21 October 2020

Bipolar No More

By Alexa

Today I will write two posts. This one as a ‘small announcement’ and one about the effects of the hormones I am taking.

A Quick Recap

I have written a couple of times about my mental problems and there are more posts about it on the old Pages from Sages blog (more about that in the 2nd post today as well). I still need to extract those posts and drop them on this blog.

Let me do a quick recap of my health the last 2 decades.

2001 – 1st major burn out of which I had to recover fast because of my own company.
2005 – 2nd major burn out which I came out stronger (I thought) almost a year later.
2009 – 3rd major burn out at which point I went crying to the doctor and he send me to a psychologist.
2012 – still not doing well but I was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and ADD by 2 different psychologists.
Half September 2016 – my psychiatrist suspects a bipolar disorder.
August 4, 2016 – wanted to step out of it all (thanks to my wife I did not do it), BPD diagnosis was confirmed and I started with medication (valporic acid).
May 23, 2019 – found my ‘real me’ : a reflecting on Fetlife (I will copy this post into this blog later on)
July 25, 2019 – placed on the waiting list of the Transgender Healthcare of the VUmc Amsterdam
May 25, 2020 – start taking hormones

Hi hi hi – I just can not write things ‘quickly’ on my blog 😛

Bipolar After the Hormones

I have written a few updates about the effects which the hormones have on my body. But it is not only physically how they effect me. Mentally there are huge changes as well (on which more later today).

The most important mental change I noticed was after 4 weeks of taking hormones. I felt more happy then I have ever done before in my life! That while oestrogen works counter productive on valporic acid and I started to wonder if the bipolar disorder was a misdiagnosis.

Psychiatric Insights

I have spoken with my psychiatrist about a possible misdiagnosis of BPD but he disagreed (<– look: past tense 😄) about that. In his opinion he thought that having the ups and downs which come with BPD, regardless of what is causing them. He did however agree to phasing out my medication because I was doing so well.

Two Months Without Medication

It is now roughly two months that I am off the BPD medication and honestly I feel better than I have ever felt. For me it has shown that my BPD has come from underlying the gender dysphoria.

Because I was doing so well without medication I have ‘spoken’ (through eMail) with my psychiatrist about ending my treatment. He agreed on that, but wants that I talk with a 1st line psychologist about social en psychological problems I might encounter during my transition.

Of course I agreed with that!

New Psychiatric Insights

Yesterday my wife and I had one last session with my psychiatrist and social psychiatric worker. This session was an evaluation of the treatment I had and how to continue from here on (the 1st line psychologist).

I will not go into too much detail of this session…

To my big surprise my psychiatrist suggested to remove the BPD diagnosis from my mental health record. He has evaluated me and concluded that the gender dysphoria I experience is most likely the reason for my depressive periods, and I think he is right about that.

Before I knew I am a woman I was depressed without knowing WHY. Now I know and more importantly, these depressive periods are pretty rare and I know how to counter them by confirming my inner gender on the outside (read: dress sexy and apply beautiful makeup 🤗).