Inside Cassie

As you might well know about me, I have a tendency to (severely) over-explain. I am going to do my best to minimize it during this post and just keep it to the basics for now.

Bit of context:

When I was getting close to starting HRT, I was worried that when my access to my emotions would return I would be confronted by everything that I repressed for the last 3 decades, like a dam that would break suddenly. That didn’t happen. It was more of a slow release, there was pain, regret, and grief, but it came gradually over time.

And here is what happened:

Skipping ahead to 9 months after the start of HRT, on Friday 28-04: it turned out there was a dam… and it broke on that day. It is interesting that it was an incredibly positive event that led to it coming apart:
I met someone, Ilse. She had came over on the day before. It was our first time meeting in person, so I was nervous how it would turn out. I won’t go into it too deeply yet but, in short, it went extremely well. We had a great time, and connected faster and deeper than I would have thought possible.
After she left the next day, I knew I was going to experience a bit of a dip when I got home, being in an empty apartment again… I wasn’t prepared for what came: shortly after arriving home, I began to destabilize emotionally, which ended in wave after wave of incredibly powerful and painful emotions hitting me. Now, looking back, I know that was all unresolved and unprocessed pain, insecurity, and longing from all those years before.
I became worried that I was losing it, so I send up a flare among my support network. In the end, Arna was able to do a video chat with me and that slightly stabilized the situation again, at least long enough that I could get some sleep.

The next day was no better, shortly after waking, it began again. I tried to ride it out, but I wasn’t capable of handling this sharp contrast with my normal depressive episodes. If you are used to feeling a numb darkness when you are down, then suddenly getting hit again and again with waves of strong painful emotions is… a lot.
At the beginning of the afternoon I talked to Ilse and was honest about my situation. She asked if there was anything she could do to help, so I asked if maybe she could come back here after she was done in Amersfoort, instead of heading back home. She surprised me by saying ‘yes’. (Honestly, I had only asked because I am trying to learn to voice my needs, even when I know others won’t be able to actually provide it due to their own limitations at that moment. I never expected her to say ‘yes’…)
She took care of me that day, and when she returned home on Sunday morning, I reached out to my sister and my dad for further help.

I explained the situation to them, and voiced my real concern: that it wasn’t safe for me to be alone at that moment… My dad came over to stay with me (and did so until Wednesday morning when the worst of the initial blow seemed behind me).
I have started with anti-depressants and going to start soon with EMDR/exposure trauma therapy, which I hope will help me in the long run. In the interim, I am just taking it a day at a time, doing my best to distract and relax myself whenever possible. It is still a fragile situation, but I am doing my best to get through it.

Feel free to reach out to me

I wrote out my explanation here so I can save some spoons not explaining the whole thing multiple times, but if you have questions, want to talk about it further, you are free to poke me on Whatsapp/Discord/others 🫂💖