Essay about my life

Dieser Blogtext ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar

I didn’t want to put health topics in my blog originally. But I am doing it now, about a topic that I had to deal with for about a month. And it’s so important to me, I’m writing it in both English and German.

I am a transwoman in transition. I am living a full time life of a woman since end of last year and I am taking female hormones for a few month now. Now I am trying to get epilation of facial hair and hair on my chest paid by my insurance, because those areas are a daily source of dysphoria. The health insurance in Germany has to pay for it, but may have the requests checked by the “Medizinischen Dienst der Krankenversichung (MDK)”, which are doctors that check requests for validity for the insurance.

And this institution is giving me problems. The doctor from the MDK wasn’t satisfied by the letter of my therapist. He wanted me to write my own, detailed essay about my life.

It didn’t make any sense to refuse doing so. I don’t have the money to pay for the epilation myself. And it’s probably going to be requested again for any other treatment. Plus, I need to get the epilation as soon as possible, otherwise I can’t be happy with myself.

I have spent the last 4 weeks in writing my essay. And I am done. Done with the essay: yes. 13 Page and over 6100 words. But I done with myself as well.

It can feel good to talk about experiences in your life. I have a therapy hour usually once a week for that. Some experiences can lead to a bad feelings, but at the right dosage, this is good for you.

Writing about your experiences on the other hand, in structured an in whole is a different beast. I have some kind of inner time pressure, because of the desperate need of the treatment. Plus, there isn’t a therapist around me that can always find the right words in the right moments.

I’m quoting a translated sentence from my essay on which I have spent half an hour to make it sound diplomatic:

“Writing my life essay was very difficult for me and the enormous amount of memories and situations that I had to process in such a short time was difficult”

Actually, with “difficult” I meant “inhumane”. If I wouldn’t be censoring myself here, you’ll be reading much more dramatic and insulting things about it.

I should be happy that I am actually done with the essay. But I am not. The whole experience was so horrible to myself, I cannot be happy about it.

4 weeks of hell

I am not religious. But if there was a hell, the people there wouldn’t be tortured by physical pain. They would be tortured by mental pain. And this is what I’ve been endured for 4 weeks now.

I did have experiences with depression before. But I never got to an unstable state like the writing the essay put me in. Never before.

My summary about the last 4 weeks:

• I did cry almost every day, sometimes multiple hours a day
• I had problems sleeping without sleep medication
• I had a lot of nightmares
• I did lose appetite completely on 3 days
• I had 3 anxiety attacks that were so bad that I had to take Lorazepam
• I had suicidal thoughts 4 times
• I had the craving for self-harm twice
• I was really close for going to a mental clinic voluntarily, twice.

Before writing the essay I was in a relatively good state. Well I had my ups and downs. But I was stable over month. I never had suicidal thoughts again since shortly after my outing. I am happy that I have a high sense of self-preservation. On suicidal thoughts, I switch off completely. This keeps me from doing anythign stupid.

I never had the craving for self-harm in my life. Until now. I didn’t do it because my consciousness did veto the action. Again: self-preservation.

How can they demand something from me that put me in a worse state than I was ever before?

Before the outing to myself, I had lots of anxieties that this exact stituation would happen to me. Now it has happened.

I need a lot of support at the moment. I’m trying to get my life in order. I have to move on, somehow.

At this point, special thanks to my friend Sylvie and all the other people that I have talked to, almost daily. Thanks for the patience.

I’ll live. The way they “treat” transwomen here made me ill. Ill in such a way, that I’ll take a long time to recover from it.