I’m 30, transfem, and to be quite honest, I feel my will to live slowly slipping away. I’m trying to find the willpower to finish my PhD thesis and to get into a better living situation after that, but I find myself frozen and wanting to curl up into a tiny ball of nothingness instead. And there are LOTS of reasons for that, mostly centered around trauma, guilt, and shame.
I don’t think I can fit everything I need to say in a succinct post, so if it isn’t against the rules, would any of you fellow girlies be willing to shoot me a DM and give some advice? I don’t think I can really explain without having a back-and-forth conversation… thanks in advance. 🏳️⚧️💜
I am writing this as a comment, because I am not sure if this applies to you, but also because other people should know about this.
What you describe sounds like a major depressive episode. I am - unfortunately - talking from experience there: Everything feels pointless and nothing seems worth living fear? All the pleasure has been drained from whatever you do? Seeing no reason to get up in the morning and do anything at all? Is your mind a merry-go-round of negative thoughts? That’s depression talking.
Unfortunately trauma and guilt tend to reinforce depression and so does living long years with gender dysphoria.
I am not telling you this because I want to make you feel more depressed, but rather because one of the first steps to get out of depression is to understand when and how depression is weighing you down. That doesn’t make the symptoms any better by itself, but it helps to keep you focused on the things that matter rather than obsessing about the negative thoughts the depression throws at us.
The ultimate problem of depression is the depression tells us that there is no way to get better and that every effort to get better is pointless. There is no sugar-coating it: Every way out of the depression is hard.
Therefore I strongly encourage you to seek professional help. Anti-depressants can offer relief even if they are most often no golden bullet by themselves. Therapy can also help.
If those things seem out of reach to you, try smaller stuff: Making a short daily walk, particularly when the sun is shining can already be a first step. And do not be hard on yourself! That is also the depression. If you are truly suffering from depression, you should consider yourself to be affected by an honest-to-god serious illness. You are not as productive and resilient as you usually are. So don’t torture yourself for not being able to do as much as you are used to.
I wish you all the best to get through this! 🍀 Feel free to DM me if you think what I wrote is useful.
This is a very excellent comment.
Do you really want to be outlived by MITCH FUCKING MCCONNELL? You can do this. Persist on spite alone if need be. Join the fight for our freedom. Those with nothing else to lose make the most ardent fighters.
But more than that, joining those groups will put you around others like you, build community. Best cure for depression. I know you don’t want to do any of that. It’s much easier to just die. I get it. I really, really do.
Don’t give your enemies the satisfaction.
can relate, feel free to DM me to talk anytime - not sure I have useful advice, but I do struggle with similar feelings and executive dysfunction
Hi, closeted trans girl here… just wanted to say that I really hope you keep going - because I want to come out into a world with people like you, who carried the same weight as me and still made it to age 30 and beyond. That’s something I can only imagine in my best moments, so frankly you’re already my hero just for making it that far <3
I’m not DMing because I doubt I have much more to offer than my words here, but if you send me one I’ll probably get over myself and reply anyway :3 (may take a few days though, I’m the snail-mail type)
Sorry I can’t relate much,… just wanted to say that the fact you’re writing your thesis is amazing. I never went that far in studies and I’ve long felt like a failure for it. I wanted to contribute to the sum of human knowledge, have my own work published. This for me is peak success, so mad props
Hey, girl. I am 40, and cis-male. My experience might not be reflective, but I prefer to offer some support instead of just reading this and leaving it alone.
Please know that we all do feel down, we all feel trapped, and beaten, and defeated time to time. I had a very dark period in my 20s, only solved in my early 30s.
Please know that, even if that’s not apparent, there are people that do care about you. Try to be around them more often.
Sometimes financial insecurity creates these kind of thoughts, and if that’s the case I have no easy advice. But just know that, it is not failure if you decide to put a pause on your PhD, take care of yourself, then come back to it.
Sending love!
Hi, I’m in my thirties and I’ve been through some rough patches towards the end of my PhD. I’m happy to listen and help however I can… I’m just too dumb to find how to DM. Please get in touch of you’d like to chat, I’m here.
