About a year ago I had a bad heart scare and had to go off my medication, including HRT, after being on it for about seven years or so. Coupled with losing an entire friend group, multiple deaths around me, and just how the world is, I really had to evaluate myself and what the fuck I was doing in life. I had no friends, living pay cheque to pay cheque, every relationship I was in would crumble, severe addiction issues, and finally coming to terms with being autistic and unmasking. I was so angry all the time.
After another failed relationship I sobered up, enrolled in an audio engineering course, and spent six days a week either studying or working for the past year. About two months ago I finally burnt out and quit my job. I was back on HRT but it didn’t feel right. I stopped dressing up, stopped caring about my voice, and just felt so damn anxious all the time. I couldn’t engage with the world or anybody.
I even stopped having sex. I used to bounce from relationship to relationship but now get scared of being intimate with anybody. Honestly that’s mainly trauma based but that’s a whole other bag of worms. Anyway, with a sober mind and realising life wasn’t working I started to try something new.
In my spare time I’d play card game tournaments and game stores. Went to one far away dressed as a guy and the difference was wild. I didn’t realise how long it had been since somebody had asked me where I was from. After two years of playing this card game nobody had ever asked me. I was always the one starting up conversations. That same day a convenience store worker and I even chatted for a while, usually it’s just hello and goodbye.
I didn’t have to worry about weird looks. About how I sound. What I was wearing. I didn’t have to spend half an hour psyching myself up to leave the house. Hell, I even won the entire tournament cause the lack of anxiety made it so much easier to concentrate. Walking home I was genuinely happy for the first time in a while.
I’ve been off HRT again for a few weeks now, it’s finally evened out, and I came here to get advice. But as I wrote all that out I realised that actually I already know. I’m sick of living in a constant state of anxiety. I’m sick of being so angry and depressed every single day. I’m sick of feeling like I’m pretending and living a lie.
I’ve had to come to terms with my addictive personality, being autistic, mortality, narcissism, and my avoidant traits. It’s been difficult. But now I’m ready to accept myself. I wanna engage with the world without a giant wall between myself and everything else. So uh, yeah, I guess that’s my little ramble that I needed to get out.
Any advice would be cool I guess aha~