I can't really ecplaim the feelings that well... but i constantly get this feeling of loneliness, and at seemingly random moments. I'm not sure why it happens but.. it does, and it really cripples me in how i act, how i work, etc. To be honest it feels like a weoght constantly preasimg down on me... and i thi k it not only stems from my depression,but also from my gwneral discomfort woth my body, and wanting to be swen as, referred to as, and evebtually BE my prefered gender (Female) But... at thw same time it's... impossible to get rid of the feelings once they start. They can last from anywhere to 5 minutes to a whole 2 or 3 week period of this never-ending... empty feeling. i'm not sure what i can do to helo myself either as my usual go-tos don't work and even after talking to a thwrapist... none of his advice worked... either. so woth that in mind i think it's my body telling me i need to take more action and stop being so worried about how people see me, and just be me. And also to start transitioning in some way, shaoe or form, beyod a tiny bit of clothing. But... what does everyone else here think? Cpuld it jsut be result of anxiety, depression, or Bipolar or... something like that even though nothing seems to calm it and nothing seems to cause it? Or, is it possible that, withou me realizing it... it's how people see me and communicate with me making me uncomfortabke... to the point where it triggera thia response which cpuld... technically be my form of gender dysphoria? I need some outside oppinnions to sort of pool here...
Please note,i put this in general advice as my main focus is on removing the feelings. I did not put it here asking for gender adbice. I am simply pointing out a potential root cause. If my thread is misplaced being here, i can try to move it.
If you don't experience mania between phases (inability to sleep die to energy, urge to do random psychotic things, sexual promiscuity, etc) then it is very unlikely you have bipolar disorder.
Bipolar runs in my family and i was diagnosed. I'm just unsure if the loneliness is actually caused. However i do experience those sorts of things, and some similar. For example when i feel lonely i tend to avoid other people and try to mi imize social interaction. the opposite is true when i don't. but i also feel the loneliness in itself coyld be just my experience of dysphoria.
It's not to any extreme degress but due to my depression and anxiety issues, it shows up. I am however i therapy and my therapist does say i have Bipolar,just not to any extreme lengths where i need medication, as if we can knock my constant feelings of anxiety and get rid of some PTSD things will begin to clear up ever so slowly. Alot of my mental arent self created but were caused b6 trauma. EXCEPT for ADHD. ADHD has been in my family for as many generations as we can remember back. I stopped the medication. In fact i refuse to take any form of medication, i personally don't want it in my body. I have to be desperate to take ot. Hence why i ppan take hormones. want this body chanyed. But that is beside the loint of this thread. Im trying to find ths root caue of my loneliness. And after thinking over myself i do beleive it's due to discomfort of people misgendering me. But it cant be helped as no one respects my pronouns.
When I feel lonely, I like to sing, watch youtubers, do homework, or go on EC. When it's more severe, I like to swaddle myself in a blanket XD Next year, I want to try attending a GSA meeting in school. I feel like building a connection to queer people, who I can meet irl, will greatly help in feeling less isolated.
Yo I have gender dysphoria, ADHD, depression and c-PTSD! I don't have bipolar disorder. What you described from saying "Or, is it possible that, withou me realizing it... it's how people see me and communicate with me making me uncomfortabke... to the point where it triggera thia response which cpuld... technically be my form of gender dysphoria?" Is called social gender dysphoria, many trans people experience this type of dysphoria (and I do to.) It hurts a lot and makes me try to avoid people to relieve it. That doesn't relieve it for me tho, avoiding people just feeds my depression and c-PTSD and can really hurt me a lot. To try and help with this issue I'm on a group chat with other trans people at my school who I can talk to when I feel awful and hearing them encourage me and remind me that progress in my transition takes time and effort and the small progress I have made really is who I am makes me feel a lot better. Also I go to monthly meetings with a local group. So the answer that works for me is talking to and hanging out with other trans people. You should try to look for support groups online and in real life where you can be respected and get some of your pain off your chest. I also am a very avoidant person from c-PTSD. I frequently feel like other people can't relate to me. I spent a lot of my life covering up and hiding what was happening to me and still shut people out of my life simply out of habit and because it makes me feel safe. I don't trust that other people genuinely like me because I instinctively try to say/ act the way I think they want me to act (WHEN I DO LET THEM IN) because I was basically trained that if I don't have the right response, I will be punished for it. Many times when someone pretended to be kind to me it was just to get what they wanted so I don't always trust kindness even if it's genuine. Sometimes I have inappropriate responses because I'm sensitive and feel threatened because I had previously been in a situation where I could expect to be punished and I want to defend myself even though the person didn't mean to threaten me. The worst part was that was was true was determined by what my abuser just decided was true to suit whatever was convenient to hurt me and I just expect people to be lying to me. It's exhausting. c-PTSD takes a LOT of work to actually be CONSCIOUS of how its affecting you. Talking to a therapist has helped me a little bit, but what's helped me the most is writing! I'm a science person, I suck at writing, in fact I really hate writing for classes but I NEED to write down how I feel to make it more true and to make a record of how I got through it so I can remember that later when I need it again. Keeping a consistent journal has helped me immensely. I also have the wonderful experience of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria that is caused by ADHD. (that was sarcasm) I used to have it WAY worse and much more frequently in the past. Not all ADHD people have RSD, and not everyone who has RSD is ADHD but frequently RSD and ADHD go right in hand with one another. It really kept me from making friends or being a social person when I was younger. Here's a good link describing what it's like: http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/12114.html RSD could also be an issue for you.
Yo I have gender dysphoria, ADHD, depression and c-PTSD! I don't have bipolar disorder. And then there's depression. For me depression feels like nothing. It feels like apathy. It feels like even when I know doing something like seeing a friend or taking a shower or cleaning or doing anything! that should make me feel better than I do right now, but I don't feel anything, I know I'm not going to feel anything after doing something and I don't see the point of getting shit done. And it gets me into a lot of trouble at times because I didn't see the point of getting something done that I should have and then my grades will suffer and I'm an unreliable person to my friends and I don't really feel like a real person to myself. I don't even know why I'm here. And.. spending time with people... who want to hear happy things from me... and are interested in their own life... and think that I ought to be interested in my own life. It's hard. A lot of feeling that I ought to share with other people doesn't actually make sense to me like 'why would I want to take a trip somewhere?' I know that sounds fun, but I don't feel happy or excited for that, why is this a big deal? As for helping with depression, I have honestly no clue. The journaling helps but its hard to even know that I am depressed or talk about it to myself or my therapist because it feels like nothing and I know theres nothing stopping me from being a better person but I don't know how and I don't know how to explain that when it just seems to me that I'm not depressed because I have no reason that its hard to be me, I just don't do the things that I should. But I don't feel much anything and most times that means I miss out on what drives other people so it makes sense that I don't do the things that I should and I don't know because most people don't even need to point out what they feel and take it for granted. That huge mess of however it is that depression affects you could be making it really hard to feel anything other than feeling lonely (I felt really lonely in the past because I couldn't even see any friends, now I see some friends and family.) Honest likelihood is, there isn't just one cause for feeling isolated and lonely, theres a bunch of them and it feels like they are all working against you. I would encourage you to look up CBT and if you think it sounds useful, ask your therapist for a CBT handbook/ journal. I can access free ones through my university library (good ones are kind of expensive, and usually CBT needs to have a therapist to work so I wouldn't recommend that you buy your own), however your therapist will likely have a good hand book and will be willing to support you.
I don't have a legotimate form of PTSD, unless meotional scars from verbal abuse cpunt A form of PTSD,it was moreober the way he described it... but... thanks for your insights as that... avtually feels like a huge releif to read.
Hey I'm glad that was comforting! When you do feel proud of yourself again or happy with yourself again for any reason (even for the dumbest reason or for the briefest of times) you should post about it on my wall so I can get excited with you! The fact that you know yourself well enough to call out that something is wrong (even if you don't know what it is or what to do) and you want it to change is a fricking huge step, its so easy to just tell yourself that there's nothing that you can do and there's nothing wrong and both of those things mean that you do nothing about the issue. The unfortunate news is, being functional, let alone being happy (what is that?) is a lot of fucking work for me and that seems to be true for you too. So I wanna cheer you on! I'm gonna talk some more about cPTSD, if you'd like to hear it. I want to say is that I was abused physically only as a very young child (I can't remember it myself, but I know that it happened), and many people get smacked around by their parents as kids and turn out just fine.. for most of my life I was trapped in a situation where I was abused emotionally and mentally and that is what made the difference. I still expect that to happen to me. I'm not a psychologist but my therapist told me that because I was trapped for an extended period of time and I still behave as if I am trapped or could be trapped again (even though I have control over my own life now and believing that isn't reasonable) that is what constitutes complex PTSD (cPTSD.) It doesn't actually matter what has happened to you, if whatever happened (or is happening) is still disrupting parts of your life outside of it, because you can see a connection to what is happening in the moment to something bad that happened in the past (even if you are not consciously/ actively thinking about the past), and then you act and think and feel in a way that gets in the way of your everyday life or your happiness, then thats where cPTSD is considered for a diagnosis. (I also have other indicators that made this diagnosis appropriate: panic attacks, emotional dysregulation, recurring nightmares...) Trauma acts on people in really weird ways. I was talking to one of my friends last week who has cPTSD too and she told me that she doesn't even feel the effects of PTSD of a physical assault from a person that used to be in her life unless its triggered but she's all too aware of how the effects of emotional and mental abuse are covering her thoughts constantly from a different abuser in her life who never physically hurt her because he still has control over her. I never let the effect trauma was having on me ever show through to anyone unless it blew up on me when I was around my abuser/ around people that would tell my abuser what I said or did because being emotional would give him more control over me, but now that I am away but he still knows where I live and I can no longer predict when he's gonna go on a power trip and pull some shit on me (and it's not reasonable to expect that to happen anymore, but!) now my memories can play on my mind and tell me all the bad things that possibly could surprise me because now I have no control over when I get hurt. Apparently people without any form of PTSD don't expect to be hurt and they don't really factor that into any of their everyday choices bc thats reasonable, I don't get hurt on a regular basis anymore. However, from my perspective with cPTSD its not a matter of if, it's when, and I act as if there is something I can do to control when other people around me are going to hurt me because that's the only control I'm used to having. They aren't planning to hurt me though and when I act/think/feel with cPTSD, it really gets in the way of moving on with my life.
My home is in Mississippi, just some backgrpund for ypu before you read. https://forum.emptyclosets.com/index.php?posts/6485167/
Philosophically speaking we are all fundamentally alone. We are trapped in or own minds, unable to accurately and precisely describe what we are going through to others. Sure we have words but even then it's not nearly good enough to convey feelings. Even the troubles we go through we do it alone. Sure other people have support and kind words but we are the ones in the storm and fighting the waves.
