Where are we? Who are we?
So much has happened since my last attempt to virtually put pen to paper (Sept 20). At that time, I had just started working in what I thought could be added to my list of 'dream jobs'. I just moved into my new (current) home, which ate up copious slices of time. It was just as well, COVID had curtailed any attempt to socialize and make friends. We were 1/2 year away from a vaccine, and an election to remove a monster was yet on the horizon within months. If I knew then what I know now...
Its been 3 1/2 years now living in my new house. That dream job went sour fast, and I've long since left. I scrambled to find a new therapist once it was clear that interstate zoom sessions would no longer have a legal dispensation due to COVID.
I still managed to start expanding my social network; that certainly helped to prime the pump. I re-immersed myself once again in antiquing, and my garden proved to be a constructive distraction to fill in the void of longing and lacking closer and more meaningful relationships. I restarted my path for the surgical aspect of my transition, which would mean top and bottom surgery. I found a new position across the country to be executed virtually. I finished my top surgery, but had not yet planned for bottom surgery. I even started writing a book chronicling my intertwined threads of transitioning, work and family.
Then my whole life changed. In one brief moment of stupidity and carelessness by an oncoming driver. I had nearly lost my life in a serious and near deadly auto accident.
The next two years of my life entailed over a dozen surgeries, multiple hospital stays, endless physical and cognitive rehab, and at times unyielding pain. I became intimately aware of the devastation brought about by my traumatic brain injury I suffered from as a result of the accident.
Yet somehow other pathways opened from that tragedy that I would have never anticipated. I made new friends from my TBI rehab program. My need to finish my transition led ultimately to scheduling bottom surgery. Many relationships I either had or had newly minted deepened and became so much more meaningful. I even found the courage to face my DID.
Ah yes, the DID (dissociative identity disorder). If I had to find a candidate more misunderstood than my trans experience, its DID. They never get it right on television or in the movies, and what few people I chose to confide in cannot begin to relate. I (we) still struggle to make sense of the missing chunks of time, change in personality, physical well being, conflicting behaviors and morals. Its like being stuck in every Ludlum novel ever written (perhaps I should have chosen Stephen King?), never knowing what page or chapter or book I am currently presenting much less what character is presenting (who's on first?). Who can say who is the good guy, who wears the white hat?
Why have just one therapist when you can have two at twice the price? While we're at it, why not dredge up every trauma and pain point? It's confusing, frustrating and unnerving to me and those around me.
It's difficult for me to clearly define what the goals are. The walls have started to come down, but every sliver is a stranger in a strange land. I think the endgame is to get all of the parts to work together for the sake and health of the system (host i.e. me). That's a very tall order when the only constant that is immediately present is chaos.
I found a 90's song that best describes my current state:
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