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I've been going to a weekly "stress control" course. It's six sessions, of which I've just come back from the second. I've had a bit of a problem going to it - going to a large room full of strangers and having at least one of them look at me is not fun - but a lot of what they've had to say so far has sounded sensible and matched my own experiences pretty closely. Today they were talking about the physical side of things, and how stress is constant or at least over-frequent flight/fight triggers, which matches my own experiences well, especially my own early transition experiences. I feel tense, nauseous, and unhappy leaving the house because even with a year and a bit of "no problem" on my side, I still remember and expect the constant hostility that accompanied the first two years.
As an aside, this is a serious problem with the UK's transition pathway. By requiring people to go out and (almost inevitably) fail to be taken seriously in their new lives before offering any of the treatment that might help us actually do that, the GICs are pretty much setting us all up to hate and fear interacting with reality. Cheers, fool doctors!
Anyway... back on topic. The first half of tonight was talking about exercise. Minor issue with the course: it's really longwinded. I can sum up the first half as "Exercise is good. You don't need to be a champion boxer or anything, just try and do few hours of something a week. Even walking". The second half was kind of where things went wrong. There was a "relaxation exercise" at the end. Basically sit there, tensing various parts, then untensing. I can see a certain amount of theoretical sense in that, I think. But for me, it didn't work. I'd tense a body part, feel the physical pain, untense, and be left with an afterimage of the pain. Tensing my fist with its old broken finger was particularly bad. By halfway through I was holding back tears, partly from the pain and partly because I could feel it not working and hating the fact that it didn't. Then at the end, countdown to exit and when I did suddenly I was even less relaxed. Instead of being trapped in "relaxed" space with an overwhelming sense of pain and despair I was back in the real world, and very very angry both with myself for doing it and everyone else who that technique ever worked for because they are so fucking numerous they get taught useful techniques for them while I get to be the freak girl AGAIN who needs to find her own path AGAIN and whose path probably involves being very very angry AGAIN.
So I went home. I sat on the bus, being once again astonished the the depth of my rage was not enough to make buildings explode.
And now... now I'm wondering whether to ever try it again, or to do something more relaxing, like sword forms or punching things. I'm thinking sword forms. Punching might hurt my finger more.
As an aside, this is a serious problem with the UK's transition pathway. By requiring people to go out and (almost inevitably) fail to be taken seriously in their new lives before offering any of the treatment that might help us actually do that, the GICs are pretty much setting us all up to hate and fear interacting with reality. Cheers, fool doctors!
Anyway... back on topic. The first half of tonight was talking about exercise. Minor issue with the course: it's really longwinded. I can sum up the first half as "Exercise is good. You don't need to be a champion boxer or anything, just try and do few hours of something a week. Even walking". The second half was kind of where things went wrong. There was a "relaxation exercise" at the end. Basically sit there, tensing various parts, then untensing. I can see a certain amount of theoretical sense in that, I think. But for me, it didn't work. I'd tense a body part, feel the physical pain, untense, and be left with an afterimage of the pain. Tensing my fist with its old broken finger was particularly bad. By halfway through I was holding back tears, partly from the pain and partly because I could feel it not working and hating the fact that it didn't. Then at the end, countdown to exit and when I did suddenly I was even less relaxed. Instead of being trapped in "relaxed" space with an overwhelming sense of pain and despair I was back in the real world, and very very angry both with myself for doing it and everyone else who that technique ever worked for because they are so fucking numerous they get taught useful techniques for them while I get to be the freak girl AGAIN who needs to find her own path AGAIN and whose path probably involves being very very angry AGAIN.
So I went home. I sat on the bus, being once again astonished the the depth of my rage was not enough to make buildings explode.
And now... now I'm wondering whether to ever try it again, or to do something more relaxing, like sword forms or punching things. I'm thinking sword forms. Punching might hurt my finger more.
