Friday 25 March 2016

Worrying developments

The past days have been filled with turmoil for me. Part of it can probably be attributed to merely hormonal causes, no doubt worsened by me having been put back on an overdose of oestrogens. Most of it is however due to these memories and impressions which keep flooding my thoughts for days on end now.

Happy memories, but mostly painful, traumatic ones. Memories in which I am trapped, being beaten, humiliated, feeling helpless, isolated and alone. Maybe the worst part of it all is that my current apartment is partially causing these painful recollections, and partially adding to it by being a perfect match for some of the worst places I have been forced to spend time in, thus strengthening the associated traumas.

I have done what I can, by stopping the hormone therapy once again. Both in the hope that this will lessen the feelings of depression and despair sufficiently to regain some emotional stability, and in the admission that I can no longer find the energy to trust doctors. Abandoning the hope that I will get medical help, I do not wish to feel like a medical experiment any more, meaning no more experimenting with my body's hormone levels.

Yet I'm not sure it'll be enough. A few blog posts back I already described the unpleasantness of this apartment I currently live in, and touched upon some of the reasons why it's a really unhealthy environment for me considering the traumatic and other disorders I have been diagnosed with. What's becoming ever more clear, however, is that this apartment may be instrumental in a possible future suicide attempt.

It may sound dramatic, but then so are my recent outbursts of despair at living in this place and having to suffer continuous traumatic triggers. I shouldn't be crying, feeling like bashing my head into things. I shouldn't be punching the sides of my head with my fists. I shouldn't be screaming, yelling, punching and feeling like I am being hunted. That at any moment something terrible will happen.

In many ways it feels like that time when, after suffering a sound beating by the police at the request of a Christian doctor, I had to spent one horrible night and day trapped in a police cell. Almost naked, hurting all over and crying out my lungs all night because I was so terrified.

This apartment is my cell. Even though I can leave at any point I have nowhere to go. Searching for alternatives is the ultimate reminder that I cannot escape. Meanwhile I have to endure the constant threatening noise from the heating system. The haunting footsteps above me. The humiliation of hearing people upstairs urinate and defecate. The realisation that everything in this apartment is old and broken. That nobody cares that I live here. That I am actually suffering.

Wearing headphones all day while listening to loud music drowns out the noises, but is a prison into itself. It's just a symptom of my suffering.

How could I be suffering? I have a place to live and food to eat.

*punches head again, repeatedly*

...


An apartment shouldn't be driving one to suicide, but I can feel the madness gnawing at my sanity. One piece at a time. I honestly do not know how much longer I can hold on. What I could possibly do.



I am terrified that I will die in this police cell.



I never escaped.



Maya

1 comment:

Sheila Nagig said...

I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Trauma is something we deal with after we're able to get out of survival mode. You don't have the ability to process it while it's still happening because your body and brain have put unnecessary functions on hold for the duration. That's why it hits you all at once when you're finally in a place where you're safe and you can breathe. It can seem like you're a soldier who wasn't notified that the war was over, so you keep fighting even though there's no more enemy to fight. You didn't have the luxury of being able to feel your feelings at the time. Now you have to process the backlog. Please don't kill yourself. You have a right to be here. You have value as a human being. Get your hormone levels checked too. Too high estrogen will make you go out of your mind. It's what makes menopausal women so on edge. It's no joke, potent stuff.