TRANS PEOPLE CONSIDERING SURGERY- READ THIS PLEASE GENUINELY I AM BEGGING YOU IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE
If you are getting gender affirming surgery, especially if it’s your first major surgery, PLEASE be aware that you can become SEVERELY depressed afterwards ESPECIALLY if you have a history of depression or suicidal ideation.
Post op depression is a natural reaction to the crazy mix of hormones your body goes through after major surgery as well as the stress and anxiety of recovery. Think of it like an adrenaline crash, but dragged out longer.
For me it kicked in about 6 weeks after top surgery and the worst of it lasted until about 10 weeks post op. EVERYTHING felt IMPOSSIBLE. None of the skills I’d been practicing worked. I thought everything was going to be bad forever. I didn’t attempt, but I was in the hospital. If it wasn’t for my support system I probably would have attempted.
This is not regret, but it can feel like it. I remain happy about my results to this day (going on six years later).
This is not you failing to maintain your mental health, but it can make you feel like a failure.
Things are not hopeless, but through the haze of this depression they can feel hopeless.
It can be terrifyingly sudden or it can sneak up on you. I didn’t even realize what was going on until after the depression finally passed and my mental health went back to normal.
I am writing this post because nobody told me about this before my top surgery. I was caught completely off guard. For my subsequent surgeries being aware has made all the difference. Being able to treat those symptoms as an expected and normal part of the healing journey has made them far easier to deal with. Because even when my emotions go to dark places I *know* they will pass. I have been able to tell the bad thoughts to take a bad seat and focus on healing.
PLEASE have a plan in place for if this happens. I know that this topic is taboo because of how often our mental health is weaponized against us, but I desperately want every single person getting gender affirming surgery to be aware of, and have a plan for post operative depression.
