Thus we go on

All of us are living, breathing, human beings, with complex feelings and emotions. All that we differ in, is in how much we accept these, and with it ourselves.

When I got bullied and beaten up during almost every year that I spent at school, I never blamed or felt hate for those who hurt me. I bore it as one does everything in life which one cannot change. If anything, I felt sorry for those who are so conflicted and damaged inside, that they can no longer feel their own feelings.

When I got told over and over by doctors, psychologists and others that what I was observing about my body being intersex was merely in my head, I felt frustrated at how they just didn't want to see what was in front of their eyes. I felt sorry that they had become ensnared by their ignorance and obsession with falsehoods.


All of us are living, breathing, human beings, with complex feelings and emotions. We are capable of inflicting enormous damage upon others by closing ourselves off from these.

One bears the effects of the flaws of others, even as one does their best to help them see their flaws, so that they can work on repairing them. One never blames others. Just oneself for not grasping the exact nature of the flaws of others and being unable to help them.

Even as I prepared to take my own life in early 2011 I didn't blame anyone. In the end I was taking my own life so that I could live up to my own inadequacies. Those I would be leaving behind would understand and accept that I was now in a better place.


All of us are living, breathing, human beings, with complex feelings and emotions. We can bring unimaginable joy to those around us by realising their emotions and feelings, and acting upon those.

When my suicide attempt failed, my mother was there to give me a new chance at life, even as almost everybody else dropped me like I was poison. Slowly I recovered and things began to look up, with concrete gains in figuring out my intersex condition, and ultimately me getting started on my career as a software developer.


All of us are living, breathing, human beings. We can destroy others without so much as a single caring thought.

I do not feel hate or animosity towards the owner of the apartment or the court which saw fit to remove me by force if necessary over their lack of communication about when an earlier agreed-up rent reduction would stop. That would be like trying to argue with an avalanche or pyroclastic flow, or any other force of nature.

I feel that I have failed in some way again, by being somehow inadequate. For having missed something obvious and failing to act on something which anyone else would have picked up on. I know with great certainty that I am the problem. Somehow.

Every rejection during now half a year of applying for a new job simply reinforces this notion. The world is fine. Other people are fine. I just missed something obvious and as much as I try to figure out what this thing about myself is that I should be changing, I do not understand.


All of us are living, breathing, human beings, with complex feelings and emotions. We can choose to end our lives at will.

I fear that it has taken me too long to figure what I did wrong. I fear that it is now too late.

Too late to keep living. I simply wasn't good enough. Not fast enough. Not smart enough. Not lucky enough.


Even as I have found myself once again begging to have people give me another chance, I am beginning to find it exceedingly hard to keep up this charade that somehow I'll turn into a real person.


I don't feel real.


Maya

The worst part about dying is when you still want to live

After last month's surgery I found myself struggling with thoughts regarding the futility of what I'm trying to do, with getting answers about and a resolution to my intersex condition. This along with the sense of emptiness after the last hope of getting an easy resolution got squashed. Nothing about my body is easy to explain or understand. Nothing seems to match up with standard physiology.

I spent so many hours just staring aimlessly at the ceiling while lying in bed, or looking at people around me, feeling even more distance between them and myself as ever before. The sensation was of losing myself even further. Naturally the gynaecologist saw fit to dismiss me as well when I next saw him, without so many as a referral or helpful advice.

Then, as I found ways to deal with this somewhat - along with the new chronic pain symptoms - I got an update from my lawyer for the eviction case against me. This in the form of a big pack of paper containing the summary of evidence in the case, which the court will use to decide on a ruling. First I thought it was the actual ruling already, then noticed what it was about. The request from my lawyer was to look through it and send in suggestions and corrections before the deadline in less than two weeks.

I cannot do that. I cannot open the document and read through it. I physically cannot do this. Merely holding this document had my heart pounding and me feeling like I was going to be sick. For the rest of that day I felt absolutely terrible. The past days little changed. The feeling was one of impending doom. The certainty that the game was up, and these past years of relative peace and quiet were about to come to an end, with forceful eviction and again the loss of all my belongings and money. Just like before.


Then, today I didn't feel as bad about it any more. I seem to have mostly stopped worrying. I still cannot look at the legal document, but the panicked feeling and feelings of terror have mostly subsided, to be replaced with something like acceptance.

Yet what it reminds me of is the similar sense of dread and terror the days before I was forced to leave a room which I was renting in 2010. These were the days leading up to my suicide attempt. Yet I wasn't feeling those panicked sensations when I decided to kill myself. Instead this decision was made when I calmed down. Stopped clinging onto the hope that somehow I could get out of the situation which I was in.

Stopped clinging onto the idea of continuing to live.

What is interesting is that if I ask myself right now whether I would be okay with dying right now, I could totally accept it. I don't really care either way any more. What happens will happen. I'm powerless to stop it anyway. My dreams and aspirations are useless. I can accept this now.

In some ways that's a tell-tale sign of an impending suicide: when someone goes from being depressed to suddenly seeming much happier and cheerful. That's the point where they have accepted that things won't get better, and that it is okay to let go of life. Of existing. Where one has made peace with one's inescapable circumstances. In some ways it's a really positive thing. To end life on a high note.


I have lost my body. Again. I will soon lose even more. Again. No matter what I do or try, I'll always slide back and have all my efforts nullified.

But that's okay. I don't care either way. I can accept this now.


I would like to stop fighting. I want my body to stop being a battlefield. I don't want to keep searching for a home that doesn't exist. I don't care if I'm giving up and surrendering. At least I'll be at peace.


Maya

Post-surgery: the never-ending nightmare and a brief respite

I was lying in my hospital bed on Friday, slowly recovering from having been fully put under for the laparoscopy procedure when the gynaecologist and a host of other doctors came drifting into the room. Even though I hadn't expected to hear much else, to hear that they had not seen anything resembling formed ovaries or a uterus in my abdomen was still a sobering message. All that they had done was remove a number of locations where tissues had become stuck together, which might have caused at least part of the pain I was experiencing.

Unfortunately they had decided to not open the perinal side to check upon the vagina, as the skin had already become quite scarred from the first surgery in that area. Still, the gynaecologist - who had performed the surgery - found it necessary to say that he had not seen a vagina with the laparoscopy, even though it would be stuck snugly below the bladder, unreachable from the top of the lower abdomen where I am now left with the three incisions. Also the remark that it looked 'like one would expect to see by a male', or something to that extent. I was still quite dazed at that point, so I hope I just misunderstood something.

The gynaecologist had mentioned previously that he hadn't expected to find anything special, same as that he didn't expect to see anything special with the currently still on-going cycle monitoring of my hormone levels during one month. Next week the last blood will be drawn for that test, with the full results supposed to be available in two weeks time, when I have the next gynaecologist appointment. Which will likely be the last appointment, with probably just a simple dismissal and a 'nothing special found'.

In how far do I trust and believe this gynaecologist? In so far as me not having fully formed ovaries and a uterus is something which I will believe, as neither MRI scans or ultrasounds have shown anything like that so far. As far as the presence of a vagina, that has been confirmed by the first surgeon who operated on me, so I'll put that down to them aborting a full examination.  To hear the gynaecologist say that they found 'no female genitals' thus seems rather poorly formulated.

I guess I will see what happens in two weeks time. I would love to be proven wrong, but so far it appears that all that I'm going through at this point is another repetition of me losing a little bit more of my humanity, without getting any kind of useful answers in return. It becomes so hard to keep a grasp on reality, especially when I experience one thing, and doctors keep insisting  that my interpretation of reality is wrong. Like this gynaecologist essentially already insisting that I cannot be experiencing a monthly cycle before even have received the full results of the blood tests. It almost feels as if a certain reality is being forced upon me.

It's been like that for the past thirteen years, basically. And doctors have constantly proven other doctors to be wrong, and the reality which I'm experiencing incredibly more correct. Yet reality is nothing next to the opinion of specialists.


The one good thing which happened to me the past days was me meeting this woman and her father at the same hospital on Thursday during the pre-surgery work. She was also there to have a laparoscopy, in order to remove a cyst from an ovary. As it turned out, we lived pretty close to each other, so her father offered me a ride to the hospital on Friday, which I gladly accepted.

After our surgeries, this woman and I shared the same room as we recovered over the next two days. None of it was fun, but by being able to share our experiences, I think it became somewhat easier for us both. Being able to care for someone else at the same time as that I was recovering was a good thing, distracting me from my own issues. This woman also had a number of friends and family members come visit, with most of the chatting done in Spanish, which I found very interesting as well.

Through these visits, and by talking a lot with this woman and her father, I felt like I could slowly become immersed in this other world. A world of people who care so much about each other, who are doing their best to get through life, even leaving their country of birth - much as what I did - and making the best of things as they get alone. It made me feel happy that I could be a part of this, even if it was just for a few short days.


Now that I'm out of the hospital, it's back to the same old grind. Yet something has changed. It's hard to describe it, really. Maybe it's because the hopes I had before the surgery got dashed, yet without the leeway provided by the ambiguity of an MRI scan. With the images that were made of the laparoscopy, there is a lot which I cannot question about what is slowly forming into nan undeniable truth.

What maybe has changed is the realisation that after first having any possibility of me having a functional male side dashed in 2011 with the biopsy of the testicles that were removed, finding them to be essentially undeveloped, now something similar has happened for the possibility of a functional female side. Though I do appear to have something generating normal levels of female hormones, and I still have some kind of vagina, I do not have and will not ever have ovaries or a uterus. I'm nothing like a male or female. I'm something... else. Something... empty.

As if with every new revelation like this, I'm becoming something more agender, more asexual. Something of which I less understand what it is, or could be.

Together with this there is the fear that if there's indeed a monthly cycle, and uterine tissue that responds to it, then I essentially have what one could call the worst kind of endometriosis one could imagine. Something that just fills up the abdomen without nothing to guide it. Together with a closed-off vagina, that's pretty much a recipe for disaster. At this point it's just an unsubstantiated fear, however.

I wish I had a doctor who understood these fears, doing their best to investigate and alleviate such fears to get an outcome that made me somehow at peace with things. Not this constant battling and doubting of those who are supposed to be providing me with this help. I don't know what to believe, or who to trust any more.

Not just doctors, but people in general. The past days the contrast between me and this woman with whom I shared a few days of our lives couldn't have been more stark. I felt so weak and fearful, with her taking the initiative on a number of occasions, to ask something of the nurses and the like. Things which would have made me freeze up in terror just thinking of doing something wrong or improper.

I guess I felt somewhat jealous, as well. The idea of having a regular female body and just a common issue like a cyst. Not a host of questions, worries and maybe another batch of big surgeries. If I'm lucky.


Maybe I'm just too tired of trying to make sense of things any more at this point. It's gone far beyond merely trying to live my life, finding a job and a place to live. This goes to the very fundamentals of who and what I am. How I fit in with the whole. Once I thought I was just a male, which delusion got destroyed, to be replaced with the thought that I might be more female. Even though I will always look more like a woman, I guess I have to find a way to deal with this emptiness I feel inside now.

I need to figure this out. I need to make sense of this. I need help with this. Not people trying to force things on me. People who wish to help me feel better. Regain some of what I have lost.


The past days I have felt myself struggling with my emotions more and more strongly. Since returning to this apartment that I'm currently inhabiting and what somewhat feels like my old life, it's become even harder. I cannot seem to focus on anything but this emotional and psychological struggle now. It may destroy me if I fail to figure this out. What happens at the appointment in two weeks may make things much better, or much worse.

I don't think that anyone who wishes to help me can do so. I don't believe that anyone who can help me wishes to do so.

I cannot tell what may happen next. I will just have to live through this hell one day at a time. Trying to keep my sanity intact. Trying to stay myself. Whatever the heck that may be.


Is there hope for me? I'm doing my best, but I'm falling apart. Worse than before. Unable to define myself, unable to provide answers to questions, I remain stuck dealing with the same issues. Issues which I cannot resolve on my own. Issues which may require that my body first breaks down further before I get the required help and answers. By which time it may already be too late for the easy and best solutions.


I don't know. I don't know anything. I cannot deal with this. I don't know how I can keep living like this. I don't know whether I'm truly alive at this point. Do I even exist? Am I crazy? Maybe that's the only reasonable answer.


Maya

I should focus on my health first, if I can

Last night I woke up a few times again with terrible pains in my abdomen, yet I was able to fall asleep again after the pain subsided. This morning I noticed that my abdomen is horribly distended again, making it look as if I'm quite a few months pregnant. Pulling in my stomach makes it look more or less normal, but the pain remains throughout my abdomen and lower back.

The entire day I'm feeling somewhat feverish and out of it. My left leg is also beginning to feel numb, with the typical pain in my left knee which I used to feel only in my right knee before. My left side is beginning to hurt more and more, the same way that my right side started hurting, years ago. I'm still trying to get through the day without painkillers, beyond the occasional ibuprofen or bit of diclofenac gel on my abdomen for when things get really bad.

Even then I feel completely drained at the end of the day from having to suffer through the frequent surges of pain, and the sensation of being ripped apart below whenever I go to the toilet.

I am so tired. I don't want this any more. I'm so sick of everything.

That's what I found myself proclaiming earlier as I got back from work. It's hard for me to properly realise when I'm tired, as I have been suffering through so much physical and psychological pain for over a decade now. It's become 'normal'. Yet there's still only so much pain my body and mind can take. And I'm completely through. Drained. Exhausted. Unable to give or take any more.


Earlier I found a letter in the mailbox about an appointment at the local job office to talk about my efforts to get a new job. It's hard not to start laughing hysterically at such a phrasing. I could easily accept one of the potential couple of job offers from headhunters. Finding a job I also want is harder, but not impossible given a bit of time. Yet more pressing is my current health.

Next month I also have an appointment scheduled with my GP, neurologist and gynaecologist, along with weekly appointments with my therapist. My hope is to get them to realise the seriousness of what is happening to my body at this point, along with the psychological pressure this creates.


When I can barely walk normally and increasingly find myself considering the possibility of needing a wheelchair at some point to get around, that's simply depressing. Makes one want to get up to one of those learned types and yell at them to finally help me. That kind of pressure.

Why should I even care about a job if my body isn't healthy? When I'm suffering every single day, both physically and mentally? Why could anyone demand such a thing of me?


I need to rest. To find stability in my life. Not to find myself chased from one more thing to muster the energy for to another one. To find myself risking embracing that dark part of myself which doesn't care about things like happiness, others or even life. That part which just wants to destroy and annihilate. Which rejoices in me hurting myself. Which enjoys watching me suffer, as it brings me closer every day to once again try to find that sense of incredible peace.

When I attempt to take my own life again after giving up on it. The intense, wonderful feeling of serenity.


...


I really want it so badly.


...


When I feel relaxed and at ease that dark voice subsides once more. I try to hold onto that feeling of hope and peace which involves me living a happy life and not taking my own life. Yet there's only so much which I can do. I need to avoid stress, but I can only do so much there.

Me getting laid off is horrible. Me having to face more of the eviction case is horrible. Me finding a new place to live is horrible. Me finding a new job is horrible. Me losing more and more things which I thought i wouldn't have to give up is horrible. So much stress. So much pain I have to shield myself from. To numb myself and pretend it really doesn't hurt so much.

Until it does and I find myself helpless again against the intense pain and suffering. To feel tempted to embrace that sensation of being powerless. To accept the inevitability of me failing to pull through this one.


I need help. Badly. Lots of help.


Else I will die.


I still don't want to die.

Yet I'm so tired... and everything hurts so much...


Maya

Chronic pain and exhaustion as excuses for procrastination

When I wrote my earlier blog post today, I was in a considerable amount of physical pain, with my right side hurting in an intense fashion. Currently just my right arm hurts, there's a numbed burning sensation in my right side and that's about it. While writing that earlier blog post the pain was much more intense.

I'm not sure whether it's just the pain that's making me sleep so incredibly poorly for months now. Using the bracelet that I'm wearing I can monitor how restful my sleep likely is. There I see that most nights I wake up repeatedly or at least am incredibly restless, without any recollection of this. By the time I wake up I'm feeling drained, exhausted and just want to get some sleep.

Most days I can force myself to get out of bed, get dressed and go to work and such, but I cannot remember the last time that I actually woke up feeling well-rested and energetic. Even after getting a solid seven hours of sleep in.

During the day will also suffer from these pains. They're distracting and drain my energy. As a result my ability to focus on things like work or projects has become ever more limited over the past years. Basically normally one would start with a full charge after a night's sleep, but for me it usually feels like there's no more than 10 or 15 percent available.


Then there's the effect sleeping poorly and stress in general have on psychological trauma and kin. When I'm exhausted I have almost no defence against anything negative. It feeds depression and negative thoughts, which in turn make one sleep worse again, and so on.

I'm currently not feeling the intense pain and agony as I did when I wrote today's first blog post. I'm still feeling decidedly depressed and anything but happy, but beyond a headache and a head that feels as if it's stuffed full with cotton, I'm otherwise more or less okay. Just really tired.

While talking with a number of people today who responded to the blog post, it was made clear that they do not think that I'm doing so poorly at this point. Walking in another person's shoes and all that, I guess. I'm still trying to figure out how much of my problems are just inside my own head. I know that some parts are not rational, such as my intense fear and distrust of others and feeling of being useless and worth absolutely nothing.

Trying to convince myself to beg others to maybe accept me for a job might take a while at this rate. There are so many options, so many companies and so many positions out there. I don't know what might be best or what to try, or what would work or what not. Yet this is still simple next to the Hell of real-estate, I guess. There one doesn't even have to begin to pretend that one can trust others there.


I should be fighting for my place in this world, but I'm so tired, and every time I close my eyes I see and feel those same nightmares again, of how people abused and hurt me.

If someone stood up and guided me through this process it might be easy, I guess. It should be easy for me, but everything out there seems to be aimed at overwhelming and/or demotivating a person.

One friend suggested that maybe I should move into academics. To that I replied that I could maybe see myself doing that, but that I would prefer R&D. Something science-like and gritty, with scary mathematics and horrific implications if one gets some detail wrong. That would be challenging.

Yet try finding something like that. Everything just has to be exceedingly dull, it seems. Sometimes it feels as if society is designed to drive people towards a depression from the sheer boredom.


I like things which can be reasoned and are logical. Things where one can see from the beginning which steps are roughly needed and where one knows what works. Things like a job and a home on the other hand seem like working on a project where you have to select from fifty-million different suppliers, most of which will deliver a sub-par product, yet there's no way to figure this out beforehand. I'd rage-quit such a project because it would be ridiculous.


I guess next week I'll talk things over with my therapist. See what his thoughts are. Maybe I'm truly just whining and it's all in my head. Maybe I'm the problem, or at least a significant part of it. Yet at this point nothing makes sense to me yet, let alone which steps would make sense. All of which feed into this depression and so on. Darnit.

*Hits the reset button on her life*


Maya

My one big mistake was to ask for help

The one simple truth about human society is that everybody is expected to just take whatever they get thrown at them. Wasn't born into a rich family? Your problem. Born blind or crippled? Your own burden to bear. Got severe psychological traumas as a result of fighting in a war, getting abused and so on? Tough luck.

If you can't make it on your own, then at least have the courtesy to not bother others with it. If you rid the world of your inconveniences, then so much the better. The thing about mental health and suicide is that nobody talks about it because the former is a personal issue and the latter an acceptable solution to society as a whole. Or so the subconscious and sometimes explicit reasoning goes.

Why waste money on those who cannot help themselves, after all?


In hindsight I was completely and utterly naive to expect to receive help from doctors and psychologists when I first asked for it, now nearly thirteen years ago. My intersex condition was just an ego thing. I should have kept it to myself. It didn't bother me too much, beyond the questions I had about who and what I truly was.

I shouldn't have started that fight. I should have saved that energy and time to work on what truly matters in life: survival. Getting a job, keeping the money flowing so that you can purchase property. Instead I wasted all that time caring about useless things such as my identity and self-worth, only to have both and along with it my mental and physical health trashed.

Now that I have to fight for a new job and a place to live, I am not capable of doing either. My energy has been spent. I'm too hurt and injured to continue fighting. It's just all more of the same. Yet a job is at least manageable. Without a sense of self-worth and the burden of critical thought finding a place to live is easy too. Just need to save your strength to focus on the acquisition of property and wealth.


Instead I focused on the luxuries in life, including figuring out my identity and the physical configuration of my body. In hindsight it might have been so much easier to just ignore my misgivings and stuck with the 'male' label, embracing the binary society. Survival first, and all that.

I made this mistake and now I'm paying for it. My failed suicide attempt a few years ago should have been a warning to myself, that I had to change things, but I stubbornly refused to just give up on those delusions. Having the courts actually agree to the assessment that I'm a hermaphrodite and not male must have emboldened me.

At this point my health is deteriorating without any prospect of medical help, I live in a hell hole of an apartment without the energy to change anything about this, and I'll soon be out of a job.

The only responses which I'm expecting to this situation are variations on 'I'll pray for you/I hope it works out', 'Here's a list of houses/jobs you do not have the energy/self-worth to look at' and my absolute favourite: 'Suicide is never the answer'. Oh yes, it surely is. For both sides, even.


The past days have been a complete struggle for me to continue living. This morning was the worst so far, putting me right back where I was just over six years ago during the final weeks before my suicide attempt. The same sense of devastation, of not seeing a way out, of feeling overwhelmed by life and the demands being placed on me. Those sudden glimpses and insights into that wonderful feeling of peace and warmth that I felt before I took the final steps which should have ended my life back then.

I gambled that things which would work out for me if I just got that identity and intersex issue resolved, but what should have take a few years, tops, turned into a decade and soon thirteen years. I gambled and lost.


I do not know how I'll get through the coming weeks, or months. It's quite possible that I will not make it. I'm not fully in control of my thoughts, or my body for that matter. Likely it's this dissociation, this DID, which keeps impulsively trying to harm this body of mine. Fun things like my hands trying to strangle me and me fighting back even as I'm choking. Or deflecting a knife that's headed for my abdomen, because there was this sudden impulsive thought that made me go from cutting up vegetables to trying to gut myself.

Well, I say 'me', but it's not 'me'. I feel fragmented. There's me and many other identities fighting for control. And this 'me' is losing. I wouldn't be surprised if I start suffering more blackouts the coming time.

Yes, I'm having major issues. Yes, it would probably be best if I put an end to it. Cull the weak. Not bleat for help that will not ever come.


It's gone on for far too long already.


Maya

Amnesia, or: Why it's all your damn fault

It's one of those images which just remain with you forever. Seeing these people whom you know to be classmates come walking around the bicycle shed and crawling through the gap between its boards and the concrete foundation, as they make their way towards you. Slowly, inevitably. Standing on the field behind the bicycle shed, you know that all you can do is await the inevitable. There were probably a few dozen of them. It felt like hundreds.

As they circle around me, the jeering, insults and egging on starts. Pushing my way through the throng, I leave them behind, but knowing very well that I cannot escape them. They'll always be there. Each lunch break. And outside school time as well, as I noticed one day when they tried to block my way while I was cycling home. Only by quickly leaving the bicycle path and passing their blockade by using the road was I able to avoid whatever would have come next. Nothing good, I imagine.

I remember well that time I got punched in the stomach. It hurt so much. As I stood there on the parking lot, buckled over in pain, I just heard others laugh at me, and call me weak and a sissy. Or that time when someone spit straight into my face. I never told a teacher about any of this. I ignored it all. Maybe it would go away?

Years ago I learned that I had apparently taken on the main bully from back then, during primary school. Apparently I had confronted him and beaten him up something fierce. After that he stopped bullying me and we sort of became friends. Funny thing is that I do not remember any of this. A lot of my primary school time is like that: gaps where significant events should have been. Things which I should have remembered. Like getting revenge on this bully.


In hindsight it was likely that I suffered a blackout, as a result of the trauma I suffered as a young child. Abuse is all the same, after all. Likely something had finally snapped inside of me, after suffering all of that abuse. Same as how I suffered a blackout a few years ago, due to the abuse I suffered at the hands of doctors and psychologists. There's a lot one can take psychologically, but at some point something just... breaks.

When possible, one's mind seeks to just cover it up. Put the memories deep away, where they can fester and hurt without one consciously realising why one struggles with all of these painful feelings and weird if not disturbing impulses. I guess in that sense I'm glad that I'm beginning to remember things now. Things of my childhood, mostly.

The memory I recalled a while ago of the big man standing over 5-year old me is becoming more clear now. Most recently I seem to remember him yelling at me. Accusing me it all being my fault. Everything that had happened. Everything that was just done to me. All my fault. I did it. If only I hadn't been there. If only I didn't exist. Everything was my fault. I should just have cooperated. Followed orders. I think that after this I was left alone in that dark room. To cry and feel horrible. To leave and try to forget what had happened. Maybe it would go away?


It never goes away.


I always feel it's my fault. Something is just wrong with me. Something which justifies getting abused as a child. Which justifies getting bullied during primary and high school. Which excuses everything about the horrors inflicted on me by doctors and psychologists. The very reason behind why I'll never find a home again. Ending up homeless and dying on the streets is the only fate that's acceptable for someone who is such a terrible person like me.

I cannot stop hearing this man yelling at me. It is my fault. I believe it, somehow. If only I hadn't resisted. Hadn't struggled. I am just a child, what do I know?

I'm still that 5-year old child. I'm still suffering the same abuse, the same yelling, the same terrible darkness and loneliness afterwards. Over and over again. It never ends. I try to argue that it's not my fault, that none of what happened to me was my fault. Somewhat like the struggle to stop blaming myself for being raped in 2006. Anger is helpful there when it's a past event.

When it's still ongoing, one can only keep putting the feelings and memories away. To let it fester and sap away one's mental strength. Things like the medical madness, with doctors and psychologists blaming me, saying that it's all my fault. If only I would just accept what they keep telling me about me being just a boy. Why can't I just follow orders? I'm less than them. They know better.

Or with the eviction case. It's my fault. I shouldn't have reported issues. I shouldn't have attempted to reach an agreement on reduced rent. I should just have suffered the abuse. Like a good little child. This is an adult's world. Your opinions and thoughts are irrelevant. We know what's best for you.


It's all my fault. It has to be. Or maybe it's just that man's voice which keeps haunting me. Yet I do not feel the confidence to say that what this man yelled at me was incorrect. Maybe everything is my fault after all, even if other people tell me it's not. I don't know who is right. Between all of these horrible memories and fragments of this rapidly fading lie of a carefree youth, I'm not sure who is right, or what reality is any more. Who to trust, either.

Why are people such horrible creatures who have to keep inflicting so much pain upon others?

I don't understand any of it. I just want to get away. Somehow. Make this pain inside of my head stop.


Even if...


Maya

The meaning of life when on death row

Imagine: there are two worlds, two realities. One is accessed via the internet-connected laptop you have, offering you contact with millions of people, access to a near-infinite amount of information and glimpses of a hope-filled and bright future. The other reality is the one you find yourself in whenever you aren't engrossed in the former world inside your laptop.

The former world fills you with hope and joy. The latter is the bleak reality of death row.


For years now I have had recurrent dreams in which I am walking through a crowd of people, all apparently gathered for a party or similar. They are busily talking with each other, all engrossed in whichever topic they're talking about. I do not talk with anyone, or even try to talk with anyone. Throughout this, I know with absolute certainty that come tomorrow, I will be executed, ergo why would I bother?

In these dreams, every time that I begin to feel interested in something around me, the feeling is immediately crushed by the bitterness of the futility of it all. Tomorrow I will die. None of what I do right now matters. Yet nobody around me can even begin to understand what I am going through. If they were interested at all, which none of them appear to be. I feel like I'm already dead and just wandering through the world of the living as a ghost.


I think that for me it all started around the time that I finished high school and before my parents divorced. That was the point where I began to fully lose any concept of 'self', or more specifically of what it meant to have a body. After being forced to move out of the house in which I had grown up, I fell back into myself, neglecting my body beyond the most basic needs to feed and clean it.

During the last year of high school I had finally found out one reason why I wasn't like the people around me, when a giftedness study at a Dutch university showed me to be both a 100% visual learner and highly gifted individual. Unfortunately this knowledge didn't come with associated help with how to deal with it, nor did it tell me what I needed know about what my body is.


For some reason it feels as though back when I still thought that I had a male body I had more freedom. Ever since I found out about my body being hermaphroditic have things gone from bad to worse. Yet I had to find out. I had to know. I did not expect to be punished for this. I did not expect that it would result in me suffering horrible psychological trauma, rape, beatings and getting locked up for crimes I did not commit.

That day in early 2005 when I first travelled to the gender team at the VUmc hospital in Amsterdam feels like the day when I got arrested and locked up for the crime of having been born like this. Over the course of the following years I went through countless appeals and medical examinations, all in the hope to overturn these charges of being transgender, crazy, etc.

Yet none of it seems to have changed anything. None of it matters. The medical evidence is still deemed contradictory, despite my body clearly not being male, what with a primarily female phenotype and natural female hormone levels and even a monthly cycle. It's all irrelevant. I'm still not getting help, nor will I ever be released from death row.


Dealing with the current eviction court case and the bleak prospects of finding a home only serve to reinforce what I already knew years ago: innocent or not, I will be executed. Soon the extra time I had for appeals and help will run out and I will cease to exist.

As a result I also know that none of what I might want matters, nor do any of my plans and hope for the future matter. Why would I work on any projects, or be really invested in work or getting money back from taxes, or feel remotely interested in pointless things like vacations, relationships and the like?

It all feels exactly like those dreams. The world around me goes on, but before long my existence will be snuffed out.

And none of this will matter.


Maya

Just a terrified child

Just a few days until the eviction hearing. I'd be a liar if I said that it hadn't been the thing that's been most on my mind for the past months. I'd be an even worse liar if I insisted that it doesn't make me feel depressed, suicidal and want to cry and curl up in absolute misery.

I don't know what this 'adult' thing is that others keep talking about. At times like these I realise that it has nothing to do with me. I'm just a child, who just wants to play all day: learning more languages, playing games, soldering and programming projects and exploring the universe. Everything that is fun.

I don't know what these Adults want from me, with their Adult things. They're just big, scary, looming dark figures who keep yelling at me, demanding that I do things, or not do things, yet I never really understand why it's all such a big deal to them. They should learn to have fun instead.

Hopefully they'll leave me alone again soon.

There's still so much fun to be had.


Maya

Absolute terror and looking for an escape

Last Monday I was sitting at the a table in the local hackerspace, just having fetched and consumed dinner along with a couple of others. Suddenly I felt a tingling sensation in my right leg which rapidly got worse. Within minutes the leg had gone fully numb except for occasional surges of pain in the appendage. For the next hours I had to wait and hope that I'd get the sensation back in the leg before I could cycle home.

Last night I got woken up because my right arm was tingling and hurting. After a couple of minutes the pain lessened and I was able to fall asleep again. For the past days I can feel a numbness and mild discomfort in both my right leg and arm. To say that this is disconcerting would be an understatement.


For the past twelve years, it's been made very clear to me that do not know what I am talking about. All pains I merely imagine. Everything that I think my body is, is false.

It hasn't just been with medical things, either. Working my last job in the Netherlands was unpleasant and traumatising, along with the horror that was sharing an apartment with someone who did absolutely not have my well-being in mind and which ultimately led to me losing all of my belongings. It's not been easy to keep believing that things could get better.

Meanwhile I have a good job at a great employer, yet to get there hasn't been easy, either. Medically some progress has been made, but it looks like I still have many years - if not decades - ahead of me to get anything like a resolution. Anything beyond this... just no. Forget it.


Whenever I try to think of my future, or merely try thinking of heading to the run-down apartment I currently live in, my mind practically blanks out in fear. When thinking of contacting a real-estate agent to get started on finding that house to buy, there's about 1-3% of my mind which feels up to it, with the rest again blanking out in complete terror.

Most of my days are filled with the struggle against that general sensation of terror, accompanied by brief or longer periods where I find myself thinking about suicide.


When people then tell me to think about how great it would be to have a house of my own, and that I should look at real-estate websites for homes for sale, they are completely missing the point. Such things are guaranteed to make me feel that terror because of all the uncertainties and crushing disappointments which come naturally with such things. It's a sensation which I can resist for a short while (minutes, maybe), but beyond that it will invoke a suicidal depression because of it having drained my energy and with it the resistance against such thoughts.

In short, I can't do this.


I can maybe work up the energy to contact a real-estate agent and pray that this will suffice. I would also have to get a loan together, which would also be very emotionally taxing, but very likely less so than dealing with landlords and kin. Being confronted with my actual monetary worth (or lack thereof), is depressing, but at least I wouldn't be judged by anyone as a person.

Yet none of this will be easy. I'm not sure anyone here comes even close to understanding any of this. How would I even be able to explain any of this to someone else? Between being intersex, gifted, hyper-sensitive, ambidextrous and severely traumatised, I don't really feel like I am inhabiting the same universe as others. It would definitely explain why others keep expecting me to be able to do all the things which they can do.


I have a traumatic disorder. I cannot function in daily life the way others easily can. My traumatic experiences colour the world around me in a bleak and horrifying way most of the time. I cannot bring myself to trust people. Not yet. Not at this point. Not after everything that they have done to me. It frustrates me so incredibly that people will listen to me talk about all of this, then smile, nod and just tell me 'good luck', as if none of what I experienced and suffered was relevant, or real.

The chronic pains I suffer are real. The traumatic disorders are real. I can choose to ignore both, but doing so will not help me in any way. Other people ignoring both is not helpful, or right. Both have to be acknowledged and handled appropriately. Anything else will just increase my suffering.


Maybe I'm just misunderstanding this all, though. After all these years of not knowing what my body is, or who or what I am, and having multiple psychologists and kin judge me as being delusional, it could be me who is the problem.

I just want an escape out of this literal madness that I still find myself trapped in. Something has to make sense at some point. Probably. I hope so.


I have no clue who or what I am. Whether up is up or actually down. Maybe left is right and right left. The sky is blood-red, not blue. Everything can be true. It's all relative. Maybe everyone is wrong. Maybe this is all just in my mind. Maybe this is what it feels like to go crazy. Just an endless nightmare.


Maya

Too terrified to feel anything

Two days ago I was led to believe that I could maybe rent this apartment in the city, providing an easy way out of my current situation of living in a run-down apartment from which the owner actively tries to evict me. On Monday I received the notification from the local court that it's now an official legal case against me.

Today I learned that getting this new apartment is anything but a certainty, as it'll have to be decided by a real-estate agent, making it impossible for the current tenant to just put me forward as the next tenant. Naturally this was rather disappointing.

The sensation I feel throughout all of this is one of terror. When pushing myself to figure things out and find a solution the terror is accompanied by nausea, ultimately resulting in a migraine, an intense feeling of dissociation and strong depressive (suicidal) thoughts.

There's nothing about any of this which invites me to feel anything. It's better to not feel anything. To not care. Nothing good comes from allowing my emotional side to have a say in anything. All I must focus on is survival, for which emotions and feelings are a liability.

After more than a decade of moving around the world, not having a home or place to settle down, of dealing with physical, psychological and sexual abuse, domestic violence and losing all my money and possessions, of losing any sense of self and interest in my own body, it's now all reaching a point where I feel as if I can no longer compensate any more.

I'm used to suppressing anything bad in my life, of looking on the bright side. That's how I got through the past decades. I'd always ignore anything bad which happened to me. From getting bullied in primary school through high school, from having my very existence and sanity questioned by doctors and psychologists, to the questioning of whether there is a place for me in this world.

At this point I'm left to wonder whether I have any true friends left who can help me. Whether anyone will, or even can help me. Rationally I know it all won't be that bad, with me not having done anything wrong with my current apartment, making an actual eviction very unlikely, but that's the rational side of the story.

After more than a decade of feeling like an outcast, of feeling actively hated, of having stalkers haunt my every move, of having to justify my existence against 'specialists, and so on, I just keep expecting the next bad thing to suddenly reach me.

Maybe it's a sudden letter in my mailbox, or an email, or a phone call. Who knows. I spend every day fighting off waves of irrational terror, trying to reason myself through it by assuring myself that things aren't that bleak and reminding myself of what I think will be the more likely course of events.

It's all just an assumption and best guess, of course. Rarely does anything for which I hope also occur. Dealing with severe disappointments and crawling out of very deep emotional throughs is basically all that I have done these past years.

Not that I want to, of course. Lately the memory block seems to be dissolving somewhat, causing me to more and more strongly and clearly remember things of my teenage years and youth, even as I can feel that many memories are still blocked.

Among those memories are many of a youth which, despite the problems back then, was quite peaceful and happy. Mostly thanks to my mother who allowed me to do things my way, even when my dad was far less understanding.

Compared to those memories this world I live in today seems rather hostile and hateful in comparison. I don't want any of this. I want a world in which everybody is happy and nobody has an ugly thing to say about anyone else.

Maybe it's because I have seen so many horrible and disgusting things over the past decades that I am so tired of seeing the same terrible acts and negativity repeated over and over again. It just seems that humanity makes life unnecessarily hostile for itself.

When people cannot find a place to live. Cannot find a job, or proper healthcare. When they are not respected or tolerated as a person, or never taught to respect themselves. All of those are terrible things. I am painfully aware that it's not just me who is dealing with such things, and that saddens me even more.

If so many others are also suffering despite doing their utmost to improve their situation, then what point is there to me trying to improve mine? Is there anything which I can do? Is there a way that I can ever feel happy, or just optimistic again?

I do not want to believe that this world, this society is just a collection of desperately unhappy individuals with plastic smiles, who are ruled over by rich, uncaring and ultimately also unhappy people. Yet that's what I am seeing: humanity as a tragicomedy.

Maybe this year will be when I can regain at least something of what I felt as a child and teenager. Maybe it's lost forever.

Regardless of what happens, the innocence and naive optimism which I felt back then will not ever return. That in itself is perhaps the real tragedy here.


Maya

The boy who really needs to finally die

Now that things are becoming a bit more quiet on the home-eviction front with a capable lawyer on my side and all defences in place, it seems that I can now go back to worrying about the many other things which trouble me. Such as this one person whose existence causes me no shortage of troubles and whose demise I'd gleefully celebrate.

A few decades ago, a boy was born, who grew up and got lost, before finding out that his life up till that point had been a lie; a mere deception created in a Truman Show-like fashion. This boy found out that he had in fact never existed. The end.


I'm not a boy. Never been one. Anyone with a modicum of sense can tell that I'd make for a very poor male specimen. Yet despite of all this, there are still those who insist that my life and that of this boy are one and the same. That I am this boy. That everything which I hold to be true and self-evident is in fact an illusion.

I know that I cannot be this boy, because I am a woman. I have the body of a woman, and all of the monthly joys that come with it. Been able to enjoy those since I was eleven years old along with all of the joyful hormonal fluctuations that are a part of it. Clearly the boy's story isn't about me. Never was. It's a fictional character. Someone who never existed. Who should never have existed.

I do not want this boy to keep existing any more. I can not take it that there are people who keep trying to force this fictional character on me, as if it somehow has got anything to do with me. Hopefully next year will see me undergo the surgery which should finally drive this point home with the reconstruction of the closed-off female side.

I do not know why some insist on trying to force their delusions on me even today. It took me long enough to learn to look past these delusions and see them for what they are. It's already far beyond the point where this boy should have ceased existing. Maybe in two months time I'll have to deal with that again. Maybe not.


Imagine living in a world where part of the people around you will tell you that you're something opposite to that which you know you are. You're not male, you're female. You're not white, you're black, or Asian. You're not tall, but actually really short. Feel the dissonance as you try to unify these two diametrically opposed truths into a singular view of one's self.

I'm a hermaphrodite, but I'm not allowed to be one. Not yet. I want to explore what it means to be... me, but I cannot do so. Not yet.

First the boy has to die.


Maya

Isn't letting me do this by my own irresponsible?

After spending the past hours in bed, trying to sleep and failing courtesy of the migraine and thoughts churning through my head, I finally got to a state where I felt calm and pain-free enough to get out of bed and assess the damage.

In hindsight forcing myself to try and cook dinner despite the migraine and feeling clearly aggravated wasn't the best of ideas, judging by the first ever damage to the kitchen counter. I vaguely recall me slamming something heavy into it, like a cutting board for whatever godforsaken reason. I also seem to have bruises all over my body again. Physical pain to deal with emotional pain, I guess.

I'm not sure whether to ascribe such moments to PTSD or the Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) with which I have also been diagnosed. That I can still vaguely recall what my body did, but without recollection of the reasoning behind it is mostly confusing and worrying.

I am guessing that this sudden breakdown was due to the pent-up stress of the past weeks, with today's viewing of what's supposed to be my ticket out of this current run-down apartment as what was supposed to be a turning point. Maybe my expectations and hopes were simply too high.

Not that there was anything really wrong with the new place... just some poorly thought out choices with a very small kitchen in a large (95 square meter) apartment, which led to there being no place for a microwave, as well as a bathroom with no place for a regular sized washing machine. Annoying, but manageable.

Having to answer questions today about my work, current apartment, financial status, justifying going for such a large apartment (anything smaller is impossible to get, pretty much), and so on was probably the last trigger, resulting in the total breakdown once I got home.


All of it does make me wonder in how far I am capable of managing my own life at this point when what are annoying but manageable things come on my path. Maybe it's been those decades of figuring out and dealing with the abuse I suffered for my intersex condition which caused just too much trauma. Maybe that's what's making it almost impossible for me to deal with any of this, and only at the cost of further traumatising myself.

I wish more than anything that someone would come along and handle this for me. Just to shield me from the worst. Get me to a place where I can feel safe and secure, without having to worry about whether I made the right choice. I hope that I can hand off the legal issues with my current place to the support organisation with whom I signed up and talked with this week.

Beyond that... I have to carefully consider what's more important at this point: moving at any cost, or taking my mental health as priority.


Maya

Being good just makes you into a punching bag

After yesterday's highly unpleasant lawyer letter, threatening me with eviction and the forced payment of large sums of money, I sent a response back, highlighting that the building owner has not seen fit to fix the outstanding issues in the apartment. The response I got from the lawyer was brief: the owner believes that everything has been fixed, has the bills from repairmen to show for it, and that I should be paying up and moving out as soon as possible.

Only problem with that is that there never was any feedback from me, or communication from the owner's side about the issues being fixed and the reduction in rent being discontinued. This leads to the stance where I can easily point out the remaining issues in the place (rusty water, poor insulation, noisy heating system, lack of sound insulation with neighbours), and where the owner insists there are no more issues, or as her representative put it: "It's an old building, those things are normal."

Long story short, I have to get that lawyer ASAP, who will hopefully make short work of this matter. I have also registered with an organisation for those who rent their apartment, house, etc. and contacted them. Hopefully they'll be able to advise me as well.

Meanwhile I have applied for the first new apartment. If I get it, I'd be able to move next month. From the description it sounds pretty decent. It's a 1970s building, but fully renovated (my current place just had the windows renewed, poorly). It's even a little bit larger than my current place and should be very comfortable. Keeping my fingers crossed there.

Of course I'm still looking for new apartments/houses to rent in or near Karlsruhe. Same search parameters still apply: roughly 80 square meters, quiet, and some place for my bicycle as well as cable connection (for internet).  Please let me know if you know of anything there that's with a reputable owner.


Moving on, this whole thing definitely brings back a whole lot of unpleasant memories and thoughts. Once again I'm being accused of being something which I am not, through no fault of my own. I'm again left wondering what it is that people have against me, and then the nagging doubt of whether it isn't actually me after all who is the problem. Maybe I'm just thinking that I can manage this 'adult' thing but I'm in reality screwing up everything.

I spent over a decade 'debating' with physicians and psychologists whether I was just a feminine-looking boy, a male to female transsexual, intersex, crazy, delusional (actual phrase used by a psychologist), or just obsessed with proving that I was right. If it's often simply impossible to prove that your own, physical body is what it is and not what they say it is, then how does one deal with more abstract matters?

When years of such psychological (and physical) abuse finally took their toll and I blacked out in what was likely a dissociative identity disorder-related episode, I was blamed for the damage to a number of objects in that waiting room, even though I never wilfully chose to damage them, or was even aware of it. Yet how does one prove DID, or PTSD? You cannot measure it (except with fMRI scans, probably), or see it, only say with a reasonable degree of certainty that the person who claims to have PTSD, or DID blackouts, is telling the truth.


In essence, I got blamed for over a decade for everything bad that was inflicted on me, from the attitude of doctors and psychologists. My attitude was wrong, the German medical conclusions were mistaken, I was just being obsessed with the thing, I should admit the doctors were right and live my life as the guy I am. And so on. The disciplinary case I brought against the Amsterdam VUmc gender team was dismissed because they had 'done nothing wrong' in their assessment of me, this even after the first surgery in Germany and my legal gender change on the basis of being a hermaphrodite.

What have I really done wrong? I always stuck to the rules, followed the advice of professionals unless my own research made me question it. By the end of 2007 I was dealing with two completely conflicting medical conclusions, between me being a regular guy, or a hermaphrodite. Who wouldn't want to get the real answer there? Could anyone live with such uncertainty? Is it wrong to keep asking questions?


A while ago I had a collection agency after me because I supposedly hadn't paid Ikea for a delivery. That turned out to be fully Ikea's fault because they had never communicated to me that the automated withdrawal from my bank account had failed, because the delivery guy hadn't written down my information properly. Instead they sent me a bill and follow-up requests for money without further explanation, never responding to my emails to support. There the collection agency admitted this, Ikea admitted this, and I just had to pay the original amount. Their fault, their mea culpa, everything was fine in the end.

I'm hoping that something like that will happen here too. I am not aware of me having done anything wrong and from the (professional) advice I have received so far it does indeed appear that the fault lies solidly with the building's owner. Of course, my experience of being right and getting proven right is somewhat sketchy based on those previous experiences. The fear which keeps eating away at me is that despite being right, I'll still have to pay a lot of money, get evicted and have this marked on some permanent file, making it a nightmare to ever rent again.


Being the 'good guy' has to be pretty much symbolic with 'taking everything the less scrupulous throw at one', while only smiling and staying polite during the process. When one sees what others can get away with, it does make one wonder whether it truly pays to be good and whether the 'dark side' isn't really way more fun.

On the other hand, I think I'd make for a terrible villain.


Maya

Smile, because nobody wants to see that you're crying inside

This week has been a busy one. Monday another visit to my psychotherapist in order to talk about my upcoming reconstructive surgery, as well as the traumatic events in my past as well as current ones. Tuesday saw a Dutch film crew drop by in order to do an interview with me for the second episode of this new series on gender in 2016. This had me rehash my past again, of course.

Wednesday just had me working on my project at work, and attempt to breathe life in my CPU prototype project at home.

Today I had the first appointment with my family doctor (GP) since March this year, so I had to give her a full rehash of anything relevant that has happened in the intervening months. Then tomorrow I'll be signing the rental contract for the new apartment and begin the arduous process of moving, changing addresses, getting internet at the new place and probably fighting a legal battle with the owner of my current apartment, which would have me likely lose at least some money and definitely lots of sleep.


I find it interesting how full of smiles and positivity I am when I talk to my psychotherapist or GP. Reassuring them that everything is heading in the right direction. This while my mood during this week and especially earlier today was probably closer aligned to a dissociative episode and severe depression than this person I keep portraying.

If you ask me, it's not fair.

It's not fair that one can suffer through traumatic events, come out at the other side scarred, emotionally barely clinging on to sanity and then be expected to carry on as if nothing has happened. I know I have touched upon this before on multiple occasions, but I feel it bears repeating.

If we want to seriously care about mental health issues in society, then it's pertinent that we admit that not everyone in society is equally capable of going through the daily motions in life. That there are people for whom merely doing groceries is a mentally tasking event. People for whom the mere realisation that society expects them to 'just act normal' is enough to make it overwhelmingly clear that said society does not care about them as a person.

Society is about enforcing the collective tyranny of The People onto its members, even if few in society realise that this happens. Some things are accepted, while others aren't.

You're not supposed to be depressed. We cannot use depressed people. We cannot use traumatised veteran soldiers. We cannot use those who do not conform to our image of normalcy. You're not depressed, you're just pretending. You just smiled, you cannot be depressed. Everyone else can do it, so can you.

Just act like everybody else, and stop the depressing talk. It will be fine.

Just keep smiling.


I am smiling because I do not want to be crying. Not outside, not inside. I want to feel happy and care-free. Not haunted by fears that I may suddenly lose all my possessions again, or once more find myself without money, or get beaten up again. I am smiling because I want people to treat me nicely, to care about me. To make me stop hurting inside so much that it feels like the entire world is either against me or feels comfortable stepping over my broken body.

I smile because I want to believe in this better world. Not in this world I grew up in, filled with psychologists who tell me that I am crazy, doctors who try to make me believe that I am transsexual, or refuse me as patient for being intersex and religious people who call me 'unnatural'.


The only path forward I can see at this point is one where I keep smiling. Smiling while every step along the way tears off a little bit more of my soul. Things are unlikely to get easier any time soon. Only way is to keep suffering. Suffer while pretending to be just like everybody else. Depressed? Suicidal? PTSD? Of course not, what are you talking about?

Just look at me, I'm a perfectly normal, fully integrated human being performing their role in society just as specified. Don't you worry. Look, I'm even smiling and making jokes.

I'm fine. Pain is strength, suffering is bliss and what doesn't kill one makes one stronger, etcetera.

Trust me.


Maya

Fighting against the darkness

This whole concept of me somehow becoming part of 'normal' life is an interesting one. My youth I spent mostly by myself, reading books or playing games on the computer or console. My teenage years I spent by myself, while suffering bullying and harassment by my classmates. My tween years were spent trying to find the truth about myself and my body, fighting against national and international institutions while losing the ability to care what others did to my body, as long as I wasn't completely alone.

They were decades which have left me with darkness covering my heart and soul. Decades which have taught me I will never be... like others. Intellectually I'm too different. Physically I am no part of society. Psychologically I'm too unstable and unusual. The life I have lived so far makes it clear that I do not and never will have anything in common with the people around me.

In light of this it is fairly obvious why I can perform well at a day job as a software developer, yet will more than gladly bow out of social gatherings and events. I do not care to learn about the lives of people around me. I do not wish to think about them having relationships, getting married and starting families. I do not wish to be reminded of the darkness inside my mind.

I do not wish to see others live somewhere pleasant or enjoy a vacation. All I wish for is to shut everything out but those few things in life which are not tainted and corrupted by darkness. Those things being the only things which kept me sane over the past decades: computers, technology, books and science.

Clinging to these few isolated spots of light amidst this endless ocean of darkness formed by humanity, I desperately seek to preserve my sanity. I try to breach the walls that stand between myself and others, only to find out what horrible price doing so will cost me. Even with something as seemingly harmless as a games night at the office with colleagues such as last Friday.

I cannot begin to describe how terrible such a thing makes me feel. For the past months I have tried to tell myself that this time I would participate, but each time I can feel the darkness gnawing at my mind long beforehand. It feels wrong for me to partake in such an event, to even be there. To have the nerve to exist. I do not belong there. I should not, nay, cannot exist in that same reality.


With this darkness so strong inside of me, I feel that it is futile to even pretend to be part of society, or to partake in social events. It won't make anyone happy, or improve anything. It only serves to remind me of an alternative reality which was closed off to me before I was even born.

I will keep smiling in daily life, even if deep inside my heart I can only find solace from the darkness when I'm surrounded by books and computers, instead of people. They won't judge. They won't leer. They won't condemn me. They will always support me, comfort me, and help me grow and heal.


Maya

Not even human

For the past weeks I have been fearing the impending appointment with this new psychologist, in preparation for the reconstructive surgery as well as general PTSD therapy. Considering that said PTSD is largely caused by physicians and psychologists, I think it suffices to say that this is a very unfortunate situation I find myself in. When it comes to reason versus traumas, the latter is guaranteed to win.

Today I was forced to confront just how far this post-traumatic stress disorder of mine goes, when I tried to visit this local congress (GPN) organised by IT people, including the local hackerspace. For the past days I had said that I would be visiting it since I had passed for the last two years. I made this promise despite the uncomfortable feeling it gave me. I'd just have to force myself to go and it would be fine, I thought.

Throughout today said feeling of discomfort slowly grew into a sensation of dread. A few hours before the congress would start said sensation of dread grew into sheer terror. That was when I had to finally admit to myself that I could not conceivably go there.

Trying to think about it rationally, I understood this fear to originate in both my general fear of other people, as well as the dreadful sensation of feeling invisible and irrelevant. Both feelings originate in countless traumatic events over the past decade.

Despite this, some people I know and who were also at the congress today made me feel guilty for not being there, so I went there after all. I frequented the single presentation which I had meant to go see already, and things were okay. There was just this weird glance by a woman sitting in front of me who gave me the weirdest, body-covering look when she looked behind her and spotted me. Just the usual question of whether people see a freak or the opposite. I am somewhat used to that by now.

After the presentation I saw some people I knew, said 'hi' and they walked on, together. Looking around for a bit I just felt forlorn and invisible. It felt wrong for me to be there, so I half-rushed my way out of the place, heading back home. On the way home I had to dodge countless heterosexual couples, holding hands and more. This didn't really help my mood either.


I guess a lot of what I am struggling with is that my experiences with other people mostly involve them hurting me in some way, and it having been clear for more than two decades already that I am not normal. Not physically, nor psychologically. Even today my life just runs parallel with the lives of others, but I do not and cannot participate in society. I likely never will.

Ironically this new psychologist I'm seeing on Monday may be my only chance to somehow fix this problem I have. Actually getting that surgery in a number of months from now should help a lot, but finding some way to find a way to deal with my fundamental distrust and fear of other people is also essential.

That, and finding a new place to move into. Living in a place where I am neither desired nor wanted, let alone comfortable or happy, is also a major source of stress. Yet finding a new place means dealing with other people. Exactly what I do not want and cannot do in any meaningful fashion.

I hate how such spiral of despair and hopelessness always tends to end up with the warm, comfortable thought of just ending my life. I mean, why not? All the pain will be gone. All the problems resolved. No waiting for the inevitable doom and extended suffering as every fear I have about my fellow human beings turns into nightmarish reality.

I really hope that I am just being driven mad by stress and despair. I would hate for this... paranoia to actually be justified fears.

Who can say?


Maya

The pointlessness of seeking a better place to live

Technically the first time I moved houses was when I was less than a year old. This was due to the house I was born in burning down. After this it took a while for the new house to be built, forcing the entire family to stay in temporary housing on the farm premises.

After that the concept of 'moving houses' was very alien to me, however. Until 2003, that is, when my parents divorced and I found myself living in a small house in a nearby city together with my mother and younger brother. Half a year later we'd move again.

Then after a while I moved to Canada for a short while, returned to the Netherlands, stayed for a month in one place, three years in another, was forced to leave, found a new place, but tried to commit suicide before I could move into the run-down, super-expensive place I had found.

I stayed at my mother's place while I recovered from that ordeal, found a job, moved into an apartment which I shared with this other woman (see recent blog post), was forced to leave due to domestic violence, had all of my belongings stolen. I stayed first at my mother's place, then at my older brother's place, then briefly in Germany, then again at my mother's place for a while until I decided to move to Germany permanently.

There in Germany the first place I had rented was inhabitable, so I stayed at my employer's office, at a colleague's place, a student's place, another colleague's place, then ended up at my current apartment.

And now I'm being forced to leave this apartment.

The ironic thing I guess is that even though the owner of this apartment hates me and is fine with me drinking polluted water, shivering during winters from the poor insulation, suffer through noise pollution, I do not think that I can find anything better.

Back in 2012 when I sought a place to rent in the Netherlands I could still do this research myself. In 2013 I noticed that when I tried to find a place in Germany, I began to feel suicidally depressed when doing so. I still have this problem today.

What do I have to look forward to in trying to find a new place anyway? I won't find anything better. Nobody will just hand me that One Perfect Place. Shivering from cold, ignoring the noise while drinking polluted water and having people get upset at you for renting a place larger than one 'needs', this seems to be the best one can do.

This seems to be all that I am worth.

I do not want to search for a better place which likely doesn't exist. I don't want to start feeling suicidal again when I see how much I will have to compromise on again just to not be homeless. Being happy and feeling like one has a home aren't even considerations. This is all about raw survival, about not living on the streets, about not losing one's possessions again and to not want to just end this endless suffering called 'life'.


And that, in short, is why all I can do is hope and pray that a miracle happens in my current housing crisis. The only miracle which will come from my side is organising the moving company and packing up my belongings for yet another move. I wish, but do not believe, that a house exists in this area where I can actually feel safe and happy.

Depending on how things go, I may end up losing all hope and just wander into the streets one day, never to return to this life again. Just leave and walk. Until I die somewhere, alone and unloved, as a fitting conclusion to the utter pointlessness of my entire existence.


Maya

Happiness is a memory

Yesterday I again talked with my mother via video chat as we regularly do. This time we once more touched upon my youth and the many happy moments in there. Even though there was the bullying and harassment, as well as other unpleasantness at school, at home things were generally positive. Or at least most of the memories I have of that time are positive.

My love for nature, biology, science and technology can be traced back to those early years of my life. Growing up on a dairy farm, surrounded by the reality of animal husbandry as well as early personal computers thanks to my father who used the latter for his accounting while also encouraging my brothers and me to use these computers and eventually the internet.

Together with my younger brother I developed a love for classical video games, both on video game consoles and on the PC. To me most of these years have anything negative which may have happened during that time more than cancelled out by positive experiences.


To then look back at the time since then and see, as well as feel, my struggles since then. Not having a real home for more than a decade and counting. Struggling to make some sense of a body I no longer understood. Dealing with a world which simply does not understand me, yet seems to be intent on punishing me physically, psychologically and financially for who and what I am.

At this moment in time I am living in an apartment where I am totally unhappy, with its owner hating my guts while not bothering to fix fundamental problems in the place. That horrific 'justice' system in the Netherlands still seeks to punish me financially for having the nerve to break down completely after years of psychological and physical torture, not to mention medical neglect. I'm also inching towards what may become the most crucial surgery in my life, all while dealing with resurging traumatic memories of the past decades.

I generally do not feel that I live in quite the same world as people around me any more. Maybe it's just that I have seen and experienced too much, but it feels more as if I am drifting alongside all of these people scurrying around, doing their thing, while I can only feel a sense of despair and emptiness at this sight.

Inside I feel fundamentally unhappy and broken. After more than a decade I have had to long since admit that I won't ever live in a place again where I will feel comfortable enough to really call it a home. A broken down hovel suffices for the likes of me. I only can do things any more if they have some kind of long-term goal, something which will help me live forever, learn everything, and so on. For anything less than that just feels meaningless and empty.

Except when it involves something which reminds me of those scarce happy memories. Allowing myself to sink back into those recollections for a little while, to return to that time when life seemed a whole lot brighter and less terrifying than it turned out to be.

As happiness is a memory, suffering is the dystopian present and future.


I wonder at what point I took the wrong pill...


Maya

Worrying developments

The past days have been filled with turmoil for me. Part of it can probably be attributed to merely hormonal causes, no doubt worsened by me having been put back on an overdose of oestrogens. Most of it is however due to these memories and impressions which keep flooding my thoughts for days on end now.

Happy memories, but mostly painful, traumatic ones. Memories in which I am trapped, being beaten, humiliated, feeling helpless, isolated and alone. Maybe the worst part of it all is that my current apartment is partially causing these painful recollections, and partially adding to it by being a perfect match for some of the worst places I have been forced to spend time in, thus strengthening the associated traumas.

I have done what I can, by stopping the hormone therapy once again. Both in the hope that this will lessen the feelings of depression and despair sufficiently to regain some emotional stability, and in the admission that I can no longer find the energy to trust doctors. Abandoning the hope that I will get medical help, I do not wish to feel like a medical experiment any more, meaning no more experimenting with my body's hormone levels.

Yet I'm not sure it'll be enough. A few blog posts back I already described the unpleasantness of this apartment I currently live in, and touched upon some of the reasons why it's a really unhealthy environment for me considering the traumatic and other disorders I have been diagnosed with. What's becoming ever more clear, however, is that this apartment may be instrumental in a possible future suicide attempt.

It may sound dramatic, but then so are my recent outbursts of despair at living in this place and having to suffer continuous traumatic triggers. I shouldn't be crying, feeling like bashing my head into things. I shouldn't be punching the sides of my head with my fists. I shouldn't be screaming, yelling, punching and feeling like I am being hunted. That at any moment something terrible will happen.

In many ways it feels like that time when, after suffering a sound beating by the police at the request of a Christian doctor, I had to spent one horrible night and day trapped in a police cell. Almost naked, hurting all over and crying out my lungs all night because I was so terrified.

This apartment is my cell. Even though I can leave at any point I have nowhere to go. Searching for alternatives is the ultimate reminder that I cannot escape. Meanwhile I have to endure the constant threatening noise from the heating system. The haunting footsteps above me. The humiliation of hearing people upstairs urinate and defecate. The realisation that everything in this apartment is old and broken. That nobody cares that I live here. That I am actually suffering.

Wearing headphones all day while listening to loud music drowns out the noises, but is a prison into itself. It's just a symptom of my suffering.

How could I be suffering? I have a place to live and food to eat.

*punches head again, repeatedly*

...


An apartment shouldn't be driving one to suicide, but I can feel the madness gnawing at my sanity. One piece at a time. I honestly do not know how much longer I can hold on. What I could possibly do.



I am terrified that I will die in this police cell.



I never escaped.



Maya