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Grew frustrated with yet more "why do people who regret or detransition seek out anti-trans groups all the time?" crap where the person didn& #39;t want to hear the answer: those groups recruit us, offering support as we& #39;re being ostracized from trans community. They tried it with me.
Back in 2013 I was at my lowest. I was struggling with surgery recovery and broke. I felt I made a mistake. I was immediately banned from every trans support space I was in at the time and my personal support network collapsed over 24 hours. I was also suicidal.
Not having access to therapy I found myself receiving an offer of help and soon determined it was from anti-trans factions so I refused. While I preferred to take the chance of my own death (and I don& #39;t know how I lived) I don& #39;t feel I can fairly criticize anyone else& #39;s choice.
It& #39;s a level of such complete despair that I deeply hope I never have to visit that place again. Don& #39;t ask how I got through it: I sincerely don& #39;t know.
I want to give you an idea of what my life was at the day, but first before. I was promoted to senior sysadmin a few months earlier and a new assignment was awaiting my return. 3 weeks earlier I was broke down in tears of joy on my flight home because transition was finally over.
Returning home meant I saw nobody but my first wife and the abuse escalated. She was angry with the limitations on my schedule, energy, etc. that came with having vaginoplasty.
She said that my choice shouldn& #39;t have to affect her life and my time spent dilating was not work or chores, but instead was the same as her playing video games. There was demands for me to do all of the house work because she was working and I wasn& #39;t and anger that I couldn& #39;t.
The final straw was the fight about me going back to work. My employer& #39;s short term disability insurance had refused to cover the absence and my wife decreed that we could not afford a single day of lost salary. I had to go back to work regardless of my recovery status.
I asked her to pause the multiple weekly online clothing and jewelry orders so that we could afford it and she refused. She was not going to give up a few dozen new outfits and necklaces so that I could physically heal.
I sought support because of what she did and was attacked for being "cruel" to my wife; told I was not appreciating how rare it is to stay married.
My personal support network began to collapse, fully doing so within 24 hours, leaving here with only my wife for support.
My personal support network began to collapse, fully doing so within 24 hours, leaving here with only my wife for support.
What happened next took me years to understand: I had a paranoid psychotic breakdown. I sought help but ran into a wall: the help I needed was inpatient but the area facilities were unwilling to deal with my need to dilate multiple times per day.
I don& #39;t even know what complications I would have had from ceasing dilation one month after surgery. Everything insisted it was extremely bad, though, and to be avoided at all costs.
I ended up returning to work soon after, albeit with an unnecessarily hectic matter of work requiring some paperwork be signed by the doctor before I could return but only calling my work mobile, which was powered off and in my office.
The absolute anguish of that manifested as deep regret. Curiously, when I escaped that domestic violence from that now ex-wife three years later the sense of regret became a tiny percentage of what it once was.
I& #39;m not asking for anything for myself here. Theses events are all nearly a decade ago now. The time since has allowed me to understand a lot more because I& #39;m no longer dealing daily with people invested in disallowing me from having that resolution.
My ex-wife spent years fighting me on trying to emotionally heal because she was absolutely invested in that she did nothing wrong and had to have me in complete support of that. She preferred we divorce than admit any of her actions were wrong.
