Bringing up mental illness to others

[dear_kallisti]

This is only partially related to anything transgender, but it is still slightly related and can't post it anywhere else, so please don't flame me.

Quick background: FtM in my mid-to-late teens, had three therapists in my lifetime and been in therapy for the past four years, one institutionalization for attempted suicide at age twelve and have

Comments

[aphenine]

I got the impression that mood swings could be very normal in a transition environment from my own experience with them and from learning to damp them.

My mood swings went something like this: ...oh, I'm so happy, everything is so new, I'm unbelievably happy, everything is too new, I'm too happy, help, stop, I want something familiar, I don't want to do this anymore, stop please (I damp down transitioning) ah, that's better, things are familiar again, I'm happy, oh no, that means I'm not transgendered, I'm never going to get better, I'm starting to feel depressed again, oh no, I'm so stupid, I'm so depressed, I feel so bad, I can't do anything about it because I'm obviously not transgendered I'm so stupid and wrong and I hate myself and I everything is so bad that I feel suicidal that I may as well try transitioning again (ramp up transitioning) I feel better, that's good, it means I must be transgendered, oh I'm so happy...

I went around that loop and got very upset until I figured out how to fix it. It turned out that I was driving the loop by how I was ramping my transition. If I ramped down transitioning before I got overloaded and ramped up before I got suicidal, that damped the mood swings and I started to feel better.

Actually, a large part of that process was admitting to other people that, yes, some days I really didn't feel like transitioning much, because then I didn't have to pretend in front of them when I was feeling overloaded and that gave me greater control of my mood swings.

So, yeah, I don't think any therapist would actually have an issue with it. Your family may not (mine actually felt better about my transitioning once the mood swings damped and found it more, not less, believable, probably because my mental health had overall improved).

Hope that helps.

[dear_kallisti]

Thank you, I found this helpful =] I certainly agree and can see where overall stabler mental health could make others more comfortable with supporting my gender identity.