Tw: menstruation, vent post, parents.
Thinking about how when I was a teen, I had really painful menses. At times, it was so bad that my legs felt like they were tingling, and standing was difficult. I was sent home from school on a number of occasions due to vomiting during my menstruation.
Overall, a really shitty time.
Not only was I frequently told I was being over dramatic, that I just needed to "walk around," eventually restricted from going home or seeing the school nurse... But I was told because I'm trans, it shouldn't be an issue.
My mother told me on a multitude of occasions, "If you're a boy, then you shouldn't be having these issues, huh?"
"Boys don't have these problems."
I hold so much bitterness over the fact that no one ever took me to the doctor for my painful menstruation. My mother told me years later that she didn't believe cramps actually happened during menstruation because she had never had them before. She only began to believe people get cramps when she had some herself, years after I was now missing menses all together.
Sometimes, that bitterness of feeling pain that no one believed me for, out weighs being invalidated. Other times, like now, I see the whole picture and feel so much anger.
The same adults who told me my pain was a lie, told me I was just trying to get attention, or get out of school, are the same ones who told the doctors, "She has a really high pain tolerance, we just know something is wrong when she complains about the head aches!"
Why is it that no one took me to the doctor? Why is it no one believed me when I never complained about pain before? The years of perfect school attendance suddenly questioned when I couldn't stand up from the desk. Was it all for nothing?
Why is it that the people I was supposed to trust the most were the ones who never listened?
Maliciously never listened.
I was punished for having a body that I didn't ask for and feeling a way I couldn't control.
I'm allowed to struggle with my anatomy, trans or not. I'm allowed to feel pain.
To be told I wasn't allowed to express the physical pain I was dealing with because I am transgender is heinous. They laughed when they would say it. I don't care if they thought it was funny. It was a mockery, and they knew it.
I should have been given some support. I should have been given at the VERY LEAST a supportive pat on the back.
I could have dealt with the pain on my own if they had just given me the space to do it. Without the shame and mockery.
Just before my menses went away, they started to believe me. I guess because it had been years at that point.
Even though the only change was that they would let me go lay down rather than be forced to socialize or do their activities. It really made a difference. Sure, it was painful, I was sick and couldn't eat. But it was a million times better than being made to continue as usual and burden everyone with my inability to function.
It still irks me.