Day 11 - Management

11) How do you manage dysphoria?

Managing the dysphoria and coping with it has been very difficult, especially the last few months. There are a few things I do on a daily or almost-daily basis. I run, a lot. Running does so much for me physically, mentally, and emotionally. For 10 months now, I have been taking low doses of estrogen and spironolactone. I read scriptures.  Every night I write in my journal. Sometimes I write just a couple sentences, sometimes a few pages. I try to read from a leisure fiction book to exercise my imagination.  All of these “dailies” are a huge help, but sometimes not enough.

I go to group meetings every week that are moderated by a professional therapist. I used to have a therapist and a psychiatrist that I met with at least once per month. I’m looking for another therapist now as the last one just didn’t seem to be helping. Talking about my struggles and meeting others, learning what works and doesn’t work for them has been invaluable.

Stress-relieving exercises sometimes help. One I really like is called STAR, which stands for Stop, Take a breath, And Relax. I also like the human pretzel. I stretch my arms straight out in front of me, cross them, link my hands together, and fold my arms back in.

I’m slowly learning that keeping it in allows it to grow, exponentially. So when it’s just too much to bear, I talk about it with my wife. I cry. I let it out. I’ve also found that simply being with my kids and playing with them helps a ton. Tickle wars are the best.

Sometimes there’s nothing I can do except wait it out. The dysphoria is so extreme that I can barely function. I somehow manage to pull myself out of bed after a night of attacks and get up for the day. Feeling extremely dysphoric, I drag myself to work and get busy. I may be busy at work, but usually it’s not work-related. I read group messages, contact friends, surf the Internet. I try to escape, because it’s just too much.

Just surrendering it to God for a while gets me through the toughest of episodes. A prayer of gratitude and thanks for all He has done for me and a request for relief gets me through the worst times. Reciting the Serenity Prayer helps me surrender to God what I can’t handle. I hope that one day, I’ll look back on these times of extreme difficulty with a deep sense of relief and gratitude that I have overcome dysphoria. I don’t think I’ll ever be completely rid of GD whether I transition or not. I do believe and have faith that it gets better, that as I use these tools and others I’ll surf right through the roughest waves of dysphoria. Good things are coming, if I can just take each day, each minute if necessary, one at a time.