The transgender curse

If dreams are indeed a way for our subconsciousness to communicate with our conscious mind, then some dreams are as subtle as taking a brick to the face. Case in point last night's dreams, or perhaps closer to nightmares. In them I found myself in a number of scenarios in which I felt shamed for having (exaggerated) masculine features, such as (excessive) leg hair, or ways that served to remind the me in the dream that I was not a 'real woman'.

Upon groggily awakening from this delightful ordeal it still took me a few hours to really process its message, but in hindsight I don't think that it's that complicated. I think that at its core lies the way that I was made to look at my own body, and the messaging alongside this about 'passing' as a specific gender. A lot of what I went through in my dealings with medical and other specialists was after all about 'proving' that my body isn't that of a male. It would be one heck of a way to hypersensitise me to anything about my body that wasn't in line with this notion.


Compared to yesterday when I went to bed, I can feel the shift that occurred somewhere in my way of thinking, and also in how I perceive myself, both via my senses and when looking at myself in the mirror. It feels as if some level of desynchronisation has been resolved and I'm now (mostly) back in contact with my physical body instead of whatever distortion was in the way before.

The ironic thing is perhaps that I have said so many of these things before, but I just didn't seem to really believe in them, perhaps. Some lingering fear that I might suddenly wake up one day and all of these things would turn out to be just a dream and all clarity is gone again, perhaps?

Since I'm pretty sure that I am in fact awake right now, and nothing will change about factual reality any time soon, I feel confident in reaffirming that my body was always the way it is today. The abnormal situation that was in place for many years was that my body was perceived as that of a male, when the actual, normal situation was in fact that it always was that of a hermaphroditic intersex person, with a clear female phenotype. A hermaphroditic woman, for short.


When I regard my struggles to look at the body I inhabit today as real, I can also see and remember the many specialists who told me that I am male, that I have a male body, but that I 'want to be female'. This whole mess with the transgender protocol and the many years that I spent trapped in its bowels are clearly a type of brainwashing that was inflicted on me when I was in a very fragile state, emotionally. When you seek help and answers, and instead of finding those things, you are absorbed into this abusive, cult-like system which cares nothing about you as a person, instead only injecting its ideologies and lies into your veins like venom.

Looking back, it's hard to deny that things would likely have been a lot easier if I hadn't had this 'transgender curse' put on me. A curse that made me worry about nonsensical things like 'passing' as something which I already am by birth. A curse which took away many years of my life, and denied me medical help and answers because I refused to comply with The Protocol and submit to it.


The abnormal situation in which I started my life was that neither my environment nor myself were aware of my intersex condition, not helped by my body struggling to kickstart the whole 'puberty' thing which massively delayed the development onset of the secondary female characteristics. When this development ultimately did start a few years back, it especially has helped me to establish the normal, healthy situation which I am learning to accept now, and slowly shake off this 'curse' that was put on me.


Maya

A true love story, or: on relationships and childhood abuse

When I look back on my childhood, there is one memory that increasingly haunts me. In it, child me is sitting on a couch, and my mother comes up to me and tries to hug me, only for me to shake her off. When I talked about this topic with my mother a few years back, she told me that I had started doing this all of a sudden when I was about five years old. Before that I loved nothing more than to be hugged and hug back, being the kind of child who would run into a room with strangers and end up hugging them. Until I suddenly turned inwards and began to reject all forms of physical contact.

It's only now beginning to dawn on me that my mother never stopped trying to break through this shell of rejection that had formed around me. Never stopping to hope that one day I would respond again to motherly love, even if she did not know what had happened to me to have caused this change in my behaviour.


In that regard it is interesting to look at what else happened between then and now, to try and understand a bit more of past 'me' based on those events. What kind of contacts I had, what relationships with others I built up, and so on. There a pattern forms of me being essentially taken in by various people like an abandoned puppy, some doing it out of pity and compassion, while for others there appear to have been... other expectations.

The low point there was undoubtedly the eight month period where while I was recovering at my mother's place after my failed suicide attempt, this one woman contacted me after seeing me in one of my media appearances on the topic of intersex. I guess I must have felt pretty lonely at the time, so when she asked for help with fixing some issues with her laptop, I agreed. She ended up visiting me, with a laptop that had some minor issues from what I recall, but nothing serious.

For some reason it ended up getting pretty late by the time she was supposedly leaving, and she insisted that her parents would not let her inside the house when it was that late, and she had forgotten her keys. This led to her staying the night, sleeping in my room. The next morning, she left, but would inundate me with messages, and call me at night, to hold entire monologues that lasted until the battery in my phone ran out. She also told me that I loved her. I guess part of me must have believed that, or was just happy to get some kind of attention.

I was searching for a new job at the time, and somehow she'd end up accompanying me to job interviews, even trying to convince the interviewer that she should also be present during those interviews. When I found a job (one I did attend just by myself, fortunately), I had to find a place to rent that was somewhat close to the office. Unfortunately due to Dutch rental practices, even my decent salary wasn't enough to rent more than a hole. Understandably, there was a lot of competition for such apartments, which meant that I spent a month or so travelling over two hours each day to and from my work with public transport.

Then this woman suggested that she could put her income from social security on top of my salary, so that we could rent something better. Together. Part of me figured that it'd be cool to help her out. We would be flatmates, was the idea. Sharing the apartment, but each with their own room.


I still cannot really write in too much detail about what happened afterwards, as it's too much to cover, and very upsetting. Summarised, she told me that she wanted to date me, that we were now each other's girlfriend. I guess this made me feel happy, as now I was more 'normal'. More like other people.

The real-estate broker who showed us around showed two places, one with two bedrooms, the other with one bedroom. We ended up with the latter. I remember thinking that I still wanted my own room, but with the choice for that place, it was settled. I spent the last of my savings on getting carpet laid in the apartment (another quirk of Dutch rental properties: you can expect a kitchen, but nothing on the bare concrete floors) and getting not only my stuff, but also her stuff moved to the apartment. This was also when I met her parents. I had been told to pretend that I was just 'a friend' who was helping her move to her own place. Her parents warned me for her, telling me to be wary of her, and showing me all the medications that she was taking for mental issues. Initially when we arrived with the moving truck, her parents refused to let her in, insisting that she should first talk with her, that they had a right to know what was going on.


The next months are a nightmarish blur. I'd get up during week days at 6 AM, go to work, return just in time to cook dinner, to then try to do something for myself and relax. She was glued to the television. Pretty much every waking moment, based on the power bill. When pushed, she'd tell me that she was afraid to go outside, that her family would figure out where she lived and would do something to her. When she had to go somewhere, she'd force me to accompany her. I used up most of my few vacation days at work to take time off for her on these trips. Other than groceries, I paid for everything else.

She'd force me to stay up well after midnight each working day to watch late-night TV. This led to me getting four, maybe five hours of sleep during the week each night. At work I was having enormous trouble trying to stay awake, with me dozing off in the midst of work when it became physically painful to keep my eyes open. That was the time when I first began to suffer sciatic pains in my right leg, with the painful sensations and numbness that would last for hours. When taking more days off for hospital visits, I began to discover another psychotic side to the woman I shared a flat with.

She hated doctors, hated psychologists. She got very upset and angry every time I had to go to a hospital appointment. She'd berate me, and yell at me, tell me that she would take care of me instead. I just had to trust her. Similarly, every time I talked about other people, she'd get angry, telling me in a loud voice that those people were all stupid and dumb. I remember when talking about me playing soccer as a teenager, she got angry and began a half-hour long tirade about how soccer is the most stupid sport ever and that everyone who plays soccer is a complete idiot and moron. If I dared to interrupt her, she'd get even more upset.


She'd always be around. Always knew where I was. Often, when I took a shower she'd be standing there, watching me. She trusted me in a sense, when she showed me her medical file, and the reports from psychiatrists which had led to her being marked as being completely unfit for any kind of work based on her severe mental issues. She was adamant that those conclusions were wrong, that there was nothing wrong with her, but everything with the world around her. She'd tell me about this older guy with whom she had had a relationship, telling me how he had just used her and how she'd take revenge, showing me invoices for wardrobes and other things she supposedly had been forced to buy for this guy.

This world collapsed when I had found a new job, working for a German company who had asked me to drop by for a week to get acquainted. My new boss then contacted me, telling me how he had been contacted by this woman, that she had insisted that she absolutely had to accompany me to Germany. He had refused, obviously. After this point her ire turned towards me. How could I let this happen, how could I not call up my boss and tell him firmly that he should pay for her to come along as well.

That last night involved hours of yelling and screaming from her at me. I couldn't interject, I couldn't do anything but cover my ears, walk away while she followed me. What could I do? Walk out of the apartment? I ended up barricading myself in the bedroom while she tried to push her way in, yelling that she would help me, that I was obviously unwell, that she would fix this.

Then she left. Moments later I heard her talking to my mother via the phone, telling my mother that I wasn't doing well, but that she would take care of me. This was the point where my mother felt all her misgivings come true. After somehow getting the phone to be handed to me, my mother told me that I should pack anything I really needed and leave the apartment ASAP. She'd come pick me up as soon as she could drove over from half-way across the country. And that she did. Over an hour later I was safely inside my mother's car, enjoying the peace and quiet.


Months later, I tried to get my belongings back, but the woman had changed the lock on the apartment and was apparently living there with some guy. The moment the door opened after we rung the doorbell, she took one look at us and immediately attacked my mother, raking her face with her nails. The moving company guys who were with us told us later that they had never seen anything like this before. That was the day when I lost almost everything. No money, no belongings but what I had taken from the apartment and what my mother had kept.

In hindsight my mother was absolutely right when she told me at the beginning that she didn't trust this woman. There never was 'love', or a relationship. A relationship is built upon mutual trust and understanding. Here there was none. I do not wish to express any conclusions or definite statements about these months of agony, but I do feel that I learned a fair bit about this person which struggled through those months.


If I had to change anything, or rather if I could change anything, I would have gone back to my child self and changed whatever led me to reject true, unconditional love back then. It's very hard to see oneself struggling through life without such connections with even one's own family. Maybe processing the horrors of the intervening years and giving everything a place will help me there in some way.

It still galls me that I cannot remember exactly what happened to me as a child which led me to change my behaviour so dramatically. I got a few fragments from which I can deduce a lot, but without knowing the exact circumstances, it's hard to do much with it. Yet even if I do not have that information yet, I am grateful for the love I always got from some people close to me, even if I didn't realise it until now.


My apologies if this blog post reads as more of an unhinged rant. It's been very tough to write, and there is probably a lot I didn't cover, or not well. Nobody said that dealing with trauma is easy, I guess. Consider this another small step forward in that process.


Maya

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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


Maya

School as a source of cruelty and humiliation

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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


Maya

PTSD, personal responsibility and being able to live with yourself

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

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

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

As the Canadian Veterans Affairs says on their site:

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


Maya



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

The cost of proving that one isn't transgender

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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


Maya


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

Workshop preparations; Abandonment fears realised again

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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

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


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


Maya



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

Violent truth; An intersexed freak; A hidden self

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

Because it is the right thing to do.


Maya

Pained despair, forced smiles, bleak happiness

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

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


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

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

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


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

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


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


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

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


Maya

The effects of growing up in the wrong body

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

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


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

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


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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

Full erasure.

Welcome to the Binary.


Maya

Self-motivation while adrift on an ocean

The fun thing about being adrift in the middle of an ocean are the many options that are visible, with each direction offering new and thrilling adventures and outcomes. The not so fun thing is that one's vessel has no propulsion and thus one is left to awkwardly paddle around with some scrap wood that one found in the bottom of the boat. It doesn't really matter what one direction one picks, as the wind and ocean currents will determine what direction one heads into anyway.

Sometimes that's the feeling I get with my life. I can see all the beautiful vistas that I could have reached, but there's always that combination of unfortunate circumstances, lack of motivation and crippling depression from post-traumatic stress disorder that end up clobbering any attempt at improving my life. It's pretty futile to get frustrated with ocean currents and the current wind direction.


When I try and take a look at exactly why the propulsion of my vessel is not functioning, I can obviously tell that the effects of youth trauma and subsequent traumas have done most of the damage. How do you work up self-motivation when your sense of self-esteem is constantly being attacked and drained by past and present reminders of one's failures and of being a worthless excuse of a human being. Combined with too many expectations from others heaped on top of that as well, perhaps, on account of always being the 'smart kid', due to a preference for reading, learning languages and the sciences, and so on.

When you end up sabotaging everything you try to do, because a lack of self-confidence makes you falter. When even small successes look meaningless next to the many failures and things promised and yet left unfinished... at some point you'll just find yourself adrift.


Of course there are many things which I can do. Or could do. I'm not dumb. I can learn what needs learning. I can make what needs making. Or I could, if I can figure out this lump of darkness that's inside of me, like a black hole. When you find yourself trying to motivate yourself to do something important for an entire day, but you just cannot bring yourself to do it, because... it doesn't feel right yet. That's just another failure that makes it again easier to fail the next time you try something.

And yet if you force yourself to do what needs doing, tearing through this resistance, it does not feel right either. It feels as if you're hurting yourself in the process by not understanding the source of this resistance. This bleakness and lack of purpose. Because that's ultimately what is is about.


The thing with depression born from trauma is that it isn't something that is easily addressed or treated. Sure, you can try to nuke it with medication, like anti-depressants, but the effect there is limited. It's after all caused by unprocessed trauma, which causes the brain to constantly injure itself as it goes through each subsequent retraumatisation and flashback event. The only proper long-term therapy there is to address the trauma.

Over the course of this year, I have managed to reintegrate the child personality which represented the childhood trauma back into my psyche, allowing me to finally make progress with examining and dealing with the trauma. This while also using it to understand and learn to deal with the subsequent traumatisation events, including bullying, physical violence, psychological and sexual abuse.

Blaming oneself is a horrible thing. Yet the assignment of blame yelled at me when I was a young child has been seared into my brain. It seems to have sensitised me to the acceptance of blame, no matter whether it was true or not. Slowly the sense of control got wrestled away from me. Over what was true or not. The ability to trust in others. The erasure of the physical, medical facts about my body. The erasure of my identity and my sense of self.

By the time I tried to commit suicide, I had come to accept that there was nowhere that I could go, nowhere that would accept me. Nothing that I could do or change. That's why the decision to take my own life had such a positive impact on me, because it was the first time in a very long time that I was fully in control of my life and myself.


That things had escalated that far was rather tragic.


During the years following that failed suicide attempt, I have tried to rebuild my life. Not surprisingly, I fell into the same traps as before, finding myself robbed of control by the medical and legal systems, and once again suffering psychological and physical abuse by those who sought to take advantage of my overly compliant attitude on account of having no self-esteem.

So what changed about that recently? Most of all getting to know a few friends who helped me through a number of harrowing situations. Without them I do not think that I would be typing this right now. Yet it's only a good start. Regaining control is hard. Dealing with trauma is harder. And I have to do both.


The coming time this means working on myself, figuring out more about these traumas and how to disarm parts of them. Regaining self-esteem as I work on my career. As a freelancer you do need to have some self-esteem, after all. Yet I would not at all mind a few more helping hands here, as I try to find more freelance work, or perhaps something more permanent.

The thing about being adrift after all is that you're pretty flexible about solid options that appear. One would be mad to refuse a new engine, or a tow by another vessel, simply because you have set your sights on transforming your vessel into a gold-plated and diamond-encrusted yacht through the power of wishful thinking.

I feel that part of regaining self-esteem is to learn to accept that others may see something of worth in me, much as I can see the worth in others. This also means that both giving and accepting help are essential parts of overcoming trauma.


Maya

Be brave

The feeling of loss. Of having lost something that was, or something that never will be. The feeling of one's mind succumbing to the intense feeling of grief, leaving no place for other feelings or thoughts to exist any more.

Sometimes one comes across a story, or a piece of music that will trigger something deep inside. Some kernel of grief, that when triggered will violently blossom into this blood-red tree that cries tears of crimson as it tears through your mind.

Quite recently one such story was that of the video game 'Gris'. It's a story about loss. About accepting it. About learning to deal with the fear and anger and pain and grief, and the countless other conflicting emotions and feelings that turn the world into a meaningless black-and-white caricature of pointlessness.

While listening to the soundtrack to 'Gris', it's easy to re-experience those intense feelings of the story's main character, but also that what it provokes inside of my own mind. The confrontation with the grief and pain in one's life, which one tries to keep hidden. Even if it will ultimately destroy oneself. You have to find it, understand it. Deal with it. Return colour to the world.


It's often hard to admit to sources of grief. One does not want to be seen as weak, or societal prejudices may lead one to believe that certain feelings and traumas are invalid.

Lately, while I'm working on my autobiography I find that I am finally beginning to put things together in my mind. All the good things. All the not so good things. All the bad things. All the things that I wish had never happened to me. All the things that I regret. To inspect and feel every single fracture in the mirror's reflection. To pick up and put back the shards that had fallen out of the mirror. To suck on the cuts in my fingers from picking up those shards.


So much of our lives happen because things around us happen, and before we know it, we get swept up, along and away, to be changed forever. Some experience an easy ride, while others end up in rapids or find themselves smashed against rocks.

I'm still trying to figure out what happened to me. Was I truly abused as a young child? It doesn't feel like something one can make up like that, not when the grief, pain and anger seem to originate at that point. Not when others around me noticed the dramatic shift in young me's behaviour as I withdrew into myself. Maybe I am afraid that if I accept this abuse as a fact, that it will make me lose the last bits of what I had always thought to be a rather okay childhood. I don't want to submit my life to be just an endless struggle against early childhood trauma. To lose the parts that were good and fine, just like that.

Yet at the same time, it seems like a necessary step to accept this. To acknowledge the grief. To acknowledge the pain and anger. To accept the gaps in the mirror and the wounds in my psyche that have never really healed. To accept that I was, that I am, that part of me will always be that scared, hurt child who is terrified of adults and of doing anything wrong because then someone will yell at me and it will feel so bad.


How does one accept that one's life started with trauma and has been lived in the shade of it for so long?

How can one pretend to be a functioning adult while dealing with psyche-shattering introspections?

How does one add the other, later traumas to this picture?


I do not know. The world around me doesn't really seem to care whether I make it or not. All I can do is make my way through level after level of this game, as I try to avoid the monsters and the darkness. To gather courage and bravely keep working my way up towards the stars.


Maya

The difference between being a victim and feeling like one

When one first becomes a victim of trauma as a child, it's hard to remember a life 'before'. Thus one doesn't know how much the trauma has changed one's course in life. We are after all the product of our memories and experiences, which consequently form our expectations and goals in life. It is through the contact with others that we may learn that we have in fact undergone a traumatic transformation. All too often this is due to behaviour on the side of the traumatised person that can be termed 'dysfunctional', as it is counter-productive for them and can cause major social and career issues. The way we seek out and respond to social interactions is after all determined by our personality, which is that which our memories and experiences formed.

Being a victim is easy. After all, there are no special requirements. There can be some expectations of one, such as providing sufficient resistance ('putting up a fight'), or by showing the appropriate restraint and acceptable social behaviour on one's side prior to the traumatic event(s). For childhood trauma it's even easier. After all, isn't the very definition of a child a person who is dependent on adults for their very livelihood, which by definition requires an almost naive level of trust?


By becoming aware of the trauma which one has suffered and the impact it has had on one's life, one is offered a choice. Either one can choose to ignore it and continue as before, or one can form a new personality role: that of the therapist/loving parent. While the former choice is very likely to end poorly, the latter choice is not without issues either. It requires one to slowly abandon the feeling of being a victim and to build up a personality which is not inextricably linked with the role of being a victim.

Are you a victim or a person?

In the therapist/loving parent role, one tries to understand one's own actions (the traumatised child's) and feelings in the context of the trauma that had been suffered. Exploring this trauma in a controlled, safe setting is paramount to better learn and understand it. Together, the traumatised child and therapist/loving parent can experience these memories and associated feelings, with the latter able to add a new level of context and comprehension to just what has happened, and why it should be left in the past.

The traumatised child's behavioural patterns are unmistakable in one's daily thoughts, feelings and actions. The original single or repeated act of violence may have disrupted the child's world so much that all they could do was to patch over these memories with equally strong emotions, seeking coping mechanisms to deal with the psychological and mental stresses that this causes. A simple feeling of discomfort over time grows into a feeling of continuous apprehension and fear. The act of being physically touched may end up evoking strong feelings of revulsion.


If there is one thing which I have learned over the past decades, it is that it is extremely easy to not be aware of being a victim, and also very easy to live that victim role to the fullest extent. Not questioning one's own dysfunctional behaviour, nor being aware of anything that may have happened in the past.

I mean, sure, the roughly fifteen years that I spent dealing with the ignorance and unwillingness of the medical system were by no means fun, to the point where for my psychotherapist at the time it was sufficient to chalk it up as the cause for the PTSD with which he diagnosed me. Yet there was more than just that. The more time passed, the more it became obvious that my struggles in the medical system was more about re-traumatising and re-victimisation. I could after all remember dysfunctional behaviour from my side years before my mishaps with doctors.

Small details kept bugging me, such as my mother asking at one point whether anyone had abused me when I was a young child, to her recalling how my personality had dramatically changed when I was about five years old, with me no longer accepting any kind of physical contact, caressing or embracing. It all made for an eerie possibility, which allowed me to finally place the continuous feeling of intense sadness and apprehension. This lead to the resurgence of fragments of memories and sensations. All of unspeakable, traumatic things.

The intervening years between that original trauma and today have not been kind to me, either. From being bullied at school for years, to my parents divorcing, to my struggles as an intersex person in the medical system, to repeatedly suffering physical, psychological and sexual abuse, to having my money and belongings stolen, I had every reason to feel like a victim. Because I am one.


Yet the thing which therapist me has been able to convince traumatised child me of is that one can never live a normal, happy life if one cannot let go of the feeling of being a victim. This letting go involves drawing a line between 'then' and 'now'. The trauma of the past has to be seen as a contamination that if left unchecked will corrupt one's life for now and forever. Since this happens by the generating of new, corrupted memories through one's actions and responses, one must make sure that all of these actions and responses are untainted by the trauma(s).

Feeling apprehensive about something when you know it's harmless? Just do it. Work towards those small leaps of faith (or fate), where one trusts reason over emotions and feelings. Listen to the anxious voice in the back of your mind telling you that you can still get out of something, that you can still dodge those actions, those responsibilities, those opportunities. You can look at all the seemingly easy excuses the part of your brain corrupted by trauma offers you.

And then ignore all of it.

Because if you give into the trauma, if you accept feeling like a victim, accept being re-traumatised over and over, the trauma will have transformed you from a person into a victim. By living your life as a victim through the lens of the trauma, you give up everything that could have been.


Not living my life through the traumas of the past is very tough. Usually you'd let your subconscious mind wander around, dragging up bits and pieces that form feelings and semi-coherent thoughts that your conscious mind can then take and put into words and actions. Yet the same subconscious mind is the very same that has been the most corrupted by the trauma, and thus it is unreliable. Every single thing that my conscious mind gets handed by my subconscious mind has to be checked, re-checked and validated for being free of the taint of trauma.

Anything that feels defeatist, or helpless, or needlessly negative, or otherwise 'smells' wrong is discarded and replaced with a conscious thought as my conscious mind has to steer my feelings to remain untainted as well. It's a constant struggle to remain on top, yet it is a necessary one.


Theoretically, by remaining on top of this process, one can finally draw that line between 'then' and 'now', with it becoming easier as the last tainted memories are pushed away into the past by new, untainted memories and experiences.

Even if the feeling of trauma remains palpable, the most important thing is that one will have done their utmost to live life as a person, instead of a victim. Because to live one's live as a victim is to have lived no life at all.


Maya

One doesn't simply suffer police brutality

The past days, news about the death of George Floyd at the hands of a US police officer sparked protests around the world and flooded both social media and news reports with messages of grief, frustration, anger and rage. What was so different about this one was the graphic nature, with his final moments and words captured on camera and broadcast around the globe for everyone to see and experience. What was supposed to be a simple police arrest turned into an execution through asphyxiation.

Perhaps it was this very graphical reporting of George's final moments that triggered something in me. I'm not entirely sure. What I do know is that somehow it has made me suffer flashbacks to experiencing police brutality, amidst the realisation of how much of a part that experience still is of me today. It's the kind of experience which nobody should go through, and yet it can happen to anyone, anywhere.

One should never have to consider the circumstances when police brutality occurs. Although the police has a monopoly on using force, they do not have a legal right to use excessive force.


George did not resist arrest, yet he was sat on, and had his larynx constricted along with the rest of his neck by an officer pushing his knee onto it. There is nothing that could justify such behaviour on the side of the police officers, the rest of whom just silently stood by and watched this brutal execution.

It brought back memories of me being thrown onto the ground by police officers, of having handcuffs put on so tightly that they bit into my flesh, of having my head bashed repeatedly against the side of a car, of being sat upon, of forcefully being stripped naked and thrown into a holding cell.


In one brutal moment, you lose your rights as a human being and instead you're just this 'thing' that the police can do with whatever pleases them.


I guess I was lucky that I only suffered severe bruising over my entire body, bruised bone in my right knee (no torn meniscus, as was suspected) and peripheral neuropathy in my right hand from nerve damage that persists until today. At least I am not dead, like George.


As for whether George truly did try to pay with a false $20 note, or what happened before the police had their way with me, it truly does not matter. Because police brutality is never acceptable. Even a serial killer or child rapist isn't to be brutalised by the police. Because as an extension of the government and thus us, the public, the police is a reflection of our values and what we deem to be acceptable behaviour.


Maya

Some monsters really exist

As a child, who doesn't know the instinctive fear of keeping a limb outside of the protective shell of one's duvet or blanket? The thought of a monster existing underneath one's bed, inside the closet or elsewhere in one's room is almost like an essential part of everyone's childhood. For most it is something which we look back on more as a cherished memory, along with other silliness that we did or believed in as a child.

Some children are not so lucky, however. They find that some monsters are real, as they suffer various forms of physical, psychological or even sexual abuse at the hands of older children or adults. Instead of 'growing out of it', the constant confirmation makes them ever more anxious and aware of the next attack and the next monster. The next beating or humiliation.


As I struggle to find my way through the fuzzy memories of a childhood trauma along with many subsequent traumatic events of psychological, physical and abusive sexual nature, it's becoming ever more obvious to me that not only are the monsters which I once thought to be hiding in the darkness absolutely real, somewhere along the way I have become more and more like those monsters myself.

I guess it is inevitable when I read through the medical literature on post-traumatic stress disorder and related that such things happen. Children who suffered abuse are after all more likely to become abusers themselves, as if the wrongful behaviour has impressed itself so much in the child's brain that it is the first thing that jumps to mind when a similar situation presents itself. Even if the roles have been reversed.


Whatever this adult man and others did to me when I was about five years old involved a lot of yelling and accusations at the end, leaving me shocked and terrified alone in a dark room. I still hate yelling and accusations. I hope that it's not something which I subconsciously do to others anyway. Just like how being touched by others in any way still makes me feel terrified, as it brings back those old memories of being violated. I don't want to yell. I don't want to accuse. I don't want to do anything to others without it being okay.

I can still feel the dark monsters lurking inside my mind, yearning to take over. Maybe it's just how the human brain tries to defend itself, by putting aggression against aggression, violence against violence. Or just by running away and avoiding any kind of confrontation and conflict.

When the bullies during primary school and beyond encircled me with yelling and insults, or tried to cut me off while I was cycling home, or punched me in the gut and laughed as I buckled over in agony, or spit into my face... I never fought back. I just took it as they say on the chin and tried to ignore it. That is, until the dark monster took over.

During primary school I ended up beating up the leader of the gang of bullies after many months of them bullying me. At least that's what his mother told my mother, and the bullying also mostly ceased after that. I do however not recall anything of it. When this former bully ended up becoming a friend, I accepted that too. What it did teach me was that sometimes violence is okay. Which is how I ended up slapping this bully during HS across the face after yet another bullying session. When the teacher confronted the two of us about it, I apologised to the bully. And that group of bullies were friendly ever after.


When to be friendly? When to be aggressive or even hostile? When to yell or remain calm? They're things one is supposed to learn along with other social skills as one grows up. As I found myself mostly hiding from the world ever since I was five, most of my knowledge came from books, and I found myself enamoured of a pacifist attitude. Always be friendly, always be helpful, never raise your voice or act hostile. Neither words nor stones will break my spirit.

The big tests for that attitude came first in the form of the supremely unhelpful attitude from medical personnel along with psychologists when it came to even acknowledging the fact that I have in fact an intersex body and a pretty unique type of intersex at that. To spend over a decade facing adults who feel qualified to demolish every single part of your self-image, sense of reality and ego in general, it makes you question a lot of things.

Another test came in the form of this woman who wormed her way into my life, using my offer to help her fix her laptop issues to make herself a part of my life, to the point where she somehow ended up being present at some job interviews that I did at the time. She convinced me that her parents were practically evil criminals and that I should help her escape from there. That ended up with us sharing the same apartment for months, and somehow she had made me believe that I loved her and that we were a couple.

I don't think it is normal for even couples if one of them ends up randomly staring at the other while the latter is taking a shower, or to only spend days watching TV and chatting online. She'd also tell me in a loud voice that everything that I liked or thought funny or interesting was stupid and uninteresting before going on a tirade about how stupid humans really are and how much better people like herself are.

She'd also force me to spend watching late-night TV with her so that I'd appear sleep-deprived at work every day and often had to force myself to stay awake during the day. In that state she got me to accompany her all around, to fulfil all her whims and essentially make me into her slave and property. This all came crashing down during another tirade from her towards me, which had me barricading myself in the bedroom while she was on the phone with my mother, telling my mom how bad things were going with me, but that she'd take care of it, no worries.

If one ever needs to know what it feels like to be part of a Stephen King story, there you got it. Think Misery, only with less cutting off of body parts.


After decades of finding monsters where one least expects them, it's not easy to go back to pretending that the world is safe again. Not with those monsters giggling to each other in the dark corners of one's mind, ready to pounce the moment I drop my guard. There has to be a way to deal with this situation beyond being eternally terrified, however.

I have found at this point that I hate feeling terrified, as well as all other feelings akin to it. There has to be nothing more pleasant than feeling safe and secure, being so at ease that you can just drop your guard and not worry for a while. As things are, I consider it a good day when I didn't feel completely unhappy or terrified that day. With monsters literally lurking right around the corner, one has to celebrate the little things in life, after all.


This should be the part where one wakes up, with a parent sitting on the edge of your bed to tell you that it is all okay, that monsters aren't real.


Maya

One doesn't simply grow up to become an adult

Each of us is the product of our past. Every part of our childhood, teenage years and the years afterwards have left their mark on us, whether positive or negative. Our personalities have been shaped by these experiences, and the way that we responded to them back then. As a result, much of our behaviour as adults is the result of these earlier years. This shows us both why these years are so important, and also why it is so hard to change one's personality and behaviour afterwards.

Recently, a friend pointed me towards schema therapy [1], which is a form of integrative psychotherapy, aimed at addressing and treating personality disorders which result from such issues in one's past. The concept is that by reflecting on one's past and analysing one's current personality traits and behaviour, one can link the two, deducing the kind of deficit or traumas in one's past that led to these personality disorders.

Schema therapy uses the concept of 'modes', to group certain states of mind, differentiating between 'child' and 'parent' modes. The child mode is hereby essentially about one's own behaviour, whereas the parent mode is about how one judges one's own behaviour. Every adult human has a child and parent mode, which allows a healthy human being to switch between the responsible state of being an adult (healthy adult) with the carefree state of a healthy child during which the person can relax and have fun. The latter being crucial to avoiding burnout and other effects of stress.


Sometimes when reading stories or playing certain video games which have the themes of growing up into adulthood I can feel this understanding of what is involved in this process of growing up and learning to deal with not only oneself, but also others and society. It also makes me painfully aware of this child that found itself too afraid of contact with others because of childhood abuse to do anything but hide, read books and lose itself in the world of science and technology. A child whose emotional state of maturity is consequently wholly insufficient to match the demands of adulthood.

There are hints of 'healthy child' and 'healthy adult' in my behaviour, but what strongly resonates with me is the 'Vulnerable Child' mode, with the 'Detached Protector' as dysfunctional coping mechanism. Dysfunctional adult mode is the 'Punitive Parent'. Essentially this means a personality with at its core a child that tries its best, but finds itself falling short by the standards of its parent mode, with reprimands and other (perceived) signs of negativity or indifference from both the parent mode and one's environment triggering the dysfunctional coping mechanism.

"Detached Protector is based in escape. Patients in Detached Protector schema mode withdraw, dissociate, alienate, or hide in some way. This may be triggered by numerous stress factors or feelings of being overwhelmed. When a patient with insufficient skills is in a situation involving excessive demands, it can trigger a Detached Protector response mode. Stated simply, patients become numb in order to protect themselves from the harm or stress of what they fear is to come, or to protect themselves from fear of the unknown in general."

While obviously one cannot travel back into time to undo the events and choices that led to such a personality disorder, being aware of it is the first step towards being able to address it. For myself, the struggle to understand myself and my environment has been something with which I have dealt for most of my life. The perceived rejection by my environment, the sense of not living up to anyone's standards, as well as my difficulties with social interactions and relationships, all of it is making my life today so much harder than it should be.

One cannot just decide to become a healthy, functional adult. Most of the responsibility there lies with one's environment as one grows up, with especially the way one was treated and taught during the early formative years having laid the foundations of one's personality and sense of self.


One day I hope to find a way to become a better parent to myself, to the child that still finds itself trapped in this dark room, with the abuse and accusations still fresh in its mind.


Maya


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_therapy

Surviving Auschwitz: on the sins of being intersex

Having been born and raised in the Netherlands, stories of the horrors committed by the Nazis not only during the occupation of the Netherlands, but also those elsewhere in Europe are something which one grows up with. I also read a lot of (children's) books which covered aspects of this, including of course Anne Frank's diary. Despite this, it wasn't until later that I also became aware of not only Jews having been deported to concentration camps, but also homosexuals, gypsies, 'feeble-minded individuals' and many others. Usually in the name of 'racial purity' and such concepts.

Because of this I wasn't too surprised to learn via a German study [1] that intersex individuals were also dragged into this. The general attitude towards intersex individuals under German National Socialism was that intersex (or 'hermaphrodites' as they were then referred to) people were symptoms of racial impurities, the degenerate result of mixing of races and the like. Advised was to 'normalise' them, but preferably in such a way that they would be infertile, lest they would produce offspring.

Although much of any evidence that may have existed of medical experimentation on intersex people - by Josef Mengele and other Nazi doctors - was very likely destroyed along with other documents as the Soviet Red Army and Allied forces approached, the remaining evidence shows that such experiments were very likely performed. Possibly along the lines of the twin experiments and on individuals with specific conditions, such as dwarfism.


What caught me by surprise was that even exposure to brief snippets of this work would provoke an incredibly intense traumatic emotional response in me. Considering the many years of having dealt with reading through unpleasant texts on the topic of intersex, I had not expected this. Yet, just a bit of this paper has so far managed to completely emotionally destabilise me for days straight on three occasions. Especially the first day immediately after initial exposure I feel beset by sadness, hopelessness and frustration, finding myself unable to stop crying.

Clearly there's something about this work that manages to trigger a traumatic PTSD callback in a way that rarely happens in such an extreme manner. But why a historical work? After all, I wasn't deported to Auschwitz, did not undergo those medical experiments and didn't spend years facing the inevitable demise of myself and everyone around me for years as we suffered through one day after another. So what's the similarity?

Having spent a few months thinking about it, I am quite certain that much of the issue lies in that although the phrasing of how one used to talk about intersex people in the 1930s and 1940s, and how people talk about intersex people today has changed, the underlying meaning and implications has not. For example:

• 'Symptom of racial impurity' turned into 'biological flukes'.
• 'Correcting intersex cases' became 'normalisation of genitals'.
• Justification changed from 'racial purity' to 'ensuring happiness of an intersex child by not appearing different'. [2]
• 'degenerate being' became 'disorder of sex development'.

Over the past years, I have expressed on many occasions (e.g. [3]) the feeling of being a part of medical experiments, rather than being treated as a patient by doctors. My diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder appears to have strong roots in these experiences [4]. It feels as though I have been subjected to human experimentation involving the 'normalisation' of an intersex person. Try different brainwashing and other methods, see what sticks. Even if this may have been done out of ignorance rather than as a wilful experiment. [5]


So then, the upsetting thing about Ms Klöppel's article then appears to be that it rams home the point that nothing has really changed between 1933 and 2020? At least at a cursory glance it does appear that way. It explains the intense traumatic response, provoking more intense and longer lasting PTSD flashbacks than I can recall having experienced before.

It's possible that what makes it so much more intense is the accompanying realisation that if things haven't really progressed in the past eighty years when it comes to treating intersex individuals like full human beings with their own will and desires, then why would they change in the coming years or decades? Cue hopelessness and depression.


This is not a pleasant topic. It is also not a topic which I enjoy dealing with today. As much as I have come to accept my own body [6], I cannot accept my circumstances. I cannot accept the way that society treats me and others like me [7].

It appears that today's society has a lot more introspection and soul-searching to do. Because clearly intersex folk like yours truly are not a cause of society's woes, just as we weren't back in in the 1930s.


Maya



[1] Ulrike Kloeppel - Intersex under National Socialism http://mayaposch.com/literature_intersex.php
[2] The Intersex Controversy http://mayaposch.com/intersex-controversy.php
[3] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2015/06/for-what-am-i-but-medical-experiment.html
[4] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-eternal-war.html
[5] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/01/erasure-of-intersex-identity-through.html
[6] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-five-stages-towards-accepting-ones.html
[7] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/societys-attitude-towards-intersex-is.html

Society's attitude towards intersex is a psychological disorder

A few days ago on social media there was a bit of a kerfuffle about biological sex on account of someone apparently having made the statement that people cannot change between (binary) biological sex. The resulting lawsuit and online drama resulted in a number of people with anti-intersex views venting their spleen as well, such as in one particular Twitter post where an individual insisted on using the anti-intersex term 'Disorder of Sex Development' (DSD), also referring to intersex as a 'less accurate term'. This particular post being about discounting intersex as of any relevance in the debate on biological sex as it's a mere fluke.

Suffice it to say that reading such a statement, and the resulting feedback to the response I posted to said statement was quite upsetting. Not only is one's existence discounted as a statistical fluke and one's biological relevance erased, but in addition it is hammered home that one is a tragic sufferer of a medical disorder, so why hasn't a caring surgeon yet 'normalised' all that is so clearly wrong with your genitals and the rest of your body?


Maybe it's just that over a decade of attempts by doctors and psychologists of trying to convince me that I should normalise my body, whether it was by outright denying my intersex condition, or by attempting to convince me that I was the tragic sufferer of gender dysphoria and that I actually really wanted to have them turn me into a beautiful woman, removing those unsightly 'male' bits. This could have made me somewhat sensitive and conceivably slightly traumatised when it comes to this subject.

Over the past years I have learned very well that my body is exquisitely healthy. I have no genetic disorders, no allergies, nothing worrying in my family that could come haunt me later in life. And here I have a bunch of cretins insisting that there is something wrong with my body. Not just those cretins on social media, but those medical 'professionals' equally so. Can I please love my body without their blathering?


This obsession with binarism, of this imaginary division between some illusionary 'male' and female' element in genetics, the human brain and the human phenotype in general is rather worrying. It's a kind of obsession that goes beyond an every day obsession straight into a 'delusional disorder' [1] diagnosis. Those affected persist even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that the brain is unisex, that genetics do not dictate even physical sex (e.g. in the case of CAIS) and that the overall complexity of genetics and the resulting phenotypes make any attempt to categorise it as either 'male' or 'female' is foolhardy at best.

And meanwhile intersex individuals like yours truly feel like they're being hunted down on social media and in society, because one side claims us to be the absolute, One True Proof that somehow legitimises things like transgenderism, while some feminists and others push hard to make it clear that intersex is an aberration, that just proves that binarism is the One True Religion. For the rest of society... intersex is so poorly understood that it seems to be mostly associated with things like pornography and cross-dressing actors in those flicks. Oh, and nobody ever talks with us.


I guess that after years of this, combined with my own experiences in the medical system, along with the sickening awareness that intersex genital mutilation (IGM) of infants is still a daily thing, it's hard to feel like being intersex doesn't somehow dehumanises you. Do I feel invisible? You bet. Do I feel like anyone is free to attack me and others in the most cruel way possible for being intersex without repercussions? Absolutely.

There's no punishment for calling intersex an aberration, a disorder or abnormality. Not the way that other minorities are protected. While society cheers on the binarist conversion of children (because they want it), the non-medical 'normalisation' surgeries (IGM) on intersex infants continue unabated, with nobody caring about their views, opinions, or the large number of them who (oddly enough) later turn out to feel unhappy with the choice that was forced on them by those adults. Because we intersex individuals are apparently less than human and our views, feelings or opinions do not matter.


This most recent confrontation with the traumatic part of being intersex has made me realise just how horribly sick society is. That I can have a body that is healthy and yet I end up being traumatised like this. That a healthy infant can be born, yet only to have it receive genital mutilation before it's old enough to speak its first words. That somehow being born intersex means that society will do its utmost to shame, humiliate, normalise and ostracise you. Just because.

It shouldn't be me who has the therapist to work through these traumas and somehow learn to trust doctors again despite all the abuse that I have suffered. It shouldn't be me, or all those others who are suffering needlessly. So many millions of individuals who could have lived happy, carefree lives, but who got crippled and marked like this, simply because society refuses to acknowledge that it has a problem. Why are we even trying to please the rest of society when all we get is this kind of wanton cruelty in return?


I'd really like that restraining order against this delusional part of humanity at this point. I'm not into that kind of abusive relationship, even if they're still convinced that people like me should be okay with it.


Maya


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional_disorder