Next week here in Karlsruhe, Germany, the 18th installment of the so-called Gulaschprogrammiernacht (Goulash Programming Night, GPN18) [1] will kick off on Thursday with a large number of talks and workshops over its four day duration [2]. For this year I also submitted a talk, which got accepted [3]. I'll be holding that talk on Friday the 11th.
Not a big shocker is that this talk will be on intersex, but not just that topic. My goal with this talk is to let people see how being intersex gradually became a part of my life, with technology - and particularly the internet - allowing me to stay more or less sane throughout the whole ordeal that would follow after the initial discovery. I'll be holding the talk in English, and it will be recorded for later public viewing as well [4].
In some ways holding a talk like this is more difficult than just going on a live talkshow with millions watching. With the latter you can just wobble into the studio, act all cool, respond to the questions of the host(s) with flair and grace, get that standing ovation and wobble out of the studio again while feeling pretty good about yourself. Oh, and the make-up session beforehand. Love those.
When you do your own talk, it is you who has to prepare everything, plan the time, schedule and ready any images, slides and other materials. And then improvise nearly an hour of chattering about a really big topic without tripping up, technical issues, stuttering, awkwardness or sudden unscheduled rapid descents off any stairs or platforms.
So basically I'll be totally fine :)
Only thing which I'm not really looking forward to is receiving the judgement on the (baseless) eviction case against me on Wednesday. Things like that do not really help improve one's mood, to be honest. My hope there is that it's not such a bad judgement, so that I can take a relieved feeling to the talk on Friday, along with a positive result from the next chat with someone from Amazon earlier next week.
I can kind of picture this as my last hurrah in Germany before I declare my efforts to receive medical care as an intersex person a loss and move on to greener pastures with a new job, advancing my career and possibly building up those crucial contacts I need to sort out the last remaining issues from my life as a nobody.
Would make for a great film, at least.
*Scribbles down some notes for her autobiography~*
Maya
[1] https://entropia.de/GPN18
[2] https://pretalx.entropia.de/gpn18/schedule/
[3] https://pretalx.entropia.de/gpn18/talk/SZMAYU
[4] https://media.ccc.de/
Showing posts with label karlsruhe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label karlsruhe. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 May 2018
Tuesday, 4 April 2017
The eviction hearing, or: Let's try this 'justice' thing again
Tomorrow just after noon the eviction hearing against me will start. The case in summary is that there were many larger and smaller issues with the apartment right from the beginning. A rent reduction was agreed upon. Not all of the original issues have been fixed: of the noisy heating the conclusion was that it 'would be too expensive too fix'. For the rusty water I would just have to run the water more often. The holes around the windows have been largely ignored.
This should be the easiest eviction hearing ever, with everything so clear-cut. Yet I have had to struggle through months of suicidal thoughts, the certainty that everything was going to end on this day, that I was basically being led to my execution. Even now I can feel the tenseness in my shoulders and tinges of sharp pain in my neck warning me that I'm one wrong move away from another pinched nerve and hours of agony.
Perhaps one reason is that my experience with 'justice' has been rather disappointing so far. From a case against the doctors who falsely diagnosed me originally as being transgender yet refused to do any examinations, even after the first German MRI report showing me to be intersex, to a claim against my insurance company for refusing to cover certain expenses because I am intersex and not transgender, even if the impact is sometimes the exact same.
And basically so on and on. Not very confidence inspiring, all together.
What do I hope for? That I won't have to pay a cent extra and get all the time and maybe help which I need to find a better place to move into. What do I expect I get? A short deadline to leave the premises of mere months and having to pay thousands of Euros. Why the latter when it is such a clear-cut case? Because justice is dead. That's why.
Tomorrow I should see the first signs of which way it will move towards. If the outstanding issues have to be examined it would still take months before a decision has been reached. I hope it'll be over soon, even if I will just have to accept whatever gets decided for me. I just hope that it won't be so negative that it will trigger more suicidal depressions. I still don't want to die, but justice is blind, after all.
Maya
This should be the easiest eviction hearing ever, with everything so clear-cut. Yet I have had to struggle through months of suicidal thoughts, the certainty that everything was going to end on this day, that I was basically being led to my execution. Even now I can feel the tenseness in my shoulders and tinges of sharp pain in my neck warning me that I'm one wrong move away from another pinched nerve and hours of agony.
Perhaps one reason is that my experience with 'justice' has been rather disappointing so far. From a case against the doctors who falsely diagnosed me originally as being transgender yet refused to do any examinations, even after the first German MRI report showing me to be intersex, to a claim against my insurance company for refusing to cover certain expenses because I am intersex and not transgender, even if the impact is sometimes the exact same.
And basically so on and on. Not very confidence inspiring, all together.
What do I hope for? That I won't have to pay a cent extra and get all the time and maybe help which I need to find a better place to move into. What do I expect I get? A short deadline to leave the premises of mere months and having to pay thousands of Euros. Why the latter when it is such a clear-cut case? Because justice is dead. That's why.
Tomorrow I should see the first signs of which way it will move towards. If the outstanding issues have to be examined it would still take months before a decision has been reached. I hope it'll be over soon, even if I will just have to accept whatever gets decided for me. I just hope that it won't be so negative that it will trigger more suicidal depressions. I still don't want to die, but justice is blind, after all.
Maya
Wednesday, 4 January 2017
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
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
Saturday, 17 December 2016
The fine line between trauma and simple laziness
How does one deal with something which is intangible yet part of oneself or another person?
This is the question which has plagued anyone affected with mental health issues, who were forced into poverty through forces beyond their control, or otherwise suffer because of the spectre of normalcy.
It's very easy to end up in a situation in one's life where one cannot proceed any further without help from others. Yet to ask help is still a taboo in today's society. Everyone is expected to fight for themselves, and if you cannot keep up it's your own darn fault. Homeless? Just get a job already and rent a place. Jobless? Plenty of jobs around. Feeling depressed? Just cheer up. Feeling suicidal? There's still so much to live for, so stop being silly.
One perception is that people who cannot extract themselves from such a hopeless situation are simply lazy, unmotivated or worse.
I mean, just look at how easy it is to get a job: apply at twenty places, get rejected at 19, get the lowest-paying job out of the lot in the end. Or to find a new place to live in: spend a year or two looking at dozens of places, run into unscrupulous owners, dodgy real-estate agents, hidden fees and defects and see ever place you really wanted go to someone else instead.
And that's for people without mental health issues.
I was and still am incredibly lucky that I came across my current employer who saw the potential in me and supported me far beyond what they were legally required to do. They allowed me get my professional career back on track and gave me a safe space in which I could develop myself as a person and software developer.
Could I have managed something on my own otherwise? I went through about a dozen job interviews in a few months time back in the Netherlands, before landing a job as a backend developer. It wasn't something I wanted to do, and the environment was horribly restrictive. Yet I had to because I needed the money. It was a demotivating experience which left me so traumatised that during the first year that I worked in Germany for my current employer I felt the same sense of terror and forced respect as I had for my bosses at my previous job.
I don't think I would have made it without this help.
Now that I am dealing with the current crisis surrounding my current apartment, having to get a lawyer again and dealing with another potential legal case, I can only feel dread as I think about this place, and the need to find a new place. Not that I didn't try to find alternative places to live the past years among too much time spend on medical issues. They all were given to other people, though, or the owner could not be trusted.
And that's when I hit the limit of compromising.
Last weekend, after looking at yet another place, I fell apart emotionally and mentally in a way which I had never experienced before. This was the point for me when I realised that not only had others basically not grasped what it means to search for a new home for a person with my level of severe traumatic experiences, neither had I.
Talking about it with my psychotherapist a few days ago, the term it came down to was 'compromise'. How my life has been just an endless series of compromises, renewed hope and crushed expectations for year after year after year, in a seemingly endless repetition. As I wrote before, there's no real difference between a doctor and landlord. Both are people you need, people who preside over your happiness and joy in life and who can crush both without a care in the world.
I cannot deal mentally, emotionally or even physically any more with the stress of finding medical help for my intersex condition. I am completely reliant on the help of others at this point, in particular my psychotherapist, my endocrinologist and gynaecologist.
Finding a new home taps into the same drained energy reserves. Finding a new home is something which has many traumatic memories for me, including eviction, suicide, domestic violence and abuse, etc. To look for a new place is to open myself to reliving those traumas, suffering new ones and worst of all slipping into suicidal depressions like last weekend.
I really wish that I could put better into words what I am trying to say here, but words fail me.
My point is basically that even if you cannot see it on the outside of a person, they can still be injured inside. You'd not force a person with a broken leg to walk. Similarly you wouldn't force someone with severe mental trauma to repeat the same experience again. It just won't end well.
What I have to come to terms with is that I need a new home, but I cannot look for it myself, or risk harming myself horribly due to the emotional destabilisation that would cause. This means that I have to rely 100% on others.
I wish I was just being lazy. I could use a horribly dull and boring life. It would be awesome.
Maya
This is the question which has plagued anyone affected with mental health issues, who were forced into poverty through forces beyond their control, or otherwise suffer because of the spectre of normalcy.
It's very easy to end up in a situation in one's life where one cannot proceed any further without help from others. Yet to ask help is still a taboo in today's society. Everyone is expected to fight for themselves, and if you cannot keep up it's your own darn fault. Homeless? Just get a job already and rent a place. Jobless? Plenty of jobs around. Feeling depressed? Just cheer up. Feeling suicidal? There's still so much to live for, so stop being silly.
One perception is that people who cannot extract themselves from such a hopeless situation are simply lazy, unmotivated or worse.
I mean, just look at how easy it is to get a job: apply at twenty places, get rejected at 19, get the lowest-paying job out of the lot in the end. Or to find a new place to live in: spend a year or two looking at dozens of places, run into unscrupulous owners, dodgy real-estate agents, hidden fees and defects and see ever place you really wanted go to someone else instead.
And that's for people without mental health issues.
I was and still am incredibly lucky that I came across my current employer who saw the potential in me and supported me far beyond what they were legally required to do. They allowed me get my professional career back on track and gave me a safe space in which I could develop myself as a person and software developer.
Could I have managed something on my own otherwise? I went through about a dozen job interviews in a few months time back in the Netherlands, before landing a job as a backend developer. It wasn't something I wanted to do, and the environment was horribly restrictive. Yet I had to because I needed the money. It was a demotivating experience which left me so traumatised that during the first year that I worked in Germany for my current employer I felt the same sense of terror and forced respect as I had for my bosses at my previous job.
I don't think I would have made it without this help.
Now that I am dealing with the current crisis surrounding my current apartment, having to get a lawyer again and dealing with another potential legal case, I can only feel dread as I think about this place, and the need to find a new place. Not that I didn't try to find alternative places to live the past years among too much time spend on medical issues. They all were given to other people, though, or the owner could not be trusted.
And that's when I hit the limit of compromising.
Last weekend, after looking at yet another place, I fell apart emotionally and mentally in a way which I had never experienced before. This was the point for me when I realised that not only had others basically not grasped what it means to search for a new home for a person with my level of severe traumatic experiences, neither had I.
Talking about it with my psychotherapist a few days ago, the term it came down to was 'compromise'. How my life has been just an endless series of compromises, renewed hope and crushed expectations for year after year after year, in a seemingly endless repetition. As I wrote before, there's no real difference between a doctor and landlord. Both are people you need, people who preside over your happiness and joy in life and who can crush both without a care in the world.
I cannot deal mentally, emotionally or even physically any more with the stress of finding medical help for my intersex condition. I am completely reliant on the help of others at this point, in particular my psychotherapist, my endocrinologist and gynaecologist.
Finding a new home taps into the same drained energy reserves. Finding a new home is something which has many traumatic memories for me, including eviction, suicide, domestic violence and abuse, etc. To look for a new place is to open myself to reliving those traumas, suffering new ones and worst of all slipping into suicidal depressions like last weekend.
I really wish that I could put better into words what I am trying to say here, but words fail me.
My point is basically that even if you cannot see it on the outside of a person, they can still be injured inside. You'd not force a person with a broken leg to walk. Similarly you wouldn't force someone with severe mental trauma to repeat the same experience again. It just won't end well.
What I have to come to terms with is that I need a new home, but I cannot look for it myself, or risk harming myself horribly due to the emotional destabilisation that would cause. This means that I have to rely 100% on others.
I wish I was just being lazy. I could use a horribly dull and boring life. It would be awesome.
Maya
Saturday, 10 December 2016
Existing vs living vs happiness
This week a lot of things happened. I contacted another surgeon after a friend told me about him and his skills with reconstructive surgeries. After an initial hopeful response from the surgeon himself, I then made an appointment with the clinic, only to be told that the first spot is in July of next year. That's months after I have an appointment with this first surgeon. This was very disappointing.
I also got offered a new apartment I might possibly want to rent, courtesy of my employers as the apartment owner is a former employee. It's larger and more expensive again than my current place, but after viewing it today it's newly renovated and has a built-in kitchen (a rarity in Germany).
It's more room than I need, and I would love to spend less on rent, but finding something else in this city of Karlsruhe is basically impossible within a reasonable timespan. Especially now that I have the owner of my current apartment breathing down my neck. Even though I have done nothing wrong, legally, I'm still forced to leave.
Yesterday I talked with my lawyer about this situation of the building owner wanting to have me evicted and pay full rent over the past three years despite never having fixed all of the issues initially reported or those reported later. Essentially the best way is to protect myself and my possessions by cancelling the rental contract myself and move out. After that there's just the legal wrangling about those back payments which could still cost me many thousands of Euros.
Moving thus is inevitable, and urgent.
After returning home earlier, I found myself collapsing emotionally along with a severe migraine, presumably from the stress involved. Worries about making the wrong choices, about throwing my money away. Stresses about having to justify my decisions, choices and current status in society. Years of dealing with unscrupulous landlords, doctors, psychologists and kin have pretty much fully traumatised me in that respect. Why expect anything better?
I also know that this new apartment isn't where I want to be living for the next ten years, even if I could. It's just another temporary place for a number of years. Basically it doesn't change that I'll keep looking for where I want to settle and live. Where I can be happy.
I'm not sure I'll ever feel happy or relaxed. When I'm at work I feel reasonably happy and relaxed, as well as when I'm at the local hackerspace, but dealing with everything else outside it is pretty much just a confirmation of the hostility of human society. I prefer to forget that I have a body, that it needs a place to live, eat and sleep. That I do not control my own life or body.
I guess I'll see where life steers me next.
Maya
I also got offered a new apartment I might possibly want to rent, courtesy of my employers as the apartment owner is a former employee. It's larger and more expensive again than my current place, but after viewing it today it's newly renovated and has a built-in kitchen (a rarity in Germany).
It's more room than I need, and I would love to spend less on rent, but finding something else in this city of Karlsruhe is basically impossible within a reasonable timespan. Especially now that I have the owner of my current apartment breathing down my neck. Even though I have done nothing wrong, legally, I'm still forced to leave.
Yesterday I talked with my lawyer about this situation of the building owner wanting to have me evicted and pay full rent over the past three years despite never having fixed all of the issues initially reported or those reported later. Essentially the best way is to protect myself and my possessions by cancelling the rental contract myself and move out. After that there's just the legal wrangling about those back payments which could still cost me many thousands of Euros.
Moving thus is inevitable, and urgent.
After returning home earlier, I found myself collapsing emotionally along with a severe migraine, presumably from the stress involved. Worries about making the wrong choices, about throwing my money away. Stresses about having to justify my decisions, choices and current status in society. Years of dealing with unscrupulous landlords, doctors, psychologists and kin have pretty much fully traumatised me in that respect. Why expect anything better?
I also know that this new apartment isn't where I want to be living for the next ten years, even if I could. It's just another temporary place for a number of years. Basically it doesn't change that I'll keep looking for where I want to settle and live. Where I can be happy.
I'm not sure I'll ever feel happy or relaxed. When I'm at work I feel reasonably happy and relaxed, as well as when I'm at the local hackerspace, but dealing with everything else outside it is pretty much just a confirmation of the hostility of human society. I prefer to forget that I have a body, that it needs a place to live, eat and sleep. That I do not control my own life or body.
I guess I'll see where life steers me next.
Maya
Saturday, 3 December 2016
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
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
Thursday, 6 October 2016
Supposedly there is always a way out
Sometimes I wish I could understand why some people feel the need to be so cold and ruthless towards others.
I was right about being intersex for over a decade, yet during that time many so-called 'specialists' thought it necessary to be condescending to me, calling me 'delusional', 'just a confused boy', and ascribing many types of mental disorders to me. They'd device useless, abusive physical examinations to subject me to. Meanwhile they told me every diagnosis but the right one, even making a few conditions up on the spot, such as autoparagynaecophilia, coined by a group of Dutch 'specialists'.
Just a fancy way of saying that they think that I am crazy and just want to see myself as having a feminine appearance. How nice.
There was no reason for them to be that mean to me. They only needed to do their job. That's all there was to it.
Ditto for landlords and kin. Yesterday the ticking of the heating system started again, thanks to the pipes contracting and extending against metal braces which should be replaced. Yet the building owner refuses to replace them, because 'that would cost too much money'. Meanwhile said ticking noise quite literally drives me insane, thanks to a combination of being hypersensitive to sounds and the existing PTSD. Yet the building owner still insists I should pay the full rent, opting to bully me out of the place with threats of having my apartment cleared out and such.
This person only needed to do their job. That's all there's to it.
I really should find something else, yet I have realised that I cannot trust renting a place from anyone ever again. There are no nice people renting places. Period. That means trying to find something to buy. Dealing with real-estate agents. All of which I am very familiar with and none of which is pleasant, yet at the end one has a property which is one's own.
Ultimately that's the way out which I am looking for. The closest thing to freedom one can find, beyond being so filthy rich that really nothing gets in the way any more aside from the few things which money cannot solve (yet).
Unfortunately such a search will take time and energy. Neither of which are abundant for me at this point, especially the latter. In a number of weeks I'll hear what my prospects for surgery are as well, at which point I won't have time either if the surgery goes ahead. After said surgery I'll need a while to recover (months), meaning that if I have to do everything - surgery logistics, house search, etc. - all by myself, the first point that I can start looking at a new place will be early next year at the earliest.
That means months of being harassed and bullied by this 'landlady' and her lackeys. It means months of loud ticking noises from the heating system's pipes almost every moment of the day. It means recovering from reconstructive surgery in a cold, noisy, draughty apartment.
Maybe the worst in all of this is that the last moment which I remember when I truly felt at peace and comfortable was over five years ago, during the moment between waking up and taking those handfuls of sleeping pills.
Things are supposed to be getting better. Yet I do not see a light at the end of any tunnel. It's just a lot of 'maybe', speculation and wishes. Months of hard work and possible surgery complications await me. Months of most likely emotional suffering. Placed against that sensation of blissful euphoria that I felt that one moment those years ago, I find it so incredibly hard to make the case to go through with this search for the seemingly impossible.
I'm not even certain who I'm saying this to, or why I bother. Maybe just for myself. I really do not expect anyone who could help me in this situation to feel in any way like doing so.
Thus I remain, torn between the path of suffering and that one moment of blissful euphoria before everything is resolved.
Tell me, why should I keep living? What is in it for me?
Maya
I was right about being intersex for over a decade, yet during that time many so-called 'specialists' thought it necessary to be condescending to me, calling me 'delusional', 'just a confused boy', and ascribing many types of mental disorders to me. They'd device useless, abusive physical examinations to subject me to. Meanwhile they told me every diagnosis but the right one, even making a few conditions up on the spot, such as autoparagynaecophilia, coined by a group of Dutch 'specialists'.
Just a fancy way of saying that they think that I am crazy and just want to see myself as having a feminine appearance. How nice.
There was no reason for them to be that mean to me. They only needed to do their job. That's all there was to it.
Ditto for landlords and kin. Yesterday the ticking of the heating system started again, thanks to the pipes contracting and extending against metal braces which should be replaced. Yet the building owner refuses to replace them, because 'that would cost too much money'. Meanwhile said ticking noise quite literally drives me insane, thanks to a combination of being hypersensitive to sounds and the existing PTSD. Yet the building owner still insists I should pay the full rent, opting to bully me out of the place with threats of having my apartment cleared out and such.
This person only needed to do their job. That's all there's to it.
I really should find something else, yet I have realised that I cannot trust renting a place from anyone ever again. There are no nice people renting places. Period. That means trying to find something to buy. Dealing with real-estate agents. All of which I am very familiar with and none of which is pleasant, yet at the end one has a property which is one's own.
Ultimately that's the way out which I am looking for. The closest thing to freedom one can find, beyond being so filthy rich that really nothing gets in the way any more aside from the few things which money cannot solve (yet).
Unfortunately such a search will take time and energy. Neither of which are abundant for me at this point, especially the latter. In a number of weeks I'll hear what my prospects for surgery are as well, at which point I won't have time either if the surgery goes ahead. After said surgery I'll need a while to recover (months), meaning that if I have to do everything - surgery logistics, house search, etc. - all by myself, the first point that I can start looking at a new place will be early next year at the earliest.
That means months of being harassed and bullied by this 'landlady' and her lackeys. It means months of loud ticking noises from the heating system's pipes almost every moment of the day. It means recovering from reconstructive surgery in a cold, noisy, draughty apartment.
Maybe the worst in all of this is that the last moment which I remember when I truly felt at peace and comfortable was over five years ago, during the moment between waking up and taking those handfuls of sleeping pills.
Things are supposed to be getting better. Yet I do not see a light at the end of any tunnel. It's just a lot of 'maybe', speculation and wishes. Months of hard work and possible surgery complications await me. Months of most likely emotional suffering. Placed against that sensation of blissful euphoria that I felt that one moment those years ago, I find it so incredibly hard to make the case to go through with this search for the seemingly impossible.
I'm not even certain who I'm saying this to, or why I bother. Maybe just for myself. I really do not expect anyone who could help me in this situation to feel in any way like doing so.
Thus I remain, torn between the path of suffering and that one moment of blissful euphoria before everything is resolved.
Tell me, why should I keep living? What is in it for me?
Maya
Thursday, 29 September 2016
Please help me, I beg you
Upon arriving at my apartment today I got jumped by the contact person for the company from which I rent this apartment I currently live in. She asked me icily when I was planning to move out, threatened with having my place forcefully cleared out and repeating the claims that the ticking heating system is normal ('costs too much to fix') and the brown water is because 'I don't use the water enough'. She also gleefully insisted that German rental law gives them the right to do all this to me.
Even though all that she says it's nonsense, the fact remains that this is a property owner who refuses to fulfil their duties according to the law, and who sees fit to harass those who rent from them with false claims. The other thing is that I have been trying to find alternative places to move into for the past two years or so, hindered by my medical situation and my psychological issues.
As I discovered last week, PTSD - including lots of traumatic events related to moving - are not a great combination with (you guessed it), moving into a new place. If there's no guarantee that nobody is trying to screw me over (like with at least half the times I moved...) and the place isn't actually any or only marginally better than the previous one, it just manages to send my mind reeling back into places which I really do not care to ever revisit.
They're bad places. Dark places. Places where one is alone, and naked and cold, with no light or warmth. Places where the only options are to keep suffering like that or to take matters into one's own hands and kill oneself. Blissful death. No more darkness, coldness, humiliation or suffering.
I am suffering incredibly at this point again. I don't feel safe. I don't see a way out. I only see people ready to either take advantage of me, or to pat me upside the head and tell me that things will get better as long as I keep plugging away at it. Alone.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though. Nobody understands what trauma does to a person unless they have either experienced it themselves, or have shared this pain with someone who suffers through PTSD. People like us do not live just in this world that exists now, today. We live in dozens of not hundreds of instances at the same time, reliving a thousand moments.
But I guess it's pointless to repeat all that again.
In the end I need a new place to move into. My dream is an actual house (not apartment), bought using a loan so that I actually own the place. A house away from people. Somewhere with lots of nature and peace.
Since that likely won't happen right away, I would be okay with renting a house or apartment in or near Karlsruhe that's also quiet and well-maintained, with a friendly owner. 80 square meters or more (lots of hobbies, none of them noisy). Cable connection available and a place for my bicycle.
It would be awesome if I got some help with this. The past weeks my turns have thought to suicide far too often (i.e. more than once), and I really don't want to head into that path again. Once was more than enough.
Please, can I lean on your shoulders for a bit? I won't be too much of a burden, I promise, and I'll return the favour, no worries.
Even if others keep being nasty and horrible to me, I still want to believe that it is okay to be a nice person.
Thank you,
Maya
Even though all that she says it's nonsense, the fact remains that this is a property owner who refuses to fulfil their duties according to the law, and who sees fit to harass those who rent from them with false claims. The other thing is that I have been trying to find alternative places to move into for the past two years or so, hindered by my medical situation and my psychological issues.
As I discovered last week, PTSD - including lots of traumatic events related to moving - are not a great combination with (you guessed it), moving into a new place. If there's no guarantee that nobody is trying to screw me over (like with at least half the times I moved...) and the place isn't actually any or only marginally better than the previous one, it just manages to send my mind reeling back into places which I really do not care to ever revisit.
They're bad places. Dark places. Places where one is alone, and naked and cold, with no light or warmth. Places where the only options are to keep suffering like that or to take matters into one's own hands and kill oneself. Blissful death. No more darkness, coldness, humiliation or suffering.
I am suffering incredibly at this point again. I don't feel safe. I don't see a way out. I only see people ready to either take advantage of me, or to pat me upside the head and tell me that things will get better as long as I keep plugging away at it. Alone.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though. Nobody understands what trauma does to a person unless they have either experienced it themselves, or have shared this pain with someone who suffers through PTSD. People like us do not live just in this world that exists now, today. We live in dozens of not hundreds of instances at the same time, reliving a thousand moments.
But I guess it's pointless to repeat all that again.
In the end I need a new place to move into. My dream is an actual house (not apartment), bought using a loan so that I actually own the place. A house away from people. Somewhere with lots of nature and peace.
Since that likely won't happen right away, I would be okay with renting a house or apartment in or near Karlsruhe that's also quiet and well-maintained, with a friendly owner. 80 square meters or more (lots of hobbies, none of them noisy). Cable connection available and a place for my bicycle.
It would be awesome if I got some help with this. The past weeks my turns have thought to suicide far too often (i.e. more than once), and I really don't want to head into that path again. Once was more than enough.
Please, can I lean on your shoulders for a bit? I won't be too much of a burden, I promise, and I'll return the favour, no worries.
Even if others keep being nasty and horrible to me, I still want to believe that it is okay to be a nice person.
Thank you,
Maya
Friday, 9 September 2016
Being kicked out of apartment, surgery, TV interview and more
This morning I picked up a registered letter at the post office after receiving a notice about it earlier. Instead of the expected late birthday present from my mother it turned out to be a letter from the landlady from whom I rent my apartment. To summarise, she wants me to clear out and depart the premises by the end of the month.
After a day of asking people at work - including my very knowledgeable boss - for advice and showing them the letter, ultimately it turned out that it seems that I have done everything right, with notifying the landlady about the defects at the apartment, when I cut back the rent I paid and with the landlady not fulfilling her duties according to German law (resolving defects where possible).
While this means that I can hold my own against the landlady, both the defects and the unpleasant dealings with this owner have made that I should be finding something as soon as possible, probably something to rent as finding something to buy would take much longer.
The defects in my apartment are still pretty much the same ones as before:
Since the owner of the building is more interested in threatening those who rent from them rather than resolving issues, it seems pertinent that I find some other place to live. Maybe I can find something via that relocation service, maybe via somewhere or someone else. I'll have to see.
This everything happens alongside a number of other events, such as the expected update on my pending surgery. Next month I should hear back on whether a suitable surgeon has been found, which would put start off a number of appointments and examinations, with a possible reconstructive surgery following at some time during the coming months.
Ideally this surgery would happen after I have moved into a new place and not while I'm recovering from said surgery. Hopefully the timing here will be favourable.
Fortunately the other event that's coming up is easier to organise: a film crew is coming to interview me for a new Dutch TV show, which will happen within the next two weeks and just takes one day. That may actually be fun, too :)
Along with all of that I'm also currently putting a lot of time and effort into finishing up a major project: the development of the first prototype of my custom CPU architecture. Over the past months I have gone through a crash-course in the VHDL programming language, learned the finer details of FPGA fabrics and associated toolchains and generally put enough effort into this to count as a second full-time job.
The goal of this all is to see whether I can maybe develop it into a commercial product, or at the very least explore expanding my career more into hardware development as well, along with developing further into game development and associated areas. Basically in order to find the things I enjoy the most and hopefully make it into something with commercial perspectives, if that makes sense.
Everything taken together it's definitely a lot to deal with at the same time. At this point I'm definitely looking forward to a time hopefully in the near future where I'm living in a place I do not hate, with the surgery over with and just my future ahead of me.
Maya
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EzwfL5IKXQ
After a day of asking people at work - including my very knowledgeable boss - for advice and showing them the letter, ultimately it turned out that it seems that I have done everything right, with notifying the landlady about the defects at the apartment, when I cut back the rent I paid and with the landlady not fulfilling her duties according to German law (resolving defects where possible).
While this means that I can hold my own against the landlady, both the defects and the unpleasant dealings with this owner have made that I should be finding something as soon as possible, probably something to rent as finding something to buy would take much longer.
The defects in my apartment are still pretty much the same ones as before:
- super-loud heating system (ticking) when in use [1].
- occasionally brown to dark-brown water when using hot water (e.g. taking shower).
- poorly insulated; constant draft during winters.
- hearing everything from the neighbours upstairs (walking, using toilet, getting in/out bed, etc.).
- lots of noise from the public hallway.
Since the owner of the building is more interested in threatening those who rent from them rather than resolving issues, it seems pertinent that I find some other place to live. Maybe I can find something via that relocation service, maybe via somewhere or someone else. I'll have to see.
This everything happens alongside a number of other events, such as the expected update on my pending surgery. Next month I should hear back on whether a suitable surgeon has been found, which would put start off a number of appointments and examinations, with a possible reconstructive surgery following at some time during the coming months.
Ideally this surgery would happen after I have moved into a new place and not while I'm recovering from said surgery. Hopefully the timing here will be favourable.
Fortunately the other event that's coming up is easier to organise: a film crew is coming to interview me for a new Dutch TV show, which will happen within the next two weeks and just takes one day. That may actually be fun, too :)
Along with all of that I'm also currently putting a lot of time and effort into finishing up a major project: the development of the first prototype of my custom CPU architecture. Over the past months I have gone through a crash-course in the VHDL programming language, learned the finer details of FPGA fabrics and associated toolchains and generally put enough effort into this to count as a second full-time job.
The goal of this all is to see whether I can maybe develop it into a commercial product, or at the very least explore expanding my career more into hardware development as well, along with developing further into game development and associated areas. Basically in order to find the things I enjoy the most and hopefully make it into something with commercial perspectives, if that makes sense.
Everything taken together it's definitely a lot to deal with at the same time. At this point I'm definitely looking forward to a time hopefully in the near future where I'm living in a place I do not hate, with the surgery over with and just my future ahead of me.
Maya
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EzwfL5IKXQ
Tuesday, 16 August 2016
When is it allowed to feel suicidal?
Just over four years ago my mental health was deteriorating quickly: after the divorce of my parents I felt I had lost the last home I used to have, had found zero sympathy or help from (Dutch) medical specialists for my intersex condition, had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and was suffering increasingly frequent bouts of complete mental breakdowns which had me either collapse in a paralysed state or send me into dark places where I'd tear and rip at my own flesh, choke myself until I passed out or inflict pain on myself in some other way.
At that point I was then told that I had to leave this person's place where I was staying at that time, even though I had virtually no money, no job, no education and zero prospects in my mental state at that point. I just went through the motions then: I found a room to rent (horribly expensive) and my mother would come over to help with the moving. I realised quite well that there was no future for me at that point.
Even if I did move, I'd run out of money in 2-3 months time, be unable to pay the rent and get kicked out. The night before the move I found the only way I could make peace with my situation. I ensured that the stack of sleeping pills were where I had left them and went to bed.
The next morning I got out of bed, got dressed, did my hair, my face and rest of the morning routine. Then I took every single one of the sleeping pills out of their packaging and took all of them with some water. After that I just remember walking towards the door of my room before everything went black.
I do not regret trying to commit suicide. I still feel it was the right decision and I would do it again if I were placed in the same situation. Without any prospects and no help there was after all nothing that I could have changed. I am also fortunate that my mother understands this and in a sense also was glad that I took that step as it managed to shake things up in a way which otherwise would have been impossible.
This then brings me to me feeling completely suicidal again this morning as I cycled to work. Not to the point where I'd veer into a bus or do something else impulsive, but more at the point where planning out a new suicide attempt seemed like a good course of action. I mean, why not?
At this point I'm also struggling with housing, true. I may also risk getting thrown out or at least face continued harassment by the owner if I do not find something else. Yet it's not just that. The main issue as far as I can tell is that I am not two people.
For the past eleven, nearly twelve years I spent begging, fighting, doing everything humanly possible to get information about my body and help with my intersex condition. When I finally got this help - early this year - it caused the most incredible sensation which I hadn't felt before in my life. Finally I had completed this one thing which had pretty much occupied me since I was five years old and had begun to feel ever more isolated from my body.
That feeling was one of emptiness, of a sense of aimlessness. But also of extreme tiredness. No longer did I have to fight. It was finally over.
Yet I am but one person. That life-long fight took it all out of me. Before I finally found help I was on the verge of giving up on it. This final doctor was quite literally a last-ditch attempt as I didn't have the energy to try it even once more afterwards. Yet even though it was at long last the success I had hoped for, I didn't suddenly, magically regain all my energy and shed the decades of trauma. None of that changed.
Thus it is that the minor effort yesterday of just occupying myself with replying to this one single email from the relocation service, explaining to them once again what it is that I am looking for and why, which has sapped my energy. The emotional disturbance caused by thinking about this issue and by some well-meaning advice by others then sent me spiralling into a suicidal depression which I only slowly managed to crawl back out of during today at work.
I clearly do not have the energy to help myself at this point, whether it be by hunting for houses being rented or anything else involving emotional stress. Not on my own at least. If this relocation service doesn't work out because families have priority, or since I'm single I must be satisfied with an apartment since houses are for families... then I may have to consider contacting a real-estate agent and look at buying a house.
Money makes the world go round, after all. Money also staves off suicide.
Money is wonderful.
Maya
At that point I was then told that I had to leave this person's place where I was staying at that time, even though I had virtually no money, no job, no education and zero prospects in my mental state at that point. I just went through the motions then: I found a room to rent (horribly expensive) and my mother would come over to help with the moving. I realised quite well that there was no future for me at that point.
Even if I did move, I'd run out of money in 2-3 months time, be unable to pay the rent and get kicked out. The night before the move I found the only way I could make peace with my situation. I ensured that the stack of sleeping pills were where I had left them and went to bed.
The next morning I got out of bed, got dressed, did my hair, my face and rest of the morning routine. Then I took every single one of the sleeping pills out of their packaging and took all of them with some water. After that I just remember walking towards the door of my room before everything went black.
I do not regret trying to commit suicide. I still feel it was the right decision and I would do it again if I were placed in the same situation. Without any prospects and no help there was after all nothing that I could have changed. I am also fortunate that my mother understands this and in a sense also was glad that I took that step as it managed to shake things up in a way which otherwise would have been impossible.
This then brings me to me feeling completely suicidal again this morning as I cycled to work. Not to the point where I'd veer into a bus or do something else impulsive, but more at the point where planning out a new suicide attempt seemed like a good course of action. I mean, why not?
At this point I'm also struggling with housing, true. I may also risk getting thrown out or at least face continued harassment by the owner if I do not find something else. Yet it's not just that. The main issue as far as I can tell is that I am not two people.
For the past eleven, nearly twelve years I spent begging, fighting, doing everything humanly possible to get information about my body and help with my intersex condition. When I finally got this help - early this year - it caused the most incredible sensation which I hadn't felt before in my life. Finally I had completed this one thing which had pretty much occupied me since I was five years old and had begun to feel ever more isolated from my body.
That feeling was one of emptiness, of a sense of aimlessness. But also of extreme tiredness. No longer did I have to fight. It was finally over.
Yet I am but one person. That life-long fight took it all out of me. Before I finally found help I was on the verge of giving up on it. This final doctor was quite literally a last-ditch attempt as I didn't have the energy to try it even once more afterwards. Yet even though it was at long last the success I had hoped for, I didn't suddenly, magically regain all my energy and shed the decades of trauma. None of that changed.
Thus it is that the minor effort yesterday of just occupying myself with replying to this one single email from the relocation service, explaining to them once again what it is that I am looking for and why, which has sapped my energy. The emotional disturbance caused by thinking about this issue and by some well-meaning advice by others then sent me spiralling into a suicidal depression which I only slowly managed to crawl back out of during today at work.
I clearly do not have the energy to help myself at this point, whether it be by hunting for houses being rented or anything else involving emotional stress. Not on my own at least. If this relocation service doesn't work out because families have priority, or since I'm single I must be satisfied with an apartment since houses are for families... then I may have to consider contacting a real-estate agent and look at buying a house.
Money makes the world go round, after all. Money also staves off suicide.
Money is wonderful.
Maya
Thursday, 12 May 2016
Life is awesome, life is terrible, life is strange
A while ago I watched a play-through of the game 'Life is Strange' in the original Japanese version. Over the course of watching the game's story unfold for me, I felt many strong emotions. From a yearning to the peace and quiet of living in a suburb, to the regularity of being a university student, to lots of feelings regarding friendship.
I feel that in many ways this game summarises my life pretty well, from the incredible changes even a single choice or event in one's life can have, to being forced to contemplate about what truly matters the most to one in life. Also in that many choices given in life, can be quite literally the impossible choice between certain doom and slightly less certain doom for oneself and/or others.
I love being alive with all the options it gives me. I also hate being alive for all the pain it causes me. I want to work on all of these things which make me feel happy and joyful. I want to run away from everything that causes me pain and, if impossible, kill myself. It's that contradiction, that balance in life which defines it most strongly of all.
Living on borrowed time in a run-down apartment, not knowing when the landlady will launch the next hateful action, as well as going through what should hopefully be the past months in a traumatising medical quest, none of these are things which make one happy. They're stressful, and require one to constantly see a way out, whether in the form of finding a new house to move into, or constant, proper medical and psychological support.
I realise that I am still suicidally depressed and doing my best to hide this fact from my environment, except when I write on this blog, or have a personal talk with people I trust. The balance in my life is still completely off in favour of the 'life is terrible' side.
With for example my previous blog post indicating the completely helplessness and hopelessness I feel regarding escaping out of this hell-hole I'm currently renting, it seems fairly obvious where most of the stress I experience at this point originates.
Medically I'm less worried. Even with some lingering issues still there, at least I'm getting some form of actual help there now, instead of just outright denial and a cold shoulder. There I just have to visit this psychologist later this month in preparation for my impending surgery, later this or next year.
Yet what is the point of finally getting that recognition and medical help after more than a decade, if I'm still living in a place which I hate and where I will be forced to leave before long anyway? It barely budges the happiness balance.
It feels somewhat like the situation the best friend of Life is Strange's main character is in, with her new dad being a complete tyrant and not only making her life a hell, but also pushing her to do things she would otherwise never have done. Not having a safe, proper home is one of the worst things imaginable, while longing for a different reality is perhaps one of the most painful.
And yet, next week I could suddenly get a message from someone, about a great house I can rent almost immediately. Then after a flurry of moving, contracts, packing and unpacking, I could see all of these worries and stress suddenly evaporate.
Because life is strange like that, and people can also make life awesome.
Maya
I feel that in many ways this game summarises my life pretty well, from the incredible changes even a single choice or event in one's life can have, to being forced to contemplate about what truly matters the most to one in life. Also in that many choices given in life, can be quite literally the impossible choice between certain doom and slightly less certain doom for oneself and/or others.
I love being alive with all the options it gives me. I also hate being alive for all the pain it causes me. I want to work on all of these things which make me feel happy and joyful. I want to run away from everything that causes me pain and, if impossible, kill myself. It's that contradiction, that balance in life which defines it most strongly of all.
Living on borrowed time in a run-down apartment, not knowing when the landlady will launch the next hateful action, as well as going through what should hopefully be the past months in a traumatising medical quest, none of these are things which make one happy. They're stressful, and require one to constantly see a way out, whether in the form of finding a new house to move into, or constant, proper medical and psychological support.
I realise that I am still suicidally depressed and doing my best to hide this fact from my environment, except when I write on this blog, or have a personal talk with people I trust. The balance in my life is still completely off in favour of the 'life is terrible' side.
With for example my previous blog post indicating the completely helplessness and hopelessness I feel regarding escaping out of this hell-hole I'm currently renting, it seems fairly obvious where most of the stress I experience at this point originates.
Medically I'm less worried. Even with some lingering issues still there, at least I'm getting some form of actual help there now, instead of just outright denial and a cold shoulder. There I just have to visit this psychologist later this month in preparation for my impending surgery, later this or next year.
Yet what is the point of finally getting that recognition and medical help after more than a decade, if I'm still living in a place which I hate and where I will be forced to leave before long anyway? It barely budges the happiness balance.
It feels somewhat like the situation the best friend of Life is Strange's main character is in, with her new dad being a complete tyrant and not only making her life a hell, but also pushing her to do things she would otherwise never have done. Not having a safe, proper home is one of the worst things imaginable, while longing for a different reality is perhaps one of the most painful.
And yet, next week I could suddenly get a message from someone, about a great house I can rent almost immediately. Then after a flurry of moving, contracts, packing and unpacking, I could see all of these worries and stress suddenly evaporate.
Because life is strange like that, and people can also make life awesome.
Maya
Sunday, 8 May 2016
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
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
Friday, 6 May 2016
Finding a new place as soon as possible
In my last proposal to the owner of this apartment which I rent I suggested that I would move out in 'a few months' time. Not having received a response since, I assume that they have accepted it. At this point there is also no alternative way which would not involve lawyers and similar thrilling fun.
At the basis of this conflict lies this owner's outright refusal to fix issues in the apartment which have been known to them since I moved into the place, years ago. Issues such as the rusty, brown water, which according to them is 'normal' and 'no problem'. As a consequence they insist I should pay the full rent instead of the same minus 10% which I have been paying.
While I am legally in the clear, I derive no satisfaction from living in an apartment which is poorly maintained, poorly insulated, has rusting water pipes, the noisiest heating system in the history of humankind and lacks sound insulation so that one can enjoy everything the upstairs neighbours are doing.
Thus I am looking for a new place to rent, which should be available within a few months from now. Primary requirement probably has to be that it's not a place owned by EWG (owner of my current apartment building). Beyond that, no neighbours above/below (I'm done with apartments), 80 square meters or more, up to 1,000 Euro a month (inclusive). Having it be a quiet place (house) is important, as is having internet faster than dial-up available. Preferably I'd be able to take my current cable connection with me.
I currently live in the city of Karlsruhe, but I am not bound to the city and would in fact prefer moving out of the city. Travelling to my work in the city would have to be realistic, either by bicycle or public transport.
I would very much appreciate any help with this. With the better options rarely being put online, and with me being hardly fluent in German it's far more difficult task than it possibly should be.
Thanks in advance for any help :)
Maya
At the basis of this conflict lies this owner's outright refusal to fix issues in the apartment which have been known to them since I moved into the place, years ago. Issues such as the rusty, brown water, which according to them is 'normal' and 'no problem'. As a consequence they insist I should pay the full rent instead of the same minus 10% which I have been paying.
While I am legally in the clear, I derive no satisfaction from living in an apartment which is poorly maintained, poorly insulated, has rusting water pipes, the noisiest heating system in the history of humankind and lacks sound insulation so that one can enjoy everything the upstairs neighbours are doing.
Thus I am looking for a new place to rent, which should be available within a few months from now. Primary requirement probably has to be that it's not a place owned by EWG (owner of my current apartment building). Beyond that, no neighbours above/below (I'm done with apartments), 80 square meters or more, up to 1,000 Euro a month (inclusive). Having it be a quiet place (house) is important, as is having internet faster than dial-up available. Preferably I'd be able to take my current cable connection with me.
I currently live in the city of Karlsruhe, but I am not bound to the city and would in fact prefer moving out of the city. Travelling to my work in the city would have to be realistic, either by bicycle or public transport.
I would very much appreciate any help with this. With the better options rarely being put online, and with me being hardly fluent in German it's far more difficult task than it possibly should be.
Thanks in advance for any help :)
Maya
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