Alone

I started to write a blog post this morning, and then the little one woke up and I never returned to it. Now it is late afternoon and I am sitting here, at the end of a very frustrating and emotionally challenging day and I am struggling to not just crumple into a heap on the couch. I know that sounds rather extreme, it feels rather extreme in fact. Yet that’s how I feel.

Recently I got put on some medication for ADHD, and that was wonderful. It has helped a lot, although it didn’t seem to help at all today. Right from the start this morning my day has been challenging. From the moment I got out of the shower I was struggling with some body issues. By that I mean I my scars were bothering me. The lack of feeling on my chest was bothering me. Various other things about my body were just bothering me. So that was a little difficult to deal with but I was trying.

Well this morning went to shit pretty much, for various reasons. I didn’t get nearly enough studying done and then it was either my ADHD/Dyslexia brain or my alcoholic brain I am not sure which started to really get going. My anxiety level went up and my productivity went down; basically it was the typical downward ADHD spiral for me. I tried to use what little skills I have at the moment to deal with it, however it didn’t really help. So I came home and I decided to do some things outside because sitting at the desk trying to study while feeling that way was not going to help anything. Working outside, in the sun and getting a project partially done was very helpful for me. It allowed me to channel some of that energy although it didn’t help entirely.

While I was outside I was thinking, because when I am outside and especially doing something physical like that I do my best processing of things. Then I started to feel lonely. That is not a new feeling, actually feeling it though is. Usually it is subtle and I learned years ago how not to deal with it. So anyway my entire life I have always felt alone. I have always had a very difficult time making friends or keeping them. In fact I can’t really say that I have any close friends other than my partner and some days even her I don’t feel super close to. What I have been discovering as I have been on medication and studying up on my ADHD and Dyslexia is that social skills are a big problem for people with this, and even more so for people who are not diagnosed and medicated until they are adults. That makes so much sense to me, why my entire life I have almost been unable to keep friends and I suffered so much social rejection. Add that to being transgender and dealing with that growing up and I never learned a lot of those skills everyone else did. Instead I read books, and lots of them. I spent countless hours reading and escaping into fantasy worlds. As I got older and had to work harder to achieve the same things as everyone else that allowed me to escape. Alcohol did that as well, until it didn’t and was a problem. I am grateful that I was able to get sober even though it took away that ability to mask these issues.

So here I am now, 28 and a year into my transition. I feel entirely alone. Not only did I never learn any basic social skills, I was raised a female. So now I am thrust into the male world that works very different than the female world a lot of the time and I don’t know what to do. Worse than don’t know what to do is that it causes me such a great deal of anxiety that I have become almost entirely a loner except my partner and little one. I thought that my problems were because I was born in the wrong body and once I transitioned I would easily make friends and finally have a social circle, or some kind of life outside of school and stay at home dad. That has not happened. I don’t know what to do to make it happen. I feel filled with anxiety when I think about it and at the same time I am filled with deep sadness that I have no one that I could call on a Friday evening to talk to or make plans with for the weekend. Even as I sit here and write this I feel sad, and I don’t know if I should even be writing this. It doesn’t really have to do with my transition. I don’t know if it is something that is okay to share in a blog. What is appropriate? Do men share their feelings? Do they share their struggles, especially when they run so deep and so painful? I feel like I do not know how to live in this world, but I want to. I don’t know even where to start it is so overwhelming.

I have been going to a men’s only A.A meeting recently and it is extremely uncomfortable for me. I don’t share at this point. I just sit there, and I worry that I might be looking at whoever is sharing for too long, or am I sitting “right” or am I acting right when I talk to them. Some of the guys try to hug me, is that okay? I hate hugging people. It is extremely anxiety producing because I am trying to watch them to see how they interact and at the same time not be weird about it. I want to make friends, I just don’t know how. And I struggle with the patience to do it, especially after feeling alone for so many years and feeling so desperate sometimes to be understood and known.

So anyway it has been extremely difficult and only compounded by my transition and sudden entry into another unknown world, that of being a man. Today I am just having what I heard referred to as a “Low Self Esteem Day” in the ADHD book I am reading. Unfortunately there is no immediate fix to this problem or situation. It is not going to be remedied today no matter how desperately I want it to be. So I am going to try and pick myself up, and salvage what is left of the day or evening and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.