On seeking escape and safety; emotional numbness; self-delusion

 The concept of 'self' is fascinating. Not just because of the importance that is given to it, but also due to how it ties into how it affects how one experiences the world. One's 'self' is not a static thing. It grows and changes, just like one's personality, ultimately forming one's ego. Basically how one experiences and responds to the world around them.

This also means that one's experiencing of the reality around oneself doesn't necessarily have to match up with the facts. One of the amazing things about the human brain is its ability to predict the future, not only with the outcome of physical actions, but also in a social sense. This ability to run a simulated version of reality is also one of the major weaknesses, as this 'simulation' can grow stronger than reality and real sensory inputs.

When one talks about emotional numbness in response to traumatic events, this is essentially when this simulation ability reroutes real inputs and thoughts related to said events. Effectively one 'shuts out' the undesirable impulses and thoughts. Short-term this is an amazingly useful ability, that allows one to get through moments of trauma and adversity. Long-term one can loose one's self completely and one's connection with reality along with it.


I first noticed this strongly more than a decade ago, when I found suddenly that while watching a show on television, I suddenly could no longer 'feel' the characters on-screen, while this previously had not been an issue. This was in a period when my physical and mental health were degrading rapidly after moving houses a few times amidst traumatic circumstances. Physically I looked like a ghost, with clumps of hair falling out and overall poor health, while psychologically I had essentially lost all contact with the world.

Mostly thanks to my mother's care during that time did I make somewhat of a recovery, and began to notice that only did my health improve, I also regained my sense of smell, which had vanished without me even having noticed it. This made it clear to me just how far this 'psychological numbness' can go. Not only does it numb one's emotions, it literally numbs one's senses along with it, even if there is no physical cause for the loss of smell, touch, taste and hearing.

Although I am still making a recovery in that regard, it delights me every time when I notice that I can smell more, feel more, empathise more and basically feel more alive. The awareness of one's own body, of it existing in this reality. Not as some abstract entity defined by something as nonsensical as a social role or gender preference, but as a real, flesh-and-blood, breathing, living human being. I am my self, and not something others have made up.


In that regard, I think it's pretty terrible to think back to when I was still feeling so lost in that regard. Even when I wasn't in any immediate threat over the past years, I still knew on a fundamental level that I had lost my sense of self, of belonging and safety. Unable to deal with changes as a result, and fundamentally incapable of seeing a way out of my situation on multiple occasions, I felt trapped. Where does one even go to? Where can one go to? Where is safe? What is safety?

So many times that I just left the place where I was staying at that point in time, to walk outside for hours. Often during the winter, wearing too little clothing. Returning eventually, often with the first signs of hypothermia. Because I knew that I could walk out of the door, but I had nowhere to go. No matter how bad things got. I was always trapped.

I think that's what ultimately drove me to honestly consider taking my own life. In a sense it offered me the escape and safety which I was craving for at that point in time. Having run all the simulations and crunched all the numbers, it was the only option that I felt was still open to me. I'm pretty sure that it was because of my mother once again taking care of me and allowing me to heal and recover in a safe environment that I am still writing this today.

And not just my mother. Others were also there at crucial times, to provide that support and taking off some of the load when things felt like they were escalating out of control again. I feel that I literally owe my life to every single one of those people. Which is where it is frustrating to me to still deal with so much of this emotional numbness today, along with the lack of social skills on account having lived so socially withdrawn since I was five years old. How do you undo decades of emotional trauma and lack of development in a matter of months?

Feeling so socially awkward is one of the worst feelings I know today, even more so when I know that reading a social situation wrong can have severe negative repercussions. Maybe it's that I missed out on learning all of that, but I do not think that all this guessing involved in social situations is very fun or enjoyable, especially when I spend 99% of that time questioning everything I say or do. Guess it says a lot that at any party worthy of such description I'd prefer to just find one or more people to talk about technological, scientific or geo-political topics, rather than be forced to 'have fun'.

There's also the awkwardness when someone seeks to surprise you, with a gift, or similar. Like this time when I got a cryptic note from a friend, telling me that there was something for me in this one location, I think. That led me to finding this packaged up bundle, which I awkwardly opened after doing everything I could to make sure that it was something that I should be unwrapping. Inside the package I found a backpack filled with supplies and everything needed to 'make an escape', according to the note inside. Just a bag you can grab whenever you need to get away from things and can walk out of the door without without a second thought.

That was a gift that confused me in many ways. To my knowledge we had never talked about such a thing, and I was unpleasantly reminded of all those times when I was walking for the sake of walking, to get away from all those troubles that would ultimately drive me to the ultimate act of desperation. Because back then I knew that there was no escape, and no getting away from things.

But maybe I was too weak? Too cowardly? I do not know.


All I know is that to me 'feeling safe' is the most important thing of all, whether it is inside one's own mind, at the place where one lives, or whenever one is travelling. Being in control is an important factor there, I think. The knowledge that you are in control of your mind, your body, your immediate surroundings and that your travel preparations were sufficient and everything is going swimmingly. That you can stop focusing on those aspects and instead focus on the things in life that truly matter, whether it are friends, family, hobbies, pets or any other pursuits.

I feel that I'm slowly regaining this sense of control, enjoying the way it changes what I see in the mirror, how I see and experience the world and how it's enabling me to focus more on those things in life that matter, instead of the tediousness of surviving one day at a time.


Of course, all of this is just the version of reality that is playing in my head now, so maybe I'll look back on what I just wrote here in a few years the same way that I now cringe at blog posts I wrote a few years back.

What does it mean when you feel that you don't like this past version of yourself much?


Maya

School as a source of cruelty and humiliation

 There's a lot of unpleasantness one can deal with through simple emotional numbness as a coping mechanism. Problem is generally the aftermath, when the limitations of that numbness become clear. It seems that often, one of the consequences is that the emotional trauma is still there and still doing damage, but one cannot place why one feels a particular way, because the numbness has blocked direct access to the memories.

Much of therapy appears to be focused on easing those blockages, to regain access to those memories so that one can give those disturbing feelings and thoughts a place. For me it appears that my mind has decided to unblock a lot of memories regarding my time at school.


The most amazing thing about bullying and cruelty towards others is probably that there was no real reason. Finding myself submerged in those old memories of primary and high school again it hits me just how cruel and unrelenting the bullying and other actions were. It wasn't just that I didn't get picked during PE classes when teams had to be formed even though I wasn't clumsy or bad at sports. It was mostly things like having dozens of students seek me out to stand around me whether between classes or during breaks, to hurl insults at me.

There were also the moments when I was attacked, such as getting punched in the gut, or that time when this fellow student at primary school saw fit to spit into my face right before classes resumed. I didn't tell the teachers about either. In the latter case I used some dirt to mostly scrub off the disgusting smelling saliva before heading back to the classroom while pretending nothing happened. Ignoring bullying was supposed to be the best strategy to deal with it, after all.

The teachers and parents of the students involved all knew that something was going on, of course. It's hard to keep such large scale bullying a secret, especially when it gets so large that when I cycled back home one time there was this whole group of students on bicycles trying to block the road. I never bothered to ask anyone what they would have done if I hadn't slipped past them.

All of this took up most of my primary school time, although the last few years got a bit more quiet after I had apparently beaten up the main bully (which I do not recall at all). Him and I became friends for years afterwards. I guess it is true what they say about some people turning their loneliness or dissatisfaction with their life into bullying others.

I guess I did take that lesson to heart, so that when I found myself getting bullied again in HS, I singled out this one fellow student during PE class and slapped him in the face, then apologised to him when the teacher pulled us aside. Remembering the feelings at the time, I felt no hate or anything to those bullies, only anger at constantly being made fun of and humiliated.


As someone who is sensitive to stress-induced migraines, I found that the bullying was causing me to start getting those migraines with aura, to the tune of at least once a week during the second year. I think that puberty made my susceptibility to migraines a lot worse, with them really ramping up around that time until they mostly stopped some years ago. Combining migraines, bullying and the constant feeling of being an outcast did not serve to make me feel like I enjoyed school in any sense. It was required to attend school, but I was always happy again to be back home, where it was safe.

The last few years of HS were less stressful, however. Even though I lost fellow outcast friends when they went to other schools, I eventually ended up with this small group of friends who accepted each other without question. It was with them that I did nerdy things, such as playing Magic the Gathering card games in the cafeteria during breaks. And those times were great.


I'm glad to have so many of these memories related to that period covering my childhood and teenage years coming back now. It gives me a better perspective on the past which formed the person I am today. Even though it shows me mostly scenes of a period in my life that I do not like to remember, it makes me understand more things about myself which didn't make sense before with just the memories of other traumatic parts of my life, such as the child abuse trauma or medical system trauma.

I still do not really get why I got bullied so much, to the point of physical violence against me. Maybe it was just something about my attitude or whatever. Maybe it doesn't really matter. All that matters is that I got those memories back now so that I can direct my energy at processing them and giving them a place, instead of getting frustrated at the parts of my mind that do not make sense.


Maya

PTSD, personal responsibility and being able to live with yourself

 Reading back my recent post on 'the selfishness of PTSD' [1], I cannot help but feel that I blundered in writing it. Even though it was sincere, it was also heavily biased, more written from my own desires and emotions at the time than objective truth. Reading what I wrote again, it reads as if I am making excuses. That the actions of someone who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder are never their fault. I vehemently disagree with that notion.

For a while now I have been considering writing about being able to live with yourself when you can remember things you did in the past, even if they were likely because of the consequences of the traumatic experiences. I can remember countless social situations where I just had to get away, because I didn't feel comfortable or felt unsafe, leaving me to later consider the impressions this must have left on others. Then the times when me misunderstanding something resulted in someone else getting upset or felt hurt. Then being incapable of fixing this or apologising properly.

Worst of all are the times when I hurt others, or reacted in a way that was decidedly aggressive or even violent. Even if it involved me blacking out and beating up that one bully during primary school, that's still not something which I am proud of. If there's the risk of losing myself to those impulses, that doesn't mean that I, or for that matter anyone else with PTSD, shouldn't have the obligation to do our utmost to apply at least some level of control.

As the Canadian Veterans Affairs says on their site:

Try not to use your PTSD or your war experiences as an excuse for hurting yourself or others. There is no excuse for being violent, aggressive, or otherwise mistreating other human beings. It is important that you take responsibility for your own behaviour. [2]

As I have mentioned previously in earlier posts, during depressive moods especially I often feel that I am worthless. Usually I can see all my failures over the years, the times where my actions hurt myself or others in some way. And the crushing feeling of how sorry I am that I'm such a terrible person. It's not okay that I hurt myself either, whether it is through words, thoughts or physical actions that inflict pain or damage.

It's easy to use the excuse that I have had to deal with the effects of PTSD practically without professional help, but that's not an acceptable excuse. All one can do is do better, or stop trying and give up. Yet all without ending up hurting oneself in the process. Or others. PTSD recovery should be about safety and getting away from the trauma. PTSD recovery can only happen when one feels that the traumatic events are behind one. Being hurt by others is bad. Hurting oneself is bad. Hurting or lashing out at others is worse.


From a blog post by someone who suffered PTSD due to a traumatic religious background [3], the following:

Living through trauma can make us feel like we don’t have control. We certainly didn’t have control of our lives during the traumatic event or events. It’s important for trauma survivors to understand we do have control of how we react. Thinking that we have no control over our emotional reactions is part of our traumatic wound. We may not be able to control whether or not our heart starts racing after being triggered, but we absolutely do have control over how we respond to someone who has said or done something triggering. We aren’t puppets being controlled by the past.

Here the phrase "Thinking that we have no control over our emotional reactions is part of our traumatic wound." jumps out at me, as this is exactly the point where past and present start mingling together. Often childhood trauma seem to take the shape of an almost subconscious desire to replicate the trauma over and over in the present. This is the part where one has to break with the past, and with it the trauma.

This same sentiment is echoed by an article over at Providence by Marc LiVecche [4]. It starts off with describing how Sarah Palin used PTSD in 2016 as an excuse for her son's recent arrest during which he was charged with domestic violence against his girlfriend. It's beyond the pale that a PTSD diagnosis would absolve anyone from any personal responsibility. Even a PTSD sufferer still understands the difference between right and wrong and that hurting another, innocent person is wrong in every applicable sense of the word.


Finally, there has been a lot of research on PTSD the past decades. Anthony Charuvastra, et al. [5] explore the unique nature of human-generated traumatic events (e.g. abuse and neglect), examining the effect of childhood abuse in particular, the long-term neurological and social impact and possible treatment methods.

From such research we can learn that while yes, the physiological and neurological impact is often permanent and severe, it does not turn a childhood abuse victim in a 'puppet of the past'. We are still our own person, even if we have seen and gone through more than anyone should ever have to deal with.

In a similar vein, I do not, or at least should not feel attacked or uncomfortable when someone rightfully points out flaws in my reasoning or behaviour. As long as it is done in a manner that is respectful (between fellow human beings) and with the intention to help, not hurt. Because hurting others or oneself is never cool or okay.

Which should really be the motto for humanity as a whole, I guess.


Maya



[1] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-selfishness-of-post-traumatic.html
[2] https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/health-support/mental-health-and-wellness/understanding-mental-health/ptsd-warstress
[3] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/waystationinthewilderness/2019/06/1404/
[4] https://providencemag.com/2016/01/490/
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722782/

The selfishness of post-traumatic stress disorder

 After having spent some time over the past weeks chatting with perfectly friendly strangers as they came to pick up some items that I was selling via EBay, it rather hit me how much I enjoyed those contacts. In that regard it's even more frustrating that I always seem to end up by myself, whether holed up in my room as a child or teenager with books and my computer instead of hanging out with friends and classmates, or holed up in some apartment, often in front of a computer instead of hanging out with friends or family.

Pandemic aside, I think that the answer really goes back to the childhood trauma. As my mother put it, I changed practically overnight from a happy, carefree child who wanted nothing more than to be friends with everyone to a frightened child who refused to be touched or embraced by even their own mother. When you only become aware of those changes many years later and have to trace things back at that point, it's a tough job, which takes time. Time during which you are occupied a lot with yourself a lot.

Not just with digging through your own past and memories, but also trying to make sense of what it is that you are feeling and why you are responding in certain ways. Why did that one thing which I just got asked about upset me so much? Why did I suddenly start crying? Why am I feeling angry? Why does it feel right now like hurting myself is even remotely acceptable? Why do I feel worthless? Why do I feel ready to just give up on life?

Those outbursts of rage, of helplessness and intense regret and sadness are not only upsetting to oneself, but even more to one's environment, who are spared the emotional turmoil, flashbacks and intense feelings that associate such moments. When reading the story of a woman who tried to build up a relationship with a war veteran with PTSD [1], there's a lot of such moments in there. That said, the final point in that story ('It's OK to walk away') does make sense from the perspective of the caretaker, as they too have to protect themselves. On the other hand, it is also very cruel towards the person with PTSD.


As a victim of PTSD, it is not that you choose to behave in such a way. The level of awareness of one's own behaviour differs, of course, and there's a certain leeway in how far you can control your behaviour. In the end, however, the effect of PTSD if the patient is left without appropriate help or assistance is more akin to a person who is drowning. In their panic and fear, they do not realise that they are wildly flailing around, injuring and possibly killing their would-be rescuers along with themselves. Nobody is at fault, which is the real tragedy.

This article by Juli Fraga [2] focuses on loneliness with PTSD and why it's both a natural consequence and very wrong. The main thing being that becoming stuck in loneliness can reinforce the traumas. Left alone with one's feelings, dealing only with the day-to-day things of modern society (many of which are fairly hostile or can be interpreted as such), this would further promote the feeling that the outside world is unsafe, and thus also that trusting others is unsafe. If you're alone, nobody can hurt you, basically. Even though it is yourself that you have to fear the most of in that case.

Similarly, it shouldn't be up to just one other person to 'rescue' you. As said earlier in the 'drowning person' comparison, and described in the Health Line article [1], that tends to be a recipe for disaster. Speaking as someone who has also been at the other side in such a relationship (flatmate with diagnosed psychological disorder), getting the heck out of that situation is really the only way to salvage one's sanity and health. I barely got out of that situation, losing only all of my possessions when things turned a bit too... psychotic.


All of that said, I think that I am aware of most of my emotional and psychological outbursts and issues. There is obviously still a lot that I need to learn, especially since I kind of stopped that learning process back as a child for obvious reasons, but I want to understand and better myself. I enjoy dealing with the emotional fluctuations caused by my PTSD about as much as others around me do, which is to say it makes them want to run away and never return.

For me, however, I cannot abandon myself. This is the only 'me' that I have got, and it's the 'me' I have got to work with, even if it feels like a broken, shattered vessel, filled with regrets and haunted by ghosts of the past. I just have to make it work somehow. As Juli Fraga's article points out, something that can already help is to write down what you are feeling and experiencing. That would make this blog part of my PTSD therapy, I guess?

When I notice how others respond to me when they first meet me, I feel like there is definitely hope. That I can become master of these traumas instead of vice versa. Just have to rebuild that self-esteem, tweak that self-image, take a deep breath before the boiling, trauma-fed emotions get the better of me. Sounds easy.

What are you afraid of?


Maya


[1] https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/lessons-partner-with-ptsd
[2] https://www.rewire.org/loneliness-trauma-side-effect/

The cost of proving that one isn't transgender

 Sometimes one cannot help but marvel at how the road to Hell is paved with only the most exquisitely well-intended words and actions. Even as I try to write this all down in the knowledge that I really have to get this off my chest, that is something important, it's hard not to feel like I am committing some kind of social offence. Who am I to dismiss popular opinion, after all?

Fact of the matter is that as much as I just wish to 'move on' with my life, it is hard to ignore a certain elephant in the room. One which has been standing there for a while now, and surely isn't going to budge merely by the power of me ignoring it. It's not an easy elephant to name, though its nickname could be 'transgender accusation trauma'. Perhaps not a very short nickname, but it will have to do.


It's both funny and scary how when one looks back, one can clearly see how naive and simplistic one used to be about certain topics. If you had asked me about the topic of transgender/transsexuality fifteen years ago or so, I would have given you the popular opinion spiel about the body and male and female identity of the brain.

That was before I discovered that I am intersex. Yet with the doctors still telling me that I had to be transgender. The MRI-based evidence that I got from a private clinic, which showed me to be have a hermaphroditic intersex body was cast aside, and it was insisted appointment after appointment, year after year that I had to be, nay, could only possibly be transgender with my obviously male body and with my insistence that my body was not male.

Only what I was asking them was to examine my body and tell me what I already knew inside: that it is in fact not a male body, nor a female one. But they would always circle back to me having to be transgender in their professional opinion, with the evidence about my body not being male dismissed as 'insufficient', 'unclear', 'open to interpretation' and so on. They kept asking me: "But you want to be a woman, right?", even as I required no hormones or surgery to appear and sound for all intents and purposes female already.


How does one go about disproving that one could be transgender? Years of running in this endless treadmill led me to investigate what all of those terms really meant. From 'gender' to 'feeling like a woman/man' to the intricacies of physical and psychological identity. Along the way I was forced to admit that popular opinion was wrong. The reason why I couldn't pin down 'feeling like a woman/man' was because it's a nonsensical notion that as I have referenced in previous posts is not based on science [1], with 'gender' in the modern sense being instead a symptom of transgenerational trauma [2].

What I was feeling was just the way that I am, and the person I want to be. I cannot feel 'like a woman' or 'like a man', because those statements mean nothing. Only in the context of a physical body does 'male' or 'female' make sense, and there too is too much variety to create just two groups. Even among individuals with purely male or female genitals there exists a wide variety, and there are those who suffer certain pains and defects, some involving infertility, others with varying levels of period pains and PMS. The 'female experience' isn't binary, with each woman getting a unique experience on account of the unique combination of their female body and associated hormones and reproductive organs.

Where this overlaps with the hermaphroditic experience, hermaphrodites and women can definitely swap tales and tips on how to deal best with the downsides of womanhood [3]. This realisation made it easy for me to accept that I am not a woman, nor a man, but a hermaphrodite, and unique again among hermaphrodites and human beings in general. Therefore I only have to be myself to be okay in my own eyes and 'pass' as myself.


Yet over a decade of having doctors, psychologists and other know-it-alls try to hammer their opinions home have left their scabbed over wounds. I feel that any trust that I could have had in such people has evaporated, perhaps never to return again. Perhaps worse is that I can no longer share blissfully in popular opinion. How does one go about informing people that their views on what it means to be male or female, not to mention gender are incorrect? That the diagnosis of 'transgender/gender dysphoria' is flawed and without scientific basis?

Should one even tell people about it? While I am glad that I have figured things out for myself, I feel that in doing so, many doors have been closed between me and much of society. There is a lot that I can no longer talk about now without either sharing my own thoughts, or hiding them. These days I seem to lean more towards avoiding it, it seems.

Together with the topic of intersex itself, all of it feels like dead ends to me [4]. It's easiest in many ways to not deal with something unpleasant, even if it means that one may have to actively avoid it, for example by using filter lists on social media to avoid certain content.


I think it is also essential that I get to escape from these topics for a while at least. When it has formed a significant part of one's life for far too long, and caused mostly grief and sorrow, it is essential to give it a rest. Put it on a shelf and focus on the other parts of oneself for a change. My womanhood can stay confined to the discomfort of periods and PMS for now. Even if it's a right bother sometimes, it is still a part of who and what I am. And that's fine.

There is still life beyond the sharing in popular opinion, after all.


Maya


[1] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/your-brain-doesnt-care-what-genitals.html
[2] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/11/gender-as-special-type-of.html
[3] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/08/when-intersex-woman-isnt-just-woman.html
[4] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/02/so-i-got-denied-medical-care-because-of.html

Gender as a special type of transgenerational trauma

 Whereas the term 'sex' unequivocally refers to an individual's biological sex, i.e. their body's physical properties which pertain to the function of reproduction, the term 'gender' [1] has changed or assumed different meanings over the past centuries. Originally referring to a group of people or things which share a certain trait, it came to mean the same as 'biological sex' around the early 15th century as a way to differentiate it from the physical act of procreation that had become associated with the term 'sex' by that time.

The currently common meaning of 'gender' to mean 'social role' in the feminist sense dates to the early 1960s. This claims the existence of distinct masculine and feminine attributes that would define an individual as being part of either a masculine ('male') or feminine ('female') role in society, seeking to define the identity of a person's ego in only those perceived qualities.


Here I would like to postulate that this definition, and the perception of 'masculine' and 'feminine' properties to make up the ego of an individual, is indicative of transgenerational trauma [2]. Firstly, it is important to acknowledge that the very notion of such properties does not hold up to scientific scrutiny [3], with studies showing the brains of volunteers to display a mosaic of properties, with no distinct sets of properties that would indicate a propensity towards either a 'male' or 'female' pattern. Effectively, neither the presence nor absence of specific hormones or chromosomes appear to have any effect on the development and final functionality of the human brain.

While for animals as well as insects, their biological sex has a significant impact on their expected role in courtship rituals, an important distinction to be drawn here is that of instinct and behaviour versus reason and intelligence. No matter how enlightened a species may be, the basic courtship rituals and the instincts that drive them are still present. This underlies much of human societies, with in particular societies founded on Abrahamic religious foundations only relatively recently accepting that women are in fact individuals with the right to self-determination.


The societal patterns that have been sustained over the millennia as a result of these base rituals persist to this day, as do the traumas that accompany them. Despite there being no scientific evidence to support any dimorphism between human brains, it's still held as common knowledge that men and women are 'different'. Along with the feministic pseudo-scientific 'gender' theorem we can see this supposed difference being used as justification by some for segregation, or discrimination ('affirmative action', 'gender quota'), with no backing scientific evidence that would justify this.

Other ways that this societal trauma appears is in the form of individuals crossing those perceived masculine and feminine societal roles, either dressing up in a way that is generally perceived to be only acceptable for individuals in the other role. More extreme is the appearance of individuals who feel that they cannot live with the reproductive organs with which they have been born ('gender dysphoria', or GD) and must have these organs surgically removed. Here a considerable overlap with Body Identity Disorder (BID)[4] seems to exist [5]. Similarly to cases of non-neurological BID, individuals diagnosed with GD can grow out of the disorder, go through with surgery and end up regretting it ('detransition') [6], or find that the surgery did not alleviate the effects of the psychological disorder.


In the comparison with BID and GD one can see a pattern of trauma appear. For non-neurological (i.e. no deficiencies found within the brain) BID, there appears to be often some kind of impressive experience, often in the childhood of the person. This can be something shocking, such as seeing someone with an amputated limb. For GD the trauma appears to overlap significantly with transgenerational trauma.

Even before a child is conceived, the parents and their environment will hold certain beliefs about what is right and proper for a child, depending on the biological sex it is born with. This continues with the birth of the child, their clothes they receive, the toys they play with and the other children they see and how their environment expects them to play with others. At each stage along their development, they grow up in an environment in which their behaviour and preferences are cultured, promoted, punished and promoted until they are deemed 'appropriate'.

Here the parents and the environment are often unaware of their own actions, or would be at a loss to explain why they feel it is 'correct'. This is in many ways similar to the behaviour seen by the victims of childhood abuse, some of whom who will go on to inflict similar abuse to their own children. The distinction here is that this transgenerational trauma about societal roles or in its current nomenclature 'gender' isn't something that affects just some unfortunate families. This level of trauma affects entire societies and nations, generation after generation.


This also helps to explain to some extent the attitude towards intersex individuals. Falling outside the convenient boundaries of a binary sex, they either suffer early mutilation (intersex genital mutilation) to force them to conform, or will suffer the trauma of dealing with a society which is too traumatised to be able to accept that its concepts of masculinity and femininity are not only beside the point, but also comprehensively, scientifically incorrect.

To heal from this trauma, societies will first have to learn to accept the reality and scope of this trauma before they can begin to let go of fictional narratives. This would be a long, arduous process. If this concerned a singular patient, a psychiatrist would seek to slowly ease the patient out of their delusions and circular reasoning, so that they might see and grasp the reality. To do that with entire societies is however a whole different level.


Maya


[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/gender
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenerational_trauma
[3] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/your-brain-doesnt-care-what-genitals.html
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3326051/
[5] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269697839_Body_integrity_identity_disorder_and_Gender_Dysphoria_A_pilot_study_to_investigate_similarities_and_differences
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detransition

Getting back into that 'career' thing after recovering from PTSD

 This is not an easy post for me to write. Even as I am grateful for the progress that I'm making in recovering from decades of trauma and the associated post-traumatic stress disorder, it's hard not to find myself painfully aware of how the world around me has seemingly moved ahead without me. Instead of neatly and mostly happily bouncing my way through the education system and ending up in some job from which I'd work my way up to a bright career, I more or less fell off the grid as I fell into depression, followed by a string of traumatic events which put my continued existence strongly in question.

To make a long story short, I seem to have managed to make it out of the other side more or less in one piece, courtesy of primarily the efforts of people who I am very grateful for not giving up on me. Yet as the darkness of depression recedes and my PTSD no longer controls me, it's equally painfully obvious that the reason why people rush into a career is so that they can acquire that which most crucially sustains life itself: money.

I'm grateful that I have found some freelance work mostly writing articles for sites and publications, but diversification seems like a good thing. For example something to do with my experience as a senior-level software developer. Call it an artefact of my cosy relationship with computers while growing up, but software development in particular is something which is practically an integral part of my being, much like the ability to read and write. Basically, that means that I like it a lot.


I was supposed to have landed a software development contract for a big international company at the beginning of this year, but as the pandemic did its thing, that lead dried up, like so many others. Finding new leads and following up on them is still something that I have to work on, just like the whole 'networking' thing. It's no use if you might be a great fit for a lot of remote software jobs out there, but neither side is aware of the other.

In that regard I guess that my string of published books on mostly C++ and embedded development is a good kind of advertisement, along with the projects which I have published on my GitHub account [1]. Yet it's still a struggle to generate and handle leads, even if others do their best to find a few for me. I guess it's mostly due to the vestiges of PTSD that still trouble me, slowing me down and making even simple tasks more demanding than they would be for anyone without such a psychological burden.

Some of these projects which I started have gathered a lot of feedback already, especially NymphCast [2], even as the amount of work there is still astounding, especially for what is still a definite hobby project. While I did recently go back to fix a regression with playback and add a host of new features, it did impress on me again the need to balance hobbies with work. Hobbies are for relaxation and fun learning, while work is what you do first and foremost for money to survive.

While I have seen some open source projects grow to the point where they can have an actual business plan, or keep growing through the power of donations, aiming for such a thing seems roughly as practical and realistic as trying to become rich by inventing the Next Big Thing and patenting it.

What seems more realistic at this point is the development of my Nodate embedded framework project [3], as I can directly use it as the foundation of articles on embedded development. That level of synergy is extremely helpful.


In summary, at this point I'm still scraping by as a freelancer, doing odd jobs, but I would definitely like something bigger and more permanent. I think it would be helpful for my recovery by having something steady and predictable. I think that what I have put out in public in terms of publications and projects should leave a favourable impression. Enough that I should have more self-confidence, perhaps.

Time to chase more leads like an overly excited kitten chasing yarn and see what comes up at the end of them, I guess :)


Maya


[1] https://github.com/MayaPosch
[2] https://github.com/MayaPosch/NymphCast
[3] https://github.com/MayaPosch/Nodate

Healing, growing, accepting

 I would say that a healthy point in the healing process while recovering from psychological trauma is when you not only feel disgusted with the thought of being a victim, but feel motivated to reclaim your life. Previously I have talked about the sensation of feeling like a victim, and how much I dislike that. Sure, I could complain all day and everywhere about how society keeps hurting me, and moan about their debt towards me, but that's not the person who I want to be.

Things happened. I can fix this, because it's what has to be done. Because I can see what has to be done. Even as it feels like parts of my brain are still slowly sliding and clicking into place after having been chopped up and reshuffled by repeated trauma over the decades, I can feel myself growing stronger. I am healing.


I still don't get what my body exactly is. Even if I'm less confused about it than doctors, for whom intersex bodies seem to be completely outside of their field of expertise. I had no choice but to make this my field of expertise, as this is the only body that I will ever have.

Chronologically, my body has a specific age. Yet when people are asked how old they think I am, the answer seems to roughly vary between 15 to 25 years old. From what I can tell, my body is still going through puberty. As the harm from the unintentional years-long starvation process fades, my body seems to enthusiastically return to wrapping up this 'puberty' thing. I had no idea that my body would end up looking this feminine. Nor did I figure it would display a kind of reverse ageing process. Or maybe I'm just looking healthier now. It's hard to tell sometimes.


I have to acknowledge the years of fruitless attempts at searching for medical help and answers, and unsatisfying or even harmful psychological help. I tried and did my best there, but it was not meant to be. I still feel unhappy with the fact that nobody seems to care about me being forced to use my abdomen as a monthly sanitary pad, and feeling the resulting ickiness squishing inside my perineum, along with other unhappy symptoms. But this is discomfort, not hazardous to my life. I think. I hope.


Looking back, it's hard not to admit that the past years have focused a lot on dealing with and coming to terms with these and other things. Yet it was necessary, I think. One cannot just move on when every thought feels like it had to crawl its way through glass shards.

Then comes the time when one feels that one can, no, wants to move on. Continue fixing up one's mind, while seeking positive interactions and accomplishments in the big world out there. Because life waits for nobody.


Maya

Childhood abuse and the eternal expectation of compassionless punishment

 A few days ago, I was suddenly reminded of a dream which I have had a few times by now over the past decades. Each time it is essentially the same dream: I find myself at what seems like a party or gathering, with people sitting around a number of round tables, busy chatting, drinking and amusing themselves. Meanwhile I wander between those tables, feeling invisible as I at the same time deal with the knowledge that I'm a condemned person. That tomorrow my execution will take place and that this is my last day alive. Invisible. Ignored. Irrelevant.

Until I was reminded of those dreams again, I had not been able to place them, or make sense why I would have that same dream over and over. Then it hit me that I could connect my feelings and experiences in those dreams with the feelings that often crop up when I'm dealing with strong negative emotions, usually as part of a negative or stressful event. Feelings of feeling worthless, defective, disgusting, revolting, deserving of punishment and so much worse.

Seeing those two things side by side and seeing how they fit together also allowed me to connect them with the details of the traumas which I have suffered over the past years, starting with the presumed childhood abuse at around age five which seems to have started all of this. Although part of me still struggles to accept that I truly did suffer childhood abuse, the circumstantial evidence is just too overwhelming. That just leaves the frustration that I cannot remember many details of what exactly happened to me, or who was involved.


While reading up on the topic of childhood abuse and the far-ranging emotional, neurological and social consequences that this has on the lives of victims, I came across a lengthy but excellent article by Beverly Engel over at Psychology Today [1]. Reading it allowed me put a few more things together. Most of all the visualisation I had of child me still being stuck in the dark room that I can remember, with the child crying and feeling so horrible about everything that had happened before being abandoned by one of the adults responsible in that room.

I described previously how it felt to me like I had found a way to this room with the traumatised child inside it [2][3] and had managed to open the door, leaving the previously dark and cold room instead empty and sunny. This to me seems like a first step towards healing and self-compassion. Instead of leaving the traumatised child part of myself alone in that room, I instead allowed it to become a part of myself again, ending that fragmentation.

As Beverly Engel describes, often the problem with childhood abuse is debilitating shame and guilt. Whatever happened as a child established those patterns, leading to subsequent behaviour that devalues one's own existence, one's body and one's place in society. Due to being unable to feel like anything one does is good enough, combined with any praise feeling far less genuine than the opposite leads to a constant sensation of being invisible or unwanted.


Looking back, I can see how easy it was for me to discard any compassion expressed by others towards me. I was waiting for actions that would show me that those words of compassion were genuine. Amidst cruel and compassionless acts from people like psychologists, doctors, landlords and many others, it only reinforced the feeling of being led to my eventual execution day. Ergo those dreams.

What I also felt in those dreams was a feeling of sadness, but at the same time a sensation of relief that it was almost finally over. That I could be free of... the guilt and shame, I would say. Very similar in a way to those moments between me deciding to take my own life in early 2011 and executing the plan. Reading Beverly Engel's writings and articles by others I can now see those lines running from five year old me to today. As lines of fate or perhaps more accurately doom.


The obvious therapy to heal from childhood abuse is thus compassion. Compassion from others, but also compassion from oneself. I feel that I have taken the first steps with the latter, which should also improve the way that I respond to compassion shown by others towards me. The difficulty for me being that I have to reprogram parts of my brain which have been running the same trauma-born responses for decades now. For me to really feel a connection with others and not merely as an unwanted guest wandering unwanted through a crowd. How do you fix the way one's brain perceives social interactions?

In that respect, it's good for me to practice self-compassion and to be... nice to myself instead of acting like an abusive adult would towards a terrified child. Being non-judgemental is one of the points of self-compassion which are also mentioned. All so that one day I can feel like I'm an actual human being who also has every right to exist and mingle with others, while living their life in this universe.


Maya


[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-compassion-chronicles/201501/healing-the-shame-childhood-abuse-through-self-compassion
[2] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/to-finally-wake-up-from-life-long.html
[3] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/freeing-child-overcoming-childhood.html

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, or: Reality comes with consequences

 The human brain is something amazing, especially in how it is capable of imagining and maintaining an inner fantasy world. This is an essential part of what we call 'imagination', and is what allows children to creatively play, inhabiting these fantasy worlds which they may or may not share with other children. It's often assumed that once humans grown into adults, they lose this ability, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Fact of the matter is that society, a culture and a lot of behaviour and opinions with it are a direct consequence of this very same imagination. Just that instead of a momentary whim by a child's mind as they play out a scenario, a society is the consequence of many years of such 'play acting', to the point where it becomes indistinguishable from reality for those inside the scenario. This is also why the playing of children is considered to be an essential part of growing up, allowing them to explore many scenarios and ways of interacting, even as they develop their own personalities.

This is to say that imagination is not necessarily harmful, and societies aren't necessary wrong or harmful. Much like how the fantastic dream worlds which our minds conjure up when we are asleep can turn into a variety of experiences, so too can a society turn into an oddity, something barely or instead fondly remembered, or even a nightmare. Here the imagination of a singular mind is amplified, reflected or extinguished by the other minds that make up a society.


Another property of imagination is that it isn't necessarily connected to reality. A conspiracy theory for example is a type of imagination virus, or 'meme', as in meme theory. This postulates that ideas and concepts can act like biological viruses, spreading to viable hosts, evolving and propagating to the best of their abilities. Some meme viruses can be lethal, others harmless or merely annoying. A harmless meme virus would be something like a popular widget or toy, such as the recent fidget spinner [1] craze. This saw an existing toy suddenly explode in popularity before sinking back into obscurity. This is similar in effect to a biological virus that shows explosive growth, but lack of persistence in a population.

More harmful meme viruses involve a sudden rise in popularity for certain pets, on account of a celebrity owning the same kind of pet. This can lead to the sudden surge in demand causing shortcuts to be taken by less scrupulous breeders, resulting in a massive spike in genetic defects in those 'pure-bred' (i.e. incestuous) dogs. Long-lived versions of these viruses can lead to 'cultural behaviour' that for example casts certain groups of people into a certain light. For example that of menstruating women being 'unclean' and being forced to leave the house during that period.

Finally, the most harmful virus that thrives exceptionally well in some imaginations are those involving conspiracies. This one is most insidious because these do not concern a fad or short-lived hype, or even something that can be considered to be 'relatively harmless'. In the case of a conspiracy virus, the affected person begins to lose the ability to separate fantasy from reality. Starting often with some nagging doubts, the person finds themselves slipping more and more until their thinking patterns have been reordered that no (virus-caused) dissonance occurs any more.


The fun thing about an imagination is that it's, well, imaginary. Just as a child can imagine themselves for a brief moment to be a pirate, a prince or princess, or the owner of a retail store, they too know that none of it is real. They merely enjoy playing those roles. It would only become problematic if they truly believed that they truly were those characters.

This permanence of imagination is something which becomes especially problematic in the case of an urgent situation, where reality clashes with the imaginary world that's being kept alive in the minds of one or more people. For many years people have been play-acting out today's and yesterday's societies, establishing societies that are primarily based around exploitation, as that aggressive model works well for survival.

This means exploitation of the earth's biosphere and other natural resources, of other human beings and groups, and even oneself. This is the imaginary world which we have created for ourself. A world in which we deem ourselves to be masters over this planet, and goad others into believing that if they exploit themselves a little bit more, they too can one day live the wealthy lifestyle of those who were born or adopted into wealthy families.

A world in which we assume that we can just cut down forests and further encroach onto the last remaining habitats of wild animals, and not suffer any consequences. Yet as Ebola [2], SARS, MERS and now SARS-CoV-2 have shown us, this is a delusion. We are not the gods we see ourselves as. We'll keep stumbling over new natural reservoirs [3] of new and fascinating new diseases that have the potential to turn into the next pandemic.


Part of fundamentally fixing the problems that led us to yet another pandemic within two decades time does involve taking stock our collective imaginations and the many viruses that dwell inside them. It's this viral ecosystem within our imaginations that have led us to these societies of greed, suffering and exploitation. They are the reason why some people truly believe that electromagnetic radiation can cause diseases or cancer, why genetic engineering is deemed too risky but mutagenics totally fine, or why even after a vaccine becomes available against SARS-CoV-2 and the associated COVID-19 disease, we'll still have to somehow deal with a range of other patients, ranging from those who believe that vaccines cause cancer, cause autism, add trackers to our body, contain toxic aluminium and/or mercury, to a wide spectrum of other conspiracy viruses.

Maybe that'll be the real challenge this century. After tackling biological viruses, maybe this is our wake-up call to address imagination viruses. Because although they only exist in our imaginations, sometimes our imaginations become more real than reality itself.


Maya


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidget_spinner
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_reservoir

The Diamond Age: Welcome to reality

 Sometimes a book comes into your possession without you ever intending to read it or really being aware of it previously. Only for it to change your entire world. For me, that book definitely has to be 'The Diamond Age', by Neal Stephenson. Who I used to snow only vaguely from his apparently more famous 'Snowcrash'. Which I coincidentally have not read yet.

What can I say about 'The Diamond Age'? It starts off rather quirky, without giving you much to work with. The world feels kind of Steampunk-ish, but with a Victorian, sci-fi vibe. The use of summary headings instead of chapters and the lack of any obvious main character(s) at first feel somewhat alienating. Yet I think that the brilliance of this approach is that these brief glimpses of this brave new world make it easier to grasp the scope of it. Instead of being limited to the point of view of a singular main character, the experience is instead more multi-faceted.

It depicts a world that's neither good nor evil at its core. A world in which basic economics and clan affiliations rule every day life. A world which makes sense in how far it reflects what exists today, last year, a hundred years ago, a hundred years into the future. Because people do not change, even if societies change their appearance, it is merely the perception through a kaleidoscope. Or through the many facets of a diamond.

Each of the characters followed throughout the story feel almost brutally human. Not as caricatures, or as a plot convenience, but as the logical conclusion of who and what they are. Their goals and dreams in life. This leads to unlikely small details affecting another small detail somewhere else, which cascades into a series of completely logical happenings that ultimately end up affecting the life of little Nell. Poor little Nell.


It's impossible not to feel pangs of sympathy and worry for Nell, as the little girl deals with the dregs of life. Even as the actions of others in this large world begin to affect and steer her future, it's at no point a foregone conclusion what will happen next. The worries and concerns of others around Nell sometimes touch her, sometimes changing things for the better, sometimes for the worse. Meanwhile a world which makes perfect sense while at the same time being completely fantastic unfolds in front of and around Nell and the others.

Looking back on this... experience, I can't say that I really knew how things would work out in the end. When the final scenes go down, it does not really feel like a vocal experience any more, performed through lines spoken by characters on a stage as was the case for most of the book. Instead these scenes unfold like some epic film, where it are the actions on-screen that tell everything.

The final note is one of hope and optimism. Of promise and a new understanding of the world and the people in it. And the bitter-sweet realisation that as one turns the final page, one will have to say farewell to Nell and all of these other characters who have become such an integral part of oneself.


'The Diamond Age' is a story which I will cherish forever, for all that it has given me.


Maya

A fractured self courtesy of the gender delusion

 The past weeks I have begun to notice something curious in my way of thinking and the way I regard my own behaviour. As awareness and acceptance of my actual, real, physical body grows, so do the thoughts of how it could also move and look. It's a weird thought, that perhaps doesn't make a lot of sense to those who did not get forced into this 'gender' mess that society has concocted.

Basically, I'm free to behave in a way that is considered 'feminine' now. Yet for many years I was supposed to behave in a way considered acceptable for 'men'. Even as my body changed during puberty into that of a woman and my environment got terribly confused trying to place me in the binary system, as I did continue the 'male-approved' hair and clothing style even though my body did not fit that look.

Although I have since found the freedom to find my own look as a woman (because anything goes, pretty much), it's still weird to think about what mannerisms and way of moving and so on truly fit me. What was easy in the beginning enough was the realisation that I was not using my body properly, and possibly damaging it in the process. This included the way I used my vocal tract and how I walked. In both cases I used my body as though it actually was a male body, with a male vocal tract and male pelvis. Suffice it to say that one's body doesn't take kindly to such abuse.

Where things get trickier are the small details. Only when looking at photos and videos of myself did I begin to grasp what it was that others were seeing, and why I was getting so much attention from heterosexual men. Especially in photos of me next to other women, it would suddenly be obvious to me that my build is very feminine, with the shoulders, arms and upper body. That also means that similar ways of moving my body makes more sense, rather than assuming that I have a clunkier, more masculine body, as I had always (falsely) assumed.


During this readjustment process I also find myself loathing the horror show that I was put through by doctors and psychologists on account of perpetuating the gender delusion, and the supposed existence of 'transbinarism' (i.e. 'transsexualism'/'transgenderism'), which itself can only exist if one assumes that a brain is either 'male' or 'female'. Which we know they are not. Nor are bodies, even if the distribution there forms an inverse Bell curve which could give the false impression that physical sex is purely binary.

Minds, however, are as unique as they come, with each its own mosaic. That means that despite society's insistence that there is a way to 'feel' like a woman or a man, there truly is no such thing, and the best you can do is accept your body and work with it. That was the realisation which took me the longest to fully work through, I think, as the string of posts on this topic on my blog attest to.

The result of society's meddling in this process, however, has meant that I was forced to do the equivalent of puzzling a mirror back together using tiny shards, all of them stuffed into a fresh midden. Even if one has little choice but to keep working on puzzling oneself back together, tedious and disgusting.

Who are you after all, but what you are?

Your body, what you were born with, what you grew up with, what you experience and what you live through. Your mind, which experiences through your body's senses, growing and changing with each new experience and thought.


Yet the more I feel myself progressing towards completing the puzzle of self, the more I feel disgusted with the gender delusion. I am free to talk and move my body in any way that works for me. There should be no social pressure to feel inhibited or otherwise restricted in that area. Nor with what bits of fabric, the styling of said bits of fabric, or the colour of these bits of fabric I cover up the shameful parts of my body.

I find it here fascinating to talk with friends of the male persuasion, as we compare notes on what they are allowed to wear and what I am allowed to wear. While as a woman you can easily nick your husband's or boyfriend's knickers, pants, shirts and so on, with people calling this 'cute' or 'tomboyish' behaviour, doing the same the other way around gets you called a 'creep', 'pervert' or something worse, like 'homosexual'.

The same is true for the ways in which one is allowed to walk, sit, move one's hands or otherwise move one's body. What I think I'm feeling at this point is the realisation that those shackles have fallen off my ankles and wrists. That I'm now free to behave and move and talk and do whatever. The way that works for me.


And somehow I feel like a fur farm fox after being rescued who is blinking stupidly at an open cage door and a wide expanse of grass beyond it.


This may take some time.


Maya

PTSD; Binarism; A reality to believe in

All too often life seems to be composed out of a collection of inevitabilities. Society being one of those things, and one's course through them. If one is lucky, one ends up on a boring path. With a standard issue healthy body, standard genetics, standard intelligence and growing up in a standard environment with standard friends, family, education and job prospects. This is a simple life, albeit without many personal challenges and opportunities to grow.

When I look back on my life so far, I really do think it'd be easier and briefer to list the things which were 'standard' for me, because everything else just had to be 'different' for some reason. I guess my appearance is pretty standard. Assuming I keep my clothes on, or at least a swimsuit. Just a normal looking Caucasian woman.


Obviously all of the physical, mental and sexual abuses that occurred since I was a young child are not 'standard issue'. Nor is me being a chimera, a hermaphrodite and intersex. Growing up in a world that worships binarism, growing up believing that one belongs to one part of this binary system, only to find out that one's curious puberty was the result of said chimaeric body, with the female side of the hybrid female/male stem cell lines ultimately asserting itself much stronger.

That's my reality. One of chimaeric bodies. Of the unique nature of the individual mind. The sickening awareness of how indoctrinated people in society are. Their delusions about binarism, with a binary gender, binary sex, of individuals belonging only to one side. That one's body down to one's very brain has to follow one of either pattern. With it the complete annihilation of my existence.


Their reality is not my reality.


They call it post-traumatic stress disorder. What it does is reshape your brain itself. Reform it forever. Change your view of the world so that you'll never feel safe or comfortable again. Try as you might, you're basically an alien trying to integrate into human society. You'll never get all of the nuances, even when your brain doesn't freak out over some perceived threat and starts dragging your mind back into reliving the past with flashbacks which feel more real than reality itself.


The reality I want to believe in is one where it is possible to feel safe. Where every person is treated and regarded as an individual. Not classified by their reproductive organs or convictions about their state in the Binarist system.

Where a person like myself can actually get medical help. Help that's still needed, as the recurrent traumas remind me of. To have it acknowledged that I'm a chimera, that I'm a hermaphrodite, that I do in fact have 'male' and 'female' reproductive organs. Those are things that have happened and which are more or less in my past now. But beyond this? I had to go through so many different channels to just get those things investigated and acknowledged.

In many ways I feel like an FGM victim. Although my vagina wasn't mutilated by doctors, I was born without even the small hole that'd allow fluids to drain. Instead my abdomen had to become a sanitary pad, while I apparently am denied even the option of intercourse, painful as it may be. Trying to get the reconstructive surgery to have anything done here at all has led to nothing for over a decade and counting. Instead I'm reminded over and over by doctors that I do not belong in their reality. I'm just a disorder, a freak, a rare disease. Something that isn't their problem.


What is my reality?


Having my mind regularly torn apart by another PTSD episode? Struggling to make ends meet every month? Dream of finishing my autobiography one day and this solving all my problems? Keep telling myself that life is worth living? Drift away from my body into a less painful version of reality?


Recently, in an online group I was hanging out in, a guy told about us about this one tenant who had lived in a flat his parents owned. When he and his mother went to check up on a tenant who was behind on her rent, they found out that she had committed suicide. Weeks earlier. He'd never forget the sight and smells in the bathroom where she had OD'ed on some pills. She was only in her early twenties.

We found ourselves wondering about what her life must have been like for things to end in such a gruesome fashion. It was a poor area of the city, so likely to do with poverty, crime and drug use. People who find themselves captured by a reality that's too bleak to face sober, until one day they either escape from it, or have the bleakness forever capture their heart.


Reality. Dreams. Wishing. Trauma. Pain. Life. Longing.


Much like butterflies we all wish to fly around freely. But some of us are captured. Trapped under glass. Pinned to bits of cork with cruel needles through our bodies. Prey for hungry predators.

Unless you're on the boring path, who is going to tell you how to play the game?


Maya

Workshop preparations; Abandonment fears realised again

Last year I participated in the NDCTechTown conference, which was held in Kongsberg, Norway. I gave a talk at that time, on why I thought that Ada is a pretty nifty programming language, which inspired many. I also had a good time there, which made me think that maybe giving talks at conferences might be a fun way to get both my professional side 'out there' a bit more, and to ease into socialising in a for me rather safe setting.

This year of course there was this pandemic thingy, so all conferences went online or were cancelled. The SuperCon that was to be held in Belgrade in July this year was cancelled. For NDCTechTown, I got asked whether I wanted to do a workshop, since that was supposedly going to work better with the online format. I was hesitant at first, but after repeated urging by one of the organisers, I figured I'd give it a try. I did find it somewhat odd how almost forceful the signing up process was, with me being put on the list and website even before I had agreed to do anything.

Regardless, I was going to do a workshop on Ada, specifically on Ada for embedded platforms, with the Cortex-M-based STM32 as a target. Whereas for a talk one would mostly need to have some spiffy looking slides, a smooth voice and perhaps a few practical examples or two, a workshop requires some materials for the students to use and work with in order to follow along. Thus I set out to put together a basic framework for STM32 development, for which I extended my Nodate project [1].
The idea was to first write a framework using which one could elegantly use the GPIO ports and interrupts using nothing but C++ code. That way I got the basics together in a language which I know the best. Then I would port the C++ code to Ada, as a way to get something still Ada-like, while hopefully saving some time in the process by doing the troubleshooting with the hardware on the C++ side.

In the end this strategy worked out okay. Between the beginning and end of August I had something together using which I could at least do the scheduled 3.5 hour workshop. The hours before my workshop started I would then spend putting the slides together, managing to get everything ready and set up just in time. That's when I fired up the Cisco WebEx instance, logged into the room, ran through the sound checks with the NDCTechTown staff and sat back to wait for my students to pop up into the virtual room.


An interesting point here is also that basically the sole reason why I was able to commit working to these workshop preparations pretty much full-time during the month of August was because there was a monetary compensation, with each student providing one with a set amount of money. I figured that even with a modest attendance, I would be able to consider this workshop as just another wonky freelance gig.

This just added to the shock when the starting time for the workshop came and went, and nobody had joined. When after ten minutes or so a staff member popped in, we decided to give it another twenty minutes, then cancel the workshop if nobody had joined by that time. After twenty minutes nobody had joined, so that concluded the workshop. I had been asked whether I wanted to give a talk instead the next day, however. It would not pay me a cent, but it'd at least give my work some exposure, I thought.


Yet, when giving it some more thought, I began to notice a few things. First of all there was the exhaustion from the grind of working day and night, including weekends on getting the workshop set up. This especially during the last two weeks as time became a bit tight. It had gotten so bad that I'd be dragging myself out of bed in the morning, start crunch time, then by midnight I'd pass out on my bed after I began to feel dizzy and sick from exhaustion.

Secondly, there was the initial way that I had been roped into the conference which hadn't felt right. Then the crushing sense of abandonment and shock when absolutely nobody showed up with the workshop. Even though there were some hints that people might show up for the talk, I felt so physically and emotionally destroyed the next morning that I just cancelled the talk.


So what next? This month there's the need to push myself to make up for the income not generated last month, of course. It may take a while to recover from that hit. While I do think that I did a good job with the STM32 framework, and learned a lot, it's not something which I'd want to use for commercial projects yet, if only because it's still so incomplete. Yet I did spend more time on it this month, and I feel that I got something out of it at least, if only for my own (hobby) projects and as a few points on my resume.

I also still want to do educational blog posts and videos in the (near) future, which could definitely include topics like Cortex-M development. It's hard to plot out a path there, though.

At any rate, I feel that I'm completely done with conferences for the foreseeable future. Maybe it could have worked out if it had remained by talks and in-person conferences, but with the way things went today, I think it'd make a lot more sense to put all that time and effort into building up something else, instead of propping up some conference by putting myself on some death march grind session.


I'm a lot more worth than that, after all.


Maya



[1] https://github.com/MayaPosch/Nodate

Violent truth; An intersexed freak; A hidden self

Sometimes one gets hit with a sudden moment of clarity when one least expects it. Usually this is probably because there's no real way to predict that would trigger those moments. I have been aware of me regaining a lot of old memories (good and bad) and going through flashbacks the past weeks. More eroding of mental barriers that kept traumas and other assorted bad stuff at bay, basically.

In hindsight it probably was only a matter of time before a big 'reveal' event would happen like the one which I had earlier, and which is the reason why I'm typing this just after midnight instead of being sound asleep after going through all the trouble of preparing for bed earlier.


Going to bed is one those things which are both pleasant and unpleasant to me. Resting is good, because being sleep-deprived is a terrible thing. Yet it also means the confrontation with my body in the dressing mirror. How will I feel about my body today? Will I be able to trick myself into thinking that I look okay and that I can happily go to bed? Or will it be another trigger in the cascade where as I lie in bed the thoughts begin to churn and churn until I'm all tensed up again and can no longer fall asleep?

Perhaps ironically, tonight was one of those times when things seemed to go well in that respect. Feeling a bit restless, maybe, due to all the work that still needs doing the next day. But generally feeling okay and ready to rest. Having a lot of big thoughts on this new anime series from 2014 which I started watching called Sword Art Online and some scenes from it which left major impressions.

Another thing that can happen while in bed with the lights off and feeling comfortable is that of fantasising about things of a sensual nature. While for most people this is probably a fairly straight-forward process, I'm still learning to deprogram the preconceptions I have of what my body looks like, what it's supposed to do and how it should respond. The trick then is to try and abandon those preconceptions and just listen to what one's body tells one. Everything should happen naturally from there onwards.


Of course, along with the preconceptions, more mental barriers must have crumbled and after having satisfied the flesh, I was flooded with the most unhappy and upset feelings and sensations. I could feel and see just how I had shielded myself from this truth that my body so readily told me. What my body truly is like, and with it how this duality of my body is something unforgivable.

Feeling how my body responds when left to its own sensual devices, and how natural it all feels to have what others would perceive as a hybrid body of sorts. Yet there is the top part that is all female, but there's something that doesn't belong there. Freak. Unforgivable. A violent dismissal.

Then the other thing that would match the upper part of the body in a binary world. I can feel it's there, inside of me. Responding. Existing. Yet it's covered with skin on the outside so it might as well not be there. Freak. Failure. Unforgivable.


When the heights of euphoria are followed by intense regrets, pain, agony and thoughts, feelings and memories which I wish didn't exist. Just like my body, in that case. The horrific realisation that my body is unforgivable. That I shall never receive the blessing. That I have still cordoned off this part of my mind where my body truly is mine and normal in my own eyes. Something which seems so obvious, yet which isn't.

To experience my body in such a normal fashion, and then remember how my body got dismissed by everyone including medical professionals. To feel the shame and humiliation of having my body dismissed. To feel the never-healing wounds inside my mind. To realise how I have tried to ignore my own body just so that I could 'move on' with my life.


Only you cannot 'move on' and past your own body. It'll be there until the day you leave this mortal coil. You either confront and accept it, or you can live in outright refusal of the truth. For me accepting the truth means dropping those preconceptions about my body, and accept the agony and humiliation of society's refusal to accept my body and me along with it.

I can only be myself. That's all who and what I'll ever be. No matter what society thinks, demands, threatens or begs from me. I'm all that is on offer.

That's why I had to refuse offers from medical professionals to mutilate my body into something which it is not through genital mutilation. That's why I will still have to keep hoping that perhaps one day I can get the reconstructive surgery for the perineum. Because doing so means accepting my body.

Because it is the right thing to do.


Maya

Pained despair, forced smiles, bleak happiness

Happiness is merely a state of mind. This becomes especially and painfully obvious when one deals with the effects of a traumatic disorder like PTSD. When people talk about 'depression', they often refer to feeling a tad down. Not the crushing sensation generated by some part of your brain that makes you feel like everything around you is muted. From colours to sounds, to your own feelings, dreams and desires.

The expectation is that you interact... normally with others. You don't burden others with the things which you hear whispered from the depths of this dark Abyss that fractures your mind. This is okay. Everything is normal. Just smile, nod, share pleasantries and the moment you're alone again curl up and surrender to the pain and bleakness.


In some ways it's an attractive kind of bleakness. A happy kind of bleakness. For it tells you that it's okay to not care, to not worry. To just accept all the horrors in this world and to lose everything over and over while suffering punishment after punishment. Because that's just what this world is like. And that is okay. Everything is fine.

Once you have found happiness in this bleakness, you can stop caring. About dreams, about a future, about friends, about family, about anything. Because inside the bleak happiness, nothing matters. Nothing can matter. There is just this disgusting, decaying universe and the inevitable end of the universe and everything inside it. Caring is a waste of time and effort.

None of that is true, of course. And you know. At least during the moments that the bleakness doesn't pull you back under into the mists. Every day you fight to stay ahead of the bleakness, to appreciate the simple beauty in life, like the brightness of a beautiful Summer's day, or the flying insects buzzing about in the garden, doing their happy little things with happy little flowers.


But everyone carries their own darkness with them. And you cannot help but notice it. See how it corrupts everything that is good in this universe. Watch how it destroys lives and forces darkness into innocent souls, until they too have this seed of darkness growing inside their minds, where it can grow and blossom like a sickening flower.

That is possibly the most horrible thing about suffering from PTSD. One doesn't just deal with the horrors inside one's own mind, but also has become sensitised to seeing it everywhere else. To believe in the innate goodness of people. To trust that things will work out. To have faith in justice and fairness. None of that is possible any more. Because one has definitively crossed over that line.


What part of reality is truly what we think it is? How does one begin to live in a society which is confused about everything even more than oneself? Is the disorder part of PTSD solely in the mind of the person affected, or is it shared by the rest of society?


I want to feel happy. I want to feel carefree. Because the alternative is to hurt and feel pain. But I want it to be genuine. I want to feel happy and carefree because I have real reasons to feel that way. Not through lies, deception and/or brain state altering chemicals. Yet it feels like something which society has to allow for, too.

Where does PTSD stop and the healthy tissue of society begin?


Maya

Vlog: The puberty that wasn't supposed to exist

A few months ago I got asked by the friendly folks over at Monstrous Regiment (the publisher) whether I would be interested in writing an essay that would be part of a whole book of essays titled 'So Hormonal' [1]. It's a book about hormones, puberty, and everything normal and unusual that happens around it. My essay covers my experiences growing up and going through puberty as an intersex person.

Because words are just that, and sometimes having them in spoken form adds a lot of meaning that is otherwise hard to perceive, I decided to read the essay on video.

[1] https://www.monstrous-regiment.com/shop/so-hormonal-essays-about-our-hormones


Maya

The effects of growing up in the wrong body

It's often said that it's not your body that matters, but your mind. That it is your mind which is all that is 'you'. However, I would argue that your body and especially one's body image can have a massive impact on one's overall mental development and health.

For me it's something that is very apparent and confronting every time that I have to undress myself, such as when taking a shower or preparing for bed. Removing the layers of clothing to reveal the body underneath which has coloured so much of my past experiences. Which still determines a lot of how I experience the world today.


The problematic part for me was having been assigned a male gender at birth. This led to a whole range of behavioural expectations and assumptions. It also led to me seeing my body as being 'male'. When during puberty this all turned out to be incorrect when my body's chimeric intersex nature asserted itself, an identity crisis ensued.

For years I literally couldn't see myself in a mirror. Seemingly the ability of the mind to project a body image is so strong that it makes any kind of objective assessment of what one sees in a reflection of one's body impossible. This got rather uncomfortable when my environment had determined that I looked like an attractive woman, while my concept of a body image would have made Picasso proud. What did I even look like? The childhood impression of me being 'male' had distorted everything.


Over the years, this distortion has lessened. There are days when I can see myself in a reflection. I think. I can see that my body is absolutely that of a woman, with just the oddity of my unusual genital configuration. Of course it was easy to perceive my body as 'male', because if you first look at the visible genitals, then the rest of the body simply has to match those. Male genitals with a male body. Female genitals with a female body.

And sometimes you get male and female genitals with a female body. It's just how biology works. Society's insistence on me being 'male' probably did a lot of harm there, creating the distorted self-image and then doubling down on its claims with false medical claims and incorrect 'test results'. I still don't know exactly how my body works, and why my puberty took so long to complete.

What I have learned from all of this is how important it is to learn to see your real body. Not whatever body image your mind is projecting over it, but the body that your eyes perceive when you stand in front of a mirror. It is essential that you accept this as your body image, to erase any distortions and misconceptions.


Of course, all of that doesn't take away the fact that society still hasn't changed from when it forced me look at my body as simply male. Instead of an apology, all I got was the degradation from personhood to a 'disorder' (DSD) or 'rare disease', on account of my intersex condition. They weren't wrong, the problem is with me, apparently.

The most horrible thing was probably the repeated offering of 'fixing' my body by intersex genital mutilation (IGM), which is the 'correcting' of genitals that do not follow a strict binary pattern (male/female). This along with the erasing of my body's identity and features to make it appear purely female. I'm still figuring out all the reasons why this is such a horrid procedure.


The 'wrong body' that I grew up in was this identity that I had been assigned, and which got forced on me over and over. Through official documents and communications. By doctors and psychologists. And as I learned earlier this year during a few doctor's visits, my body is simply more 'wrong' now that I have rejected society's views on what my body should be like.

It's really hard not to feel bitter about this. But I think it is important to realise that in the end, my body is not wrong. My body is simply what it is, and it has kept me alive and healthy for all these years. It's a reliable tool that I feel I owe it to keep taking care of it. It has no will or mind of its own, but is subject to the whims of the brain inside it, as well as what its environment inflicts upon it.

I think this is a good body. I'd like to keep it. Yet the same cannot be said of its environment, and society in particular. A society which is so hostile to and intolerant of anything that does not fit into its narrow-minded view of what is 'acceptable'. A society that abhors diversity and prefers ideology over biology.

It's likely that the only way that I could have stayed a part of society would have been by embracing the pseudo-scientific system of binarism and trans-binarism. Accept the surgeries to 'correct' my genitals. Forget that I was ever more than 'just a woman'. Forget about this 'intersex' thing.

Full erasure.

Welcome to the Binary.


Maya

When sex-positivity is a negative thing

During the 1960s, the so-called 'sex-positive movement' [1] began, offering a counter to the prevalent culture of the preceding decades in which sexuality was regarded as something that should not be brought into the public view. As quoted from sexologist Carol Queen on the Wikipedia entry for the movement: "'Sex-positive' respects each of our unique sexual profiles, even as we acknowledge that some of us have been damaged by a culture that tries to eradicate sexual difference and possibility."

It is of course generally wonderful that people are left free to express themselves and develop in the way that works best for them. To not have to hide aspects of themselves, or to feel forced to behave in ways that are considered to be socially acceptable, when it is not what makes them happy. A big example of that is the freedom to develop intimate relationships with others without having to perform the socially acceptable matching of appropriate genitals and social status.


The second part of Carol Queen's quote in the same article however touches on the issues with sex-positivity: "It’s the cultural philosophy that understands sexuality as a potentially positive force in one’s life, and it can, of course, be contrasted with sex-negativity, which sees sex as problematic, disruptive, dangerous. Sex-positivity allows for and in fact celebrates sexual diversity, differing desires and relationships structures, and individual choices based on consent."

The keywords here are 'potentially positive'. This is the part that gets easily overlooked by those who most loudly clamour in favour of the sex-positive movement into the mainstream. The primary issue and reason why sexuality isn't something positive for everyone is all too often caused by sexuality. Perhaps ironically, sex-positivity can be the thing that is disruptive and dangerous, if not outright traumatic.


It is one thing to celebrate sexuality and one's preferences there, but it is all too easy to forget that in the real world actions also affect others. Just because someone's sexuality leads them to prefer under-age boys or girls, or leads to them not respecting personal boundaries in the case of assault and rape in what is often a display of dominance and control, this does not mean that any of this is good, or deserves to be celebrated. Even if it is how their sexuality expresses itself.

Such acts of trauma consequently leads to traumatised individuals for whom sexuality and even physical contact have taken on a distinctly negative slant, often reinforced by successive further negative experiences with sexuality and with putting one's trust into others. Because ultimately sexuality is not about genitals, or even physical intimacy, but about feeling comfortable and safe enough to express certain desires.


It can also be said that the focus on sexuality diminishes the individual instead of enriching them. Whereas Humanism is about individualism and the role of the individual in a society, the sex-positive movement redirects attention away from the person encoded in the neurons of the brain, and back down to whatever sexual features their body have and what they do with them, while reinforcing social pressures about sexuality being something that shall and must be part of one's life.

To those who suffered traumas or for whom the concept of sexuality simply holds no appeal, the public display of or references to sexuality can be something that's undesirable, or even re-traumatising. I have seen examples of the lack of understanding here in a variety of forms, such as in posts on Twitter which included a couple of photos of homosexual couples kissing and an accompanying text that effectively concluded that anyone who dislikes that Twitter post or unfollows the person posting or retweeting it must be homophobic.

I do not like seeing people kiss or hold hands. I know many others who do not care for this either. It does not matter whether the people doing the kissing or hand-holding are hetero-, bi-, tri- or homosexual, the core of the problem is the display of sexuality. Some of us do not care to see it because we consider sexuality something private for a couple and get annoyed when people start kissing and fondling in front of them. For others it acts as a trigger for traumatic experiences, bringing back painful memories or even provoking full-blown Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder episodes.


The reasons for my negative attitude towards sexuality are legion, but I do not feel that it is something that necessarily needs 'fixing'. In fact, I feel that in many regards those views that I hold are the more mature ones, as they are born from experience instead of starry-eyed ideals. When I walked through the Red Light district in Amsterdam and saw the prostitutes behind glass in their sterile, tiled rooms, I did not see it as a symbol of the liberation of sexuality, as some have referred to it. Instead I saw and felt just the sadness and loneliness of the tragedy of what others have described as 'masturbating together'.

To be held captive by one's carnal desires and the associated sexuality, to be blind and ignorant to the wider picture, and to put the desires of the flesh above exploring the incomparable beauty of another person's mind as all of us work in communion on a better world for all. To me that is the true tragedy and crime against humanity on view here.


Maya


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-positive_movement

The three laws of robotics, or: the measure of a man

Having recently read through Isaac Asimov's collected robot stories, I was given cause to consider the concept of the Three Laws Of Robotics, as they are commonly referred to. These laws are essentially conceived as fixed programming rules in the positronic mind of a robot, which 1) forbid a robot to hurt a human being or allow them to come to harm, 2) force a robot to obey a human's commands unless this conflicts with the first rule, and 3) allow a robot to protect its own existence, if this does not conflict with the first or second law.

The reasoning for enforcing these rules in Asimov's stories is simple: fear of robots. Because the humanoid robots in these stories are larger, stronger and generally more capable than human beings, the thought appears to be that with these rules in place, no robot could ever harm a human being, and would always sacrifice themselves to save a human life. If one considers robots to be unthinking machines, with nary a thought of their own, then this may seem like a completely valid way to maximise their use and benefit to humanity, while preventing any unfortunate mishaps that could result in the injury or death to a person.


In the 1980s sci-fi series Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), there is an episode titled 'The Measure of a Man' which revolves around the android called Data. As a one of a kind android, he managed to get into Star Fleet, ultimately serving with the crew of the USS Enterprise, under command of captain Picard. Also equipped with a positronic brain, he is not programmed with the three laws, but is free to learn and discover on his own. In time he comes to be accepted by the crew as a highly capable individual with his own sense of humour, individuality and preferences. His differences are seen as an asset to the crew, including on a personal level.

This all comes to the forefront in the aforementioned episode. A scientist working for Star Fleet wishes to understand how Data's positronic brain works, as so far only the elusive scientist who made Data has figured out how to stabilise a positronic brain. If successful in determining this, many more androids like Data could be manufactured for use not only on Star Fleet ships, but also in many other situations. Only catch is that this examination may end up destroying Data's brain through permanent depolarisation.


Initially, Data is merely treated as property, as his status within Star Fleet at the time treats him no different than any other piece of inventory. That's why Picard at first only receives the order to have Data transferred to the scientific department at Star Fleet. While Data seems accepting of the idea at first, it are Picard and then other crew members who step up to fight for Data. In a legal case, they attempt to prove that Data is in fact not a piece of property, but as close to a living, breathing human being as one can be as an android, and thus worthy of the same rights and protections as any other person.

In the end, Data wins this case and he is granted personhood. As Data is not fundamentally opposed to the concept of Star Fleet scientists understanding how to stabilise positronic brains, he suggests to the scientist that he will gladly work together with him and share data. Everything except for invasive or destructive examinations, as that would be neither ethical nor moral.


In Asimov's short stories, too, there is the question of where the line between a 'person' and 'property' lies. If a construct with a positronic brain is self-aware, capable of reasoning and lives a life that is essentially indistinguishable of how a construct with an organic brain would live it, then why could only the latter be a 'person', and would the former forever be condemned to live as property, if not also shackled by the Three Laws?

In The Bicentennial Man, the robot at the center of that story lives a life that is that of a person, yet who does not get treated as a person, because he is a robot. Despite working jobs, being a well-known artist and gaining the respect of the family which 'owns' him, he is not granted the rights and privileges that come with being a person. Which means being an organic human being. Even after changing his body to a more human-like appearance, thus becoming an android, the fact that he has a positronic brain instantly disqualifies him as a person in the eyes of society.

Ultimately, the bicentennial man is granted personhood when he proves that he is just as mortal as humans, by essentially destabilising his own positronic brain, resulting in his death after living for more than two-hundred years. All to gain this intangible property of being accepted as a person.


When it comes down to it, there is no way that we can deny personhood to any entity that is capable or is presumed to soon become capable of understanding what being a 'person' entails. An entity like Data in TNG or the bicentennial man are as human as you or I, capable of understanding emotions, perhaps even experiencing them, while enjoying every moment that they are alive and can be around those people who they care about.

In the case of a newborn child, we accept that their brains are as of yet incapable of producing the patterns required for them to achieve self-awareness, but that given enough time, they will be capable of this. That's why they are given into the care of adults, who can provide the safe, caring environment in which they can mature before they can assume the responsibilities of adulthood.

However, if personhood was just about cognitive capabilities, the fact of the matter is that part of humankind would not qualify. Think of those born with developmental issues, or who suffer brain damage or develop Alzheimer's. To most of us, they are still persons, not property or something less than that. This makes one wonder whether the true qualifier that makes us amicable to granting an entity personhood is whether or not it appears 'human' enough to us.

Think of the pets we keep and the human qualities we ascribe to them. Perhaps the problem with intelligent robots and androids (as well as artificial intelligence in general) is that it provokes a primal fear in some part of our lizard- or primate brain sections which makes us respond in a negative fashion against even the mere concept of something 'like us', but which is 'different' and possibly superior.

In TNG, Data's photographic memory, super-accurate timekeeping, calculation skills and immense strength initially lead to fear and distrust among those near him until they learn to see the person behind these skills and capabilities instead. This isn't too dissimilar from the distrust we can see in today's society as well, with the faster learning or otherwise 'different' children in a school often being subjected to bullying and finding themselves much more often alone.


So, I guess that in effect, I cannot say that I would ever be a supporter of something like the Three Laws of Robotics. To me it feels like an excellent way to impose something akin to chattel slavery upon individuals who have done nothing to deserve such a cruel fate. As people and persons ourselves, the onus is on us to recognise that perhaps the true measure of intelligence is to perceive and accept it in others, even if they are very much unlike ourselves.


Maya