Dysphoria Blues

It’s weird because some days I am perfectly fine. I can go weeks and months without hating every inch of my body…

Today is really not one of those days though.

I’ve had my lower surgery pushed back and I know it’s not on purpose and I know that it’s only by a few weeks but it’s just little reminders like this that remind me that I’m not cis and that I need to get rid of something that distresses me so fucking badly.

I know logically that it will be over soon, but in the past couple of weeks I’ve been called she twice and that’s been a fucking kick in the head too. Both were really confused accidents but it’s just something that still cuts me up.

That and Charing Cross have fucked my appointment about also, so I’m just really feeling it lately. Hopefully all of this will just get better really soon.

Top Surgery – A Year On

So I finally hit my surgery anniversary and there is no balloons nor candles , nor do I feel even in the mood to celebrate getting rid of the one thing in my life that was causing me the most distress. Honestly it has just felt like every other period of my life throughout the past 12 months. 

I mean yes, I’m fucking happy that they are banished from my life, but it has been the hardest pill to swallow. If you are new here (hi) it’s also the marking point where I was last physically well. This point is the pivotal moment when my body gave up on me and I spend a lot of my time going out in an electric chair. I am trying to look at the positives but I can tell you now it doesn’t end up all sunshine and rainbows for me at the end of the tunnel. 

Believe me, I’m fucking happy with my results of surgery and I’m looking forward to my hysto next month but I am just so fucking tired all the time. I at least wanted a couple of good years with my body before it packed up on me. I just wanted to be a real boy ™ for at least a moment before I needed mobility aids. 

I know you were kind of expecting something a little more positive, but I am just so tired of being trans and barely human anymore 

Mental Health & Disability

Why in the ever growing fuck do I decide to write obscure title ideas into my journal and expect to pull something out of my ass. Why do you do this Tyler, WHY? 

I suppose when I first put this down as an idea it was to talk about the cross over of having both mental health issues and being physically broken. I do say this knowing I’ve actually spent time at home and knowing that whilst I can move a limited distance in my one bedroom flat, going outside is an entirely different thing. I am pretty privileged in the fact that whilst walking anything other than 20 steps is either complete agony or there is a 80% chance something would dislocate I could evacuate on my own legs in case of an emergency. This also doesn’t factor in the chronic fatigue that I suffer though and that’s an entire different ball game altogether or the spinal injury that I have, or even this epilepsy… Fuck me I actually am broken. But there are people in far worse situations than I am in, and I need to be thankful for the small  mercy’s I have been blessed with. 

However life entirely intersectional and my “good” days do not factor in the days where I am experiencing severe mental health issues. I’ve spoken before about living with psychosis and depression but factor in living with it and being trapped in my own body ALL OVER AGAIN and it just manifests into a pit of shit that I can barely get out of. 

Recently I have suffered body dysphoria really really badly, which has been physically kicking my ass. It’s not even about my chest (nearly a year post op now) or even so much my genitals as much but just being in this fucking broken shell at times just feels fucking disheartening. I feel constantly that people will just not find me attractive enough because I’m trans but being wheelchair bound AND trans really limits your options in not only the dating pool but your friendship circles as well. It’s weird, it doesn’t feel a part of me and I don’t know if that is because I’m having dysphoria because I’m trans or just fucking depressed because in order to see people and to function, I NEED to be in my chair. 

It is a constant emotional roller coaster because people are much worse off than I am in many places. They are trapped at home unable to get about or unable to transition and I have the privilege to do both but sometimes it really does just get too much at times. It is physically draining to be human. It’s a full time job that I have had to juggle and I don’t have the physical capacity to deal with everything all at once like I used to. 

The worst part is that people pity me. They pity me for being trans. They pity me for being in my chair, and it is just bullshit. I don’t need pity. What I need, what I really need are three simple things

• Partners that fucking understand me
• Friends that act normal towards me
• Being able to access spaces and not panic because they are not wheelchair accessible 

You would think that these are simple fucking requests but in fact as the time has progressed, I have realised that no, actually they are not. These are just tiny things and honestly it gets to me that every day is a fucking joke. This is the type of shit that makes me depressed and unwell. And it is the same for everyone else in this situation. 

I’m not even going to start mentioning the patronisation or the fact that we are seen less equally than others because that is another goddamn blog post and will last longer than the state of my patience with society. 

If you do have friends, family, loved ones who are in this situation. Please check up on them from time to time. Being disabled actually is a really lonely experience. It is like watching the whole world go by but you are frozen and unable to do a thing. Please respect disabled folk and as my final thing, DO NOT TUT AT THEM BECAUSE ONE DAY YOU MAY END UP LIKE THIS TOO. 

Continued Recovery

CN – Very frank discussions about drug addiction and feelings towards being sober

It has been over 10 years now since I have touched heroin and coming up to 8 years since I last smoked crack cocaine. I wanted to do this whole beautiful post about how being a recovered drug addict has improved my life and how wonderful being recovered actually is, but this isn’t some fucking fantasy and i will never be recovered, just in recovery. 
I mean I dragged this post out for almost a good year or so because I was hoping that I could give you all some inspirational bullshit about how bright and shiney it all actually is but I think from this post I am beyond sugar coating it all for everyone. 

Recovery has been really fucking hard. It’s like having this continued itch in the back of your mind that needs to be scratched. You don’t think I still do not want the sweet release for just a day? Fuck yes but it would ruin both my life and bank account to feel that warm blanket that feels like a kiss from god. You ever felt like you can take on the world? That’s what crack feels like but I am beyond broken to deal with the withdrawal it would just bring me. 

It’s a day to day battle. And it’s not just the whole “delete numbers, cut contact, 12 step” battle you find written down, but AN ACTUAL STRUGGLE.

It’s having to maintain my pain levels based on whether medication will give me side affects that cause me to feel withdrawn again. It’s constantly looking in medication ingredients lists, and the panic knowing that you are going to have surgery and the automatic that they give you morphine to manage your pain, and just that small taste can bring it all fucking back to you. It is days when you are feeling depressed and you just need a pick me up or just something that will make you just feel OK to survive the day. 

There are literally days where I beg being an addict at times again because life was easier. I didn’t need to care or worry, or even concern myself about trivial bollocks. I could just take heroin and crack, forget the world and go about my daily business. I joked to Kai that I had been a smack head and in recovery at clearly the wrong point in my life, because now, I wake up some days just needing it. 

When I wake up and my joints ache like they did when I first went cold turkey is the utter worst part of this. The difference being is that it is because my body is now broken and I’m wise in myself not to touch anything opiate based unless it is an emergency. I hurt almost constantly and having addiction issues to the one thing that in times might actually help me, is the actual worst. 

Would I take it back though? Would I fuck

My life is worth living and being a part of and being sober from all of this made me more human than I could ever imagine. I found myself, my love, my passions. I mean sure, I have shit days and REALLY SHIT DAYS but isn’t that what both life and recovery is honestly about? 

Sexuality – On reflection

Just after my 30th birthday I made the decision to come out as gay. It had been something that had been waying in on my mind for sometime and eventually I felt it was at that time to do it. 

I suppose looking back on it, it shouldn’t have been as hard as I thought at the time it would be. I had always been attracted to male aligned folks and had always struggled being in relationships with women and woman aligned people. I had battled in my head whether this was just me being misogynistic and that I had a hatred towards femininity, but I realised that no, I just wasn’t physically attracted to women as much as I thought it was. 

I think a huge part of it was that I had some huge internalised bullshit (often brought on by discussions with TERFS) that I was just a self hating lesbian, and that I was forcing myself to be in relationships with men to make myself feel better about it. The truth was, I was forcing myself to identify as bisexual because I thought it might be easier in life and that maybe it might stop the gender feels™.

I spent so long feeling this, that it had become almost a toxic poison consuming my mental health and coming out was in fact a huge fucking relief. 

Then something happened. I started feeling things for one woman in my life. She’s fully aware of this and I have said that I wouldn’t be able to be in a relationship with her because of how it would make us both feel, how it would fuck me up and how I come with so much bullshit it would not only harm her but also myself to persue something that could go so horribly wrong to a friendship I treasure more than anything. I am a gay agender person and she is not a man or even masculine aligned and has had so much bullshit from the gay community that it would emotionally be awful. 

What the fuck even are feelings and emotions? You get yourself fucking organized in life and then POW something or someone comes along and slaps you right in the goddamn face. If these 30 years have taught me anything it’s that life truly isn’t as predictable as you would hope it would be. I thought I had all this worked out by now, but nahh. 

I suppose the thing is that I do have to give myself a break from time to time and actually focus on what will not only make me happy but other people too that I care about. 

Past and Future

As I sit here writing this on my dressing gown debating whether to make myself a caramel chocochino, I am also debating what the fuck this year actually is going to bring for me. 

I have started planning everything I want to in advance (well kind of anyway) and have started to try and get my life a little bit more organised. When I wrote yesterdays post, I hadn’t actually spotted though that today’s would be highly similar. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe it isn’t. 

This year is the first year where I don’t actually have fully set plans for everything, and I say this with not one but FOUR journals in front of me. Ok, one of them is my specific neopets one and the other is for exclusively writing notes in meetings, but still, with all of this, I STILL do not actually have my life in order. And you know what, I couldn’t be more happier. 

The past two years I was getting stressed out with views, content, surgery, rehabilitation because of my mental and physical health and the looming presence of hitting my 30s. The truth of the matter was, that trying to actually program myself to forcefully do shit all the time was making me ten times more depressed than actually trying to just exist actually was. 

In the past year I had almost forgotten how to breath. 

Last year I lost a huge platform, which meant I lost about 90% of my readers and if I’m totally honest, yes it did fuck me up. I had worked really hard on it and well it was now gone. However, this made me put a fuck ton into perspective and realised I could actually start to have time to recover and rebrand everything. I had been locked in a situation where I was too scared to write what I wanted to, and be who I was and now it was like being reborn again. 

I suppose after last year, and nearly dying .. Yes it hurts and, no no one wants to think about it, but yes nearly dying… It put everything into fucking perspective. I am no longer this two dimensional character for people to shit on or use. I had spent last year fighting battles I truly didn’t need to, and stepping away from that made me feel so much fucking better. 

I just wished I had actually done it sooner!!

2018 is going to be a different year. It is going to be the year where I just do what ever the fuck I actually want to do. I’m no longer am going to be scared of the consequences of being who I actually am, and you know what, if I make mistakes along the way then that’s perfectly fine too. I have been fucking chained down to acceptance for so long that it tires me and this year is going to be different. 

This year I’m going to focus on actually writing for me, and well if people want to read it then that is wonderful. I’m not going to stress myself out on content I have failed to post on time. I am going to spend more time on self care, and by fuck I’m actually going to spend more time with my family because I saw them fuck all last year and if anyone has a goddamn issue with that then you can go fuck yourself. 

Oh, and get more tattoos.. I need more of those. 2018 is going to be the anti 2017 and I am looking forward to it. 

Absence And Apologies

So as you have noticed, I have been away for a little bit. 

Physical health hasn’t been great as of late and adjusting to being a semi permanent wheelchair user has become in all honesty and exhausting challenge. That and I started having massive problems with loosing bits I had written, such as reviews and events and it had honestly torn my heart out loosing content I had worked so hard on.

On the light side of all of this. Problems are now reasonably resolved. Things are looking up and I am finally on route to getting my hysterectomy. This has been a long time coming and well potentially be the last thing to do in regards of physically transition. So yes, touch wood, I am now back and things shall be progressing on this site. 

Things to look forward include the possibility of a podcast in the new year, transcribed into blog posts, a talk in line with a clothing company, museum gossip and well this gay agender half cyborgs rants and posts about transition and the rest of life’s bullshit. Oh and the discussions of the PreP trial

Whispers – Queer Dating Series maybe back for a special wheelchair issue, so watch this space

Let’s raise a glass to progress, the up and coming new year and everything good that is coming out now.

Tyler ❤

And We Are Back

So it’s been forever since I have written anything and I suppose it’s time to explain why I have actually been gone for a long time.

Remember when I said that I was ill, well I ended up with psychosis and I am now currently in and out of a chair because I am so tired all the time now. Plus side, I have been in therapy for quite some time now and mentally I’m on my serious way to recovery. 

So the chair. Well I said in February that top surgery would elevate the pain I have been in. Well it did, for a month. I now have arthritis and it’s not helped with me being hypo mobile. We are also slowly trying to work out a diagnosis for chronic fatigue syndrome, and the possibility of having some nerve damage. 

That and my seizures are back with a vengeance!! 

So yeah. That’s been the main reasons why I have been so quiet. 

Things that have happened though –

*I spoke at a conference about being trans and disabled

* ran a charity open mic night

* ran the trans tent for big pride in Brighton. Yes.. Really?!

*filmed for a HIV organisation 

So whilst I have been of the radar, I have been busy. But now I am now back, and everything shall be going back to normality. 

Tyler
PS – Oh yeah, I also came out as Agender and now awaiting my hysto, and a revision for top surgery. Oh and I’m not getting my nips tattooed on. 

A – Angry

First day of the A-Z challenge and this year I have no starting block, because I’m a fucking idiot and havnt planned this out. For those who have just met me because of the A-Z challenge, I’m Tyler, I’m nearly 30, I’m queer and I’m fucking angry. 

You want to know why I’m angry. Well I’m angry because yet again I was shit on by medical services. My mental health is constantly being blamed on my transition (though I was mentally unwell 20 years ago and not identifying as transgender). I’m angry because my psychiatrist lied and said my partner and I engaged in sauna sex high on extacy and cocaine. To put this into context, Kai has never touched an extacy pill in their life and most of that evening we were spent at a bar because there was live music. 

I’m angry that trans people, especially trans women of colour are still getting fucking murdered in this day and age. So much for fucking LGBT equality. I’m mad that whilst same sex marriage is a thing, trans people are still denied their titles on their marriage certificates and have to jump through hoops to prove their existence. 

I’m angry that my dyslexia holds me back from being productive and that not having a neurotypical brain will always be a problem. 

I’m angry that there are homeless people. Everyone should have a roof over their heads. 

I’m angry because disabled people are seen as a problem that no one is happy to help. 

I’m angry because this world if fucking backwards and shows no compassion. 

I’m just angry. 

It’s Not Ok

A couple of days ago I was on a Facebook group and I was given the horrifying news that new applicants of universal credit and PIP were being forced to get GRC’s (Gender recognition certificates) in order to receive benefits in their correct gender. 

So what’s the shocker here. Well, for starters, if you are trans, you DO NOT LEGALLY NEED A GRC! 

The DWP are saying that this is in line with both the passport office and to work out pensions. 1) you don’t need a GRC to change your gender on a passport and 2) your pensions are based on your national insurance details, which don’t need to be changed with a GRC. 

Essentially since moving everything to universal credit, they have broken the equality act. Not only do you not need a GRC, you don’t even need to show it, and a demand to see it, is in fact breaking the law. 

Oh yeah, and one thing…. Under 18s can’t get a GRC. You have to be at least 18 to apply for one. 

If you think this is the first time under 18s have been fucked over by the government, know this. They are stopping housing benefits for 16-21 year olds. 

That’s right. Homelessness is going to be increasing because 16-21 WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET HOUSING BENEFIT. Government has said that this is because they don’t want young people to live on a welfare state. I mean there isn’t such reasons as why young people would want to leave their homes, especially if they are LGBT. 

Yep. As of this year, if you are a young person who is fleeing from domestic vilonce, persecution, abuse, drug adduction, or your parents kicked you out.. You will not be getting help trying to get housed. 

So what about all the youth centres and hostels? Well thanks to government, their budgets have been slashed, and there are very little hostels actually running for young people. You are lucky if you actually get into ANY let alone a young person based one. 

Also there are private company hostels running in cities, which the council pay for. Trust me when I say this though, living in them is HELL AS A YOUNG PERSON. I lived in several private company ones, and they are unregulated, charge the council for services they do not even provide and in some you are not even allowed guests or even doctors to visit. I used to live in some of the worst in Brighton and it was vile. 

You know what, I knew this was coming. It was inevitable that young people were going to be screwed over, but that’s not entirely my issue with this. What I’m mad about, is that not one LGBT group is actually actively trying to stop this bullshit from happening. Not even Brighton’s biggest LGBT names. 

It turns out, as per usual that LGBT working class and homeless people are best kept invisible. The thing is, we need to do something before we start seeing a huge spike in suicide, drug addiction and homelessness. In the UK we have let our young people down and we need to help them now! 

We can’t have young people not be able to get housed and we can’t have trans people getting forced to out themselves when that practice is fucking illegal.

I normally wouldn’t beg for my posts to be shared around and be made viral, but I’m willing to make the exception for this. Please share this as much as you can. Get people questioning the fucking logic of this government and the safety of our young people. 

After all the young people are going to be picking up our shit for years to come, let’s at least try and help them now.