[Dani Rae]

I had a romantic relationship end about a month ago. It was both my first adult romantic relationship and first since coming out as transgender and starting to transition. Before we started dating, my ex was also the first friend I had made in years that I actually hung out and did things with. I've had a lot of acquaintances, but no one that I actually spent time with unless we were both somewhere for a common purpose. I haven't connected with another person like I did with my ex in more years than I care to count.

Now I've isolated myself and actively pushed away many people who have tried to offer support. My relationship ended because my ex couldn't give me the amount of emotional support that I needed and I wasn't contributing enough. I think that was a fair assessment. So now i'm convinced that people will just get exhausted, give up on me, and leave if I try to build relationships. I'm also in the middle of a depressive episode and preparing for a major surgery in a little over a month. Add in a core beliefs about being unlovable and an insecure attachment style, and it feels both pointless and impossible to form meaningful relationships.

On the other hand, I know that I need support and relationships with other people, but right now the effort and potential for pain outweigh those needs. If I can't tip that in the opposite direction, nothing about how to form and maintain relationships will matter.

Originally Posted by Dani Rae

I had a romantic relationship end about a month ago. It was both my first adult romantic relationship and first since coming out as transgender and starting to transition. Before we started dating, my ex was also the first friend I had made in years that I actually hung out and did things with. I've had a lot of acquaintances, but no one that I actually spent time with unless we were both somewhere for a common purpose. I haven't connected with another person like I did with my ex in more years than I care to count.

Now I've isolated myself and actively pushed away many people who have tried to offer support. My relationship ended because my ex couldn't give me the amount of emotional support that I needed and I wasn't contributing enough. I think that was a fair assessment. So now i'm convinced that people will just get exhausted, give up on me, and leave if I try to build relationships. I'm also in the middle of a depressive episode and preparing for a major surgery in a little over a month. Add in a core beliefs about being unlovable and an insecure attachment style, and it feels both pointless and impossible to form meaningful relationships.

On the other hand, I know that I need support and relationships with other people, but right now the effort and potential for pain outweigh those needs. If I can't tip that in the opposite direction, nothing about how to form and maintain relationships will matter.

This is going to be a somewhat odd response, but I think it might help. You are in a transitional state, both coming out and undergoing surgical change. So your emotional state and physical state are changing. You are redefining yourself. It's almost like you are being re-born. If you were to look at the transformation of any living thing, like a cocoon to a butterfly, you need to ask yourself a question: during that time the cocoon is pushing to break free of that which is holding it back from emerging, is that the best time for that cocoon to think of anything other than emerging?

I'm asking you this: is this the best time for you to be focussed on relationships? Perhaps it would be better to focus on yourself, self-love, self fulfillment, self identification, self worth, self healing and other self like things you can think of. This re-birth or re-invention you are doing is awesome, amazing and inspiring. But I think it should be your focus. Relationships and all the issues that come with them, will still be there when you emerge. They may not have any connection to existing relationships you have now. But relationships can be focussed on any time. I'm just not convinced now is the right time. But you've already recognized this yourself. I think you understand this a lot more than you realize. Perhaps this is the best time for you to explore you, just you, and learn more about what it is just to be human, by immersing yourself in self-reflective, introspective and mindfulness work, which you can do through reading. Sometimes the answers lie inside, which makes them hard to find if you don't look there.