It's funny, I've been talking with some of my patients about grief- about how it's not just about losing a person or pet to death, but also the loss of a home, independence, the ability to do the things we used to do due to declines of our body and/or senses. Funny because I'm having a lot of grief about my body.
My last post was about starting the process of tattoo removal so I can have my pecs tattooed with something more appropriate for where I am in my gender-journey. I had my first session, and my left pec has had terrible edema. To the point it looked like I was growing a breast back. I've been doing lymph massage, using compression, and taking some supplements but the edema is still pretty pronounced. And it brought up some huge emotions for me. Fear that after these 2 surgeries that were painful AF, that left me in a brain fog for months, that cost weeks of work, and weeks of strength training, that the surgeries would be undone.
When I spoke, via his nurse, to my surgeon I felt pretty dismissed. Like this had nothing to do with the surgery. And this isn't the first time I've felt dismissed, and not heard by my surgeon. Case in point when we had our preop I corrected him about where my areas of dysphoria were, and when he was marking me up and spending so much time on the area that was NOT on my dysphoria area, I stopped him and stated "I don't really care about that area, my big concern is 'here'" and indicated the area. And guess what I woke up to? Not being listened to, not being heard. And that right there has been a huge source of grief that has had me in a tail spin since my last surgery. The part of my body that caused almost as much dysphoria as my chest did, was little more than an after thought for him when he did my surgery. And I was very fortunate in that my insurance covers torso masculization, but it was still $5000 out of pocket, and again the pain, and the effects on my brain. Not worth the calories as Pru would say, or not worth the pain and suffering in this case. I grieve for not being heard, and I grieve for the body I expected to wake up to, but didn't because I wasn't heard.
During that surgery I also had scar revision done on my top surgery scars, as well as him cleaning out the pockets where I'd had seromas (pockets of fluid) after my top surgery. Although the seromas were drained (3 seperate times), I was left with thickening under my pecs that took away from the definition of my pecs (which I have been working very hard to develop), and because of the roundness gave a bit of a "breast" shape to my pecs. Now that edema has settled into that same area on the left, and I don't know if it's going to go away or not...I'm in this place of "was it all for nothing?" Will my chest go back to what I've worked so hard for, and been through so much to create?
And going back to the whole "not being a listened to/heard"- oof, there are a lot of layers of trauma there. Not layers I will get into tonight, but know they are there, and this isn't just about my surgeon not hearing me when I said "here".
Another layer of grief goes back to the loss of the body I had before I took Buspar. I was strong, I was in pretty good shape (never "thin" and that's ok, but strong). Granted I had gained some weight like many of us during the early pandemic shut-down, but things got bad after Buspar. I gained about 20 pounds in the first couple months on it, then after I stopped it (to prevent myself from suiciding- oh yeah, there was another dr who was not listening when I was saying, "this is making shit worse", and I had to be the one to say "I can't take this anymore or I am going to die") my brain chemistry was so fucked up I could barely get out of bed for a year. Literally. And the weight packed on, and I barely moved. Even going upstairs to our bedroom I had to pull myself up on the rail because I was so out of shape. I've worked my ass off, struggled with injuries and disordered eating, but I've lost a lot of that weight, but the what has remained has been over in the areas that were already dysphoric areas for me, and now even more so because of the excess weight there that I can't seem to get rid of. And those areas are a reminder of how bad it got for me, and how, once again a doctor didn't listen to me when I said "I need help".
A thought occurred to me this morning. What would it be like to let other people help me hold my grief?
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