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(I'm kinda new to this whole sharing my feelings thing so be patient with me lmao)

Hi I'm Kieran. I'm a 20 year old trans guy from Canada, and I wanted to use this website as a way to document my journey. I've struggled with my mental and physical health for 8 years and now that I have a ton of free time (thanks Ms Rona for ruining all my summer plans) I finally have the time to work on myself and getting better.

I guess a bit of backstory is in order to truly understand the scope of my issues.

I've struggled most of my life with feelings of worthlessness. Since being taken advantage of several times at the age of 6 by a "friend" that went to my school, I've struggled with my ability to give myself worth and pay attention to my needs. I struggle with hyper empathy, and I overcompensate for the needs of others while simultaneously neglecting my own. It's always been like that. I had a pretty normal childhood outside of the trauma. I had a nuclear family, with grandparents, and aunts and uncles who all cared for me and loved me. I was really lucky to grow up where I did. Sadly, it was at the age of 12, right after I began to menstruate, that the feeling that I had repressed so deeply in childhood bubbled to the surface and overflowed. I developed terrible anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder (specifically binge eating). I gained a bunch of weight, which upset my mother, who has always been a firm believer that women should stay under 100 pounds. I started to struggle with self harm, and suicidality, to the point that I attempted to swallow a whole bottle of Tylenol to kill myself at 13 (didn't work, immediately piled after like 8 pills and I ended up sobbing on the bathroom floor in a puddle of comically red cherry flavoured vomit). My relationship with my parents became strained, they didn't belive in doctors or therapy, and especially not medication for mental health. I was grounded and punished many times for sneaking out to doctors appointments or therapists offices in my youth, something I'm still proud that I did. 
my struggle continued through highschool, and into the gap year I took in before college. I had attempted suicide 4 times by then (obviously none successful), and was working at my local library to make money to pay for my college tuition. My dysphoria was getting severe, but breathing issues prevented me from binding. This is when my health took a turn for the worse. In the winter of 2019, I went for 4 separate hospital visits for inability to breathe/ terrible throat pain. The attacks would come on suddenly and the after effects would linger until the next attack. For 7 months I was miserable. People believed I was faking the pain, that inability to eat, and the limited breathing. I was dismissed by doctors at every turn, until one interning doctor at my clinic pitied me enough to schedule an MRI, a Cat scan and a barium swallow. It was only after the 3rd that we discovered that I was aspirating large amounts of stomach acid, which was causing damage to my esophagus. I was placed on pills, and while there is some damage that has been done, I have improved greatly. I thought the worst was over at that point. I was wrong

in January of 2020 I woke up in the middle of the night with an impending sense of doom. I begged my parents to take me to a hospital, as I knew something was wrong. A bunch of tests later, I was given a Xanax and sent home. That was the beginning. The next morning I awoke to hives coving my entire body. I was terrified. We rushed me to a clinic, where a very disinterested doctor gave me a prescription for antihistamines and told me to take a bath. 5 days of taking the antihistamines later and I was only getting worse. The hives were more violently itchy and red, and my joints had begun to swell. Something was seriously wrong. I had to visit 4 separate hospitals before once again, a kind female doctor sat me down and ran through all the medical notes from my recent hospital visits. It was then that she noticed something nobody else had. I had tested positive for strep the day that I had first gone to the hospital. I had no symptoms. An entire week had gone by and they had never even notified me. I was furious. I was given a heart echo (which was fine no swelling thank god) and a prescription for penicillin and sent home. I thought the hell was finally over. 
that was until my whole face swelled up. Once again I was rushed to the hospital, and quickly given an epi. I had a penicillin allergy. 
i was given a Z pack and sent home.
For a while, things were ok. I was happy to be over my illness, and free from any long lasting effects that my doctors warned could happen.

i went back to college thinking I was fine. I was wrong. Being sick had thrown me into such a violent bout of depression and anxiety that I didnt leave my college dorm for almost a month. I was glued to my bed. Unable to move or even think. I had never been as bad as I was. And then it happened. I got sick again. 
unidentifiable pain in my abdomen. It was excruciating. Again nobody believed me. They said it was cramps. Or IBS. Or my imagination. But I kept pestering. I was forced to leave my college a month early because of COVID. And upon my return home my stomach got worse. I could barely move without the sharp gnawing pain that clawed away at my side. I eventually demanded my doctor take me seriously and order an x ray. She did, and within a week, I got a call. A bowl obstruction. I had had partially obstructed bowls for nearly 4 months. I was livid. 
it took me a month to recover from the pain and get back to a semi normal. But it's not normal now. Nothing is. In the throws of my anxiety and depression lurks my most fearsome demon.

hypochondria.

i has been so traumatized by being thrown around the healthcare system with so little care, forced to research my own symptoms and figure out my own problems for so long that I had manifested as a crippling fear of every minor ache. Every small pain. 
thay is where I am now. Constantly in fear. Googling, reading, watching, listening. Documenting every symptom. Immediately arriving at the worst case scenario. It's hellish.

thats why I'm here. I want to document my story, and hopefully, my success in battling these traumas. I want to win. I want to live a happy, healthy life. 
it starts today. With me.

thanks for reading of you got this far

K