It's been some years since I've been here. Back then I joined because I was suffering from hyperacusis (severe hearing hypersensitivity) and tinnitus and I still do to this very day. In fact, both conditions have worsened immensily from everyday loud noise and these days even moderate noise can give me another permanent setback. Now I am 99% housebound, although it was a rather slow progression until 2024 when it started worsening much more rapid. If my parents wouldn't care for me I'd be dead already.
In 2023 I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism (Aspergers) which gave me a lot of explanations why I had always felt a bit different than other people and why I had trouble relating to them. It was also explained why in 2020 I was intensily suicidal and joined this forum for the first time. I wasn't depressed, I had intense autistic burnout from being burdened with my workload and health struggles (if it weren't for autism I'm pretty sure it would have been fairly manageable). I bounced back relatively quick once I went into a burnout clinic because I had time to breathe from work and my health struggles. It took a solid while after my diagnosis of autism though until I understood how I needed to regulate my stress, but it eventually allowed me to stabilize my worsening period that started in late 2024. For whatever reason in late 2025 another worsening period started which continues to this very day and nothing has really worked out.
Well in 2020 I also had my first thoughts of being transgender and only now in 2026 I finally accept it. I'm out to parents and closest friends and I'm fortunately accepted. But at the same time I feel betrayed by life. Due to my autism I have experienced how people treat me for being different. I did experience some bullying in early school which made me hyperadjust to the image of a normal person (masking my autism). This made me quite dissociated from my own needs, my entire youth and young adulthood was very nebulous for me but I didn't get bullied again. I had no real friends though til my early-mid twenties. While this fortunately changed I still have a lot of trouble to fit in with most non-autistic people.
With all that I have an intimate experience of feeling alien and how you are treated if you're different. This experience was solidified further as I lost my job due to my bosses not wanting to accomodate to my hyperacusis. While I was being able to work, they demanded me to join the 2-3 yearly social events we had, which often contained high probability of loud noise that would have permanently worsened my hearing problems. Despite being educated they believed they understood my problem better than myself, so I had to quit myself or my health would have been completely destroyed already back then. So not fitting into society, one that has treated me like disposable waste, it's an absolutely horrible experience. So now that I know that I was born a girl in a male body I feel completely fucked because while transition might help me a lot with the gender dysphoria, it would absolutely make me a target out there (even in a Western European country). I absolutely cannot deal with any sort of unneccessary hatred or discrimation anymore. But the only other choice is staying in this wrong body and that makes me feel like such a life is absolutely not worth living.
My hyperacusis isn't completely consistent and seeing how destressing has allowed me to be more stable in 2024 I want to believe that it's still of psychological origin and that by overcoming the gender dysphoria I might stabilize again. At the same time I've tried to reduce my gender dysphoria already by trying womens clothes (which did feel very relieving) but that had no noticeable stabilizing effect so I dunno. Maybe I'm just in denial at this point that my hyperacusis will continue to worsen and eventually kill me. And at the same time I want to life as a woman but that would lead to a horrific amount of pain from more discrimination. I just don't see any way how somebody like me could fit into this world. I feel lost and at the same time I have such a huge amount of rage against people who have a problem with the mere existence for transgender people. The world could be a paradise but it's hell.
I'm not even sure anymore why I write this. Maybe somebody has an answer how being trans and autistic can work out. I honestly dont see it.
In 2023 I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism (Aspergers) which gave me a lot of explanations why I had always felt a bit different than other people and why I had trouble relating to them. It was also explained why in 2020 I was intensily suicidal and joined this forum for the first time. I wasn't depressed, I had intense autistic burnout from being burdened with my workload and health struggles (if it weren't for autism I'm pretty sure it would have been fairly manageable). I bounced back relatively quick once I went into a burnout clinic because I had time to breathe from work and my health struggles. It took a solid while after my diagnosis of autism though until I understood how I needed to regulate my stress, but it eventually allowed me to stabilize my worsening period that started in late 2024. For whatever reason in late 2025 another worsening period started which continues to this very day and nothing has really worked out.
Well in 2020 I also had my first thoughts of being transgender and only now in 2026 I finally accept it. I'm out to parents and closest friends and I'm fortunately accepted. But at the same time I feel betrayed by life. Due to my autism I have experienced how people treat me for being different. I did experience some bullying in early school which made me hyperadjust to the image of a normal person (masking my autism). This made me quite dissociated from my own needs, my entire youth and young adulthood was very nebulous for me but I didn't get bullied again. I had no real friends though til my early-mid twenties. While this fortunately changed I still have a lot of trouble to fit in with most non-autistic people.
With all that I have an intimate experience of feeling alien and how you are treated if you're different. This experience was solidified further as I lost my job due to my bosses not wanting to accomodate to my hyperacusis. While I was being able to work, they demanded me to join the 2-3 yearly social events we had, which often contained high probability of loud noise that would have permanently worsened my hearing problems. Despite being educated they believed they understood my problem better than myself, so I had to quit myself or my health would have been completely destroyed already back then. So not fitting into society, one that has treated me like disposable waste, it's an absolutely horrible experience. So now that I know that I was born a girl in a male body I feel completely fucked because while transition might help me a lot with the gender dysphoria, it would absolutely make me a target out there (even in a Western European country). I absolutely cannot deal with any sort of unneccessary hatred or discrimation anymore. But the only other choice is staying in this wrong body and that makes me feel like such a life is absolutely not worth living.
My hyperacusis isn't completely consistent and seeing how destressing has allowed me to be more stable in 2024 I want to believe that it's still of psychological origin and that by overcoming the gender dysphoria I might stabilize again. At the same time I've tried to reduce my gender dysphoria already by trying womens clothes (which did feel very relieving) but that had no noticeable stabilizing effect so I dunno. Maybe I'm just in denial at this point that my hyperacusis will continue to worsen and eventually kill me. And at the same time I want to life as a woman but that would lead to a horrific amount of pain from more discrimination. I just don't see any way how somebody like me could fit into this world. I feel lost and at the same time I have such a huge amount of rage against people who have a problem with the mere existence for transgender people. The world could be a paradise but it's hell.
I'm not even sure anymore why I write this. Maybe somebody has an answer how being trans and autistic can work out. I honestly dont see it.
