's simply because I cannot help but associate any part of the country to what happened to me, which all led to my current situation.
It's the same kind of helpless, impotent rage I feel towards people who use the highly offensive term 'Disorder of Sex Development' (DSD) to refer to intersex, as well as towards intersex and related people who do get medical help, and so on.
Most of it is just a frantic, desperate feeling of 'why me'. Why did they have to make me suffer. Why did they refuse me help. Why don't they believe the physical evidence even as it's staring them in the face? The sensation that this is all just a set up. That everyone is into it to ensure that I'll not get help and will suffer as much as possible. After more than a decade of trying just about everything and experiencing the weirdest and most suspicious things it's hard to not begin to believe that I never had a chance at making it through this in one piece, as everything was set up to make me fail at everything I set out to find answers to.
These past months the physical symptoms of what appear to be complications related to my intersex condition have significantly increased, including the abdominal distension, constant abdominal pains, loss of appetite and what not. With it looms the frightening prospect of me being weeks, maybe months away from a critical medical emergency as whatever is causing this abdominal swelling will push onto something crucial, something that's not the nerves to my legs, my bladder or stomach. With absolutely no information to work with there's nothing to make a more accurate prediction than somewhere between 'harmless' and 'imminent disaster'.
I have contacted my physician regarding this issue. Depending on her reply I should have an appointment next week after which hopefully will lead to some actual examinations and clarity on what is giving my abdomen the appearance as if I'm quite a few months pregnant when I'm not actively using my abdominal muscles to keep everything pulled inside.
I guess I am at least somewhat grateful that here in Germany physicians do not strive to actively deny the possibility of me being intersex, but fully admit to me at least having an intersex condition, with my medical file clearly listing me as being a hermaphrodite. That is one point which I could never get past in the Netherlands, at least in the medical and psychological world there. The helpless rage I feel when I am reminded of that fact - something which cost me literally years of my life - is quite befitting of such of offence committed against me. After all, I have done nothing to deserve such treatment but being born this way.
The prospect that it is this wilful ignorance and maltreatment, if not outright abuse I suffered which may ultimately lead to me not receiving in time the treatment which would have saved my life is more than just frightening. It undermines my entire faith in physicians, in psychologists, in entire countries and systems as well as the people in them. How can they be anything but avatars of sheer evil through ignorance, whether wilful or not?
Here goes nothing... once again.
Maya
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