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It's 2023 Now, I Suppose
Jan. 2nd, 2023 12:35 pmFor a few days, I was feeling, paradoxically, both less mentally stable than usual and more able to be functional and productive than usual. Random crying and panic attacks were more frequent (once, while working in the kitchen, I ended up leaning against the refrigerator and crying with absolutely no idea why), but I also cleaned and organized and made decent food more than usual and made progress on the insurance spreadsheet. I almost felt like the instability and productivity were going together somehow: like I was making some kind of subconscious progress.
But, as Christmas and the new year got closer, I kept the mental instability but kind of lost the improved ability to do useful things. There's a lot of anixety and depression connected to this holiday span. Even though I've been able to play some games online with family and a friend, and got to talk to my brothers especially more than I have in a long time, I still feel terribly lonely and isolated here.
A lot of people are expressing optimism about the end of the old year and the start of the new, but after the last three years being so awful, it's hard to feel any of that. Instead, I feel apprehension. Dread, even, sometimes. It's a bit like when I'm feeling really depressed and the idea of going to bed is off-putting because it means I just have to wake up and deal with yet another day. The year is ending, and it means I just have to deal with yet another year of pandemic-caused isolation, being thousands of miles away from most of the people I care about, and now trying to navigate life as a transwoman.
Don't get me wrong: realizing I'm a woman and doing things to affirm that has been, without question, the biggest source of joy for me in the last year or two. But just going out and doing things - anything - in public as a trans person is mentally taxing, and sometimes I just don't have the spare capacity for it.
Hoping that the new year is going to be wonderful, or even just better, is too big a chunk of optimism for me right now, I guess. Instead, I'm going to hope that, now that the holiday stuff is done and I'm not actively missing people and a former way of life so sharply, I can get back to feeling like maybe I'm making a little bit of progress with the panic, anxiety, and depression and maybe becoming a more functional human being.
And maybe I'll manage to keep doing things online with family and friends. That would be really nice.
But, as Christmas and the new year got closer, I kept the mental instability but kind of lost the improved ability to do useful things. There's a lot of anixety and depression connected to this holiday span. Even though I've been able to play some games online with family and a friend, and got to talk to my brothers especially more than I have in a long time, I still feel terribly lonely and isolated here.
A lot of people are expressing optimism about the end of the old year and the start of the new, but after the last three years being so awful, it's hard to feel any of that. Instead, I feel apprehension. Dread, even, sometimes. It's a bit like when I'm feeling really depressed and the idea of going to bed is off-putting because it means I just have to wake up and deal with yet another day. The year is ending, and it means I just have to deal with yet another year of pandemic-caused isolation, being thousands of miles away from most of the people I care about, and now trying to navigate life as a transwoman.
Don't get me wrong: realizing I'm a woman and doing things to affirm that has been, without question, the biggest source of joy for me in the last year or two. But just going out and doing things - anything - in public as a trans person is mentally taxing, and sometimes I just don't have the spare capacity for it.
Hoping that the new year is going to be wonderful, or even just better, is too big a chunk of optimism for me right now, I guess. Instead, I'm going to hope that, now that the holiday stuff is done and I'm not actively missing people and a former way of life so sharply, I can get back to feeling like maybe I'm making a little bit of progress with the panic, anxiety, and depression and maybe becoming a more functional human being.
And maybe I'll manage to keep doing things online with family and friends. That would be really nice.
