Friends!!! Yet again, it has been almost an entire year since I last wrote, so there’s a ton to catch up on. But overall, 2024 has been a really great year, and there are so many exciting things on the horizon for me that I wanted to share!
My last post chronicled my most recent suicide attempt, and I am happy to report that since then I have gained a little bit of steady footing in terms of my mental health. I am actually doing okay. Somewhere over the last year my want for and fixation on self-destruction has eased and the voice in my head has gotten a little bit nicer.
I wish I could say I had a light switch moment that caused this shift, but I think it’s been a combination of things that have gradually made me feel more and more okay.
I think the biggest thing is that my therapist makes me feel seen. She understands my brain far more than anyone else I’ve ever met, and it has helped me feel so much less crazy. Like finally someone gets it–or in this case, gets me. Being validated in that way has meant the world–it helped me recognize I’m not eternally broken.
Transitioning has been a big contributor, too. I don’t think I quite realized before just how alien I felt within myself. Around June I started identifying as a trans guy and started using he/him as my pronouns, and it’s given me such a comforting feeling of finally settling into myself and who I am. There’s something about it that just makes sense, and it’s something I didn’t even realize I was so desperately looking for. It’s not that I’m perfectly comfortable in this identity yet–there’s still plenty of dysphoria–but there’s an excitement about exploring it and nuancing it for myself that I haven’t experienced before, and it’s beginning to feel less awful and more exciting and fun. I had a friend of mine put it best–“you’re more you than you’ve ever been.” It’s all scary and exciting and intensely comforting to finally feel a little at home in myself.
With the negative talk in my head quieting a little, I feel so much less pressured to do everything all at once. Things can still feel overwhelming, but there’s a self-assurance that I’ve developed recently that helps me not feel fully encompassed by it. I’ve been starting to recognize that I’m capable of taking care of myself and navigating adulthood while processing the past. And for the first time ever, I can say I actually feel sort of stable.
Exciting plans have been brewing, too. I have a consultation for top surgery scheduled in the spring that I am both anxious about and ridiculously pumped for. And in other huge news, I got accepted into a Master’s in Social Work program that I’ll be starting in the fall of next year! It still doesn’t quite feel real. I feel like I’m not really used to looking forward to things, or at least not legitimately big things. Grad school always felt a bit like a dream that was more of a wish to never be fulfilled. And the idea that I am actually going to be a social worker and do all the hard adult career things is incredibly wild to me. Social workers have been able to help me so much, and I’m so excited to learn to think in that way and add my own contribution into this world in such a direct way. I’m really really doing it and making steps to (as corny as it sounds) achieve some of my dreams.
Don’t get me wrong–of course not every day has been sunshine and rainbows. But what I will say is that my bad days are manageable now. If you had told me a year or two ago that I’d be prepping for grad school and mentally mostly okay, I would have laughed in your face. When you’re in the struggle it’s so all-encompassing that it feels like no other reality could ever exist. The pain I was feeling from being alive and struggling in my present while also being swallowed by PTSD was something I never thought would fade even a little bit. But somehow, with time (and what feels like a million therapy sessions), it has. I’m not great, but I’m good enough that I feel okay. I’m also not convinced anyone feels consistently great, but content. And I think I’m finally getting there.
My life feels kind of surreal. I never imagined I’d be okay enough to be making goals and plans and looking forward to things. I always felt like the suicidal thoughts would swallow me. But even though they’re still there sometimes, they’ve become background noise. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I’m doing the things. And I’m even sort of proud of myself for it.
Life is all about different seasons. Maybe I won’t be stable forever, and that’s okay. There may be something that happens and completely throws me for a loop. But I’m not there right now. I don’t need to worry about the ‘what ifs.’ I just need to keep going where I am now and keep doing the best I can.
Writing this feels like a relief. I’ve kept this blog as a way of giving myself hope and perspective on where and who I am. And it feels like so much of the work I started doing when I began this blog is starting to pay off. I’m okay.
I’m hoping this gives hope to whoever else may need it, too. It’s so hard to believe things can get better. But you’ve got to trust in the process and put in the personal work. You are doing your best, and I know you have the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I believe in you. I love you. And I’m so incredibly glad that you’re here.
All my love,
Max
SAVING MY BUTTERFLIES 