I exhausted myself back in January writing and analysing the trans inquiry report and haven’t written anything since. I was intending to write a second part to my thoughts on the trans inquiry covering the sections I’d neglected but I simply ran out of time and never finished it. I had exams I needed to revise for and then life has been hitting me pretty hard since then.
It’s not all bad news, I’ve had several great things happen in the past few months including finally getting testosterone prescribed and getting a place on a prestigious summer school scheme. I’m also off to Poland in a few days to attend World Youth Day and I’m very excited about that.
However, I’ve also had to deal with my mood fluctuating and this affecting my concentration and energy levels as well as trying to fight and navigate my way through the nhs mental health services in my area. It’s quite a minefield and at the moment I’m playing the waiting game (again) to find out if they are going to offer me treatment. It’s quite possible they could turn round and tell me I’m too complicated and that I need to wait until my ‘gender issues’ are sorted before they’ll treat me for anything else. It’s frustrating because although I’m sure as I get further on in my medical transition my mental health will improve, I need support now. The mental health service I was under however, decided that there was nothing more they were willing to do for me and discharged me rather abruptly.
I had university exams as well, and despite struggling with my mental health I managed to pass them all. A few modules I only just scraped a pass but overall my average isn’t too bad and most importantly I have been allowed to continue on my integrated masters course. This had been making me quite anxious so I was very happy to receive these results.
We’ve had a very weak response from the government inquiry which many people have felt let down by. I’ve not had much time to reflect in depth on their response myself, but many other people have including the NUS and UK Trans Info. I also especially enjoyed this blog post which asks the question: A good month to bury bad news?