My personal life is, at the moment, not good.
I had to fire my most recent psychologist this week after a conversation in which I tried to explain my distress over her belief that my family’s cisheterosexism isn’t something that should upset me. It was a rather awesomely-horrifying conversation in that she, a cishet, used seven different ways in a ten minute space to tell me that I am an ill, irrational, intolerant, overreacting person who has no right to be upset over something she denies as hurtful even though she has never herself experienced cissexism, heterosexism or exorsexism.
The conversation didn’t surprise me; I’ve endured a lifetime of similar invalidation. (It’s why I’m so desperately afraid to talk to people about things that hurt me, because they will use my mental illnesses or autism to deny my hurt any relevancy.) I didn’t expect the sheer degree of invalidation I copped, but I wasn’t surprised by it. Kind of hard not to be when this psychologist told me I should take my mother’s criticism that my fiction is “too gay” to “be beautiful to [her]” as a positive comment I can learn from.
(Although being called “intolerant” by said psychologist for being upset about my family’s having conversations that deny the legitimacy of my gender identity and disliking the psychologist’s “but people are entitled to their opinions and you can choose your own reactions” response to my pain was a new one. It’s intolerant to be hurt that your own family deny your lack of gender? And I am so tired of this toxic victim-blaming idea where we’re telling people who are hurt to control their reactions instead of telling people who are causing harm to stop causing harm. Shouldn’t a psychologist know better?)
But since I feared it would go that way, I’d spent the weeks between the session that contained the initial combination of cissexism and heterosexism and the session in which I fired her caught up in dread and panic. And something not being a surprise doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. I also have difficulty trusting people, and having a psychologist do this to me hits too many metaphorical once-broken bones.
(I think it’s worse, too, because having a psychologist validate Mum’s cisheterosexism as reasonable removes all chance of later discussion. An official, professional cishet validated a cishet’s cisheterosexism, so while Mum thought me overreacting and sensitive in the first place, now I’m really overreacting because the psychologist made the case that the problem is me. Someone with authority confirmed that Mum’s dismissal, erasure and denial is right and reasonable. How do I get around that when Mum has zero interest in learning about queer anything or learning how to support me?)
I’ve been a mess, emotionally, mentally, physically, this last month. My anxiety is through the roof, my depression is only mild compared to the anxiety, I’m in a good amount of usual pain, and the stress on my body has resulted in new/unusual pain sites as well as new sores and old dermatitis flaring up. I’m having to try and pretend that I’m okay around my family, so I’m faking being “happy” when the truth is that I can’t concentrate and I’m about one wrong thought from crying at any given time. I’m tired and hurting and spending most of my time trying not to think.
Thankfully, I have a really good psychiatrist, even if I can’t see him on a very regular basis (blame our healthcare system). We talked, he affirmed that this is all some next-level invalidation and feeling like I do right now is not an optional part of the experience (damn it), and I need a med team that’s queer-affirming and queer-supportive for transition options, support and just survival. So that’s the new goal for this year, although I’m not sure how I’m going to afford some of this. I do feel that I can’t, I really can’t, survive this sort of experience with another general completely-government-funded, government-assigned psychologist or mental health worker. I need people who are on board with my queerness, with my transness, maybe even with my aromanticism, and won’t engage in the cissexism of believing that I have no right to be upset at my parents’ cissexism.
Tomorrow, I’ve got to have a procedure for a cyst removal (that wasn’t a problem before this last month). I‘m not sure how that’s going to go or if it’s going to be worse than other small lesion removals. I hope it goes okay.
(I can’t sleep properly; I keep hitting it with my hand in my sleep and waking myself up because ow. On the upside, I do already own about thirty different bandannas, so at least my wardrobe is suited for covering up the cyst and then covering up the wound and the scar until my hair grows back in.)
So, I’m struggling, I’m tired, I’ve got a gross sore on my head, I’ve learnt again that I am justified in not trusting people, I now have to struggle with finding new people, I can’t really concentrate on anything, I don’t have a psychologist for support, I have to pretend that I’m okay around my family when I’m not, and my life is pretty much dedicated to distracting myself from hurting.
I actually do have an idea (a themed week) for AAW regarding creative responses and responses about creativity and representation. I think it’s worth admitting that chances are exceptionally high that I will struggle to keep up with responses. If folks don’t mind that folks’ responses are more likely to get tossed into the draft folder and reblogged/posted when I have spoons, I may post it anyway, because there’s no such thing as too much creativity. I just may not be able to cope with it in as timely a fashion as I’d like to.
Thank you so much for reading this monster of a post. I hope, given time, that I’ll heal just enough that I can keep up with more things again.