Fuck, I relate to so much of this. I got my official autism diagnosis a few months ago, after my GP and community psychiatric nurse wondered - all the way back in February 2021 - if maybe the reason I "wasn't getting better fast enough" on my new anti-depressants and anti-psychotics was because I might be autistic. Talking about how homophobia can be trauma really speaks to me - so many of the ways society would consider me "broken" are actually responses to the transphobia I grew up surrounded by and (I think) my body and mind doing everything they can to protect myself. CBT didn't work for me either, and the more I've read about it the more I realise how much it's a therapy method that often fails people from marginalised communities because it frequently ignores systemic oppression. Thank you for writing this.
Fuck, I relate to so much of this. I got my official autism diagnosis a few months ago, after my GP and community psychiatric nurse wondered - all the way back in February 2021 - if maybe the reason I "wasn't getting better fast enough" on my new anti-depressants and anti-psychotics was because I might be autistic. Talking about how homophobia can be trauma really speaks to me - so many of the ways society would consider me "broken" are actually responses to the transphobia I grew up surrounded by and (I think) my body and mind doing everything they can to protect myself. CBT didn't work for me either, and the more I've read about it the more I realise how much it's a therapy method that often fails people from marginalised communities because it frequently ignores systemic oppression. Thank you for writing this.